The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, loose translation by Slavoj Zizek
Post-electoral thoughts:
The Republicans didn’t get the Senate, but they came out strong in the lower house. I would have thought that the triumph of DeSantis in Florida and the defeat in the Senate would quiet down the polarizing strategy of Trump.
For a few moments it seemed like the values of liberal America were able to steer things right back in the center-right political spectrum. The debates on abortion and democratic rights, the discontent and uncomfort of the working class, had been to some extent, part of the agenda. For a moment it appeared as if things were going to remain in the waters of bipartisan consensus.
But Mr. Trump has done it again. He will run for president. Even without the majority of the GOP.
The frustration with all political alternatives existing today, which are incapable of bringing the working people a solution to inflation, scarcity, poor wages, fuel prices, housing, war!, etc., suggests that he could win. And you all know what that means: social warfare.
I think the current tension is between a regime consensus on how to handle the crisis in a relatively cautious way with measures such as Federal Reserve’s interest rate tinkering, etc. This is the bipartisan consensus that includes both Democrats and Republicans, the slow and decadent administration of the capitalist crisis making life miserable for the workers of the whole world, including workers in the United States. And Trump who once again will kick the board of political life in American imperialist democracy with fascist ideas.
I know it’s too soon to call.
But since the pandemic unleashed, I have kept a rule of more or less preparing for the worst scenario. Just in case. It’s a bit exhausting, but also reality has shown to be a lot more imaginative than my most inflamed forecast. And in spite of the electoral results where the so-called “red wave” was a fiasco, Trump will tense the political rope.
And as it appears, with Trump in the race, social tensions will rise.
The underlying condition expressed in the “Trump symptom” is the world capitalist crisis, which has no resolution and will continue to create these “political monsters” (Gramsci). This is a world phenomena. And so is the resistance of the working class movement.
This young, multiracial and diverse working class has learned from the revolt against Trump and has organized unions all across the nation. The socialist “specter” is haunting workplaces.
Every step we take into taking the form of a political alternative for the working class today is crucial, but it will be more in the near future.
by Carlos B.