The scene at the Capitol, incited by the president, last week. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

BooksJanuary 13, 2021

Simon Bridges: As Trump’s mob storms the Capitol, here’s the book which tells us how we got here

Guest writer

The scene at the Capitol, incited by the president, last week. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

How did America get to this point? A Time to Build, by leading conservative intellectual Yuval Levin, goes a long way to explaining what has happened there, and in New Zealand, too, writes a former leader of the NZ National Party.

Yuval Levin used to be one of the most influential political theorists in the US Republican Party, but when they nominated Donald Trump as leader Levin warned his party that this would bring disaster. He then became a prominent voice in the outcast Never Trumpers. In early 2020 he published A Time to Build, his manifesto about what went wrong with American conservatism, and his nation’s wider political dysfunction, and how to fix it. I started reading it the day Donald Trump’s rioters invaded Capitol Hill, and it’s hard to think of a more prescient and timely book to help us understand what is happening in both the United States of America and New Zealand politics and culture right now.

Levin believes he is writing about the US in its twilight. That it is a nation, while prosperous, where Americans are frustrated, exhausted and isolated like never before as their institutions crumble. Right from the get go he speaks straight into the situation of the angry mob at Congress, as if he were a prophet of old describing “our unease and frustration – of the isolation that afflicts too many Americans, of the dysfunction that torments our politics, of the polarisation that excessively sharpens both estrangement from some and affiliation with others, and of the resulting culture war that seems increasingly to be dividing us into two armed camps angrily confronting each other in every corner and crevice of American life”.

Levin admits he won’t be able to explain all this – and, heck, isn’t there a lot that needs explaining – but will describe some of the underlying causes of what has taken his great country to this point.

And his key thesis is simple. Nations rely on institutions: political institutions, the public service, universities, companies, churches, families. These all have different roles and duties that serve the societies that encompass them. And part of their purpose is to mould the individuals that pass through them, imbuing them with values that ensure they serve their institution and community instead of just themselves.

But over time these institutions have weakened. Levin thinks there are many causes for this, but key among them are the changes in media technology, the rise of celebrity culture, identity politics, political polarisation.

He writes: “The people who occupy our institutions increasingly understand those institutions not as moulds that ought to shape their behavior and character but as platforms that allow them greater individual exposure and enable them to hone their personal brands.” The critical institutions that make society work no longer serve anyone except the narcissists who exploit them to promote themselves, which they do so by presenting themselves as outsiders critiquing the system, tearing everything down instead of building anything up.

In this critique one inevitably sees the Donald. It is significant to Levin that Trump is the first president of the US who never passed through a formative institution. He never served in the military or political office. Instead he was a reality TV star. A performer. Now the ultimate insider at the apex of political power, he nevertheless stokes protest through his personal brand and the angry army he’s mobilised against other branches of government. He does this as though he were an outsider with no other means to legitimately influence the system. He sees the presidency as smaller than himself and his own beliefs and brand, so that anything goes, including disputing an election and sending in his mob.

A Time to Build isn’t just about Trump though. He’s part of a wider malaise in government and politics, but also throughout society – whether in institutions such as journalism, the universities, the church, and even the family, we’ve seen the same story. Those institutions used selfishly rather than cherished with the devotion required to ensure the nation flourishes. And he sees the same pattern of performance rather than service in democratic politics, pointing to the celebrity socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who’s clearly different to Trump, but part of the same wider story.

As Levin states when describing the problems in congress as an institution: “many members of Congress have come to understand themselves most fundamentally as players in a large cultural ecosystem, the point of which is not legislating or governing but rather a kind of performative outrage for a partisan audience. Their incentives are rooted in that understanding of our politics and not really in legislating. They remain intensely ambitious, as politicians always are, but their ambition is for a prominent role in the cultural theatre of our national politics, and they view the institution of congress as a particularly prominent stage in that theatre – a way to raise their profiles, to become stars in the world of cable news or talk radio, to build bigger social media followings, and to establish themselves as celebrities.”

Levin admits that there were problems with the old, opaque institutions run by insiders. In the US this was the Wasps, who didn’t let in women, Catholics, other religions, not to mention ethnic minorities. This is a serious issue with “insiderism”. But there were codes and higher purposes than one’s own celebrity brand and position in the deteriorating culture war.

Indeed, Levin is certainly making a case for insiders in politics and a healthy distrust of outsiders, or Johnny-come-latelys, coming in to “drain the swamp”. While it might be alluring to get someone unsullied from the past, the dangers of politicians who haven’t been steeped in the traditions of the institutions they are joining is that they lead to weakened parties, “easily falling prey to individual politicians building their private brands and appealing to our authenticity”.

Levin wants the balance to fall back with the insiders who know what they’re doing, and who feel responsibility to the institutions and society they serve. It’s a depressing critique to be sure but one that, as this public intellectual unpacks it, is hard to disagree with.

Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

While not all of the book is applicable to New Zealand circumstances, and I certainly don’t believe in our smaller, more intimate democracy we have it as bad as the United States, some of it resonates deeply even here at the corner of the world. Even the title – A Time to Build – piqued my interest as a senior National Party MP. That’s the phase National is in after a devastating election loss in October, and Trump has been bad for the Conservative cause internationally, turning off the middle, giving us all, unfairly, a bad name.

I think the National Party should heed some of Levin’s messages on institutions, which, yes, include political parties. He speaks of “insiderism” where there are gross abuses of power within an organisation and exclusivity at the expense of others. But it’s his critique of “outsiderism” that I recognise: “institutions that fail to form men and women of integrity because they fail even to see such formation as their purpose. Rather than contain and shape individuals, these institutions seem to exist to display individuals – to give them prominence and gain them notice without stamping them with a particular character, a distinct set of obligations or responsibilities, or an ethic that comes with constraints.”

This to me clearly speaks of the MPs we in National lost to scandals in the last term. National failed to inculcate these MPs with our values and purposes as a party, which was more than them and their careers and egos. But Prime Minister Ardern doesn’t get off scot-free either. In failing to discipline a number of MPs over the last term she was perhaps falling into a similar trap, set for another day when her successes aren’t quite so shiny.

Whatever the political party, Levin’s solution is good old-fashioned teamwork and dedication to the cause higher than oneself. Not just the party’s objectives and purposes in purely partisan terms, though they are important, but the integrity of it over time, so one is, for example, reluctantly prepared to whistle-blow on bad behaviour as one sees it.

We also can’t go past Levin’s worries about celebrity politics. Allied to the move from mould to platform, free from the shackles of institutional constraints, is the rise of the celebrity politician. Trump is an extreme case. But we have a PM, by no means anything like a Trumpian maverick, but happy nevertheless to be on the cover of Vogue, and, if we are honest, assiduous in crafting and controlling her image. This didn’t start with her, of course: New Zealand politicians have been courting celebrity status for some time now, often at the eager behest of the media.

Simon Bridges led the National Party between 2018 to 2020 (Photo: Getty Images)

And that brings us to our friends, the journalists, also key protagonists in this horror show. They, Levin argues, must be much more suspicious of the celebrity factor and not just in the politicians. The trend is for journalists to also promote themselves over the institution they are in, which has led to concerns over journalistic integrity: “Journalists should be particularly careful to avoid the culture of individual celebrity… which is the very opposite of the culture of institutional integrity. Too often now, prominent political reporters in particular can be found engaged in never-ending, loose, unstructured form of conversational commentary on television, on Twitter, and elsewhere…”

It’s not this bad in New Zealand by any stretch, and I acknowledge the stresses of the modern media environment on all media forms. That said, the call by Levin, which is so clear for politicians and parties, acts as a warning for media as well. A reminder to put the wider cause and the institutions, their rules and norms, ahead of oneself.

A related point to close on is one I feel is certainly present in our country. The problems we have in our body politic are not fundamentally ideological, but more social psychology. We aren’t generally arguing about public policy any more (as we should be!) because we aren’t talking public policy that much “except to the degree that various general categories of policy ideas (like ‘a tax cut’…) serve as totems for tribal affiliations.” Instead, we are increasingly caught up in the celebrity, the dysfunction, the polarisation, the culture war.

As opposition leader – once upon a time – I can see myself in this and plead guilty to an extent. I certainly opposed a capital gains tax for policy reasons. But I also knew the totemic and emotive strength of the issue to connect and motivate voters. It wasn’t rocket science why I directed everyone in the National Party to focus on nothing else for months and months and it worked, for a time. Is it too much to ask that in 2021 we may actually see substantive policy debate from the major parties on, say, housing or climate change. As some might say National signals to its base on the RMA, so too does Labour with a climate emergency without substantive policy behind it.

Levin’s solution to institutional decline is a focus on rebuilding them. That each of us should ask ourselves, “given my role in this institution – my family, or church, or marriage or profession – how should I behave?” That it is incumbent upon us to recommit to our institutions and their values, rather than ourselves. I fear as a lifelong realist the ship may have already sailed. Forces beyond us from Zuckerberg to reality TV are hard to turn around. King Canute couldn’t stop the tide and I worry we can’t either.

But that doesn’t mean doing nothing. In National we must unite our party around our common goals and policy purposes in another great institution, parliament, for New Zealand’s sake. For all New Zealanders, whether Nat or not, it means doing the same in the entities you give a damn about. Not being able to solve everything (or even much) doesn’t mean doing nothing.

A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream is published by Basic Books and available to order from Unity Books Auckland and Wellington.

Keep going!

A scene from the new Greta Gerwig-directed Little Women

BooksJanuary 8, 2021

Little Women was more than a story. It was the house I grew up in

Alie Benge

Contributing writer

A scene from the new Greta Gerwig-directed Little Women

Summer reissue: Alie Benge on the book that built a shimmering private world for her and her sisters.

First published 10 February 2020.

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I own two copies of Little Women. One is bound in white leather, has gilt edges, a gold filigree pattern on the front, and the heft of a family Bible. Each copy of this edition is made to order. It arrived in the mail on my 25th birthday – a present from an ex-boyfriend who’d once noticed that every time I spoke about Little Women I put my hand over my heart and sighed deeply. He’d planned to buy it for me when we were together, and though we’d broken up before my birthday he still wanted me to have it. When I saw what he’d given me, I hovered my finger over his name in my contacts list, wondering if we should get back together. As for my other copy, I don’t remember who first put it into my hands, but I remember reading it in bed at seven or eight years old, reading it on the lawn, and on the library bean bags, and in a tree – which was disappointingly uncomfortable, but Jo read in a tree so I stuck it out. I kept a list of words I didn’t understand and would take it to my parents the next day. “What does it mean to ‘put on airs’?” I try not to open this copy anymore because the spine has broken and it flaps open, revealing the gum binding, and the pages feel like they could easily tear away if I wasn’t careful turning them. Last year I rented Little Women as an audiobook for my commute, but had to stop because I was getting to work with splotchy eyes from an hour of weeping in my car.

My sisters and I watched the 1994 adaptation so many times that we’ve memorised the whole script and can find a quote to fit any situation. When I cut my long hair I got a text that said, “Your one beauty!” We can’t walk past the limes in Countdown without saying, “Are limes the fashion now?” Growing up, we would argue over who was which sister. Sarah thought she was Jo, which was absurd because obviously I was Jo and she was Beth. She maintained that I was Meg, which I was appalled by. Aimie, the youngest, is Amy through and through. We eventually created composites and managed to settle the debate forever. I’m Jo/Meg. Sarah is Jo/Beth. As Aimie has gotten older she’s become Amy/Beth. When I say we finally settled this, I mean that I was well into my late twenties.

Some stories you read, and you love them, but then they go back on the shelf. Others, like Little Women, you consume again and again. You want to roll in the stories, to hang them over your shoulders like a coat, and let them travel with you through your life like a companion, like a sister.

The sisters now: Amie, Sarah, and Alie. Image: supplied.

There is something fascinating about the lives of sisters. We have the Mitfords and the Brontës, Marian Keyes’ Walsh girls, even the Kardashians. The nature of the friendship is complicated and fractious, and they also live in a kind of isolation. The world of sisters is private. Each group has its own language and games, and shared history. No one else is let in, we can only watch when allowed.

I have this feeling, which I’m sure many have, that Little Women belongs to me and my sisters. There’s something painful about other people’s enjoyment of it, because it’s our thing and for so long we didn’t realise other people even knew about it. It’s been a disconcerting experience to read of other writers, like Patti Smith and Simone de Beauvoir, identifying with Jo and realising our private world with the March girls was shared with other people. Some unreasonable and reactive part of me wants people to acknowledge how important the story is to me personally before I give them permission to enjoy it. It’s distressing to hear others talking about Little Women, because it’s like they’re talking about me without realising that I’m there and can hear them.

Many seem to have related to Jo as a writer, a tomboy, or someone who struggled with the expectations of being a girl in the world. I wasn’t a tomboy, and I had no literary ambitions except to be allowed to read in peace. For me, it was the family unit that I related to. Like the Marches, my sisters and I were uniquely alone in the world. By the time the book found its way to me, I’d already stopped counting the times we’d moved houses, regions, and countries. I’d been uprooted from communities so many times that I’d lost any expectation that relationships would be permanent. Before finding the book, I’d been living in an isolated village in the Ethiopian Highlands where there were no other English speakers. My best friend and I didn’t share a common language and worked out our games with signs and charades. My concerns in those years were with sickness, the leopard in the backyard, the bowls of blood and beads that were left under the tyre swing we’d unknowingly hung from a tree that was worshipped by the local people. And then suddenly I was back in New Zealand, being told by other women that I shouldn’t wear gumboots to school or clothes that had rips in them. People didn’t raise pets to eventually eat. On TV there were cartoons, and the Spice Girls, and people selling exercise machines. The only thing in my life that had remained unchanged was the fact that I had a family.

Little Women: Alie, Sarah and Amie. Image: supplied

The stories I read were a point of consistency. No matter how many times I returned to Little Women, it was always the same. In a way that I didn’t have the language to express as a child, Little Women was more than a story, it was the house I grew up in. The March sisters, along with Anne Shirley, Heidi, and Milly Molly Mandy, linked hands above me, like a roof.

The March family didn’t have the right clothes. They were barred from full participation in society because of their poverty and their strict morality. Only a few scenes in the book take place outside the family home, and when they do leave, disaster waits. Amy falls through the ice, Meg compromises her values at a ball, Beth catches scarlet fever, their father is injured in the civil war. The family home is a place of safety and sureness, a retreat from a world that they don’t quite fit into.

The Alcotts also moved more than 30 times before Little Women was written, often to escape the debts their father had racked up. Although the book is based on Louisa Alcott’s own life, these moves don’t make an appearance in the story, but anyone who’s grown up with the same instability might see it shimmering over the text in the restlessness, the uncertainty, the isolation that she maybe didn’t mean to include but which worked its way in subliminally.

I returned to the book in preparation for this essay. It had been quite a few years since I read it. I was struck the simple elegance of the writing, the vitality of it. “Beth’s Secret” is devastatingly well-written without becoming cloying or sentimental. The proposal scene rejects traditional tropes and manages to be funny, honest, and slightly disconcerting. This isn’t just a relatable, fun story for girls. This is a beautiful work of art that shines for an adult as much as for a child. Not every children’s book holds up upon rereading. I broke my own heart by going back to Little House on the Prairie and realising Pa was selfish, controlling, and neglectful. The book was so appallingly racist that I would never put it in the hands of a child. Famous Five is a good time but the gendering of literally everything is frustrating as hell. The Faraway Tree is still a banger, but I appreciated it on a nostalgia level. It’s fun, but that’s all. Little Women, however, had layers that had aged with me, and that I could only relate to as an adult, like circles of meaning that had been waiting for me to come back and understand. As a child I enjoyed the raucous joy of their games and plays, burning Meg’s hair, creating newspapers, and befriending the boy next door. As an adult, I could hear Alcott speaking through Jo about her own struggles with identity and freedom. She famously wanted Jo to be a literary spinster as Alcott herself was, but her editors forced her to marry Jo off. She does so, but you can feel Jo kicking and screaming all the way. There is something so distressing about her eventual conformity, as though underneath the calm resignation is a wild animal shrieking in a cage.

Alcott is quoted saying, “I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body … because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” Though considering the time, it’s possible this was about power and autonomy rather than gender in isolation, but you sense that both Alcott and Jo struggled with something that they didn’t have a language for – not just the destiny they were being pushed towards, but with the things they were supposed to want but didn’t. Each sister has different desires; wealth, a family, and in Beth’s case, more life. Each desire is presented as equal, except Jo’s, which so closely mirrored Alcott’s own, and was written as something to be overcome and left in childhood.

This is a book about growing up that doesn’t try to reason away the sadness of it. Jo says to Laurie, “We can never be boy and girl again: the happy old times can’t come back, and we mustn’t expect it. We are man and woman now, with sober work to do, for playtime is over.” Jo is not Peter Pan, gathering fellow children and trapping them in infancy. Jo’s resistance means she is left behind by her sisters. The noise and games of childhood wind slowly down, getting quieter and further away, until Jo finds herself in an empty room, suddenly so lonely that she looks for something to lean on. This book is not wish fulfillment or fantasy. These are ordinary girls with ordinary lives, who grow into ordinary adults. But Alcott shows us the sparkling brilliance of ordinariness. It’s something that can’t be seen directly, only out the corner of the eyes.

Various editions of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, as well as books linked to the new film, are available from Unity Books.