Abbie Hoffman image from
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Excerpt:
After World War II the Protestant establishment dominated the high ground of
American culture and politics. That establishment eventually failed. It tolerated
segregation and sexism, led the nation into war in Vietnam and became stultifying.
So in the late 1960s along came a group of provocateurs like Abbie Hoffman,
Jerry Rubin and the rest of the counterculture to upend the Protestant
establishment. People like Hoffman were buffoons, but also masters of political
theater.
They never attracted majority support for their antics, but they didn’t have to.
All they had to do was provoke, offend the crew-cut crowd, generate outrage and set
off a cycle that ripped apart the cultural consensus. [JB emphasis]
The late 1960s were a time of intense cultural conflict, which left a lot of wreckage in
its wake. But eventually a new establishment came into being, which we will call the
meritocratic establishment.
These were the tame heirs to Hoffman and Rubin. They were well educated.
They cut their moral teeth on the civil rights and feminist movements. They
embraced economic, social and moral individualism. They came to dominate the
institutions of American society on both left and right.
Hillary Clinton is part of this more educated cohort. So are parts of the
conservative establishment. ...
This establishment, too, has had its failures. It created an economy that benefits
itself and leaves everybody else out. It led America into war in Iraq and sent the
working class off to fight it. It has developed its own brand of cultural snobbery. Its
media, film and music industries make members of the working class feel invisible
and disrespected.
So in 2016, members of the outraged working class elected their own Abbie
Hoffman as president. Trump is not good at much, but he is wickedly good at
sticking his thumb in the eye of the educated elites. He doesn’t have to build a new
culture, or even attract a majority. He just has to tear down the old one.
That’s exactly what he’s doing. Donald Trump came into a segmenting culture
and he is further tearing apart every fissure. He has a nose for every wound in the
body politic and day after day he sticks a red-hot poker in one wound or another and rips it open.
Day by day Trump is turning us into a nation of different planets. Each planet
feels more righteous about itself and is more isolated from and offended by the other
planets. ...
Of course Donald Trump is a buffoon. Buffoonery is his most effective weapon.
Because of him, a new culture will have to be built, new values promulgated and a
new social fabric will have to be woven, one that brings the different planets back
into relation with one another.
That’s the work of the next 20 years.
***
Abbie Hoffman Was No Donald Trump, Letters to the New York Times
SEPT. 27, 2017
To the Editor:
Re “The Abbie Hoffman of the Right,” by David Brooks (column, Sept. 26):
Calling the late Abbie Hoffman a buffoon and comparing him to President
Trump sullies the reputation of a 1960s activist who was a leader of a youth
movement that changed the course of American history.
Yes, Mr. Hoffman was a master of “political theater,” but he was no buffoon. Mr.
Hoffman took to the streets of a divided America, risking life and limb in opposition
to the Vietnam War, racism and police brutality. He lived a simple, self-sacrificial life
and faced trumped-up charges as a member of the Chicago Eight. What risks for his
beliefs has President Trump taken?
PATRICK O’NEILL, GARNER, N.C
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