Image by Aarón Blanco Tejedor.
I share Donald Trump’s conviction that the near-miss bullet fired at his head by Thomas Matthew Crooks was a divine intervention. It was God stepping in to punish us. Perhaps for the indiscriminate massacre of Palestinians by the resistance party, an atrocity that led directly to fascism at home. But applying even more religious significance to that region will only increase the violence.
Before getting into the politics of fascism at home we must address Palestine. The fact that would-be Harris voters listed Palestine as their number one reason not to vote for the Democratic Party is obviously a very hopeful sign. But these courageous activists have been so persecuted within the United States and those siding with fascism so rewarded, it doesn’t give us much hope for the future of freedom here or anywhere else.
Certainly, those of us who support the Democrats have to acknowledge they are no lesser evil, just a less fascist coalition of voters and interest groups behind them. It seems that outside of Bernie Sanders, who would rather be marginalized than vilified, there is no one in Washington on our side. There is more hope in China and their allies, not because of their lesser evil nature, but rather because of their leadership’s understanding of Marxism and other sciences which consistently enables them to outsmart the people with a gun to their head.
In the United States we have embraced fascism from the top to bottom of our society because we have abandoned this intellectualism. Americans would be honored to board a plane flying straight into the ocean if someone slapped an anti-DEI sticker on it. The students at the front lines of the peace movement are barred from any decent future in the United States and vilified as privileged in the process. Likewise for the Jewish people leading this movement, an inconvenient truth for the powers that be.
Unfortunately, we are not Marxist in the United States. We are populist. An unscientific movement that not only has nothing to do with economics, it provides cover for oligarchy; leading the people to enjoy the demolition of their own society. Let’s face it. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are not the only ones finding glee in the genocide of the Other. Americans of all stripes are.
When the state’s basic services are shuttered, either privatized for profit or not replaced at all, Trump and Musk don’t have to work hard to make the fascist crowd cheer. We are getting rid of DEI, of the woke, of the racial Other. It’s a story as old as time and the rebranding of it is simple and effective.
Not because it is convincing but rather because the monsters inside human beings have to justify our own highly emotional minds. We have a complex language system but we are not a complex species. We are tribal and many of us are enjoying the suffering of others, no matter the cost to ourselves.
The obliteration of health and safety standards does not matter to the fascist brain worm. Infected by hatred, it is merciful to get cancer early and die. The fascist craves death and when it comes to him his only regret is that he didn’t see more people die first.
When aid to people at home or abroad is cut, people cheer. They cheer even if they are impacted negatively. They cheer because they hate themselves and feel they don’t deserve help but they cheer more because they hate you.
Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe just as the corporations say they are woke while they enslave poor and brown people, these anti-woke goons are secretly hiding immigrants and trans people in their basement. Maybe they know the score better than I do and get that being truly woke is a crime and the end goal is to throw us out of helicopters. If so, carry on.
Trump and Musk were both liberals of a sort at some point. Both seemed surprised at the ease they could seize absolute power. As dull and racist as they are, the oligarchs seemed not to anticipate how swiftly they could pillage the United States simply by saying “brown people bad” “women bad” ‘LGBT bad”. Is it that easy? Yes, unfortunately, it is.
The only solution to this is to spread love and pay the price for it. There is no safe space at this point from U.S. terror at home or abroad. However we have the freedom to choose how they bring us down. Do we want to die from PFAs while ranting about the woke mind virus and our Lord and Savior Donald Trump? Or do we want to be crushed by the (not so dismantled) state for loving our neighbor? Our only freedom now is how this ends. Because the rest of our lives are in this nightmare.
No time to despair. No time to equivocate.
I’m not saying it’s not complicated. My transformation into a rad liberal was full of disastrous mistakes, including tying myself to the propaganda of the Democratic Party. I was wrong, and I have no excuse. But I refuse to become a populist. I know what that means now. And I know the only position of any worth at this point in history is the anti-fascist. There’s no revolution on the horizon, and there is no hope for democracy.
Those of us who can afford it, who kiss the ring of the dictator, who provide him with enough skulls, will be able to afford clean drinking water and private school as the public is hallowed out. But who’s crying for us and who should be? Every year we find new countries to militarize, poison, loot, shock and privatize. We call it democracy no matter the resistance to it inside these countries. The irony is that when it comes home it sure feels a lot like democracy. It sure feels like many Americans want fascism.
It is true that many people suffer under neoliberalism. The difference is that people hate suffering under neoliberalism, and they love suffering under fascism. The rot in the Democratic Party, unions, delivery of government programs here and abroad, and the regulatory state have been intentionally cut at the knees for years, and as Chris Hedges pointed out, all Trump had to do was flip the switch.
That’s a reason for fascism, not an excuse to embrace it. That’s a big difference.
Take the case of Mashal Sherzad, a tenacious activist hired to be DEI manager at the University of Minnesota, a college now absurdly under investigation for ant-Semitism. She was fired for being at a pro-Palestinian protest. And yes, Jewish people who were there had swastikas comparing Israel to Germany but we all know if it was Christian people bearing swastikas these people would be promoted and celebrated. We know it. And we know the right’s conclusion from all this is that hey anti-Semitism is actually good for the same reason racism and hatred of Palestinians is good.
So, yes, there are problems with institutional DEI, and the reason the good guys are losing is that the sincere ones have their futures cancelled. This doesn’t mean equality is a bad value. It means there are many layers of snitches and all sorts of institutions that, at times, try to do the right thing but make too many compromises.
The new imperialism is that the third world is a dead weight. Take their resources and get out. Some are hopeful this will open the door for China and more cooperation within these countries. Likewise some are hopeful that the collapse of the public sector will lead to more collaboration within the working class. All of this may have some truth but what the fascists are betting on is to make money off of the shock and further cement an authoritarian grip in the chaos.
There is no need for and no point of being radical. There is too much work to be done to go Luigi out there. It is already both illegal and necessary to help people in need. The more organized we become the more protected we are. The more skills we learn the more protected we are. But our fate is sealed. Given the anti-woke mind virus, I simply don’t care about navigating this dystopia anymore. We can stick around for a while and do a lot of good if we are smart and disciplined.
The end of the United States can be upsetting, and given our massive haul of weapons, it can also be dangerous. But like the end of the human race via climate change, it simply is what it is. Until it’s over, here we are. There’s no good outcome. Triggering them with your woke truth is the only fun outcome. That is, until they pull the trigger.
