Well before Trump ~won his first election, I said he was a fascist (and
not in that woolly way so many leftists had used to tar everyone they
didn’t like), that he would need to be removed from the White House by
force, that his rise would nudge many institutions we axiomatically view
as rightist to the left (in particular the Pentagon and intel agencies),
and — in particular — that the Joint Chiefs would quietly find ways
to subvert his control of, as the pop press put it, “the nuclear
codes.” As you’d expect, those dire predictions met will intense
pushback: Arendt-splaining pedants argued no no he doesn’t meet X y x
criteria from 1930s Europe (duh), self-styled realists laughed and said
paranoiacs had argued that every president since Nixon would stage a
coup, and that civilian control of nukes was sacrosanct because
technology. In fact, my predictions proved to be much closer to the
truth than not, and certainly closer than the conventional twaddle those
soi-disant experts had on offer. That was in large part because, like
many nettimers, I’ve learned to ignore political verities. Even so,
though, quite a few lefties would scoff at the idea that the, DOJ, DOD,
or CIA moving to the left; there are of course reasons for their
skepticism, some of them good, but for the most part it’s just display
of willful, procrustean stupidity. If those institutions can move to the
right — for example, by agreeing to implement Trump’s promises to
put 13 million people in concentration camps and to persecute his
political enemies — they can move to the left too. The only thing that
can’t move, it seems, is the imaginary that many leftians impose on
these institutions.
Now to your points, Franz. When people say that Trump now has total
control over this or that, they’re making several errors, ranging from
the factual to the strategic. It is, in a way, “obeying in advance,”
just on an analytical level.
Yes, of course, Trump’s forces will be much more strategic and
organized this time around, no doubt about it. But their project of a
Turd Reich remains aspirational, and these guys are still mostly
fourth-rate extras from the Benny Hill show. There will be a LOT of
resistance, and the people doing it will have a much better
understanding of Trump’s methods. And then there’s Trump himself,
whose victory seems to have erased the collective recognition that his
mind is failing. Seriously, not even a week ago Serious People were
unsure he’d even make it to Election Day, but now we’re all tacitly
assuming four years? Please. No amount of “sane-washing” could mask
his decline for that long, *and that’s assuming he lives that long*.
Making predictions about how monsters age is truly a fool’s errand,
but I’m pretty confident that Trump will not be president come
Inauguration Day in 2029.
How that will happen I don’t know, but I think we can safely ignore
pretty much any analysis that omits any mention of it. Of course I
understand that if Trump “steps down” — or, more likely, is pushed
down — that’d make Vance president. Vance, a callow, charmless
sophist loved, literally, by Peter Thiel alone. I don’t see him as a
very effective or nimble inheritor to the MAGA movement. He’s much
more likely to preside over the utter and complete meltdown left by the
waning Trump, who will, of course, come ton have all the Project 2025
weenies who want to use him.
The US left is as broken as the US right, in my view. For *decades*
I’ve bitterly denounced centrists and their quadrennial ritual of
drunk-dialing the left OH BABY BABY I LOVE YOU COME BACK I’LL DO
ANYTHING FOR YOU then turning their back on progressives and leftists as
fast as they can. Not this time around, though. Centrists still suck,
but this time the left really did paint itself, and all of us, into a
corner. You cannot shout about “genocide” 24/7, publicly wring your
hands about how you couldn’t possibly bring yourself to vote for these
maniacs, and claim the mantle of a new generation at campuses across the
country — and then, when they lose, claim your slogans and protests
had no impact. Or, alternatively, if they had no impact, then why even
fucking bother?
Progressives and the left will never succeed until they accept and
embrace the country they actually live in — and not just on their own
terms. That was always true, but now that authoritarians and fascists
really do have the keys to much of the machinery of democracy, and use
them to lock it all away, it’s especially true.
Ted
On 10 Nov 2024, at 10:36, franz schaefer via nettime-l wrote:
thanks felix for insightful analysis. now the question of "what is to
be
done" is important. and i do not have a good anser but some ideas,
below.
the one thing that worries me most is the phrase snowden used to
descirbe
the US surveillance state: "trunkey tyrany". and now trump has the
keys to
that tyrany. together with a blank check from the supreme court and
this
time he is prepared to use it.
we do not know how bad the situation will become but as he tried a
coup at
the end of his first time we should assume that he will not make the
same
mistake twice and that he will turn the US into a fascist
dicatatorship.
with extrme consequences not only for the US but for the world.
so what could be done?
as it has been already said:
the left is in disarray and the centrist forces are the ones to
blame here
in the first place. so the main problem of "what to do" is to
reconcile 2
conflicting strategies:
the first is to try to create a resistance against this fascism
together
with all foces that oppose it, including the centrist and liberal and
even
conservaitve forces. even thought this makes the situation worse as
the
right-wing voters will then even be more convinced that their
candidate is
the only one who is against "the system".
the second strategy is to rebuild the left and to dencounce the
centrist
forces for their failure. to show that the neoliberal politics has
created
the problem in the first place.
now the main point is how to reconcile this 2 opposing strategies. i
think
the only way is to work together with all foces on single issues that
create
save spaces (sanctuary cities, promoting encrypton and open source,
etc,
etc..) while on the other hand really supporting the radical left and
denouncing the failure of the centrist forces.
the fact that the left is so splintered is sad. but in the face of
this
giant surveillance state it might be an advantage to have "smaller
cells".
and moreover: the only good thing that comes out of this might be that
the
hydra has a visbile had again and the common enemy might be helpful in
uniting our forces.
also see: https://qummunismus.at/p/article185.html
franz schaefer (mond)
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