In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent chilling hearing on the right to an abortion and the unrelenting assault on voting rights in broad daylight, shouldn’t Congress and the White House hear the pitter patter of little (or big) feet, not on Xmas Day, but in early January in Washington? Power, Frederick Douglass told us long ago, concedes nothing without a struggle.
The failure of the coalition and its progressive bloc that elected Biden to sustain its level of energy and activity post election looms large in present circumstances. A lot of their criticism of Biden, I would argue, is misplaced. They would be better served thinking through their own concrete role (or lack thereof) in the context of a narrow Congressional majority and an opposition party that is at once a wrecking ball of democracy and democratic governance, an unashamed exploiter of a disruptive, deadly, and seemingly unending pandemic, and a cynical master of the politics of grievance, especially racialized grievance.
Bellyaching about the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats can leave one feeling self satisfied, but also tone deaf to what is the overarching task of this moment, that is, acquainting the electorate with the constraints – political and otherwise – as well as the possibilities and then finding ways to draw that same electorate into the political process as active agents.
As I do on holidays made an early am pilgrimage to local watering hole. Always wish my father could join me. He drank much too much, but still would have liked his company.
12 jurors – 11 white, one African American – find 3 white, male racists guilty of murder of Ahmaud Arbery. In their sick minds his crime was being Black, nothing more. While we celebrate the verdict, we bear in mind that what the verdict can’t do is restore a life that had barely begun. And that is a very depressing!
Without a hint of shame or artifice, one party – the Republican Party – is increasingly committed to the use of violence as a political instrument – better yet weapon – to regain political power and dominance. Only last week, we saw chilling evidence of this new wrinkle when only two Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to censure Republican House member Paul Gosar (AZ) for posting an animated video that depicted him slashing the neck of Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocascio Cortez and assaulting President Biden. All the while, in the background are immigrants of color crossing the border illegally and paratroopers falling from the sky.
If this vote were an outlier in the Republican Party resume, it would be one thing, but it isn’t. Much like the January 6 insurrection to overturn Biden’s election victory by force, it was representative of a turn of the GOP and the larger Trumpist, authoritarian political network toward the use of violence (and insurrection) as a political instrument in settling political disputes and recapturing political power. Violence, rhetorical and actual, has become a weapon of choice in its playbook. What was rightly associated with the White Power movement – remember Charlotteville and Oklahoma City – has migrated into the ethos and practice of the Republican Party.
A decade ago the Kyle Whittenhouses of this world, much like the insurrectionists of January 6, would find little support in the GOP; today they are considered the party’s prodigal sons by many, courageously doing God’s work for a righteous cause.
While the architects of this turn are many, ranging from white power groups to people in high places and with deep pockets, no one mainstreamed violence into the Republican Party and politics more than Trump, first as candidate, then as president, and now as ex- President. Early on some Republicans objected to his violent rhetoric, but not for long and now any dissenters found in the GOP – and they are a few – immediately become the object of scorn and ostracism as we saw once again last week when two of its members broke ranks and voted for censuring Gosar.
A return to power of this party, fully transformed, in the tight grip of authoritarian, fascist like extremists, ready to employ violence when necessary, and committed to dismantling democracy and much else spells disaster for the country and its progressive development.
Moreover, the ruinous impact of this form of white nationalist, plutocratic authoritarian rule, while striking people of color and women with the greatest force in a pattern that is both long standing and familiar, will also cross the color line. Whiteness won’t provide immunization from its negative impacts for millions of white people no matter what side of the political divide they reside on. Said differently, authoritarian, fascist if you like, rule here will come into the world dripping with racism (as well as male supremacy and misogyny, xenophobia, homo and trans phobia) from its every pore, but it is also a class policy in that it punishes working people, broadly defined, irrespective of color too, while enriching sections of the capitalist class.
There is, of course, a way to avert this calamitous future, although time is running out. And it lies in re-energizing the multi-racial, cross class coalition that formed prior to the 2020 presidential election and quickly turning its attention to what is primary and overarching – decisively defeating the Republican Party candidates in the midterm elections next year and the presidential elections two years later.
