As a general account of politics, Horseshoe Theory may or may not be adequate.1 Are the “extreme right” and “extreme left” really closer to one another than a linear political continuum suggests? In some ways, yes; in others, no. It depends, doesn’t it? Most fundamentally, Horseshoe Theory presupposes the old Left–Center–Right continuum, a relic of the seating arrangements in the French Revolution’s National Assembly, while modifying it. In what sense(s) are we still marked by that Revolution? I mean that as a real question, to which I don’t have a definite answer.
Situationally, though, the Horseshoe is frequently helpful, whether we’re talking about the most intimate of all domestic issues, health and food (here, I can’t not link you to this description of/prescription for an “alliance among right-wing bodybuilders, mommy bloggers, and rural traditionalists”), or, as has become undeniable in recent weeks, foreign policy.
Consider the March 23rd death of Madeleine Albright. All serious analyses took the opportunity to recognize her not merely as a pioneer (first female Secretary of State) but as the embodiment of US foreign policy since the fall of the USSR.
“Centrist” media laud the human-rights wars she presided over during the Clinton Administration; many cite, with approval or at least not disapproval, Albright’s mocking the Powell Doctrine. (These are the same outlets that have spent the last few weeks platforming direct war with Russia aimed at regime change.)
By contrast, the “extremists”—from the Sandersnista Socialist Left (Jacobin: “Madeleine Albright Was a Killer”; Intercept: “RIP Madeleine Albright and Her Awful, Awful Career”) to the MAGA Nationalist Right (Revolver: “Oh You Think Women Don’t Start Wars? Ask Madeleine Albright [RIP]”)—indict Albright and the establishment she represented for one or more of the following moral atrocities and/or strategic blunders:
the death of millions of Iraqis during the Clinton Administration;
setting the stage for the Second Iraq War;
putting the West on a collision course with Russia via NATO expansion and the West’s interventions in the Balkans;
and generally squandering the unipolar moment.
The emphasis for each “extreme” is different, but the target is the same. They’re taking aim at our impeccably-credentialed, apparently-“serious” and “moderate” and “sensible” and pro-“democracy” foreign policy “center.” You know, that thing that polite company refers to as “The National Security Establishment,” impolite company refers to as “The Deep State: NatSec Edition,” and impolite-er company refers to as the “Global American Empire” (acronym intended). That thing that Ben Rhodes called “The Blob,” and Angelo Codevilla first called “The Ruling Class” and then called “the Oligarchy”; the tangled Langley–Pentagon–Foggy Bottom branches of what scholars call “The Administrative State.”
In short, you’re more likely to find Revolver and Chronicles nodding along with Jacobin and The Intercept on the last 30 years of American foreign policy than with anything said on that topic by the dominant voices at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, or (Tucker Carlson excepted) Fox News.
Albright’s death, in part because it coincided with the Ukraine War, occasioned a particularly stark illustration of the foreign policy horseshoe. But it’s not entirely a new development. (Breaking ranks with the neoconservative establishment over the invasion of Iraq, when the only others antiwar voices were coming from the far left, was the raison d’être for The American Conservative in 2002; and, since 2016, American Affairs has been trying to break out of the left–right dichotomy on a host of issues.) But it sure seems to be picking up steam, and relevance, as our sclerotic establishment stumbles again and again, with graver and graver consequences for the nation.
Now, this Left-Right handshake—on questions both domestic and foreign—is the raison d’être for a new publication, Compact. I’m cheered by its appearance, and by its early articles by a line-up of authors, some on the “left” though most on the “right,” I’ve come to seek out whenever and wherever they write. In particular, I recommend these essays by Malcom Kyeyune, Alex Gutentag, Chris Caldwell, Lee Smith, Matt Schmitz, and Sohrab Ahmari.
I conclude by citing Compact’s clear call for the Biden Administration to deescalate the Russia–Ukraine War, “Away from the Abyss”:
Leading interventionists in the United States and Europe are goading the West into an abyss of war and suffering, from which there can be no easy return. We, the undersigned, inhabit a wide range of political opinions and disagree about many things. But on this one urgent point, we speak as one: The crisis created by Russia’s war on Ukraine demands de-escalation, not imperial aggrandizement and schemes of regime change.
We’re living in odd times—or perhaps simply have to rethink our political categories—if cool-headed calls for a moderate, nonideological foreign policy are being argued by the “extremes” against a fanatical center.
Read the full essay, and witness the foreign policy horseshoe in its list of signatories—Marxists and Integralists and Americanists, oh my!—here.
One classic example is Origins of Totalitarianism, in which Hannah Arendt argued for a fundamental similarity between Bolshevism and Nazism. For Arendt, both are better understood as iterations of “totalitarianism” than as diametrically opposed political programs.
If the Compact folks want some light on the Russia/Ukraine situation, I'd bet UVA's Allen Lynch has some wisdom on the whole thing. They should invite him to write. I audited a class from him on U.S. Russia-policy back when I was there around 2007, and he was all about what he presented as the Democrat Party(!) critique of Bush's and the neocon's unnecessary antagonizing of Russia. He surely expected the Obama people to be so much smarter, and he must be a pretty dissappointed guy of late. I wanted to audit his class because he wrote an excellent little book How Russia Is not Ruled about the total disaster of the Yeltsin years. For those with easy Jstor access--this should give you his views circa 2018: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26593693 I don't know Allen's line on the current war--maybe it is some sophisticated version of stink--but he seemed to have good instincts and just to know a ton about Russian/Soviet foreign policy at the time I took the class.