New post
In a way what Republicans just did was go on strike. They got organized. They shut down the US economy for their cause: more taxpayer money for corporate CEOs.
What Democrats did not just do was call for their own strike. Get organized. Shut down the US economy for the cause of more taxpayer money for taxpayers.
By giving in, Democrats have conveyed a clear message to future Republicans and CEOs: If billionaires ever want more handouts, just shut down the government. You will win. There will be no legal or financial consequences. We will not try to mobilize the population against you. We will give up after a few weeks. And in the meantime, we politicians will all still get paid. Our health insurance is not at stake.
The message Democrats have been conveying to the entire planet for over two years: If poor people are in the way of corporate profit or imperial domination…we kill them. There will be no legal or financial consequences. Genocide is normal. If you have a problem with that, it means you’re being “divisive.” You are engaging in “litmus tests.” You are “making the perfect the enemy of the good.” “Good” meaning “mass murder” in this particular case.
At present, the Democratic Party is clearly anti-democratic. The explanation that Democrats are “trying” to be democratic, but simply keep getting it wrong, is too absurd to consider. It’s no mystery what Democratic voters think about the major issues of today. Genocide, healthcare, minimum wage, ICE, Trump’s wall, wealth inequality, oligarchy, government lawbreaking. The reason Democrats’ policies are exactly the opposite of what their voters overwhelmingly want is that these politicians are so utterly under the control of oligarchs, that for them democracy is not even an option.
The revolving door between the corporate and political worlds, and the legalized bribery Americans call “lobbying,” have had one result: Corporate oligarchs write US policy. Whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. White-collar crime has gone almost unenforced in this country for 50 years. Strongly worded condemnations of corruption, or violence, or oligarchy, or tax dodging, or lawbreaking, or tyranny, or war crimes, mean nothing when they aren’t backed up by legal or financial consequences. They just add to the growing pile of proof that billionaires can get away with anything they want in the USA. Including mass murder.
For any of you who happen to be against mass murder, whether it comes in the form of fossil fuel profits, mass poverty, lack of affordable healthcare, or outright massacres: Get ready for an incredibly annoying year of attempts to make you second-guess your values. The same values that just elected Mamdani in a landslide. “Liberal” heroes will now be trotted out to scold any American who dreams of too much democracy. Too much accountability, too much peace, too much equality, too much freedom, too much health, too much solvency.
New Yorkers’ ability to survive will be reduced to a pundit’s talking point. Their city will replace Portland or Chicago as the new #1 target of ICE or National Guard violence. The pretext will be that New Yorkers who doth protest too much will now be designated as “terrorists,” now that this term has been redefined by politicians of both parties to mean “someone in the way of profits.” To avoid more random ICE abductions, government shutdowns, and getting your head cracked by police, the left will now be called on to stand down.
There will be Democratic calls for “unity” and “we the people” and “e pluribus unum”. At first they will be vague enough to sound lofty and nice. Upon closer inspection these variations of “I am speaking” will turn out to mean: “Stop pressuring the Democratic Party to represent you. We will normalize homelessness and poverty and hunger, we will raise your healthcare costs, we will build data centers in your backyard, we will enrich billionaires. Do not criticize us when we do mass deportation, mass detainment, when we increase funding to ICE and the Pentagon, when we grant drilling permits. Most important of all, do not criticize us when we commit genocide.”
The politicians who wrote “we the people” and “e pluribus unum” in the first place were America’s richest white men, who enslaved kidnapped Africans to do their labor. For them, “we the people” represented less than 10% of the population. The phrases were designed to strictly limit whose opinions would be relevant in politics. They deliberately omitted women, native Americans, Black people, and any white people without property. Today’s Democratic politicians trying to create an air of moral superiority by bringing back such rhetoric are similarly weaponizing it to decide who counts and who doesn’t. Who is a person and who is not. And detainees of ICE, or critics of Israeli rape, torture, pillage and mass murder, do not make the cut. Democratic socialists are on probation, with a stern warning.
Understandably, many now wonder whether to love or hate a Democrat like Mamdani, or any other politician. You can do both. You can do neither. It doesn’t really matter what your personal feelings towards them are, because it’s not personal. They’re politicians. We hire them to make our laws. Don’t trust them blindly. Some might even suggest that if they commit mass murder, don’t elect them. That they’re already getting rich off your taxes, so if they commit mass murder, don’t give them extra money.
Television has convinced some Americans that a politician is but a paid actor, there to entertain us with political theater. But a politician is a lawmaker, with the power of life and death. They are there for their constituents to put pressure on, whether or not you are charmed by them personally. They are there for the press to be skeptical of. If you think a politician is there to be nice to, you are an authoritarian.
Hollywood has convinced some Americans that the only righteous battles are the ones driven by hate. America doesn’t need to be meaner to Republicans or nicer to Democrats. You don’t need to be more scared of or more deferential towards either. Generating more and more hatred, with zero consequences and zero outcome, only poisons your own soul.
Democrats and Republicans have their different roles to play in American political theater. When it comes to culture war, identity issues, or anything where no money is at stake, they tend to oppose each other. But one look at their voting records reveals them both to be fervent believers in capitalism, empire, and mass violence. It makes no sense to “hate” Republicans, the NRA, or Smith and Wesson, while giving your money to Spotify, or Amazon, or Democratic politicians who break the law to send weapons to genocidal dictators. These are all weapons dealers. These are all cartoon villains.
Unless you are their biographer, it doesn’t matter that much whether a politician kills out of evil or incompetence or inadvertence. Especially to the dead. Politicians are people who have been hired to have the power of life or death over large numbers of people. Treat them as you would any potential assassin, particularly if they have killed already. Protect yourself, your family, and your community from them. Don’t take political rhetoric at face value and don’t let the cult of personality persuade you to abandon your most deeply held values.
Oligarchs are not afraid of Democrats. They own Democrats. Oligarchs are not afraid of MSNBC. They own MSNBC. Oligarchs are not afraid of social media. They own social media. Oligarchs are afraid of boycotts, strikes, lawsuits. Oligarchs are afraid of democratic socialists. Oligarchs are afraid of third parties, independent candidates, political movements. Oligarchs are afraid of Greta Thunberg. Oligarchs are afraid of losing money. Oligarchs are afraid of losing control of the narrative.