226 / 312: An Exercise in Self-Destruction

It's infuriating watching the Democratic Party learn all the wrong lessons from the election. What we do next depends on whether this gets fixed.

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I knew it was going to be bad.

No political party excels at tearing itself apart like the modern Democrats. This is, and has always been, one of the most neurotic and self-hating entities politics has ever seen, and the absolute drumming on Election Day ensured we were going to watch them rip and gnaw at themselves unlike ever before. But even I was shocked by what has unfolded.

I guess, in a way, I thought that maybe there would be a period of stunned silence. A lot of hand-wringing over the abysmal performance, maybe even some performative penance. Instead, there was lashing out. Moderate Democrats and the Never Trump Republicans who have pushed the party into the wreckage of neoconservativsm immediately blamed the “woke Left,” gay and trans people, beat the drum on the asinine “debate” over women’s sports. Liberals on social media began relishing in the idea of Black, Hispanic, Palestinian, and queer people being herded into camps under the second Trump Administration. The delusional fantasies I’ve talked about were on full display. Obviously the only solution to any of this, they argued, was for the party to continue its rightward trajectory and attempt to meet the Make America Great Again project, and the worldwide authoritarian movement, somewhere in “the middle.”

What hasn’t been discussed much, you might notice, is capitalism. Or, rather, the hypercapitalism unleashed by the Neoliberal project that the Democratic Party helped create and has championed for decades now, all while occupying that “middle” we’re now talking about. This is the case for a few reasons, chief among them that the operators and strategists and politicians doing the talking are, and have always been, stewards and beneficiaries of that system. Expecting them to affect an understanding and, ultimately a criticism, of that system is like expecting tobacco executives to populate the anti-tobacco movement. It simply isn’t realistic and is, on its face, an absurdity.

Like the Republican Party, which, as a Right Wing entity, is predicated on pushing poisonous racism, sexism, and nativism, all filtered through trauma-activating conspiracy theories, to deflect blame from their wealth class benefactors who pull the string, the Democratic Party’s main voices are reacting to all of this by deflecting that blame and, in turn, becoming more and more conservative and Right Wing as they do it. The Democrats have participated in a wild realignment since the 1980’s as they sought to become more like Ronald Reagan and the GOP, creating an unbalanced and destructive paradigm.

Because we live in a duopolistic state where our media and political entities obscure or simply misunderstand that paradigm, this is what we have been told is the actual alignment of our politics.

And here’s what we actually have.

This fundamental misunderstanding creates an absolute disaster in which the GOP continues its rightward, fascistic drive and the Democratic Party, along with its adherents and acolytes, follow them. As this happens, the vast majority of Americans are left without representation. The numbers make it obvious. An overwhelming number of voters believe the following things: 1. the country is headed in the wrong direction. 2. We should invest in education, healthcare, and other social programs benefiting citizens. 3. Our system is corrupt and failing. Rather than addressing these things and giving actual outlets, the Democrats have tried to reassure voters that everything is actually fine, save for the threat of Donald Trump, that our institutions and systems are operating well and that any notion otherwise is borne from ignorance, and, if we could just get it together, stop whining, and accept technocratic inputs, it will all work out.

Here is some tough love: this is a managerial standpoint. It shouldn’t be a surprise as the Democratic Party shifted away from its base of labor, the working class, and BIPOC Americans in the 1980’s and embraced neoliberal capitalism and the emerging professional managerial class. What you are hearing from the party, what you are being presented by the party, is essentially what you would hear from a middle-manager of upper management official in your workplace who presents terrible news, tells you they “feel your pain,” and, with some hard work, doubling-down, and a stiff upper-lip, the people in charge will manage to land the plane.

Considering this, it’s hardly a surprise the party got its ass kicked and now finds itself in a period of denied self-flagellation in favor of blaming “self-absorbed” and “myopic” people who don’t know better and should just let the experts and professionals do their jobs.

So, let’s break down the excuses we’ve heard so far and really sit with the consequences that are laid out ahead of us if this party continues down this path.

It’s An Anti-Incumbent Environment

Of course it is. After four years of Joe Biden telling us that he would put America right and the Republican Party would “wake up,” it’s hardly surprising that we find ourselves here, especially after members of the Democratic Party (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) torpedoed his agenda on behalf of their corporate overlords. Self-styled analysts will point to election results around the world and say this one just followed that trend. That sounds pertinent until you really start breaking down the truth of the matter.

This explanation hides some crucial information. The reason why neoliberal bodies have been failing in recent elections is not because voters are just swinging wildly (which they are), but because neoliberals continue to offer nothing in the way of substantive, widespread change. This has historical precedent and, if you’re looking to learn something, go back into the pre-World War II environment and check out what the moderates and liberals did as Fascists and Nazis gained purchase. They failed to reckon with their own failures, rejected Left and Left-leaning solutions, and handed the keys to authoritarians rather than deal with their own shortcomings.

Voters are not always rational. They don’t necessarily follow politics the way us sickos do. They observe their own lives and experiences. Despite Biden loyalists and Democratic strategists’s attempt online at trying to lecture these people into believing our economy is booming, what they know is that life on an individual level is becoming more and more perilous. When people don’t get their needs met, and when they feel the walls closing in, they oftentimes become terrified and react illogically. Donald Trump is not going to solve these problems - in fact he’ll make them worse - but they were presented with a choice to either vote for what they knew was happening to continue or take a desperate swing. It shouldn’t surprise people what happened.

The GOP has made a cynical but time-tested gambit. Like the Fascists and Nazis before them, they recognized that economically people are desperate and hurting. They offered “solutions” that blended leftist ideas for reformation with Right Wing authoritarian control. That’s how this always works. Absent a rejoinder from liberals, who are ever hesitant to offer one, it’s academic where it leads.

But, while we’re on the subject, maybe these pitiful analysts should consider that saying “we couldn’t win this election” isn’t quite the answer they think it is. They harvested over $1 billion dollars while telling people to trust them to get the job done. If they can’t muster a defense against authoritarianism, and if they see it as largely imminent and unavoidable, maybe it’s time to give someone else a chance.

It’s the Pronouns / the Left / Wokeness

There should be a special place in hell for people who scapegoat some of the most vulnerable people in the world in order to avoid taking personal accountability. Gay and trans people live every day of their lives in this country feeling the full pressure of the Right, the betrayal of the moderates, and understanding that their rights and safety are only as good as the next second they live. That Democrats would repeatedly tell these people they had their backs and then run away from them in the campaign AND then have the temerity to blame them is incredibly disgusting shit.

Let’s be clear about something. There is a huge difference between “the Left” and what people call the Left now, the same as there is a massive chasm between “wokeness” as expressed in our politics and culture and what the actual term means. When it felt like the cultural momentum, following Trump’s first election, was in the direction of a progressive backlash, corporations and politicians put on cultural disguises and cashed in on entertainments, advertisements, and other appeals. What was birthed was a simulacrum of change and progress. It was just a product that made people thirsting for a better world feel like things were getting better. Essentially, with splintering economies (Woke vs. Anti-Woke), you saw liberals and Right Wingers immerse themselves in consumerist pursuits dressed up to look like political action. Over that time, the wealth class pushed the culture further and further Right by chipping away at the actual political components of the facsimile, leaving behind a meaningless husk.

The problem isn’t gay or trans people. These people have been forced to live in a culture that consistently harasses and demeans them and have created their own communities that protect one another. Some likely didn’t even vote in this election because they don’t trust modern parties. And, to be honest, they shouldn’t. The Democratic Party, under advisement from strategists who get paid whether they win or lose, castoff Republicans desperate to turn the Democrats into neoconservatives, and wealth class “advisers” who told them to ally themselves with Goldman Sachs and the Cheneys, ran away from gay and trans people as fast as their legs and billions of dollars could take them, affecting the best impersonation of the Republican Party as they possibly could.

What the Democrats have done, for years now, is pay lipservice to marginalized groups and then throw them under the bus when it comes to time to vote. In 2020, the Democrats tepidly supported the BLM protests - including cringily kneeling while wearing kente scarves - but then rejected even the notion of talking about investing in communities as opposed to continuing to gift law enforcement weapons of war. And then? For years they continually crowed about wanting to give the police even more funding. When students protested the brutality in Gaza, Democrats scrambled over one another to get to a microphone and denounce it and practically cheer on the brutality.

All in all, there is now a feeling that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted by the people who need them most. And that is an earned feeling. If the Harris Campaign, which strategically and euphemistically avoided getting into any of this, wasn’t bad enough, this swell of blame should only further prove the point. The party has moved to the Right, is terminally in bed with former Republicans who ran the party before Trump and created this situation, and, unless something radically changes, will sail the Right Wing winds they helped foster and continue in this direction.

America is Racist and Sexist

No shit? Really? That’s weird, if only there was information on this or over two centuries of history we could acesss or lived experience that could help us understand this. It’s so strange, this is the first I’m hearing about any of this.

Once more, this is some defeatist bullshit that is hard to swallow. So, Democrats want to believe this is somehow the excuse that will stick. But isn’t it something to hear from all these people, many of whom believed Kamala Harris had this thing in the bag, that over a billion dollars spent, all this energy and time, that, when you really look at it, this just wasn’t winnable.

Then what in the hell was all of this? You’re telling me that heading into an election you told us was the most important one in history that you did so with absolutely no chance of winning? And that’s supposed to convince us to trust you and follow you into battle in the future?

God. Goddamn it.

Yes, America is a sexist and racist country. Always has been. From the very moment a bunch of wealthy, racist, sexist assholes laid quill to parchment, this country was constructed to benefit their racist, sexist, classist whims. Here’s something to think about: this country, built on those premises, and focused on tamping down democracy, is working exactly how it’s supposed to work. Which is a hell of a thing to consider when the Democratic Party has now established itself as the protectors of those institutions!

The Democratic Party, since its embrace of Reagnism in the 1980’s, steered itself based on an acceptance of what they called “reality.” For the Clintons and Clintonites, this meant moving to the Right, championing neoliberalism, and shifting away from their traditional base while taking them for granted because, well, Republicans going to Republican. Now we’re being asked to accept a “reality” in which racism and sexism means there’s really nothing to do besides just lean into the racism and sexism.

That’s some defeatist ass bullshit!

I’m not so young that I don’t remember a Black man literally named Barack Hussein Obama II not just winning two terms in office but doing it by carrying states like Iowa and Indiana, the latter of which was controlled by the literal Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century. Obama won promising “hope” and “change,” messages that resonated with people who indeed harbored racist prejudices and other people in states where people are racist because they wanted him to address the crooked system that led to things like the 2008 Financial Collapse. Obama fell short of transforming the system for a lot of the reasons we’re where we are now, but the premise tells us something incredibly important.

You cannot just simply accept that sexism and racism are going to win out constantly. Sexism, racism, xenophobia, nativism, all of it, are ideologies linked to self-service and personal interests. They’re worldviews that allow people to rationalize marginalizing others and lifting themselves in order to secure resources and power. In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized this and, in responding to the Great Depression, grasped that sometimes the answer to rising fascism (which was on the march in the United States as economic conditions deteriorated) was to address the material conditions fueling it. This has been the winning recipe, and arguably the only recipe, in dealing with rising authoritarianism throughout history, especially when combining it with a muscular opposition to demagoguery.

What isn’t the answer? Saying “…but racism and sexism” and just accepting it as immutable facts that can only hinder progress in general. And, for the record, part of the Democratic Party’s failure is tied to a perception that what matters most is ethical and moral superiority, which is baked into the mindset of the current paradigm: Democrats as the party of the professional managerial class that went to college and Republicans continuing to manipulate those who couldn’t afford to go to college. It’s a lot easier to write off tens of millions of human beings as being terrible and stupid than to wrestle with inherent privilege and risk changing things in a way that might make those who have something feel uncomfortable.

For the past eight years most political energy among the liberals has been channeled into expressions of being on the right side of history and championing these causes rather than actually allying itself with people who desperately need them. In this way, hashtag activism and consumer-driven politics has been an absolute disaster. When people point to cancel culture, what they’re talking about is a culling of people from the economic sphere, essentially boycotting, which is meant to decide who deserves a part of the shrinking pie. Rather than talking about, I don’t know, growing that pie, or actually, fundamentally addressing the racist, sexist institutions and and the racist, sexist, economy that has been captured by the oligarchical wealth class, what we’ve seen is a roundabout acceptance of that system and an internal battle over who decides to work within it.

The Republican Party does not want to address any of this. What they are offering is an aggressive, permanent capture of the economy, politics, and culture by the same white, wealthy, sexist class of men who founded the country, but they have figured out, with the direction of that oligarchical wealth class, how to pander to the very people who have been hurt all along. That strategy involves using inherent prejudices, including racism and sexism and nativism and gay and transphobia, to override any rational sense of perception and fill the political vacuum. In other words, assholes like JD Vance and Josh Hawley and Steve Bannon, absolute toadies of the wealth class, have taken advantage of the Democrats’ abandonment of leftism of any kind, and have utilized a simulation of leftism - including an opposition to the disasters of neoliberalism and a deserved distrust of elites who helped make it happen in the first place - to offer a pseudo-leftist solution that dresses up Far Right oligarchical ambitions.

Weird. I seem to have heard of this before.

(The Fascists and the Nazis. I’m talking about the Fascists and the Nazis, who did this exact same thing in the exact same manner).

It’s the Disinformation

Yup. It sure is.

And don’t give me this “people don’t trust the media anymore” stuff either. They shouldn’t! The media is owned by the same wealth class and despite assurances to the contrary, the perspective they offer is through that wealth class’s lens. They do offer skewed reportage. They do carry themselves as a priest class clothed in “objectivity,” whatever in the hell that’s supposed to mean. They continually paint a portrait of a world that doesn’t exist, that marginalizes real and actual concerns about how things are going, and they continually manufacture consent.

What’s more, decades of corporate mergers and consolidation has given us an absolute shitshow of a media environment. Local news and newspapers were destroyed by neoliberalism and that has left information deserts that sometimes are captured by Right Wing media and, most often, are taken over by conspiracy theories that were designed by the oligarchical class to carry out the business I’ve been describing.

To put it another way, why would anyone be shocked that this has happened?

Add to that the neoliberal destruction of public education and a lifetime of earned distrust by politicians and media figures, and you have yourself a perfect environment for this stuff to work. Oh, and a Democratic elitist impulse to believe that anyone who questions the party and the economy they value so highly is simply stupid or uninformed, even while those economic figures are actually measuring how effectively people are being exploited. That…doesn’t get very far and is politically disastrous.

You know what might help? Regulating corporate mergers and the tech giants who profit and promote this stuff. But you wouldn’t want to hamper the “new economy” that the Democratic Party ushered into place when they thought Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were liberal geniuses, would you? And if you wondered why Harris and the Democrats didn’t spotlight Musk’s successful attempt to buy the American presidency, might I suggest it’s the same reason nothing happened to Musk when he conspired with foreign antidemocratic dictators or denied Ukraine Starlink usage in prosecuting its war with Russia or as he spread antisemitic fascistic conspiracy theories: because Musk and other tech oligarchs have become essential components in running the same institutions the Democratic Party now promises to protect.

In other words, they are continually fighting these battles with both arms tied behind their backs. In other words, they can’t make an anti-elite case in order to save democracy beccause they are hopelessly devoted to continuing the status quo these elites and oligarchs have become part of the infrastructure.

People Don’t Care About Democracy

Here’s another hard truth: people don’t care about democracy when they feel like either it isn’t working anyway or that it’s already gone.

For four years people listened to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party talk about the unique threat Republicans and the Supreme Court posed to democracy. There was a lot of talk in speeches and social media posts, but you also didn’t hear much in the way of solutions. Biden rolled out some very tepid ideas for reforming the Supreme Court (an institution there is no reforming) but never followed through on any of them or even really pushed them at all. There was a lot of voicing of disappointment following the overturning of Roe V. Wade, and talks about codifying a woman’s right to choose into law, but there was never a specific plan or actual forceful push. Same when it came to so-called Red States stripping Black people of voting protections. Activists were told to out-organize it while the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party shook their heads.

Once more, these are gestures, not actions. We saw all kinds of clips of January 6th, but no attempts to capture the anti-status quo spirit. A vast majority of Americans believe the Supreme Court is wrong and dangerous. A vast majority of Americans believe our government is corrupted and the wealthy have too much power. Those people were left to either hope the Democrats would eventually take up these causes or throw in their lot with Donald Trump.

Also, while we’re on the subject, it’s kind of hard for people to believe that you’re the last line of defense against an authoritarian movement hellbent on destroying democracy and representing an existential threat to the United States when you dillute that message constantly by taking the stage with members of that party, celebrating war criminals from that party, campaigning that, somehow, you’ll be tougher on Right Wing issues like immigration that power their movement, and when, at a debate, your Vice-Presidential candidate spends the majority of his time talking about how much he agrees with their candidate.

Our representative system is broken. Anyone willing to look sees it. And so simply saying “democracy is on the line” isn’t untrue, it’s just toothless. The Democratic Party has continually shown a desire to defend unjust institutions in order to protect the illusion of legitimacy than they have shown any actual fight to reform them or address the problems that led to democracy and those institutions being threatened in the first place.

It Was Biden

Yeah, a little bit. Biden promised to fix everything and return us to “normal.” Funnily enough, that “normal” is what led us here. His stubborn belief in his ability to bridge divides failed. His inability or unwillingness to stop the atrocities in Gaza hurt things tremendously. And, while we’re on the subject, it might be a good thing for a Democratic Party, in a moment of self-reflection, to kind of take stock of the fact that Biden’s condition was largely kept from us and managed until there was no hiding it anymore. That revelation put the party in a deep, deep hole and hurt trust among the electorate. Not to mention, as President of the United States, it was probably more troubling than anyone wanted to really admit, that we had an executive in decline during an incredibly dangerous and turbulent moment. It was handled exceedingly poorly.

There’s also the fact that Manchin and Sinema’s behaviors in stifling his agenda was never properly addressed. Biden, if capable, needed to give an explanation as to why his agenda stalled out. He should have, and the Democratic Party should have joined him in this, explained that even members of his own party were bought and sold by the oligarchical class. The bully pulpit is there for this very purpose. Instead, he just kind of faltered and people were left to connect the dots and just see it as an ineffective presidency that wasn’t going to get things done. Harris never even bothered to address any of it and, because she was handed the nomination so late in the game, was also hindered by her reliance on Biden Campaign staffing, which led to a faulty strategy of not really being able to draw a distinction besides welcoming more Republicans into her administration.

It was Biden and it wasn’t Biden. Biden has been a fixture in Democratic politics for half a century, and in that time he has been one of the most consistent bellwethers of Democratic politics. He aligned himself with segregationists, neoconservative warhawks, and neoliberal technocrats. The rejection of Biden’s presidency and tenure was based, in part, on a rejection of these Democratic Party trends. He came in promising to be a transformative president, and, in a few cases, actually was. But the remaining parts were disastrous and if anything changes for the better it will take some real and sober scrutiny.

A Crossroads

I’m already so tired of former Republicans who jumped off the GOP ship only because Trump took over their party and chased Neoconservatives out, the same assholes who created this situation in the first place, rebranding themselves as champions of liberty and then, because a lot of people wanted allies in the #resistance, were welcomed in and given the keys to the Democratic ship. What are these people doing now? After a Harris Campaign that attempted to win an election by being more conservative lost horribly, they’re now saying the party needs to move even further to the Right.

Interesting. It’s almost like they came into a house after they got kicked out of theirs and then decided it was time to redecorate and sign over the deed.

With them are moderates and liberals who are a lot more conservative and prejudiced than maybe even they would like to believe. They were happy to go along with “wokeness” and the reactionary period after Trump’s election in 2016 because there was financial and political benefit at the time, but they’re very quickly embracing America’s rightward turn and are revealing their true colors. That’s why you’re getting a lot of this nonsense we’ve discussed in this article. They wanted this and now they’ve got it.

I don’t know if the Democratic Party is going to come to its senses and offer an actual defense of democracy or an actual alternative to Right Wing authoritarianism, or, for that matter, whether they have any desire to. Capitalism drives so much of this and what capitalism wants is an illiberal democracy that serves the interest of the wealth class as they demolish the standard of living, rollback the progress of the 20th century, and realize a state of play that mirrors what people in Russia and Hungary have been surviving. That’s where the headwinds are and the project we’ve seen play out over the past few years has delivered the perfect opportunity.

Maybe the Democrats will get it together. I haven’t seen proof of it yet. Where I see potential right now is in actual populism and solidarity. Labor unions. Coalitions that the Democratic Party has largely ignored. Citizens who are waking up and realizing they can’t rely on politicians to be saviors, special prosecutors to serve as messiahs, who look at “trusted” voices and platforms and realize, with stark horror, they were never what they thought they were.

Those people, namely us, are going to fix this thing in the long run. It will be hard and daunting and harrowing and certainly painful, but that’s how it will work if it works. All these party stooges and privileged voices and grifters who want to hold onto their platforms and income streams by spouting this nonsensical bullshit should be ignored or rejected. And, what’s more, they should be positively ashamed of themselves.

Thanks for all your “work.” We’ll take it from here.