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Every attempt to drive up turnout by using extremist rhetoric to mobilize the base will provoke an equal and opposite reaction. That’s the problem with Trumpism.

There is some division of opinion on this, but most reactionaries would tell you that the Fifties were a golden age for America. White men ruled the roost, socially, economically, and politically. The average person wasn’t even aware of a culture war. Life was good, at least if you were a white worker.

The irony is that the highest marginal tax rate at the time was 90 percent, and the federal government was spending huge amounts of money on infrastructure, as well as the military. That’s about as far from Brigadoon for freedom-loving businessmen and libertarians as you can get.

If you’re a reactionary, this should inspire you to support tax increases for the wealthy and for corporations. It won’t, however. The vast majority of reactionaries are too wedded to their deal with business interests to give it up.

Under ordinary conditions, employment figures are an excellent proxy for levels of misery. These are not ordinary conditions, however; as a result of the enhanced federal UI benefits, it is possible to maintain a decent standard of living without a job, at least in blue states and through September. Millions of elderly workers may also have decided to retire in lieu of working through the pandemic. Does it make sense, therefore, to pay so much attention to the employment numbers, at least for now?

No. GDP and wage growth more accurately describe the actual state of the nation until the enhanced benefits expire. Keep your eyes on them for now.

It isn’t Biden; it’s Manchin the left-wing dream crusher! Don’t say I didn’t warn you; I posted on this very subject three months prior to the election.

During the campaign, when Elizabeth Warren was asked hypothetical questions on this subject, she said she would overcome resistance to the progressive agenda by “fighting.” Why don’t I see her fighting for Manchin’s vote? Where are AOC and the Justice Democrats? Why aren’t they mobilizing a tidal wave of support for the progressive agenda in West Virginia to force Manchin to change his mind?

Because even they know that there is no tidal wave to mobilize, and that “fighting” is useless. Learn the Serenity Prayer, folks; you’re going to need it.

The Republicans have a very limited idea of what constitutes “infrastructure.” Why? For the same reason they’re willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the military, but refuse to wear masks: they’re the Daddy Party! Anything involving large, burly men on noisy, powerful machines, or blowing stuff up, is in their wheelhouse. Anything else–forget it.

Trump had a fixation with “real” jobs that were done by strong men: frackers; coal miners; and steelworkers. Retail sales clerks–not so much. He was not alone.

Mitch McConnell is not a counterrevolutionary. He has no reason to be; the McConnell Project is fully achievable under the current system. All he has to do is leverage the GOP’s structural advantages into election victories, and regressive tax cuts and deregulation follow naturally, since the filibuster stops neither.

The problem, of course, is that tax cuts and deregulation don’t resonate with the base, so he is forced to rely on nightmares of culture war apocalypse in order to get out the vote. The big change in the GOP over the last decade is that the base has started to take that pitch seriously, and to demand action to save white Christians from annihilation. Hence, the January 6 riot, the red state attempts to suppress the vote, and the threats and legislation directed at the tech companies and cancel culture.

The base is out of McConnell’s control. He can’t very well say that Christian camps really aren’t around the corner at this stage of the process. The freedoms provided in the Constitution–not the current administration–have become the enemy for reactionaries. Can Mitch restore order? For now, he just seems to be riding the waves.

GET OVER IT

Your people were herded on overstuffed ships

And sailed to the land of the chains and the whips.

It was a crime

In a distant time

So get over it.

______

Marched through the streets, they were sold at the block.

They had fewer rights than the owner’s livestock.

It wasn’t fair,

But I wasn’t there,

So get over it.

________

Many years later, I don’t know what for

The North and the South chose to fight a great war.

The slaves were freed.

What’s that to me?

Get over it.

______________

After the war, social progress was slow.

Black people oppressed by the Klan and Jim Crow.

But that was then.

It has to end.

So get over it.

__________

Marching for justice; demanding the vote.

Just a handful of white people jumped on the boat.

Your cause was just.

But don’t make a fuss.

Get over it.

________

The election was rigged, and our hero went down

To an old left-wing establishment clown.

It wasn’t right.

Don’t give up the fight

And don’t get over it.

If you think about it, American reactionaries see the world in much the same way as white South Africans in the pre-Mandela days: completely outnumbered by people with cultural values different than their own, they hope to keep the future at bay by maintaining a monopoly on political power and imposing censorship and a police state on the masses.  

A few observations are pertinent here. First, attempts to stick a finger in the dyke without a viable alternative national vision inevitably fail in the long run, as they did in South Africa. Second, the analogy is not perfect; it would be difficult to send the population of New York to live in a homeland in Nebraska. Finally, the real enemy of American reactionaries is their grandchildren, not minorities. For that problem, there is no plausible long term answer.

Although he apparently denies it now, Michael Flynn has been telling QAnon types that we need a Myanmar-style coup to return Trump to power. Should we be worried?

Not as long as Biden is in the White House. Any coup would require a fig leaf of legitimacy. If we get a more competent and ruthless version of Trump in the White House, however, hang on to your hat.

Time to hit the road to Loserland—and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!

“Socialism!” cried the Republicans. “America was built on hard work and rugged individualism! If you create a safety net, workers will just lose all of their incentive, and lounge in the hammock of dependency! America will go to hell in a handbasket!”

But FDR persisted, and the rest is history. Sure, we won World War II and the Cold War and built the strongest and most prosperous nation in history. But imagine how great we would be today if we made the poor, the elderly, and the unfortunate beg for charity and eat dog food! It would be awesome, baby!

I read two interesting articles about whitelash in the NYT two weeks ago. One of them addressed a resolution about welcoming people of all races in a Wisconsin town; the other was about a black farmer who receives money from a federal program supporting minorities in a rural community. In the first article, the town was preparing to vote down the resolution, because the white residents considered any suggestion that the community was racist to be a form of racism; in the second, white farmers were grumbling about the unfairness of funds targeted for minorities.

How do we deal with these attitudes? Don’t bother talking about slavery, because it is too remote, and the distant relatives of slave owners don’t feel any responsibility. Don’t talk about white privilege, because most white people struggle to get by, and don’t feel privileged. Talk about the issues experienced by black people as problems to be solved, not guilt to be expunged. In other words, social potholes that need to be filled in the normal course of business.

There is a house in my neighborhood whose owner flies both the American and the Confederate flags. I am tempted to confront her and tell her that the one is the negation of the other. The American flag stands for liberty; the Confederate flag stands for secession, slavery, and treason.

I haven’t done it, and I probably never will, for two reasons. One of them is simply that I don’t thrive on that kind of conflict. The other, which is more important, is that she might well tell me that the Confederacy is real America, and everyone else is an interloper, so there is no inconsistency. After all, that is what reactionaries genuinely believe.

I don’t think we will ever really have peace and justice in this country until they stop believing it.

The local TV station that we watch provides vaccination statistics for Virginia and Tennessee on a daily basis. The former is ahead of the national average; the latter is far behind.  

Could this possibly be because one has become a blue state, and the other is red? Inquiring minds want to know.

I was reading an article in The Atlantic about the Lost Cause a few days ago. In the article, one of the Confederate wannabes argued that the Civil War could not possibly have been about slavery, because hundreds of thousands of men who did not own slaves would have died fighting against their economic self-interest. Impossible, right?

Hardly. They were the ancestors of millions of white workers who voted for Trump against their apparent self-interest for culture war reasons. The GOP is completely dependent on those voters, and would perish without them.