Authored by 'Dalwhinnie' via BombThrower.com,

The historian Prof. Gary Gerstle maintained that the neo liberal order was coming to an end, that free movement of goods, money, ideas and talent characterized the neo liberal order and that it was in the process of losing ascendancy. Losing ascendancy does not mean disappearing, it means losing ascendancy. Peter Zeihan says much the same and locates the issue in the guarantee offered by the US Navy since WW2 to police the sea lanes of the world. Also large diesel engines and cheap fuel may have as much to do with trade as any deliberate policy measures. I digress.

Somewhat to my surprise I agreed with the leftist professor of history.

So far so good. I have ordered his book and will read it skeptically. (The Rise and Fall of the Neo-Liberal Order).

The neo liberal order got going about the time of Reagan and Thatcher and was characterized by reliance upon, and praise for, the market. In the period under discussion, various US Presidents, of whom Clinton is prominent, also pursued neo liberal promarket policies. This illustrates the tendency for large movements of policy to continue despite changes in the party holding the presidency. Canada obtained free trade with the US, and many liberalizing trade measures were adopted throughout this period roughly 1970-2000.

The next assertion of the professor was that the dominance of neo liberalism was coming to an end. I also agree with that assertion, perhaps for different reasons than those of the learned professor.

The effects of the neo liberal order were various and I shall try to point out the major features. This is obviously me talking, not Professor Gerstle.

The remainder of Professor Gerstle’s talk concerned Trump, Orban and Bolsonaro and the supposed authoritarianism of same and the threat to democracy. I should say “democracy” because clearly the word has become code for something other than changes of governments in a populist direction. These are held to be threats to “democracy” which seem to consist of changes of history of which leftists disapprove.

Here is where I depart from Professor Gerstle’s alarmism about populist changes to governments.

He was also concerned with the January 6th insurrection on the hill and the menace it portended to the continuity of American institutions. I was once very alarmed by January 6th riots until I began to believe the entire event was a police -infiltrated and significantly police-inspired stunt to disgrace Trump. It has worked.

Prof. Gerstle along with many other Democrats believes that democracy is under attack.

Let me try to set forth the reasoning of many on the Trumpist right, if “right” is the term to be applied. Here we get to territory that will summon forth political disagreement.

For many of us, a combination of events has persuaded us that democracy is already in grave danger from the following, which is largely drawn from the US experience.

So yes, the people, rightly or wrongly, are unhappy with the state of their governments and what these governments have so clearly indicated they wish to do.

Consequently, as a result of governments being so badly misaligned with their electorates, and so apparently ready to call opposition to their intentions as “far right” “fascist” “transphobic”, and so ready to denigrate the white settler populations of which the electorate is still mostly composed, the neo liberal order is coming to an end. This is occurring not because of trade issues, or income inequality, but because of fundamental challenges posed by left wing governments to the people who still compose the electorates.

To what do we belong? To the nation, or to various sexual and cultural minorities?

Trump has a clear answer. Biden, if he has an answer at all, says that most Americans belong to an illegitimate race. And if he cannot say this, his minions state it or insinuate it.

The neo liberal order is coming to an end because the issues have decisively moved on from trade and markets to identity and belonging.

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