But I hate to underestimate the dark side of the force.
To paraphrase Matt Christman's take from the cushvlogs, a large Biden victory would do the least to contribute to acceleration of social contradictions, which is why it's the most likely outcome. Sure, the Republicans are a short-sighted death cult, but from Global Capital's (muddied) perspective, Trump brings instability that is bad for business. Outside of Trump's inner circle, what do Republicans gain at this point from going fully mask-off fash? They've already secured permanent control of the judiciary.
It will be fascinating to see how the political factions might realign in the event that Trump steps down: where does all this neurotic political energy go after the the lightning rod disappears?
Lmfao the fash is out of the bottle tho. Republicans will not go back to feckless neocon shit bc they don't want wars
Maybe worth opening a thread/struggle sesh about this, but I'm still skeptical on the value of analyzing the Republican party through the lens of fascism. The Republicans haven't made a pivot toward economic populism (lol), nor have we seen a rise of mass politics. QAnon is still scattered old people on the internet treating politics as a TV show, not a participatory struggle. Trump has fascist instincts, perhaps, but he and his cronies are too dumb/lazy to build any para-political infrastructure that would be necessary to negate bourgeois democracy.
IMO they're just far-right capitalist authoritarians who rely on the masses being passive/splintered. Has modern capitalism not moved beyond the need for fascism, considering how gutted the revolutionary left is? Change my view.
I think it really depends a lot on what comes after Trump. These people have proved they can be corralled and influenced pretty easily. They're like those people who take on the traits of whoever they're dating. If the next republican leader ups the fash they'll all follow suit.
That said, I can't imagine what's in it for the GOP if they continue down that road. Obviously too much disruption is bad for business.
Seriously, Y'All Qaeda might have a temporary setback if Trump dies or loses, but thinking they will turn around know and become reasonable is insanity. They're showing us the world they want to run and what they will do to protect it. IMO nothing short of an extreme change in America's social and economic framework can stop the rise of fascism here.
Nobody is saying there's no reason for the GOP to continue their current trajectory, I just think they'll pivot if they lose this election. We're likely to see the economy improve pretty significantly after the pandemic and there's a good chance climate change doesn't really start to impact governmental behavior that dramatically for a while. I think you're definitely right about where things are headed in the long term, but I'm talking more in the immediate future.
I hate to be the "read this article" guy, but Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism nails it on the head. Functionally, there is no difference between mask off fascism and "just far-right capitalist authoritarians who rely on teh masses being passive/splintered".
Fascism has no coherent ideology, it only has aesthetics. At the GOP matches every single one of Eco's 14 points.
Ty for the recommendation, I'll check it out! I realize I'm using a very "historicist" definition of fascism, but aesthetics > ideology seems to make sense.
Republicans will not go back to feckless neocon shit bc they don’t want wars
Ehhh, plenty of Q and MAGA people seem pretty down for war with China. Some even more than the neo-libs/cons. I don’t really think the isolationist, right populist contingent of the Republican Party is big as some people thing. I think Trumps less hawkish behavior is more cuz he’s lazy and doesn’t want to deal with a war.
plenty of Q and MAGA people seem pretty down for war with China
plenty of everyone in the western world is.
In any group to the right of r/genzedong people just deepthroat whatever the US tells the media to say about China.
WMDs 2.0.True to an extent. But I’ll be honest, I think a lot of the more recent Saber rattling is just the DNC and the GOP trying to out big dick each other in foreign policy. Once either party wins cooler heads at the Pentagon are probably gonna have a sit down with the victors and go “okay you know an ACTUAL war with China is a REALLY BAD IDEA! Now that you’re in office maybe tell our media asset to cool it with the anti-China shit before we dig ourselves into something.”
Thing is the DNC has more control of their base than the GOP. If they tell them to cool with the China hate they may actually do it. If the GOP stokes the fires too much their supporters will compel them to go through with it.
Though maybe I’m entirely wrong and Biden will launch the aircraft carriers the second he wins. Idk.
I think the idea that the people, chuds or no, could bait America into a war is not tenable. Remember, the institution of bougie democracy exists to enforce the will of the country's bougie douches upon the working class of the country and the world. No matter what, the arrow of government action will point the way the bourgeoisie wants it to. They're just throwing a tantrum because they thought the dengist shit would collapse China and they could hop in and economically balkanize. The people, even chuds, will be swayed by the massive wave of information as soon as the bourgeoisie begin a different tack. That's how I see it, at least 🤷♀️
That won’t work.
Trumps misdeeds don’t actually affect liberals materially, but his behavior causes media scandals that stress liberals out. Even if everything is exactly as bad as it is now, as long as the media calms down the liberals will feel at ease.
where does all this neurotic political energy go after the the lightning rod disappears?
The future is revanchist nationalism.
When your country is unable to fix itself, and rates of profit are falling, you project aggression outwards. Libs are already onboard with Russia/China shit, and Conservatives never aren't into that.
It's a boring answer, but it's what's happened dozens of times before in US history, hundreds in world history.
The US will initiate some international calamity to distract from its domestic problems.
where does all this neurotic political energy go after the the lightning rod disappears?
Dissolves back into the society it arose from. It'll always be there, just manifest differently over time.
well yes, that's what I was asking! How might it manifest differently? :P
Increased paranoia over 'antifa,' increased sinophobia, increased fear of black organizing.
Difference will be that all of this fear and paranoia will be decentralized due to lacking a figurehead. Rightist pundits and commentators are constantly fighting for position and denounce each other pretty often. Since Trump's base will no longer have an authoritarian figure giving them permission to act, I'd expect distinct acts of violence and terror to lessen.
Would agree that increased Sinophobia is likely. Neocons will see a temporary boost in influence under Biden, and Americans will be looking to "settle the score" with an economy and society in shambles next year. If the internal cultural conflict loses oxygen, it's logical that late-imperial angst would direct itself outwards. Reminds me of Carl Schmidt's analysis of politics: it's always a struggle against a perceived Other because insecurity is a powerfully unifying force.
Does anyone think the Left can harness the energy after Trump is done for?
Can we provide a new lighting rod for at least some of Trump's supporters?
Yeah I think if Trump loses they’ll be like two months of a few really hardcore supporters going kamikaze, but most will just return to normalcy. The American people’s mood is pretty beholden to the media, once they calm down under Biden everyone will just find a new Netflix show the binge or just keep posting FB memes. I actually think the next 4 years will be kinda boring. Libs will be pacified and conservatives will just sit and stew.
You forgot right wing media. Fox News will keep the outrage machine going.
Seriously, I've been looking at what is happening this election cycle, and then back in 2016.
The averaged polling numbers are almost the EXACT SAME, but people keep predicting this insane Biden blowout.
If anything, them overblowing how much he's going to annihilate Trump is going to suppress turnout like I suspect it did in 2016. https://i.imgur.com/hhJKhge.png
Trump getting Covid 30 days before the election is a bit of an X factor though. There was nothing comparable in 2016.
Also, Trump's debate performance hurt him with old people a lot more than the online Left realizes. To us, they both looked like doddering old fools. To the average senior citizen, Trump looked like a big meany bully spazzing out while Biden looked "sane" and "Presidential". Joe looks like how Boomers picture a "President", especially now as they sundown.
I say this all the time, but America has been completely controlled by the Boomers since the 1960s, and it's looking like it the plan going forward is for all of us to go down with them.
"I brought you into this world, so I'm gonna take you out of it", but applied to an entire country.
exactly this.
same shit different election, controlled opposition as always
That's where I am. But Trump getting the 'Rona also means some folks might not vote for a "dead man walking," even if they wanted to vote him.
So it's a toss-up.
pretty sure trump supporters are semiconvinced hes a divine apostle sent by heaven to enforce the new word of god upon the heathens or some shit.
and the ones who arnt are in on the grift.
so i dont know that thats a convincing argument
Trump supporters are a monolith, they're gonna vote for him no matter what.
I'm more talking independents/third parties that DON'T openly support Trump in public but might vote for him ("the depressed Sanders voters" as the media wants to call them which is so very wrong, but...), those voters are the ones that are like "well if I vote for him and he dies from the virus, that means Pence and... no."
i dont think such rightwing "independents" are a particularly relevant grouping in this election. those sorts of people are all more or less nevertrump sorts, and any remainder is unlikely to be statistically meaningful.
anyone thats left leaning isnt voting for trump. unless theyre up their own ass about accelerationism, at which point they might as well just become a fascist, because itll help prove the point or whatever
the issue is, as you said, a monolith. his being at deaths door simply wont sway the people that are voting for him
If Trump actually died, Pence would win in an absolute landslide, no question. The reason Biden is on track to win bigly is because old people really, really, REALLY are obsessed with decorum. Most of Trump's base is 45-65, cynical Gen Xers. People in their 70s are still wed to the noble statesmen, rational moderate image. Biden fits that to a T, and looking like the Crypt keeper and losing his mind doesn't matter because those older voters also look like death and are losing their minds
sounds about right.
he did leave the hospital after three days of covid right?
jesus imagery intensifies
edit: when you think about it, a helicopter is basically just a boulder that floats
makes sense.
i know when i was in sunday school they taught me that jesus ascended to heaven by promptly dying again after that whole resurrection bit, so obviously reincarnation is how hes supposed to return to the earth.
its just science
implying that any of that isnt absolutely bananas...
but yeah.
im fairly certain that supply side jesus is a wholly distinct diety, and thus evangelicals are not actually christian.
like if someone decided to worship an elephant at the local zoo named ganesha, and everything else they just make up on the spot. are they hindu?
People say the same thing about Catholics and "worshiping" Mary. Everyone views the other as a hypocrite.
youre not wrong.
i was more making a joke about how wildly different evangelical beliefs are from most other christians on just about every theological topic.
theres overlap, and obviously christianity has loads of alternative diety figures that are worshipped, and the entire organized religion as a whole is a bit sus, but those evangelists are fukkin wonky as hell is my point
tbf, all christians are heretics to some other christian.
but yeah he aint wrong
Yeah but that’s not all the people who voted for him last election. The people who voted for Trump last election but aren’t wacko QAnon people (or adjacent wackos) are probably having some buyers remorse. I doubt most of them will vote Biden but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them find an excuse to stay home this year.
thats my point though?
the people who arnt supporting him werent going to support him, regardless of the rona.
the people who are supporting him will support him anyways.
you seem to be underestimating the number of people that have been pipelined further to the right by the trump admin? qanon folks make up a huge proportion of trumps base, and adjacent wackos are the rest of it.
there are no moderate republicans anymore
Trump had a 30% chance of winning in 2016 according to the polls, what point are you making
I think at this point Trump cant win in a fair election. Under normal circumstances Biden would be a goner, but this election won’t be decided by the usual political theater. However, never underestimate the Republican’s ability to steal an election and the Democrat’s ability to stand by and let it happen.
Even in normal circumstances the incumbent does badly when the economy is bad usually
But at least they'll say they were able to get the moral victory!
It's always a wonderful comfort to all of the people with the boot on their throat to know that the Dems ran a nice, clean campaign that accomplished absolutely nothing.
Yep, I think they described this on the Chapo podcast but basically very late on election night it will show Trump winning because mail in ballots won't be counted yet, so Trump will declare himself the winner because "we always get a winner on election night" and consider ballots that get counted after that to be "fraudulent". I don't think it will hold up in court but who knows...
Never underestimate their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
Biden insists on an arm wrestling contest at the October 15th debate, gets covid, dies in 3 days.
If those votes aren’t counted by Wednesday morning it doesn’t matter.
Swing states are still mostly close enough for Trump to grab it, and the Republicans will undoubtedly be invalidating ballots (Especially in the south). If Biden was up 10 points in the rust belt then he would be secure but he's only up by 6ish in most of them. If that drops 3 points by the end of the month Biden could easily lose.
a lot of trump's 65+ base has been bleeding slowly (not the maga chuds, but the dedicated gop voters who tolerated his bullshit), and i think that covid was his weakness, so him getting the disease is kinda the last nail in the hammer, and biden's dementia riddled nonsense is also appealing to them.
Sorry to kick this dead horse but in case anyone has forgotten, we are still fucked if Biden wins. Libs will go back to sleep and Biden will continue all of Trump’s policies, just more politely.
Many have said this here also, but after 2016 we would be insane to trust any poll ever again. I’m almost writing this mostly for myself, since I’ve been thinking lately that Biden is destined to win and that everything will be awesome after he does. My liberal tendencies are still way too strong.
Polls are fine. They weren’t even that far off in 2016 - nationally they missed by like a point and a half, which is pretty normal. They missed by more in a few key states in the rust belt (due to not weighting for education), which sucks, but isn’t evidence that polling is fundamentally broken. They were actually off by more in 2012, but nobody remembers that because it didn’t flip the race.
The problem was that the media narrative didn’t adjust as the race tightened in the final weeks of the 2016 election. Clinton had a healthy but not insurmountable lead in early October that almost entirely evaporated by the end of the month. She was still ahead, but her lead now in the margin of error. In other words, we got to a point where the polls showed a race close enough that a very normal, routine polling error would be enough to flip the race. For some reason, MSM chugged along as if either A) she still had the strong lead she’d had weeks prior, or B) polling errors didn’t exist.
538 (who many in lib media accused of putting their thumb on the scale to inflate Trump’s chances for clicks) had an article like two days before the election that was basically like “hey y’all, we’re really just a very ordinary polling error (1-2 points) from Trump winning, we think he’s now got about a 1/3 chance of winning, maybe we should wait to see what happens.”
Thus when Trump won, people who were really deep in the polls were only mildly surprised. The people who were good and truly SHOCKED were duped by the stats-illiterate MSM.
(Also, 99% of people who “called it” for Trump were guys like Bill Mitchell who had no actual prognostic heuristic, they’re just biased and have been jerking themselves off to their own hindsight bias ever since).
Stop blaming the poor numbers. They’re innocent. Blame the morons that still gave Hillary a 95%+ chance even when the numbers clearly showed a tighter race.
