Because the Volk is defined by enmity, and is always on the edge of a war, a point is bound to be reached in the life of a liberal democracy when its faith in peace, love and understanding is shown to be misplaced, and it thereby loses its authority. A natural sovereign takes over: (Trump) a conceptual dictator, perhaps in the form not of a person but an event, unfettered by laws or universal principles, a decider.
ut the sovereign isn’t simply rescuing the Volk from the shilly-shallying of flabby liberals: it brings the Volk out of a state of blasphemy, since a society defined in enmity is the natural order imposed by God. The biblical injunction to love your neighbour, ‘certainly does not mean that one should love and support the enemies of one’s own people’. B
ut the sovereign isn’t simply rescuing the Volk from the shilly-shallying of flabby liberals: it brings the Volk out of a state of blasphemy, since a society defined in enmity is the natural order imposed by God. The biblical injunction to love your neighbour, ‘certainly does not mean that one should love and support the enemies of one’s own people’. B
There is much that is Schmittian in the ascent of Trump. Distinguishing friend from enemy is what the new president does. His favourite ideologues preach contempt for liberalism, embrace the idea of a world filled with enemies of America, and want those enemies not merely to respect American might, but to fear it.
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