Plan to overcome ‘Henry VIII of our time’
The Next Republic
Seven Stories Press, £18.99 Reviewed by Colin Shindler
THE VETERAN writer, D. D. Guttenplan, now editor-in-chief of the Jewish Quarterly, comments in a footnote in The Next Republic that he first interviewed Donald Trump in the early 1980s when the future president was attempting to circumvent New York’s “labyrinthine zoning process” to secure the future of a newly acquired hotel. While “Trump himself is not a Jew-hater,” Guttenplan declares, Trump’s rhetoric and policies do empower Jew-haters — and haters in general.
But, while the past is covered, this book’s main thrust is forward, to a time when the turbulence has passed and order has replaced chaos. It is an American odyssey through a newly emer- gent left that itself was shaped by Bernie Sanders’s campaign to win the Democratic party’s nomination from Hillary Clinton and his intention to stand in 2020. It features figures who are hardly known on this side of the pond — for example, Jane McAlevey, a racial justice campaigner, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, an environmental activist, and Zephyr Teachout, an anti-corruption crusader.
Guttenplan places the fissure of current events in a historical context. In particular, “the Whiskey rebellion” of the 1790s, in which Washington’s fledgling state was confronted by a revolt in western Pennsylvania over a tax on whiskey. The left-behinds, both then and now, hoped for something better.
Can promised dreams be turned into an actuality that improves peoples’ lives? Yet salvation resides today, Guttenplan believes, in the new populism being converted into grassroots social action.
He remarks that, while “Trump is no Hitler,” there were similarities in the political constellations and considerations that conspired to elect the President and the Führer. Trump is the Henry VIII of our time where minions jump to satisfy his every whim and to translate his nuances to the masses.
Such opportunistic behaviour sparks memories of a dark past for many Jews. It is to the credit of American Jews, both as individuals and as organisations, that many have stood in the path of the bull at the door of the china shop.
It is pertinent to note that, while American Jews are hardly mentioned in this book, their participation as Jewish Americans in numerous struggles for social justice are documented.
It is not by chance that Guttenplan titles one of his chapters, Whatever happened to the Roosevelt Republic? An American clarion call and moral convictions of generations of American Jews. Guttenplan clearly embraces the left as opposed to the centre-left. He describes how, as a young man, he canvassed for George McGovern in 1972, perhaps the most unsuccessful Democratic party candidate for president in modern times. Passion and purity of politics rarely succeed. As we know, responsibility in office ossifies as freedom in opposition exhilarates. This is the dilemma facing all those who long for an end to the Trump years. The Next Republic is a thought-provoking and encouraging book promoting a radical insurgency — a movement that may gain the sympathy of many in this country.
Colin Shindler is Emeritus Professor in Israel Studies, SOAS, University of London