On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 3:09 PM Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote:
> https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii126/articles/mike-davis-trench-warfare
Mike Davis on the U.S. 2020 election and prospect of coming "trench warfare"
a few of his important points imo:
. . .
"If the Republicans retain the Senate as they are favoured to do, it’s hard
to imagine a worse balance of power for the incoming Biden administration,
its legislative agenda, and that of the progressive wing. Larry Cohen, the
former president of the Communication Workers union who now chairs Our
Revolution, the outreach arm of the Sanders movement, was uncompromisingly
blunt: ‘For those of us who focus on governance and economic and social
justices, this election is a dismal rubber stamp of the unacceptable status
quo. Black, brown and white working Americans see their hopes of real
reform evaporate for now, even while cheering the victory over Trump.’"
. . .
"...Trump’s nuclear advantage was his astounding popularity at the base, a
frenzy routinely stoked by evangelical leaders, Fox News and, of course,
his endless tweets. Suddenly the America depicted by the Occupy Movement as
the People versus the greed of the One Percent, was unmasked as something
entirely different, a confused majority facing the militant and
intransigent Forty Percent..."
. . .
"Most importantly, the debates on the stimulus bills should have unleashed
grassroots actions by unions and community organizations in support of the
Democratic proposals. Instead Pelosi locked progressives out of the
discussion and conducted private negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin. By October millions of people were desperately waiting for a new
relief package to pay rents, mortgages and doctors’ bills, but Pelosi
refused to accept the $2 trillion package offered at the last minute by the
White House..."
. . .
"...Justice Democrats, a political action committee founded by veterans of
the Sanders Campaign and supported by Nurses United, offered a scathing
judgement on Democrats’ failure to project convincing economic alternatives
in their congressional campaigns. ‘In an election where the economy was
voters’ top concern, many Congressional Democrats had no discernible
economic message...After the Democratic convention the party’s lack of an
economic message was clear'..."
. . .
'...Progressives are being realistic, not self-righteous, when they insist
that profound structural change is the only programme commensurate with the
needs of working people in the dark American winter that may lie ahead. But
it’s the Republicans, not the Democratic factions, who will shape next
year’s agenda, selecting those battlefields where they are most advantaged
by their Senate majority and their lock on the Supreme Court. At the same
time, Trump’s would-be successors—the current favourites include Tom
Cotton, Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz—will be competing to feed red
meat to the vengeful Trump faithful. With the far right running around
planting traps in the path of Democrats, the lynch-mob mood amongst
Republicans will become even more dangerously anti-democratic and explosive.
"Last January, the well-known political scientist Larry Bartels conducted a
troubling survey of Republicans. Most of them agreed that ‘the traditional
American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force
to save it.’ And two-fifths believed that ‘a time will come when patriotic
Americans have to take the law into their own hands.’ ‘In both cases’,
Bartels adds, ‘most of the rest said they were unsure; only one in four or
five disagree.’ After carefully analyzing the responses to his
questionnaires, he concluded that white fear of the growing political and
social power of immigrants and people of colour had acidified under Trump
into a dangerous rejection of democratic norms. In effect, a majority of
hardcore Trump supporters seem to agree with the Proud Boys and the rest of
the alt-right that political violence was justified in defence of white
supremacy and ‘traditional values’. States of terror are of course as
American as apple pie. What was called ‘Massive Resistance’ in the
late-1950s and early 1960s South involved hundreds of thousands of whites,
ranging from bankers to housewives, in active opposition to the
civil-rights movement, giving unabashed support to police and mob violence.
Likewise one can recall the vast popularity of the nativist ‘Second’ Klan
in Midwestern states like Ohio and Indiana during the 1920s. Deep
structures of the past have been disinterred during Trump’s presidency and
given permission to throttle the future. Civil War? Some analogy is
inevitable and should not be easily dismissed."
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