On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 08:59 AM, John Reimann wrote: > > There are reasonable arguments in favor of voting for Howie Hawkins over > Biden. Reminding us that the same thing that is being said about Trump was > said about every Republican of the last 25 years is not one such argument. > Trump really is qualitatively different from every Republican president > before him. His reelection would give a significant boost to outright > fascist forces - something that could not have been said about Reagan, > Bush, etc. >
I recommend not watching the convention. Anything that would induce one to agree with Matt Taibbi is bad cess and to be avoided (bad joke). Among the worst possible outcomes of a bidenharris victory, IMO, might be some sort of virtual or overt Red Scare based on the Cancel Culture nonsense. I also suspect that when Rahm Emanuel or equivalent lays hands on "police reform," this will magically become a way of rationalizing and continuing localized federal policing under a new, sanitized, non-BORTAC brand. But thanks, John Reimann, for making the point about Trump's not being a "normal" Republican politician. I think this absolutely right. The fact that the Demicraps have been crying "wolf" for decades when they themselves are wolves does not mean that, unlike everything else under capitalism, whose successive crises are after all cumulative and not cyclical, the election farce is unchanging and eternal. In fact, the collective malfeasance of Republican villains--since eg 1980 has progressively laid the groundwork for Trump's "fascism." The bloated Reaganized military and the dead end of "sole superpower" foreign policy; the more and more overt immiseration of the working class at the hands of the neoliberal "entrepreneur;" the terrifying John Yoo case for torture, which is still apparently settled policy and which Trump has invoked to justify what he and his crazed racist followers see as their unlimited power over life and death; the insanely widespread conceit that the "commander-in-chief" is everyone's commander in or out of the armed forces; and many other things have built up until--quantity becoming quality--the situation has become unprecedentedly dangerous and no "as usual" response is possible. Admittedly, Trump's dictatorial bite has repeatedly proved to be far weaker than his narcissitic bark. But he has succeeded in destroying or severely damaging not only the civil rights of citizens but also many effective and benevolent powers of governance currently invested in the federal government--the Postal Service, the EPA, medical research; the Inspector General functionality that--for all its potential abuses--has acted historically to restrain wrongdoing in the offices of the Executive Branch; the collection of accurate and reliable labor statistics; the partial immunity of the civil service to corruption and undue influence; and many other things. In short, I think Trump has waged war, in a manner no less ruthlessly logical for its almost incredible stupidity, on governance itself--those functions usually allotted to governments that provide standards and an operational basis for nearly all the activities necessary to maintain the functioning of highly organized large-scale human society across the board--with or without the so-called "free market" that is supposed to regulate many of these functions automatically. This is carrying Grover Norquist's outrageous but only half-serious nostrum about drowning government to an unprecedented length. I do not believe that Trump is capable of performing adequately as a dictator, although he might just manage as a figurehead manipulated by more intelligent forces. But this in my view makes the Trump crisis more, rather than less, severe because it is a guarantee that the destruction he will certainly cause will be profound, long-lasting, and potentially without any mitigation at all. Trump is a purely destructive power. Following through on the the actions of his predecessors, he has placed clear, intentional, and effective markers on the road to dictatorship. The fact that in doing so seriously he is somehow also only joking, as he says so often, only makes matters worse, because it suggests that he will leave nothing behind him but the that labored, joyless, and phony grin that makes the Cheshire Cat look like Franklin Roosevelt by comparison. I am going to vote for Howie Hawkins. But I would certainly consider voting for bidenharris if I lived anywhere but in the District of Columbia, where a Trump victory is so nearly impossible as not to be worth contemplating. As has been said in these pages, the Socialist/Green coalition that Hawkins has pulled off is an immensely hopeful sign. Hawkins has said that a five percent showing in this election might pave the way for a truly activist mass political party that might also be able to win elections. I believe him. I also think, however, that in order for that to happen between now and 2024 there has to be some reasonable certainty that future elections will take place. While I don't believe that Trump could rule effectively by decree, I also believe that he is fully capable of damaging the governance of the electoral process to the point of non-functionality--and this is only one of the numerous necessary social governance functions that he promises to weaken or destroy. Will Trump become a full-on fascist or Nappy Trois , or will he merely continue to feint and then claim to have been joking? I suspect the latter, but the real damage he is doing--apart from setting himself up for a coup from the Right--is IMO less is both unprecedented and more dangerous even than his becoming an actual, formally declared dictator. If we have no "free" elections, no Post Office, and no civil rights that cannot be revoked with lethal force at the whim of the Commander--or, god help us, the disgusting likes of that tennis-playing gigolo Chad Wolf--whether you call it fascism or something else, we are in a new situation that places additional and possibly insuperable limitations on the cause of socialism. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#628): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/628 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76307258/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
