Back in 2010, looking at Obama’s actions in his first term, I predicted the next president after him would be a “right wing populist.” (Scare quotes in original.)
Biden appears to have given up on the $15 minimum wage. He’s cut the promised $2,000 check to 1,400 and said that he’s OK with means testing it. He opened a new “children’s detention center” (aka: kids in cages.) He doesn’t want to forgive student loans, something he could do entirely on his own authority.
Now Obama did make 8 years, since he was very smooth, but he lost seats, including c.1K state level seats, then the US got Trump in 2016. Electorally, the only wings Obama had after 08, were for himself.
In 2024, Republicans are likely to be able to say, and be telling the truth, that “Trump gave you more money than Biden.” Trump himself may run, and stand a good chance of winning. If it’s Hawley, he’ll have the Trump base and be able to accurately say he fought for $15 and larger Covid relief checks.
But Democrats, again, are refusing to make a positive case for electing them. They refuse to do big, obviously good things for the majority of Americans, so the argument will be “we’re better than /them/.”
Works, till it doesn’t. Running on fear generally loses to running on Hope. Obama ran on Hope in 2008, but Dems since then have run on “we aren’t Republicans.”
People prefer hope to fear when voting.
So my bet is that the next President of the US will be a Republican “right wing populist.” The only possible antidote would be someone like AOC getting the nod. She has problems, but she can run a campaign of hope. However, it’s clear that the Democrats will do everything up to an including cheating to avoid a progressive as Presidential candidate, and I strongly suspect that Democratic apparatchniks, like their UK Labour compatriots, would actively work against a progressive presidential candidate, preferring a Republican win.
Hope everyone’s looking forward to Trump again, or Trump 2.0.
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Astrid
By 2024, the Left-Right realignment may be well underway, so that we can have Hawley-Gabbard v. Harris-(Mayer Pete or whatever purported “moderate” Republican or Democrat taking Biden’s spot on the ticket).
Or maybe papa Trump will insist on running Ivanka-Jared. Hey they’re an attractive couple, they never betrayed him, Israel approves of them, they seem reasonable to the average low info voter. And just think of the savings on state dinner placemats by uniting 4 roles into 2!
The non-Harris ticket will win by a landslide. Even some of my PMC friends might be shaken out of their condition and vote for any other alternative.
I might be living in a refugee center in Shanghai or Corsica or Ottawa by then.
Chiron
The British Empire never ended, the US Empire and the Anglosphere (5 eyes) is simply the continuation of what is a 19th century neoliberal imperial project to dominate the world. This is obvious by looking the Anglo media (even the so called “Left” rags like The Guardian) who follow the same imperial narrative. Neoliberalism will only die when the Anglosphere loses its power and influence.
Ed
By being unwilling to break the filibuster, Manchin and Sinema have handed the 2022 and 2024 elections to McConnell. He now controls the agenda and he has publicly declared that even if it’s a good idea from the Dems, he won’t let it pass. So, honestly, I don’t care what Biden promises or tries to deliver. Biden is already irrelevant. McConnell, enabled by those two senators, will just pull the football away again. Biden can compromise and back off his promises all he wants, and it won’t pass. McConnell wants the Federal Government to be broken, and the Dems, by not dumping the filibuster, have ensured he gets it. Even better for McConnell, the average voter blames the president, not the minority leader of the Senate, so he can do all the evil he wants and still come out on top.
bruce wilder
We are assuming that a constitutional majority of the electorate will keep showing up to “throw the bums out” and/or the Republican Party will don the brown shirts to become a working class Party now that the Dems are fully and solely committed to being the Party of the globalizing, financializing PMC. Hawley, though still lacking charismatic skills, is smart enough to bet on something like this scenario, so we have a face. And, Harris and Mayo Pete have conveniently emerged as the faces of an authoritarian Democratic Party, ready to turn the woke screw.
I am going to argue that there is a way more than non-zero chance that the constitutional framework cracks open under the stress of a combination of military failure or dollar failure. Ian has been prophesizing such for so long that it might be hard to see just how close a Biden Administration is to jumping off those cliffs.
Some here have refused to accept the reality of the PMC “deep state” or the alliance of its various components with the Democratic Party. But, here we are moving ahead full-speed and in a straight-line toward active suppression of “domestic terrorists” at home. Abroad, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela — just too much fun!”
The COVID vaccines are being promoted even as we write, as the new addictive drugs: an endless series of booster shots against “the variants”.
Both the dollar and the euro are in unexplored territory. Italy has an unelected leader again — a Goldman Sachs alumni and MIT PhD — as the deflationary euro threatens to draw Italy and the whole European economy down the drain.
If the U.S. had leadership willing to slam into full-speed, full-reverse on Empire, it might control what is coming, but these fools will resist, extend and pretend until the crack-up.
And, I think four years is plenty of time for the crack up to multiply its domains.
Cesar
“Next US President,” seems pretty hopeful. Not to seem too sensationalist, but there is a tremendous risk of system failure. I think Bruce Wilder above mentions dollar and military risk. I think the former is the constant state, the equilibrium, and the latter is the exogenous force that disrupts it.
Just this past week it seemed the bond vigilantes were back. The marginal foreign buyers of US debt disappeared. Of course the Fed has already put all the “market tools” in place after the last 13 years of crisis (and last year of collapse) to keep the music playing. So the system has found its equilibrium, the currency will continue to be debased at the financial level, inflation will be directed towards asset values, rich get rich and poor get poorer, etc.
What holds this treacherous balancing act up? I would contend it’s the coercive power of the American system. People have said that the US fights wars to the benefit of its military industrial complex. I think that’s the old way of looking at things. The US is now going to fight wars to uphold the facade of its military superiority and the facade of its imperial dominance. Dropping a few bombs in Syria and keeping troops in Afghanistan is less about MIC profits and more about preventing a system that excludes us from emerging.
And so in my opinion the risk of military failure isn’t just measured in volunteer force body bags this time around. I think it could precipitate the reevaluation of America’s coercive capabilities. And if that’s questioned, who knows what happens in 4 years?
I got myself all “Cassandra’d” up.
Astrid
@Ed:. Let’s not pretend that what McConnell wants is any different from what Biden/Harris/Pelosi/Schumer wants. Even if the Dems had a 65 or 80 Senate majority, they would figure out a way to not delivery anything of value to Main Street. Meanwhile, it would be a lot easier to do the “grand bargain” on Social Security and start more wars for “democracy” with that sort of majority. I’d want better Democrats a lot sooner than I’d want more Democrats.
@Bruce: like you said on the previous thread, I don’t think the US political and policy blob has enough understanding to comprehend what’s coming. They’re not pretending and extending, they literally don’t know any better and think they’re doing a heck of a job.
They really believe anyone is better than Trump, even someone who is objectionable for exactly the same reasons that they find Trump objectionable. They really believe it’s transphobic to point out that men and women are biologically different. They really believe that anyone against open borders is racist. They really believe that it’s the US’s duty to stand up to Russia and China on behalf of Uighurs and Pussy Riot. They really believe Woody Allen is irredeemable for something that a disinterested official inquiry cleared him of 30 years ago. They really believe things have gotten better in the last 40 years because we now have non-binary non-white protagonists on TV. They really believe Obama and Harris have something to do with the very real struggles faced by American black and Hispanic communities, when Obama had no slave ancestors and was raised by his upper middle class white grandparents and Harris was raised by her Indian professor mom.
They’re highly credentialed idiots who really believe what they’re selling.
Plague Species
I had a dream last night. I dreamt McDonald Trump was black and his body lay a-mouldering in its grave. But he’s not lalck and instead of his body laying a-mouldering in its grave, it’s stuffing itself with McDonald’s Happy Meals and it’s golfing and attending CPAC conferences where Ted Cruz brags about and jokes about Cancun and where McDonald taunts Americans with a prospective 2024 presidential run.
https://furry.substack.com/p/keeping-america-safe
Astrid
Cesar, I agree. The best known faces of MIC – Boeing, Raytheon, KBR, General Dynamics, etc, are small fries in the overall economy. Their market valuation is small enough that private equity and “activist shareholders’ can buy substantial stakes in them and meddle. By themselves, they can buy a few retired generals and maybe a few ex-congressmen, and they’re certainly significant in Congressional districts where they’re concentrated like SoCal and Florida. but they can’t dictate policy by themselves.
But the MIC is also tied up with oil, agricultural, tech, pharma, and banking interests. These multnationals need the US military to back up SWIFT, USD petrodollars, the international patent/copyright regime, and the international arbitration/trade regime.
The problem with this strategy is that the more you see the US military, the less scary they seem. They haven’t won a war since WWII. Where they did “win” historically, they were allied with countries that were willing to fight harder and more desperately. Starting more unnecessary wars (because what’s useful in Syria or Venezuela beven Iran these days, when oil prices are still quite low) they can’t win puts the US in a weaker position.
But that probably require knowledge that these people no longer have. All they know is that they have money/power/credentials, so they must be smart/right.
edmondo
The only possible antidote would be someone like AOC getting the nod. She has problems,
Her biggest problem is that she is the next Obama. All sweet talk while she advances the elites’ agenda. She showed who she was with the Pelosi re-election. I hate Trump and I’d vote for him before AOC. I like my fascists straight up
anon
Sanders, AOC, and other cities progressives need to be vocal and fight to have the $15 minimum wage included in the relief package. If Sanders doesn’t hold Biden to his promise on $15 this will prove to progressive voters that we can’t count on Sanders or the Squad for anything that is meaningful. It makes me doubt how effective Sanders would have been as president if he can’t fight for $15 or vote against Neera Tanden. For once I want to be proven wrong that Sanders and the Squad are all talk and no action.
edmondo
” If Sanders doesn’t hold Biden to his promise on $15 this will prove to progressive voters that we can’t count on Sanders or the Squad for anything …”
LOL. Where have you been for the last five years? What has this crew ever produced for you other than twitter coups and campaign contribution requests? Follow the Benjamins. Bernie still has $16 million in his 2020 presidential account. Ask him why.
Jason
Ian’s 2010 post ended with this:
There will be various break-points along the way, where decisions can be made which will make a difference but I think it’s close to impossible to avoid a failed Obama presidency and a right wing backlash against that Presidency. Once the right wing fails, there will be another chance, a slight one, to turn things around.
Good news. Just forwarded this to JoeKam et al. Turns out they weren’t aware this is how things work. Expect lots of positive maneuvers over the next 30-45 days.
They also rightly lambasted me for taking leave of those timeless words of wisdom: Good things come to those who wait.
I’m off to brunch.
Ché Pasa
But they are Republicans, Rockefeller Republicans c. 1964. Ie: the “Sane Party” as opposed to those icky radicals on the other side.
This is how far we’ve come.
There is no Leftist party. There is a semi-moderate Rightist party and a coming-apart-at-the-seams radical reactionary party in bed with fascists and Nazis eager to blow it all up for the chance to seize absolute power.
Dems are in no mood to obliterate the remnant R party. Old Joe thinks there are “good people” to be found among the ruins and like Obama, he’ll probably try to revive the corpse.
The good news is that with these two divorced-from-the-People (and Reality) parties struggling with one another for supremacy, there’s a perfect opportunity for a genuine People’s Party to come into existence, but it won’t happen by trying to fuse with the fascists.
Probably won’t happen at all due to a general failure of imagination, but it could.
coloradoblue
So what Ian and several others here are saying is, all of the “Biden WILL be like FDR,” and “Biden SHOULD be like FDR” articles (Salon, NY Magazine, The Nation, NPR, Foreign Policy Magazine, and too many newspapers to mention) thought the Dems had finally learned the lesson for 40 years of failure, would stop bargaining with themselves, would actually STAND for something that would help all Americans. Surprise! “Nah gonna happen” as Dana Carvey predicted. The young Dems seem to understand what’s wrong, but the Dems who came of age beginning under Reagan, and who are now in their 70s and 80s aren’t going to give up their power, and we’ll all tumble further down the rabbit hole because of them.
Willy
Biden SHOULD be like FDR but worries too much about donor money and political assassination and these days, actual assassination by political nutjobs. Not just because the polling suggests it, but because it’s been repeatedly proven to work.
bruce wilder
When FDR was Biden’s age now, he’d been dead 15 years.
Feral Finster
The first party to adopt a fiscally liberal andsocially moderate-to-conservative platform will be winning a lot of elections. At risk of beating the issue to death, Huey P. Long.
The problem is that nobody of influence and authority will stand for it.
Philip S Martin
I doubt Trump will be the nominee in 2024. He doesn’t need to be. I think he’d be happier and freer to be the grey eminence, the power behind the throne. It is better to be the kingmaker than the king. He has all the adulation and subservience he needs right now, out of power, and none of the responsibilities.
And then there’s Melania to consider. And the various criminal probes.
My best guess is that Hawley, Cotton, Greene, Haley, Kinziger, and Sasse all compete for the 2024 nomination. Pence, I doubt it. And then some we don’t know. The Trump-backed candidate will get the nod. It will be Hawley or Cotton. Greene is good VP material, useful for saying things that are better not said by the top of the ticket.
edmondo
“When FDR was Biden’s age now, he’d been dead 15 years.”
And Kamala sits patiently by the window, awaiting the inevitable call.
Cesar
@Astrid, I agree that it is a senseless strategy, one that even the most fervent imperialist should question. Perhaps it is, as you noted, the result of some generational knowledge gap. I think it is this as well as the wholesale purchase of their own propaganda narratives. They got “high on their own supply”, the narcotic being their own propaganda.
To be honest I think we are all victim to this, even those of us that reject the lies, and it clouds our analysis. Hence my retort that it may be too hopeful to think there’ll be a next President. That assumes that there is a permanence to American power that will allow it to gloss over the increasingly aggravated pressures that surround it and neuter it.
I do think that the historical moment is unique for the American project, if it continues it will be as a different entity than the one we’ve inhabited. This transformation may be a collapse. And if so that collapse isn’t a tragedy. It is necessary. In my opinion our part in this collapse shouldn’t be that of the romantic revolutionary manning the ramparts. Rather we should ignore and delegitimize the system and seek out survival in parallel systems or escape if possible. So there maybe a next President of the US; he may be a Fascist, a Liberal, in our modern context I’m at a loss for material (not rhetorical) distinctions between those options. There may be a multitude of would be Guaidos claiming the “presidency”. But personally I’m not participating in the charade any more. My part in this play is of the audience member that snores loudly. Perhaps let’s out a fart.
Z
Yes, Kamalala stands poised, and heavily amped up on amphetamines, to lead the fight against all the misogynist racists who dare to rebel against our rulers’ diktats. And “our” un-elected “leader”, as in not even earning one single delegate in the democratic presidential primary and slated to come in sixth place in her own home state before she dropped out, will be brave and noble in that fight our rulers’ media is poised to report.
Z
different clue
@Cesar,
The kind of survival and hard-times-withstanding information which people will hopefully keep bringing to the Surviving Hard Times growing thread may help people in doing that.
There might also be a role for people who are so “over it all” that they quietly sneak out of the theater altogether and try evolving entirely separate totally parallel endurance-communities hiding in plain sight here and there.
If politics can still produce sought-for and desired outcomes at the state/county/regional/inter-county/town and city/ etc. levels, then politics might well still be practiced at those levels. Perhaps the politics of organized survivalism-friendliness and facilitation, ” Transition Town”, ” Power-Down”, etc.
The Mormon habit of food storage and parallel social-economic systems should perhaps be studied and re-applied. Perhaps the “Mormon Stake” system can inspire other groups to have their own ” Other Group Stake” systems. Every Parish can have its Parish Stake, every Union Local can have its Union Local Stake, etc. etc.
Z
Required,
No, she has a Jewish hubby though and was backed by the Harvey Weinstein “donor class” to replace Boxer and I’d imagine there is a lot “intersectionality” between Hasbara-bots like yourself and the KHive.
Z
Z
Required,
Funny you should write something as dumbass as this …
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-betrayal-at-the-heart-of-sanders-aoc-and-corbyns-refusal-to-use-power/#comment-124435
on a day in which (1) the U.S. bombed supposed Iranian facilities in Syria and the top three people in the State Department are all Jewish: Tony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland; and (2) the Jewish Chief of Staff Ron Klain informs us that the vice president, who has a Jewish hubby, will side with the parliamentarian over millions of U.S. workers instead of forcing a bill with a $15 minimum wage in it while he is “fighting his guts out” for Tanden to head the OMB, a person who destroyed a union when she headed CAP and tailored that organization to appease AIPAC, Mikey $B, and other rich Jewish donors.
Not to mention that Corbyn was felled by ridiculous antisemitism charges that only a Hasbara-bought like you would ever believe, Sanders’ candidacy was sunk by a coordinated move to have a slew of candidates drop out after he criticized AIPAC and got the other candidates to do the same before they were brought to heel by the democratic “donor class” which is dominated by Jewish money. And we can still hear the echoes in our ears from Jewish economists and pundits Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Thomas Friedmann, Steven Rat-tner, and Jason Furman all tell us that $1400 checks to a hundred million U.S. citizens could lead to economic disaster while they sat on their asses and said not one f*ing word while the Fed, which was headed by Jewish people for over 30 very damaging years, lines the pockets of the hedge fund class, which is also dominated by Jewish people.
Nothing to see here though, no it’s all just all due to meritocracy of course and these people have the best interests of the U.S. in mind. No doubt.
Z
bruce wilder
the collapse of the Empire cum global garrison state and the dollar as global currency and tool of financialization and imprudent off-shoring, by removing the raison d’etre and leverage of the American overclass, would involve some damaging chaos, but could also entail relief for many foundational domestic communities drained to fund and people the superstructure.
there are real practical reasons for those in communities enduring the end of empire to hurry the collapse by de-legitimizing elite claims to authority and power
Cesar
@different clue
You’re quite right and well said. I apologize for my muddled communication. I don’t think we should resign ourselves to a dark fate. I think that our agency is better used outside of American electoral politics. Gauging your words, I think we’d both agree that the political realm is far greater than just voting.
I do think that the construct of “United States of America”, and “American” are roadblocks to progress. There is for instance no hope of a socialist United States because the two notions are antithetical to each other. The antithesis to socialism wouldn’t be capitalism, but rather America (capitalism incarnate).
I don’t think there is hope for revolution. No ramparts. So the best hope is devolution. And we can all do our part by starting with personal delegitimization of the system. Recognize we are an occupied people.
Seattle Resident
@Philip S Martin My doubts on Trump running stem primarily from his age: even though he would be the same age as Biden is now, he arguably would be a much more unhealthy and less functional version of 78 given his obesity and diet. It may have been shade he was throwing, but Bannon, in an recent interview, said that he thought Trump was suffering from early stage dementia and wanted to use the 25th amendment to remove him. He’s supposedly had a minor stroke or two. Unless he miraculously has Keith Richards stamina, I don’t think he’ll have the jam to run again.
To potential Republicans running in 2024, I would add….Liz Cheney. I think her public opposition to Trump, like Kinzinger’s, was an opening salvo for a Presidential run. Her dad’s connections to corporate dollars and elite support will be of huge support to a potential campaign. I think “Hillbilly Karen” Greene is too much of a loose cannon to garner support for a Presidential candidacy.
@anon, I think Sanders, AOC, Ilhan Omar and others have been very vocal in demanding the $15 minimum wage, but Biden has been has usual indifferent to the demands of progressives. At least Sanders is working tweaking the legislation to make the $15 more palatable.
Re Ian’s opinion’s on who could win the 2024 presidential race, I think another factor besides the Biden administration’s failure to deliver economic benefits is a possible failure to pass the John Lewis voting rights act — republican dominated legislatures have voter suppression bills brewing in about 43 states. Severely cutting into the democratic base of blacks, youth and the left in the urban areas with such legislation – the people that decided the 2020 election – will make it very difficult for the dems to hold their majorities in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024, even if the presidency delivers the economic benefits.
There appears to be brewing an elite battle on the republican side – The Trump faction vs. I guess you could say a more basic conservative faction (Cheney, Kinzinger) that agrees with much of the Trump side but wants a less intolerant, a less in your face rabble rousing and authoritarian, and a non violent version that doesn’t create center/left unity (2020 election results) or have the loony crazies destroy the republican brand in the long run.
A lot of time for things to play out till 2024- the Trump faction overplaying their hand with more racism and violence, the economic situation, the pandemic-I think Biden believes the righting the vaccine supply and distribution issues will overcome any failure to deliver economic benefits and help him hold the center, which I think he is solely mistaken on given the amount of economic desperation and the willingness of the republican opposition with its mouthpieces to bash him and offer its own bogus bromides.
I’ll take care to try to stock up food, water, and meds for the possible catastrophes to come.
Ché Pasa
Take care to understand what Cesar is saying here.
Salvation will not be found in electoral politics — even if eventually your favored candidate wins. There will be no revolution from the Left (nor from the “left”) but there is another one in the works from the Reactionary Right, and there is little “we” can do individually to stop it.
We do have collective and individual agency outside the System that produces such results, however. We may not be able to untie ourselves entirely from that System, but we don’t have to be completely at its mercy, either.
Letting go is a key.
Cesar
Ché Pasa,
I believe our host, Ian, had commented on the artificiality of things many take to be “natural”. For instance the belief that “markets” are reflections of natural law and not social constructs that reflect our societal values. Similarly, governmental legitimacy is a social construct. To some extent it may have a more solid material foundation than the fiction of markets, as governments that don’t serve their citizens have a historical tendency to expire.
I think that small deluded reserve of Americans that think their national woes were the result of 4 years of mismanagement will have that notion heavily challenged in short order. Judging by the US Covid death toll since January. Noting Biden’s reluctance to do anything material to stop the despoiling of the American people, where are the checks? Witnessing Biden’s reluctance to do a minimally symbolic act, such as letting the kids out of cages. And finally his enthusiasm for violence abroad. They’re going to have a hard time with the “lesser of two evils” argument. As a quick tangent, I think the focus on IDpol is a (poor) stratagem by liberals to claim a moral high ground they have no more claim to then those on the Right.
Who the next President, Caudillo, whatever, of America is, shouldn’t be a consideration people plan around anymore. I don’t think Sanders was a truly ambitious candidate, and like all Western “socialists” is a bit infected in the head with the liberal (mis)understanding of power. But he did provide the possibility of a change of trajectory. I think within the CONFINES of America we will never have that possibility again. And so for us the stakes of the next American presidency are like the stakes of the next Super Bowl. Unless your name is Tom Brady, we have to remember that after every Super Bowl Sunday, there is a Monday morning.
So back to legitimacy. I don’t imagine anyone wants to be a martyr and so I wouldn’t dare imagine that the power of the American regime be challenged directly by anyone not commanding a military. But I think the first thing we can all do is find our act of passive resistance or defiance. The very first, as you said, is letting go. Recognizing that legitimacy is a social construct and you don’t have to believe in it. Certainly you can’t “untie” yourself completely, but this recognition is a huge start. It is dormant most of the time but gets tested at the limits we are fast hurling towards. For instance would you take up arms to defend this system?
It’s not like we are East German border guards that decide not to man our posts. Unless you have the analogous position, in which case do that.
S Brennan
Kamala has to wait until after the mid-terms, whereupon she, as Hillary’s puppet, may ascend the throne and rule for 10 years.
I don’t think Trump will run as the Republican nominee because the rumpR’s hate his guts as much as any poster here does…btw, they thank you for your service in ridding the party of Trump…he was a very inconvenient man. Too funny…watching the “left” play the role of Bush/Cheney/Romney’s step’n-fetch-its. Briefly:
1] RumpR’s make money on the deindustrialization of the US to China just like the neoD’s do. Who-TF do you think started US deindustrialization? NeoDs are just following the lead of rump-Rs. BTW, they thank the commenters here for supporting rumpR policy by opposing everything Trump did in this area.
2] RumpR’s want unlimited immigration just like the posters here do, Who-TF do you think started mass immigration? Who-TF do you think started H1-Bs? NeoDs are just following the lead of rump-Rs. BTW, they thank the commenters here for supporting rumpR policy by opposing everything Trump did in this area.
3] RumpR’s want ceaseless neocolonial wars, Who-TF do you think started the ceaseless neocolonial wars? NeoDs are just following the lead of rump-Rs. BTW, they thank the commenters here for supporting rumpR policy by opposing everything Trump did in this area.
Essentially, the “lefties” on this comment section serviced the needs of rumpR’s by denigrating Orange-Hitler’s policies at every turn instead of examining each on it’s own merits. Mitch McConnell would award each of you a medal if he could…but he won’t because, that would give the game away.
The only thing that could possibly stop Hillary’s plot to rule for 10-years thru her puppet, Kamala is…well…the answer my friends, is blowing in the wind.
Without exception, the commenters here vocally supported Kamala’s installation as ruler for ten years…and don’t give me that Bernie shit…Bernie took a dive right on schedule in 2020 EXACTLY as he did in 2016, the emails that prove this were in the public domain since 2017. Had Trump won the 2020 election, there could have been REAL D options in 2024. Now eat your shit-sandwich quietly…forget the checkers to chess analogy…you guys couldn’t think far enough ahead to play tic-tac-toe.
2032 is a long time away…and honestly, barring a miracle, I don’t see a way out at this point, the “left-liberal-Pregressive” wing of this country has played into the hand of the neoD/rumpR party [singular intended], the National Security State [NSS] and it’s subsidiary, the Ministry of Enlightenment [media].
different clue
Here is an article from over at NaCap about how Governor Cuomo himself caused many thousands of extra covid deaths in New York City. After reading the article, I think Cuomo is exactly the kind of man that the Democrats would love to put on a ticket with Kamalabama in 2024.
https://theweek.com/articles/966553/resign-andrew-cuomo
Astrid
At this point, I definitely don’t expect a left savior. There is a small chance of something sane coming out of the populist right wing. Mostly I am just hoping for a regime that keeps the implosion relatively contained and don’t think threatening first strike nuclear capabilities against “disagreeable” countries is a great idea. Right now, both the D and R blobs are high in their own supply of propaganda and so are their billionaire owners. These people might really be stupid enough to believe a “limited” nuclear war is survivable for them in their New Zealand bolt holes and underground bunkers.
mistah charley, ph.d.
reading ian’s remarks and the comments here so far, i am reminded of george carlin’s advice, part of his analysis of the american dream in article 41001 at informationclearinghouse:
It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.
only mass organized action – or inaction, like a general strike – could make an important difference, and the large-scale acceptance of The Big Lie of trump’s stolen election makes that even less likely –
so one may as well tend one’s own garden, and/or if you can swing it, move to canada
here’s a poem my dad recommended to me – he came from canada to the states in 1929
BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL
GEOFFREY CHAUCER 1340-1400
Flee from the crowd and dwell with truthfulness:
Suffice thee with thy goods, tho’ they be small:
To hoard brings hate, to climb brings giddiness;
The crowd has envy, and success blinds all;
Desire no more than to thy lot may fall;
Work well thyself to counsel others clear,
And Truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
Torment thee not all crooked to redress,
Nor put thy trust in fortune’s turning ball;
Great peace is found in little busy-ness;
And war but kicks against a sharpened awl;
Strive not, thou earthen pot, to break the wall;
Subdue thyself, and others thee shall hear;
And Truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
What God doth send, receive in gladsomeness;
To wrestle for this world foretells a fall.
Here is no home, here is but wilderness:
Forth, pilgrim, forth; up, beast, and leave thy stall!
Know thy country, look up, thank God for all:
Hold the high way, thy soul the pioneer,
And Truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
Therefore, poor beast, forsake thy wretchedness;
No longer let the vain world be thy stall.
His mercy seek who in his mightiness
Made thee of naught, but not to be a thrall.
Pray freely for thyself and pray for all
Who long for larger life and heavenly cheer;
And Truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
[Modern version by HENRY VAN DYKE]
Astrid
It’s good to see you mistah charley! I will say one of the balms of my day is Chris M’s Twitter feed. I miss fafblog, a lot.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mammothfactory?lang=en
Get your bitterness with a heaving helping of cute animals.
different clue
@mistah charley, ph.d.,
I somehow feel as if I remember hearing/reading your name from back in the past. As covid-constrained screen-time permits, I will take a look at your blog.
In a country of 350 million, it won’t take all 350 million to get something done about stuff. One hundred million people heavily informed down to a granular level of little detail, and operating with a shared set of reality-based understandings of how the current world they live in is actually working, might be enough in a “non-violent” Leaderless Obstruction and Leaderless Underminement sort of way to begin tearing down certain Bad Actor Overclass Leadership Sectors to where we can meet them on equal or superior terms on the field of socio-cultural and political-economic combat to the “strictly non-violent” extermination of one side or the other.
But that would require those One Hundred Million People to use some of the very few years remaining to develop and aquire and operationalize and viralize and weaponise that information for dissemination and “non-violent” active offensive use.
Part of what the information building on Ian Welsh’s ” Hard Times Preparation” thread may allow those Hundred Million People to secure the home front.
In the coming long twilight struggle between the cleanie greenies and the sooty coalies, the cleanie greenies will have to create and secure their own home front stable survival economy if they hope to tear down and destroy the sooty coalie economy fast enough to enhance everyone’s survival chances.
different clue
Here is an example from a different context of the sort of distributed multiple microleader-led
economic combat designed to carry a particular battle to the heart of a particular enemy.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9ag4/schools-are-abandoning-invasive-proctoring-software-after-student-backlash
These teachers and parents were not organized from above or the side by self-appointed vanguard politicrats and activists. They understood their issue and problems granularly enough to take action on their own which spread around by example.
If a bad-actor company ends up exterminated because of it, then decent ordinary people can take inspiration from that fact and that example.