Blackcap Blog

Published at 22:40 on 17 August 2022

It’s pretty obvious to me, because I have experienced it myself with Hugo Chávez, who I once (long ago) supported, until he did something that unambiguously crossed a line, then I opposed him as a dangerous authoritarian.

That line may have not seemed all that significant to a conservative or a centrist, but it was significant to me. A conservative would be likely to say something along the lines of: “Well of course he turned out to be a dangerous authoritarian, his politics inevitably led him there,” to which I would strenuously disagree.

So it is with Cheney. Of course conservative politics inevitably ended up like that, in a country where they are associated with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the younger, all of whom broke laws and got away with it. Where else would a standard that you can get away with breaking laws in office lead? That’s all obvious to me.

For Cheney, it’s not so obvious. The line for her was obviously election denial and January 6th. She was pretty much a loyal Trumper, voting with Trump well over 90% of the time, before then. By her standards, it was OK to do all those reactionary (and even sometimes illegal) things, but if you lost an election, well game over for you, time to leave office.

So yes, she’s still a reactionary who helped get us into this mess. I agree with that.

But, she’s not a fascist like Trump. As bad as Dubya was, I never had to worry that if his team lost an election (as it eventually did, with its anointed successor), they would accept that loss. I never had to worry about being hauled off to a concentration camp for having sharply opposing views. And she is now, in her own way, and despite an imperfect appreciation for how she got us into that mess, making a good-faith effort to help us get out of it.

That part is critical, and if you cannot see it, you are pretty much doomed to babble nonsense about the current political situation.

Bourgeois democracy is hardly ideal, but it beats an authoritarian fascist state (or an authoritarian socialist one). It’s still an environment where one can fight for a better world without being in fear of one’s life. It’s still a place where one can fight for a better world without having to choose between shutting up or using violent means. That means something.

And again, that part is critical, and if you cannot see it, you are pretty much doomed to babble nonsense.