In the TDS Trenches with Andrew Sullivan

Because I am a fan of Sun Tzu, I really want to know what our liberal friends are thinking. That’s why I have a free subscription to Andrew Sullivan’s Substack, “The Weekly Dish.”

This week Sullivan is beside himself, as in:

What happens when a mad king rules and liberal democracy disappears into thin air.

It’s a good question. Sullivan’s all upset about:

• [The] mad king… has not just pardoned but will now financially reward all the thugs who attacked the police and desecrated the Congress on January 6.
• Trump’s underlings are doing hundreds of millions in trades on the family trust already this year.
• We are doing all the heavy lifting for Israel “according to three U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
• “We are also, in case you hadn’t noticed, in a war that we are losing.”
• A “spasm of hideous gerrymandering all over the country empowers the extremes on both sides.”
• “And yet the current Dem mood is to do nothing but win the midterms by default.”
• “Our ‘ally’ Israel is conducting a campaign of pogroms, murders, arson, and rape in the West Bank.”

As for “mad king,” I get it. Trump is stepping outside the postwar consensus all over the place, and if you are a good Kennan-believing liberal, you can’t believe it.

And what about “liberal democracy disappears into thin air”?

I get that too. If you are an FDR-believing liberal, “liberal democracy” means more programs every year, another helpless victim every decade, and NGO grants for the well-connected from sea to shining sea -- especially for those sporting both an Oxbridge and an Ivy League degree.

But I have to tell you, Mr. Sullivan, that I had a Come to Jesus moment on “liberal democracy” recently when reading Fin-de-siècle Vienna by Carl E. Schorske. Everything was hunky dory in liberal Vienna in the mid-19th century until they expanded the franchise down to shopkeepers and “the masses.” Then anti-semites like Schönerer and Lueger showed up to grab the votes. “There is no politics without an enemy,” according to political philosopher Curtis Yarvin.

Yes, “liberal democracy” was great when the Democrats were harvesting the votes of workers and white ethnics and blacks -- and now woke women with useless social science degrees. But when Republicans started reaping the votes of the ordinary middle class… well, experts agree it means the end of liberal democracy.

When it comes to democracy, I go with Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Mr. Sullivan. He has the science on “democracy.”

[D]emocracy does not mean and cannot mean that people actually rule... Democracy means only that the people have the opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule over them... [D]emocracy is the rule of the politician.

 

On the contrary, the secret-decoder-ring meaning of “liberal democracy” to the Sullivans of the world is that the people better accept liberals to rule over them or the world will know that they are hard-right-racist-sexist-homophobes.

The question is whether there is any point in attempting a conversation, all friendly like, with committed liberal Democrats like Andrew Sullivan, or whether it is better to just let them rage on at Trump and plan their expansion of the Supreme Court and their addition of new states.

I read a piece recently that dared to fault the TDS Democrats for their rage. Sure, you can rile up your supporters and get them out to vote. But you also need to be offering free stuff for the independent voters that just want to get on with life.

Alas, it’s hard to keep rage under control. The whole point of “liberal democratic” politics since the mid-19th century is for the best people to moralize the miseries of the latest oppressed groups and whip up the hate against the latest oppressor group. It’s worked like a champ, up to now.

But suppose that the oppressor/oppressed binary has reached its sell-by date? Then, if you are a liberal Democrat, like Andrew Sullivan, you’ve got to get a clue. Instead, Sullivan waffles about “learned helplessness” and

Each day, you read the news and see something completely beyond belief and yet feel utterly disempowered to do or even say anything about it.

I give you Galaxy Quest, Mr. Sullivan: “Never give up. Never surrender!”

Or, if that’s too low rent for a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, then step up to Nietzsche. Fritzi’s whole oeuvre is about what to do when your God is Dead: how to get up off the floor and reinvent yourself. Grok lays out the whole procedure.

I’m inclined to go with Galaxy Quest. And so, if you think about it, is Donald Trump. Did he give up when losing the 2020 election, or when the Democrats buried him in lawfare for four years? No, he never gave up, never surrendered.

Then there is Elon Musk.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/05/in_the_tds_trenches_with_andrew_sullivan.html