Out in the Open - Remarks on the Trump Election
Out in the Open —
Remarks on the Trump Election
Powerful
though they may be, irrational popular tendencies are not irresistible forces.
They contain their own contradictions. Clinging to some absolute authority is
not necessarily a sign of faith in authority; it may be a desperate attempt to
overcome one’s increasing doubts (the convulsive tightening of a slipping
grip). People who join gangs or reactionary groups, or who get caught up in
religious cults or patriotic hysteria, are also seeking a sense of liberation,
connection, purpose, participation, empowerment. As Wilhelm Reich showed,
fascism gives a particularly vigorous and dramatic expression to these basic
aspirations, which is why it often has a deeper appeal than the vacillations,
compromises and hypocrisies of liberalism and leftism. In the long run the only
way to defeat reaction is to present more forthright expressions of these
aspirations, and more authentic opportunities to fulfill them. When basic
issues are forced into the open, irrationalities that flourished under the
cover of psychological repression tend to be weakened, like disease germs
exposed to sunlight and fresh air. The Joy of Revolution
The Donald Trump
campaign has exposed some very ugly aspects of American society. They’re not
pretty to look at, but it’s probably better that they’re out there in the open
where we can all see them and no one can deny them. It has also revealed some
genuine grievances that had been ignored, and it’s good that those too are now
out in the open. The downsides of
Trump’s victory are numerous and all too obvious. But I’d like to point out a few
possible upsides.
In Beyond Voting I noted that the Trump campaign was
accelerating the self-destruction of the Republican Party. I was assuming that
he would probably lose and that there would then be a bitter civil war over who
was to blame, making it difficult for them to regroup and write it off as a
one-time fluke. But I think his victory will be even worse for
the Republicans. This may seem like an
odd thing to say, considering that the Republicans now have the Presidency as
well as both houses of Congress. But I think it’s going to be like the
proverbial dog chasing a car: what happens if the dog actually catches the car? As long as power was
split between a Democratic Presidency and a Republican Congress, each side
could blame the other for the lack of positive accomplishments. But now that
the Republicans have got a monopoly, there will be no more excuses.
Imagine that you’re a
Republican politician. You’ve been reelected — so far, so good. But the people
who voted for you and your colleagues and your new Leader did so under the
impression that you were going to bring about some dramatic improvements in
their lives. What happens when you actually have to deliver some of the things you
promised?
During the last six
years you’ve staged dozens of meaningless votes to repeal Obamacare, saying
that you wanted to replace it with some superior Republican plan. Now is the
moment of truth. If you don’t repeal it, you’ll have millions of people
screaming at your betrayal. If you do repeal it, where is that wonderful plan
that you somehow were never able to come up with? That plan is of course
nonexistent, nothing but the usual simple-minded rhetoric about free markets
leading to lower prices. Do you think that the 22 million newly insured people,
many of whom voted for you, will be pleased to be deprived of their Obamacare
insurance and to find themselves back in their previous situation? It is very
unpopular (as well as very complicated) to undo benefits that people are
already used to possessing.
Moreover, note that
Obamacare is essentially a Republican plan (“Romneycare”), slightly tweaked by
Obama — a feeble patchwork attempt to respond to America’s severe healthcare
crisis. Such a clumsy program is understandably not very popular. But Social
Security and Medicare (which Paul Ryan now wants to dismantle) are by far the
most popular social programs in America, and have been for decades. As
Eisenhower famously noted, “Should any political party attempt to abolish
social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm
programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There
is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things.
Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or
business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Apparently their number is no longer negligible in your party. Are you ready to
go over the cliff with them?
Some of your base are
still vehemently anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage — but most of the country
isn’t. Are you going to try to undo reproductive rights or marriage equality
nationwide? If not, are you going to go back to the chaos of “leaving it to the
states”?
Speaking of logistical
nightmares, what about your famous Mexican wall? Are you really going to commit
to such a silly project, which would accomplish nothing and cost hundreds of
billions of dollars? And incidentally, after you’ve given the rich a lot more
tax breaks and funneled much of the rest of the budget into the already bloated
Pentagon, where is the funding for such projects going to come from?
The same goes for the
major infrastructure improvements Trump has promised. This is one of his few
sensible proposals – it would rev up the economy and create millions of jobs,
which would in turn generate lots more tax revenue down the line. But getting
it kickstarted will require deficit financing, which goes totally against the
austerity policies that have been preached as gospel by your party for decades.
Revived economy or party orthodoxy — which will it be?
Racism has been one of
the key foundations of your party ever since Nixon inaugurated the “Southern
strategy” fifty years ago, but it’s usually been discreet and deniable. Now
that connection is out in the open. Many of Trump’s most fervent supporters are
already celebrating his victory by harassing people of color in his name. How
are you going to dissociate yourselves from that?
Your party was already
heading toward a civil war between its mutually contradictory components
(financial elite, tea party, neocons, libertarians, religious reactionaries,
and the few remaining moderates). To those general divisions are now added the
antagonisms between the new Leader and those who oppose him. Bush at least had
sense enough to know that he was an incompetent figurehead, and gladly let
Cheney and Rove run things. Trump thinks he’s a genius, and anyone who doesn’t
agree will be added to his already very large enemies list.
He’s also a very loose
cannon, which is why the Republican establishment feared him in the first
place. He has proposed things like Congressional term limits which Republican
politicians emphatically do not want, while on the other hand he is now
reportedly considering not repealing Obamacare, perhaps because he has become
aware of how complex and risky such an action might be. Who knows what other
things he’ll come up with or backtrack on?
And this whole show is
so public. Obama’s smooth, genial persona enabled him to get away with war
crimes, massive deportations, and all sorts of corporate compromises (not a
single criminal banker prosecuted) with few people paying attention and fewer
still protesting. This will not be the case with President Ubu and his Clown
Car administration. The whole world will be watching, and every detail will be
scrutinized and debated. It’s going to look as ugly as it is in reality, and
you’re going to be forever tarred by the association. You’re no longer in the
Republican Party, you’re in the Trump Party. You bought it, you own it.
If I’m that imagined
Republican politician, I don’t think I feel very confident about the future of
my party. Meanwhile, the
Democratic Party is facing its own reckoning.
Democratic apologists
are trying to focus the blame on one or another particular factor: the
electoral college, voter suppression, third-party campaigns, the Comey
announcement, etc. But this election shouldn’t have been close enough for any
of those things to matter. The Democrats were running against the
most glaringly unqualified candidate in American history. It should have been a
landslide.
With Bernie Sanders it
probably would have been. (A post-election national poll shows him beating
Trump 56-44.) He was by far the most popular candidate in the country, while
Hillary Clinton’s approval rating was almost as negative as Trump’s. Polls
consistently showed Bernie beating Trump and all the other Republican
candidates by wide margins, while Hillary was struggling against them all and
even losing to some of them.
Moreover, Bernie’s popularity cut across party
lines, appealing not just to Democrats but to independents and even large
numbers of Republicans. While Hillary was courting Wall Street and celebrity donors,
he was attracting crowds that were ten times as large as any she ever managed,
including thousands of the kind of enthusiastic young people who would have
traveled across the country to work their hearts out for him (as they did to a
lesser extent for Obama in 2008). While Hillary was constantly on the
defensive, Bernie would have taken the offensive and turned the momentum in a
progressive direction all over the country. He would easily have won the three
Rust Belt states that cost Hillary the election, he probably would also have
won some of the other swing states she lost, and his coattails would have
flipped enough additional down-ballot races to regain the Senate and perhaps
even put the House into play.
But the Democratic
Party establishment preferred to risk losing with a loyal machine candidate
rather than to risk winning with an independent radical whose movement might
have challenged their cushy positions. Despite the fact that Hillary had a ton
of baggage (some actually bad and much that could easily be made to look bad)
and that she was a perfect embodiment of the glib, self-satisfied insider-elite
and a longtime advocate of the neoliberal policies that had ravaged the country
(especially in the Rust Belt), they pulled out all the stops to impose her as
“inevitable,” while smugly dismissing Sanders as “unrealistic.”
In reality, the
supposedly unrealistic solutions that Sanders called for were supported by
large majorities of the population. Under pressure, Hillary belatedly adopted
watered-down versions of some of those solutions, but few people believed she
was sincere enough to really fight for them like Sanders would have. Her
campaign mostly amounted to business as usual: “Defend the status quo! You have
to vote for me because my opponent is even worse!”
It didn’t work.
Interviews with Trump voters reveal that although many of them were indeed
racist, many others were not (a large portion of them had previously voted
for Obama). But they were enraged at the national political establishment
that had abandoned them and they wanted somebody to “shake it up” and “clean it
out.” Bernie spoke to those feelings, Hillary did not. Since Bernie wasn’t on
the ballot, they decided to send a big “fuck you” message by voting for the
other supposed “outsider,” who had at least claimed that he would do just that.
Many others did not go that far, but they sent a similar message by staying
home. Many others, of course, did vote for Hillary, including most of the
Bernie supporters; but the enthusiasm was not there.
The Democratic Party
establishment bears the ultimate blame for this miserable outcome. Millions of
people know this and they are now trying to figure out what to do about it: how
to break up the party machine, how to wean the party from its corporate dependence
and transform it so that it can help address the challenges we face. I wish
them well, but it won’t be easy to get rid of such an entrenched and corrupt
bureaucracy — particularly since many elements of that bureaucracy will now be
posing as heroes resisting the Trump administration. It will be difficult for
this party to retain any credibility if it does not at least rally
to a Sanders-type progressive program. That kind of program is far from a
sufficient solution to the global crises we face, but it could at least claim
to be a step in the right direction. Anything less will be a farce.
Meanwhile, with the
Republicans’ monopoly control over the government, even those who normally
focus on electoral politics must realize that for some time to come the main
struggle will be outside the parties and outside the government. It will be
grassroots participatory actions or nothing.
New movements of
protest and resistance will develop during the coming weeks and months,
responding to this bizarre and still very unpredictable new situation. At this
point it’s hard to say what forms such movements will take, except to note that
just about everyone seems to recognize that our number-one priority will be
defending blacks, Latinos, Muslims, LGBTQs, and others most directly threatened
by the new regime.
But we will also need
to defend ourselves. The first step in resisting this regime is to avoid
getting too caught up with it — obsessively following the latest news about it
and impulsively reacting to each new outrage. That kind of compulsive media
consumption was part of what led to this situation in the first place. Let’s
treat this clown show with the contempt it deserves and not forget the
fundamental things that still apply — picking our battles, but also continuing
to nourish the personal relations and creative activities that make life
worthwhile in the first place. Otherwise, what will we be defending?
Ultimately, as soon as
we can recover our bearings, we’ll have to go back on the offensive. We were already
going to have to face severe global crises during the coming decades. Maybe
this disaster will shock us into coming together and addressing those crises
sooner and more wholeheartedly than we would have otherwise, with fewer
illusions about the capacity of the existing system to save us.
BUREAU OF PUBLIC
SECRETS
November 16, 2016
http://www.bopsecrets.org/recent/trump.htmNovember 16, 2016
