I’m not saying Trump is a neoliberal in the way Clinton or Blair were. But Trump governs through the aftershocks of neoliberalism, a hollowed-out public sphere and institutions reduced to performance. He exploits the ruins of a system he didn’t build but absolutely thrives in.
Fair enough, but nor Clinton nor Blair nor Obama seemed to imply this "business owner" perspective in any way? They weren't cultists, AFAIK they listened to both their base and the fairly competent circle they had around, and most of all they didn't hollow public participation (if any the opposite).
I’m not saying Blair, Clinton, or Obama intended to hollow out public participation, in many ways they believed they were modernising government. But by embracing market logic and technocratic management, they reshaped democracy around performance, not participation.
All capitalist "leaders" seek to hollow out public participation. Embracing market "logic" is fundamentally bad (for us mere peasants) and bourgeois politicians know it. They serve the rich, not the people.
The state became a service provider, citizens became consumers, and politics became about branding, delivery, and metrics. It wasn’t cultish, it was professionalised. But it still weakened the structures that once rooted democratic power in public life.
I read words in your sentences.. but for the life of me I just cannot figure out what you are talking about in practice? Hell, "branding and delivery" seems exactly the opposite of what biden was trying to provide. Constantly pushing for appeasement rather than the angry populist bent people wanted.
When I say politics became about “branding and delivery,” I’m not talking about PR spin. I mean that governments started thinking like managers, not democratic leaders: “What do the polls say? What can we announce that looks like progress?”
Think Blair’s Delivery Unit or Starmer’s obsession with “message discipline.” In the US, Biden rolls out policies with metrics, funding breakdowns, targeted benefits, all of which matter, but they’re delivered like a product, not shaped through public debate.
I disagree on JRB, I'll grant that I have lil insight into Blair, but if Starmer is the example sure I can see the idiocy. But regressing to the mean doesn't seem "neolib"? I mean maybe overvaluing the average voter as "rational" (and with good reasons for their beliefs) is but.. it feels a stretch?
It’s not about intent, it’s about structure. When politics is reduced to managing outcomes and calming markets or headlines, democratic participation gets bypassed. That’s what I mean by hollowing out the deeper structures of public power
This seems instead very anglo-focused, where the economies are so solid that "markets" paradoxically have very little power. It was when the interest rates on the italian debt skyrocketed (with investors forecasting disasters) that both fucking berlusconi and salvini had to tone down their policies.
And yes, meritocracy is entangled with Protestant notions of predestination, that’s precisely the problem. It moralises inequality. As for experts: the issue isn’t expertise, it’s when technocracy replaces democracy, when problems are "solved" without public participation.
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I see what you are saying here (as opposed to the N-word above).. but it seems a bit odd to adopt the corrupt meaning which conservatives implicitly use to peddle heinousness, rather than what they should mean normally per the dictionary. Then fairly enough this is a 300 characters limited platform.