I'm not clued in to the various -- and contending -- protest movements under way to "stop Trump". The initial street protests seemed to fizzle out, partly because of the holiday season I'm sure (priorities and all that), partly because people have to work to get by, and partly because they were being overwhelmed/co-opted by Democrats who basically didn't want any uprisings in the streets.
No, they were going to go about the business of de-Trumping by clever political strategy. Except they didn't have one. They still don't. Some of the most ludicrous examples of the failure of political strategies are on view daily at Daily Kos. I will say no more about that.
What the Dems have had all along, though, is an intense and overriding interest in knee-capping the Left -- or what they believe to be the Left. No genuine popular movement can get going under their wing. Any independent "left" movement must be crushed or co-opted. They must control the process. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? Someone like Trump could get elected.... ooops.
Speaking of, we just can't know whether vote casting and counting was done accurately this time around. It's a mystery that will never actually be solved because in too many cases, there's no way to verify the vote. It can't be done. What is becoming known, however, is that efforts to suppress the vote, to disqualify millions of voters, and to make it impossible for significant numbers of voters to vote, or for their votes to be counted were very successful, and these efforts were directed at and largely affected Democratic voters. It also appears that many Democratic voters declined to vote for president, whereas others voted third party.
So for the sake of argument, I'm going to accept the results as a relatively accurate reflection of what those who were able to vote and were so inclined voted for. I'm not taking it on faith. The announced outcome is one of many possibilities. For the sake of argument, the result is instructive.
We get to this outcome in large part through the failure of institutions and politics to protect and defend the People from the depredations of the Overclass, an Overclass which has had almost unfettered free rein to pillage and plunder for decades.
Politics hasn't changed it; politics has enabled it. No matter what the People say they want, no matter what or who they vote for, the political class does what it wants. Institutions have been more interested in preserving, protecting, and defending themselves rather than anything or anyone else, and they have almost all failed their constituencies. NGOs have long been a bad joke. Churches forgot their mission. Institutions of higher learning exploit their students and their parents. Police go rogue and murder without consequence. Financial institutions loot their customers. Media parades bizarre falsehoods.
On and on. It's a goon show, and most Americans know it.
Since its all a con anyway, why not put a master con-man on the throne? What do we think Obama has been? Or Big Dog? Or Bush the Lesser? All of them con-artists. And that's big reason why they were put on the throne to begin with. Their job is to con the public and keep them tame in the face of all the horrors and exploitation they're subjected to. Hillary couldn't do it.
The biggest institutional failure in the political realm is that of the Democrats who have failed in every way -- especially since 2009 -- to protect and defend the People against the forces arrayed against them. I maintain that failure is cynical and deliberate. They knew what they were doing: betraying their constituency. That's been the way of nearly all leftish political parties in the west for many years.
And that is a primary rationale for the "rise of the right." Given that the so-called Left has entirely abandoned the People, there is no political party that serves them. The "rise of the right" is not due to popular will, it's due to abandonment by the pseudo-left, the Democrats and Social Democrats and in some regions by Socialists. They obviously don't care any more -- if they ever really did -- about what happens to the Little People. No doubt it has something to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into the capitalist workshop of the world, but that happened so long ago now, hardly anyone remembers any more.
The right rises when the People, abandoned, have no political anchor on the left or center. A political vacuum thus created is filled one way or another.
What is necessary, then, is for the People to take matters into their own hands, outside the political process, and make it impossible for the Ruling Clique to govern.
That's both easier and more difficult than it sounds. Most people, by nature, are going to go along with the powers that be. Most think they have no other choice. On the other hand, it doesn't take a lot of resistance or rebellion to throw a spanner in the works and bring the Juggernaut to a halt -- at least temporarily.
A weak government can be stalled or overcome rather easily.
I will not recommend ways to do it at this point, but understand that many of the "resistance manuals" out there are little more than support manuals for the failed political institutions and systems that don't work.
Robert Reich has one that's gotten some currency. It's not really about resistance at all. It's about supporting failed institutions, the political process and the Democrats. To that I say, No. He blew his premise in any case on Democracy Now! yesterday. It bordered on self-parody. Sorry that Amy didn't call him on his bullshit.
Another is the Indivisible Guide produced by congressional staff and political consultants which again focuses on working within the failed political process that's brought us to this point. It doesn't work. But it keeps people busy doing things -- which won't work -- so there is that. Keep hope alive and all that!
If the Trumpian agenda is to be stopped or thwarted, what's needed is to make it impossible.
The political system is designed and intended to enable it. It's just that simple.
No comments:
Post a Comment