My only issue with the argument that Trump won't or can't do anything is that it rests on Capital being competent. If Capital can create a global ecological disaster that will likely end the human species then they can create a monster they can't control. I think the absolute best case scenario right now is that the Secret Service has to physically remove Trump in January, possibly after a Bundy-like standoff. At worst, he just refuses to leave. Just like with the impeachment stuff, he ignores everything. He simply refuses to react and bunkers down inside the White House. I know people will swear that kind of thing somehow contradicts historical realism, but I don't think it does. It's not "great man" theory shit for a dictator-aspirant to act like a dictator.
If I may run my mouth a bit, you have people like Felix running around on twitter mocking people for thinking anything would happen. Because those kinds of people are so invested in nothing fundamentally changing, that they can't imagine it. The world has to remain the same, but get slightly shittier, because that's what they've built their entire worldview around. I go by more of a punctuated equilibrium idea. The kind of thing where there are years where nothing happens and weeks wher-- you know the thing. Yes politics is boring and banally evil most of the time but then there's little spurts of oh-shit moments and then things do change. People who haven't even been alive 35 years are telling everyone how things never change. When really, that's the thing that's against Marxist theory. It's not thinking Trump can only coup if Capital backs him. The betrayal of leftist values is thinking history doesn't change because it made a good soundbite on a podcast.
So yeah, if this doesn't go far enough I will be owned somehow. But I'm not saying that this has to end in a civil war. It can be Trump refusing to leave, SS carries him out, we laugh about it for a week. Then back to a boring ass Biden administration for 4 years. But it will have been another turn of the screw on the way to fascism. Whatever Trump does now will be a template for future Republican presidents. Trump rejecting the system, no matter how tiny, matters. It'll be worse next time.
Yep, I don't really see how a Trump coup would contradict Historical Materialism.
Napoleon III, a man very widely mocked by contemporary French Liberals for being an incompetent failson, managed to coup the French Government to prevent his removal from office.
A pretty smart guy named Karl wrote about that, and said something pretty interesting:
History repeats itself "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"
While Nappy 3 wasn't his uncle, he was actually a pretty competent guy as long as you didn't put him near an army and just let him appoint people to execute his ideas. Just because they start as failsons doesn't mean they stay that way. He just had the misfortune of living in a time when Bismarck also lived and where material conditions weakened the French hold on Europe.
Haussman for instance single handedly made Parisian revolts nearly unviable with his urban renewal strategy. the Commune had a much harder time of it than the Sans-Culottes or the Les Mis crowd.
IMO It's a bit naive to compare 1848-1849, one of the most revolutionary periods of history, to the present moment. A Trump coup doesn't align with a historical materialist analysis because there's no segment of capital that truly gains anything from installing him over Joe Biden. Napoleon III toppled a fledgling republic where no faction had firmly entrenched itself at the helm. A Trump coup is not impossible, but it would be up against some of the most entrenched nodes of power on the planet.
the PA SCOTUS case about mail-in ballots received after election day is at 4-4 deadlock right now
Justice Barrett has not recused herself from that case... and looking at the specifics around the nature of mail-ballots in PA and their "secrecy envelopes" & whether ballots were received without postmarks, and this (along with the 5-3 decision in WI properly applied) could decide the outcome alone
My only issue with the argument that Trump won't or can't do anything is that it rests on Capital being competent. If Capital can create a global ecological disaster that will likely end the human species then they can create a monster they can't control. I think the absolute best case scenario right now is that the Secret Service has to physically remove Trump in January, possibly after a Bundy-like standoff. At worst, he just refuses to leave. Just like with the impeachment stuff, he ignores everything. He simply refuses to react and bunkers down inside the White House. I know people will swear that kind of thing somehow contradicts historical realism, but I don't think it does. It's not "great man" theory shit for a dictator-aspirant to act like a dictator.
If I may run my mouth a bit, you have people like Felix running around on twitter mocking people for thinking anything would happen. Because those kinds of people are so invested in nothing fundamentally changing, that they can't imagine it. The world has to remain the same, but get slightly shittier, because that's what they've built their entire worldview around. I go by more of a punctuated equilibrium idea. The kind of thing where there are years where nothing happens and weeks wher-- you know the thing. Yes politics is boring and banally evil most of the time but then there's little spurts of oh-shit moments and then things do change. People who haven't even been alive 35 years are telling everyone how things never change. When really, that's the thing that's against Marxist theory. It's not thinking Trump can only coup if Capital backs him. The betrayal of leftist values is thinking history doesn't change because it made a good soundbite on a podcast.
So yeah, if this doesn't go far enough I will be owned somehow. But I'm not saying that this has to end in a civil war. It can be Trump refusing to leave, SS carries him out, we laugh about it for a week. Then back to a boring ass Biden administration for 4 years. But it will have been another turn of the screw on the way to fascism. Whatever Trump does now will be a template for future Republican presidents. Trump rejecting the system, no matter how tiny, matters. It'll be worse next time.
Yep, I don't really see how a Trump coup would contradict Historical Materialism.
Napoleon III, a man very widely mocked by contemporary French Liberals for being an incompetent failson, managed to coup the French Government to prevent his removal from office.
A pretty smart guy named Karl wrote about that, and said something pretty interesting:
Marx belabors the point a bit there I think.
While Nappy 3 wasn't his uncle, he was actually a pretty competent guy as long as you didn't put him near an army and just let him appoint people to execute his ideas. Just because they start as failsons doesn't mean they stay that way. He just had the misfortune of living in a time when Bismarck also lived and where material conditions weakened the French hold on Europe.
Haussman for instance single handedly made Parisian revolts nearly unviable with his urban renewal strategy. the Commune had a much harder time of it than the Sans-Culottes or the Les Mis crowd.
IMO It's a bit naive to compare 1848-1849, one of the most revolutionary periods of history, to the present moment. A Trump coup doesn't align with a historical materialist analysis because there's no segment of capital that truly gains anything from installing him over Joe Biden. Napoleon III toppled a fledgling republic where no faction had firmly entrenched itself at the helm. A Trump coup is not impossible, but it would be up against some of the most entrenched nodes of power on the planet.
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SC seems unlikely to side with him. I think he’ll go the faithless elector route.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
no this is wrong
the PA SCOTUS case about mail-in ballots received after election day is at 4-4 deadlock right now
Justice Barrett has not recused herself from that case... and looking at the specifics around the nature of mail-ballots in PA and their "secrecy envelopes" & whether ballots were received without postmarks, and this (along with the 5-3 decision in WI properly applied) could decide the outcome alone
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