And now for the good news...

It's the end of the mainstream as we know it, and I feel fine (ish)

The long days of the Republican and Democratic Parties have come to an end. The establishment has definitively broken off from the body politic and is now floating away on its own: a wealthy juggernaut drifting to the dystopian future it seems intent upon creating.

What we have now is a uni-party whose only policy is to maintain its power and its wealth in the face of popular dissent. The facade of difference that they have half-heartedly maintained these last two decades has finally fallen away. This will usher in chaos, but in chaos there is an opportunity to come together.

This last week has been a culmination of a process that has been gathering steam for 6 years (but has roots going all the way back to the 1990’s, if not the Vietnam War.) Part of this process has been to define “mainstream” as whatever elected officials and media talking heads say it is, while demonising anyone who challenged the status quo as an extremist intent on destroying democracy.

But, public statements aside, how well do the party machines represent the will of the people, really?

In 2015, the grassroots left wanted Bernie. They got Hillary, the biggest insider of all time.

In 2019, the grassroots left wanted Bernie again. They got Biden, the senator representing multi-national corporations and credit card companies and China’s interests.

The grassroots right, on the other hand, got the candidate they wanted in Trump — despite the Republican Party’s attempts to stop him. And his four years in office did nothing to diminish his standing among his MAGA base. Unlike the grassroots on the left, who were left disappointed by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Trump’s appeal has only grown. 

The establishment seems to have — finally — beaten Trump, after his goading and taunting made a fool out of them for the last five years. And their revenge is currently being served hot.

The media got the story wrong, of course. As they have done many times in recent months and years, instead of offering sober and informed analysis, they grabbed the nearest blowtorch and applied it directly their heavily-sprayed hair.

Put aside for a moment the current foaming at the mouth hysteria in the mainstream media and among Democratic officials over events at the Capitol last Wednesday. Whatever it was — and there is a real uncertainty over that — it was not an accurate representation of the Trump base. I know this because I have spent the last 9 months following the Trump base, closely.

And I (a person who spent a lifetime identifying as left-wing) bring good news: there is common ground between us.

We have all been utterly betrayed by the parties that make millions off claiming to represent us.

I watched the fury of good faith Trump supporters, in particular those of colour, at the behaviour of the Republican establishment on Wednesday, January 6th, and I recognised it. Because it was the same sense of righteous anger I felt, more than once, at the Democratic Party.

Now is a good time to listen to those voices. Because in them is the space where we can overcome some of the rancour and bitterness and division of the last 5 years.

Here’s one:

“We are far from defeated. We are not racists, we are not domestic terrorists, we are concerned citizens who want our voices heard and our needs met. We are tired of taking care of other nations while our women and children and men suffer homeless on the streets. We are tired of shelling out millions in aid when our service members come home to become homeless, to come home and can’t cope and commit suicide because they all of the atrocities they seen with their own two eyes. We will be the light. And starting now, we will be the difference.” [Watch Antoine Tucker’s full video here]

Does that sound like a right-wing nut job to you? [See 2017 profile on Antoine Tucker here.]

We, the people, recognise that the fix is in. The elites, who have set themselves up as the wise and worldly; they have revealed themselves to be gangsters with impeccable manners, criminals who make the laws, and sinners who cast stones from glass houses.

I understand the fear and loathing of Trump, I really do. I used to feel it myself. But if you can, consider what this looks like to the many millions of Americans who voted for him in November. Voters who have seen, with their own eyeballs, deeply concerning evidence of fraud that has been dismissed at EVERY level of officialdom. No matter how much the media cries “conspiracy” on the issue of vote irregularity, that cat is most definitely out of the bag.

Trump wasn’t the threat. He wasn’t the problem. He wasn’t the disease. 

He was the symptom. 

Just like Caesar, his own side did him in. The Republican elite last week seized their opportunity and threw the Trump under the bus. Watching Republicans posture as patriots as they scurried away from the sinking ship of HMS Trump was surely one of the most distasteful things I have ever experienced. It was even worse than hair-sniffing Biden posturing as America’s grandpa.

Take, for example Kelly Loeffler, who just lost her Senate race in Georgia — a seat she was appointed to by the Republican governor in 2019 over the objections of President Trump. She is known best for selling millions of dollars worth of stock after receiving a classified briefing in January 2020 about the impending pandemic. Following the briefing, she and her husband also bought stock in one company that makes telecommuting software and another that makes medical supplies. 

Or Elaine Chao, Trump’s Transportation Secretary, who resigned on Thursday because she was “deeply troubled” by events at the Capitol. According to Vanity Fair, in 2017 Sec. Chao “thought it would be no big deal to bring her relatives—who happen to have major business interests in Beijing—to meetings with government officials during a visit to China.” (Funnily enough, I don’t recall seeing Vanity Fair freak out about Hunter Biden’s trips to Beijing on Air Force 2, but I digress…)

Chao and her husband — who just happens to be former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who just so happened to tell fellow Republicans to give up on Trump a few weeks ago — have seen their fortune grow massively while in office.

Biden, McConnell, and their cohorts do the bidding of the global elites, because they are the global elites. No longer can they claim to be the neighbours and representatives of the ordinary men and women who put them in office. THAT is the problem. Trump is the symptom. He's the rattle in your car that tells you something's broken under the hood. Did the great & the good & the smart kids in the media and cultural production listen to the rattle? No. They did not. Whatever bad shit comes next, it's on them.