My prediction<\/a> of a disappointingly narrow victory followed by a stolen election did not come to pass. The victory was surprisingly broad, broad enough to stun the fascists and compel them to meekly acknowledge the reality of just what happened.<\/p>\n Oh, sure, they tried to spin it in various ways, and were sour-grapes-y about it. Because of course they did. Losing sucks. Nobody is happy to be a loser. What matters is that the basic truth that the Trump fascists did<\/em> lose has been acknowledged across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n A steal at this stage seems unlikely. Even Trump himself has now talked, in one of his typically wandering and aimless speeches, about working with the Democrats and about his veto power. Both are things that point to plans for dealing with the coming Democratic majority in Congress, which by implication accepts the legitimacy of the election results.<\/p>\n The three rules<\/a> I outlined last year still hold. This election does little or nothing to refute them. Many liberals thought a sea change, a repudiation of the right-wing politics that has produced so many poor results in the USA through my lifetime, had happened when Obama won in 2008, yet Obama was followed by Trump. The election represented, overall, nothing more than a temporary level of frustration.<\/p>\n Rule No. 1 meant the Republican Party was not going to change its generally successful pattern of experimenting with elements of fascist politics. Rule No. 2 meant the Democrats were unwilling or unable to hold the Republicans to account for their crimes of the Bush years. Rule No. 3 meant that the electorate remained, as a whole, fully capable of falling for right wing garbage politics in the future. And boy did they ever.<\/p>\n Per Rule No. 2, it is important to note that many in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are full willing participants in the ongoing democratic decline, and to the extent that they have criticism of the party’s centrists, it is that the centrists are too<\/em> obsessed with things like norms and standards. From an analysis<\/a> published in Jacobin<\/cite> magazine in the wake of the elections:<\/p>\n This time, the Left will be making these arguments in a world in which socialists have already transformed the way even centrist Democrats talk about politics. The party\u2019s years-long obsession with \u201cnorms\u201d and rescuing democracy having largely faded into the background in favor of the affordability-focused and anti-billionaire rhetoric popularized<\/a> by, respectively, New York\u2019s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and the socialist duo of Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their \u201cFighting Oligarchy\u201d tour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When it comes to the party’s establishment, you have this post-election quote<\/a> from incoming House speaker (and he is<\/em> incoming House speaker, per Rule No. 2, alternative scenarios are simply not plausible, sorry) Hakeem Jeffries:<\/p>\n The American people don’t want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sure, it’s possible to draw a distinction between justice and retribution, and argue that Jeffries is not ruling out the former. And I’m sure that some Congressional committees will start some useful investigations into Trump’s corruption. But odds strongly disfavour any corrective measures sufficient to form a crucial part of any societal rejection of the thoroughgoing rot pervading the American republic. To argue otherwise, again, violates Rule No. 2 (and Rule No. 3 to boot).<\/p>\n One of the greatest blind spots in US political discourse is the widespread, across the spectrum, ignorance of how the rest of the world sees the USA. Just like it is often easier for others to see the faults of one’s own personality, it can be easier for foreigners to see the faults of a particular country, because the latter lack the emotional attachments that can interfere with objective observation and analysis.<\/p>\n A good place to start right now is the Canadian centrist pundit Andrew Coyne, and his recent analysis<\/a> of the results. He is not expecting any widespread healing or turning away from the rupture<\/a> Mark Carney spoke of at Davos.<\/p>\n Despite wanting to address kitchen table issues, the Democrats are going to have only very limited ability (at best) to effect any changes here. Trump remains president, and thanks to recent court decisions, he is effectively a führer; his word and his will being superior to any written laws of the land. He has, and will continue to, spend money on pet projects like a new ballroom and new monuments without Congressional appropriation or approval. His veto power means pet Democratic priorities won’t get past his desk. Despite their gains, the Democrats don’t have enough votes to override vetoes, and Rule No. 1 says they will not get any significant measure of help here from any Republicans.<\/p>\n Ironically, focussing on democratic decline would be far easier and more productive for them. The letter of many laws have<\/em> been violated, and Congress has the power to investigate these violations on its own, no cooperation needed from any other branch of government. (Cooperation is needed for prosecution and punishment, but that could wait a couple years. Getting the dirt indictment-ready would give them a head start for 2028.) This discrepancy of diffuculty can, in fact, be counted upon to produce a certain measure of investigatory work (incoming committee chairs are already getting to work<\/a> on it). It’s just that any such work will end up falling far short of what arresting democratic decline would require.<\/p>\n What this all means is that not much is going to be accomplished in the next two years. The same sorts of problems that prompted the gains in the midterms will continue to fester. It will be much like the final two years of the George W. Bush administration in this regard. Just like then, this will keep the irritants that prompted the midterm gains relevant political issues. Expect the Democrats to take the White House in 2028.<\/p>\n The new administration will, as Obama did, and as Biden did, fail to pursue accountability to the necessary degree. Things will get better, but only temporarily. The essential nature of the Republicans will remain unchanged.<\/p>\n The Trump Administration has been extremely lucrative for Trump, his family, and those in the rest of the bourgeoisie who are connected to it. The general lack of accountability will ensure that things remain this way. Rule No. 3 further implies that the electorate will remain suckers for the sort of rebranded fascism they were suckers for twice already. It won’t take much. Perhaps a scandal or two (all parties get fat, lazy, and arrogant after too many years in power). Perhaps an economic downturn of the sort that the business cycle makes inevitable. Perhaps (this one is quite likely due to ongoing climate change) a new surge in immigration. Perhaps, again due to ongoing climate change, economic disruptions or growing climate disasters that outpace the ability to respond to them. There are so many possibilities.<\/p>\n Put it all together and it makes the next Trump a political inevitability. It is only a matter of time.<\/p>\n It will seem at times in the next six to ten years that the malaise has passed, when in fact it is but a temporary remission in the political cancer. Absent certain changes which I have not yet seen so far, the decline will continue. It is merely that the nature of the decline differs from what many imagine: it will have ups and downs, it will proceed in fits and starts, it will have pauses. It will happen, but it will not be a smooth, linear process.<\/p>\n That is, unless serious and meaningful steps are taken to arrest it. But there is presently not much plausible evidence to indicate this will happen in the near future.<\/p>\n The rules are, to reiterate, rules of political inertia, not ironclad rules for all time. Eventually something will give, because the contradictions inherent in the system will inevitably produce enough political force to overcome the inertia. It is simply that such a force presently does not exist, and it does not appear likely to manifest in the near future.<\/p>\n Those of us who find the above depressing and unacceptable need to work on making it more likely for such forces to manifest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I Was Wrong — Thankfully My prediction of a disappointingly narrow victory followed by a stolen election did not come to pass. The victory was surprisingly broad, broad enough to stun the fascists and compel them to meekly acknowledge the reality of just what happened. Oh, sure, they tried to spin it in various ways, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7058,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053\/revisions\/7058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Three Rules Still Apply<\/h3>\n
Look Outside Your Country More, Americans<\/h3>\n
Looking Forward the Next Five Years<\/h3>\n
Looking Forward Further<\/h3>\n
The Long Decline Will Continue<\/h3>\n