On Mon, Sep 14, 2026, at 05:34 PM, Charles wrote:
>
> While the learned theorists debate Bonapartism, today's post by John
> Reimann (on his blog, not yet here) does get to the point. He poses the
> choice as general strike ("shut down the country") versus disruption. Mass
> disruptions do not need to be a general strike. Other than that, John
> nails it:
>
> The outcome will be determined in the streets. If sufficient forces are
> mobilized to shut down the country in order to stop Trump from stealing
> the elections, that will sway the Republicans in congress and/or the
> Supreme Court (in)Justices. The liberals like No Kings will organize
> protests that disrupt nothing. Trump will ignore them. The silence on this
> issue by the union leadership and *by DSA* and left journals like Jacobin,
> Counterpunch and even smaller journals like Tempest is a disgrace.
> https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/09/14/elections-chaos-and-dictatorship-come-closer/
>
>
Subject: The Street and Its Theorists
While the learned theorists debate Bonapartism, and I count myself among them,
John Reimann's post today on Oakland Socialist gets to the point:
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/09/14/elections-chaos-and-dictatorship-come-closer/
John is right on the main thing. Whatever the Supreme Court does with the USPS
order this week, November will be settled by who is willing to stop what.
Protest that disrupts nothing will be ignored. The silence from union
leaderships, DSA, and the left press is real. That includes Tempest, and since
I write for Tempest, I will take it up with them directly.
Where I part with him is the choice he poses. "Shut down the country" reads as
a general strike, and no general strike is coming. The officials who could call
one are the ones John faults for their silence. If the only alternative to No
Kings is a general strike, we have no alternative.
Mass disruption comes in smaller denominations. Sustained occupations of
statehouses and county canvassing boards through certification. Blockades of
ICE staging sites. Sickouts in sectors where a few thousand workers can stop a
city. The kind of rapid-response networks that turned out in Minneapolis. None
of this needs permission from a union headquarters. Organized minorities can
start it, and it grows if it works.
Here the Bonapartism debate stops being academic. John's own mechanism is that
pressure in the streets will sway Republicans in Congress and on the Court.
That is a claim about a divided state, and his evidence shows the divisions.
Seven Republican election chiefs broke with the administration before the
Supreme Court. USPS resumed work in defiance of a federal injunction. Luttig
speaks for a capitalist majority that sees nothing to gain from formal
dictatorship. A regime run on personal loyalty depends on thousands of
officials who are not all loyal. Disruption works on them. It raises the price
of complicity for the county canvasser, the secretary of state, and the House
clerk on January 3. This is what I mean by patrimonial Bonapartism, and it is
why the category bears on tactics.
What I don't know is whether the forces exist to do this at the necessary scale
in the seven weeks left. I doubt anyone on this list knows. We will learn
faster by trying than by waiting for a call that isn't coming.
One correction for anyone forwarding John's piece: Indira Talwani is a federal
district judge in Massachusetts, not an appeals court judge.
Tony
--
Tony
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#43414): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/43414
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/121053097/21656
-=-=-
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
#4 Do not exceed five posts a day.
-=-=-
Group Owner: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy
[[email protected]]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
