For those who read this earlier than now: There were 3 paragraphs duplicated in the original; I’ve eliminated the second appearance of them.

Phil Green

The Horror, the Horror, Conclusion: The Heart of Darkness

I. How did Trump win the election: the worst possible outcome? Here are some would-be answers:

Ben Rhodes, once Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff, describes it well:(slightly edited) “The play book for transforming a democracy is clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw districts. Change voting laws. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an US versus Them message: Us, the “real” Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on.”

Yes, this is the path along which opponents are turned into hated enemies, and the Great Leader becomes the conduit for that rage. Trump’s disinhibition spoke to and for his voters. He won because of it, not despite it. We can chart the steps, yet still not understand them. What stands out in that litany, as above, is the absence of people, who become merely recipients of the Leader’s message. If we go through the structural and political events, we still have not explained anything: or rather, one thing: how the disappointment of neglect turns into the behavior of moral monsters.

Superficially then, the arc of causation is visible. There was always going to be a debate as to who brought us out of the 2008 collapse: Obama or Trump. Instead, Covid came along, bringing a surge of inflation; and despite Trump’s complete inattention–until he authorized the great Vaccine race–that only got worse because of the very success of Biden’s industrial policy.

Long-term economic investments in domestic manufacturing were overshadowed by real-time anxiety over rent and grocery prices. Even as the rate of inflation ultimately diminished, that was too late; nor did Biden or Harris ever discover a path of communication that met with many voters’ anger and anxiety. As Paul Krugman wrote, you cannot reach people by telling them they’re really better off than they think they are. Rather, the Great Debate was a Biden catastrophe, and even Tim Walz virtually kow-towed to J.D.Vance when the subject came up. Nor did any of the three Democratic candidates (so to speak) ever call the Republican debaters the bizarre liars that they were on the subject of immigration, (See below)

For several decades, overwhelming majorities of Americans have been telling pollsters that they are unhappy about the direction of the country;
and during that time, voters had identified more with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party, But starting with the financial crisis in 2008, neo-liberalism started to lose its appeal. Beginning with the creation of the middle-class Tea Party, Newt Gingrich’s vision of destruction came to real life–though not at all for the “less educated working class.” The Tea Party, after all–shades of Sweden–hated the very idea of redistribution of income through progressive taxation.

By 2016, the Democratic Party still managed to retain its now precarious leadership. But when a Pew Poll turned up the statistic that only 28 % of voters had “confidence” in “the Government,” or thought the country was “moving in the right direction,” all that changed. The entire Harris campaign, of joy in action and progress into the future, was out of touch with that general feeling of loss–which produced not a wish to hasten that future, but a wish to return to the past and Make America Great Again, following the Great Leader. The Tea Party and the white working class, representing entirely different material interests, had joined forces in the politics of grievance: a first in the politics of American democracy.

So now, at the beginning of the campaign, the Republican Party, for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s second term, was out-registering the Democrats in Pennsylvania by a huge margin–but no one seemed to notice this or comment on it. Revolutions can happen in just that way.

II. But they don’t just happen. There’s always a how and a Why.

Here we need to make sense of this crucial distinction. Equal rights, as understood by most egalitarians, is about discrimination. Working class, educated or not, is about the labor market, and remuneration. The Democratic Party deserted that part of its coalition for results that are visible: but almost all actual attacks on the working class, so understood, have been by Republican legislators–even those who have gravitated to Donald Trump. In fact, it is often the case that male workers with a high school education are paid as much in their first jobs as women with a college education are in theirs. And the latter are recognized as victims of discrimination by the Party.

The problem, precisely, is that the anti-discrimination coalition does not, on the whole, recognize those workers in the same sense as it recognizes, e.g., black people, or “women.” If working people are victims, it is of capitalism, and the Party’s failure (outside some of LBJ’s initiatives, these days outside its democratic socialism wing), to take up that challenge. And this is true around the world.

Everywhere, the Left, or semi-Left, does not recognize, or fails to deal with, that hard truth. As a French commentator points out, “Europe is more divided and has moved rightward over the past eight years with nationalist and anti-immigrant political currents strong throughout the continent. There’s a lack of belief in the future. Economic models unable to deliver, unfettered social media, and global volatility lead to taking it out on immigrants and questioning of democratic systems.”

The parties of the Right, however, deliver nothing but the alternatives that are called, falsely, “populism,” amidst the version of capitalism that pretends to be for “the people.”And that, or only a heavily propagandized version of it, they can deliver. The wealthy of high-Tech are not known for their generosity, and the recognition they purport to give, trading it for votes; costs them nothing.

All that said, what I want to do now is confront some of the over-simplifications and blindness that have distorted the chest-beating about the campaign from Left to Right. As Josh Marshall summed up in Talking Points Memo, “To start with, a political coalition that loses an election by one and a half points is by definition not smashed, moribund and in irremediable decline.” All of that is an exercise in what he calls “competitive hyperbole.” And it has its own costs.

Here is one example of that at work: the case of “Identity politics.” As the editor of Vanity Fair points out, the Harris campaign was “not really emphasizing the historic nature of her run, that she would be the first woman president, that she would be the first woman of color to be president,”…“the identity politics were happening on the GOP side.” Indeed. As though the way men view “manliness”and “leadership” were not as self -identifying as politics can possibly get: especially the politics of Fascism, as being practiced at this moment in the United States.

When John Roberts wrote the opinion that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, and put the GOP in the driver’s seat, where it remains: what kind of politics was that? Whiteness, anyone? When Donald Trump told women that “I will protect you…Like it or Not,” with whom he was identifying.” Conversely, When Harris and Walz spoke about abortion–“Reproductive choice”–they emphasized the opportunity it also opened for men.

What else is missing from the chest-beating? Unbelievably, outside MSNBC, you can hardly find any mention of the incredibly decisive role of money in Democratic Senate campaigns that were in no way oblivious of the working class and its particular interests. Thus Sherrod Brown, the Hubert Humphrey of his day and unquestionably the best friend of the working class in the Senate, led until his opponent poured in enough of his own money to win the day; just as has happened to Bob Casey in Pennsylvania: in each case, to a self-financing billionaire was about as pro-labor as the average oil-well.

What has happened here is the power of money, leading up to the coming plutocracy–and the anti-Semitism it has also let loose in Trump’s higher circles, such as Elon Musk–or is it the other way round? Why isn’t Musk known as the Anti-Semite who is being granted power by Trump.”

And how do we explain the devastating loss of Latinos, that had everything to do with gender, and very little with class per se. We can see that as time passed a class revolt won over racial and gender equality: a revolt that has been going on since the passage of the Civil Rights Act up to Biden’s alignment with college students in debt. It is not, however, “class” as a simple demographic in and of itself: it is a “less educated working class,” in that (at least in 2016, for which these figures are available) workers, especially unionized workers, with a college education went for Clinton.

As for immigration, another big lie: There is now available data analysis showing that the Economics 101 version of immigration — more workers means lower wages — didn’t always hold true. One paper published this spring, found that immigration had a positive impact on US workers. Doesn’t fit the anti-immigration mob view: ignore it. In no way can “class” explain the acceptance of gigantic lies about the character and effects of mass migration–the use of Nazi language that demeans people into animals, the willingness to accept the terroristic separation of families, the wild hysteria about non-existent numbers, the defamation about non-existent crime waves, in the mist of “carnage.”

Nothing in what I’ve written here explains the descent into the kind of language, the rejection, of all claims of decency and tolerance, into the insanity of threats and hatred–of Naziism–as though that, and the accompanying lies on the Internet of MAGA could somehow be –what, expiated?–by tuning to the magic word of “class.” Does “class” automatically convert into loathesomenesss? Marx and Engels would have been stunned into disbelief.

The deep problem is that, when equal rights and voter choices are in mortal conflict, it’s impossible not to make a choice. I’ve made mine. I don’t think of it as a repudiation of the “less educated working class.” I could always drag out my membership button in the International Association of Machinists, or IAM, Card Number U10357. As I’ve quoted about that time, “Yes, I would be happy to join that Union, even happier if you gave me a picket line to refuse to cross.” But that was in another time, and neither I nor anyone else can have it both ways.

While I was watching the last game of the World series, I noticed that in every half-inning–that’s eighteen all told–there was an ad, accepted by Fox, on which the game was being shown, that viciously denigrated trans people and Harris for supporting them against the terror, hatred, and violence to which they’ve been routinely subjected. Good for her: a good, decent human being all around, if not the world’s best campaigner. No Harris ads appeared during that game.

But then, Fox News , being a 24 hour propaganda channel has been critical to the Republican’s success; there has never been anything like it before. Not that it’s one-sided; so, most often, is MSNBC–but it is not a conduit for lies, disinformation, and hate. On the other hand, Morning Joe, that is Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, did not invite Donald Trump to appear on their show: instead, they went to fawn on him at Mar a Lago. Jennifer Taub described it better than anyone: “We don’t go to visit Hitler in his bunker.” Doing so, or anything like that, is morally incomprehensible.

III. What Really Happened?

What is the real history of class, identity, and Party that underlies all these distinctions. It is this: from 1992 through 2020, there were eight (8) elections and the Democrats outvoted the Republican candidate vote in six. and more or less tied in one (2000) while the GOP won only one (2004–a wartime contest). Only via the uniquely American electoral vote route was Trump elected over the more popular Hillary Clinton in 2016. That being the writing on the wall, the Republican Party, through Bush and Trump, made a Devil’s Contract with the Supreme, now Republican Court.

That’s how it goes: to the loser go the spoils. To sum up, white males over the years have been separating themselves from black people as far back as I can remember. The GOP has also earned the majority support of white women in every election since who knows when, in that women who identify with the patriarchal definition of “family” know what Trump told them: he will protect them, “like it or not.” That protection now is not defined by Roe v. Wade and Title 9, but rather by the murderous decision of Dobbs. All this has something to do with class–but a far cry from everything. Do the pundits really believe that being a black women had nothing to do with Kamala’s loss?

And how do all the self-excusing pundits manage not to mention the uttterr truth about the election, that today, the right-wing media — Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more — “sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.”(Michael Tomasky)

Or, as another viewer put it, “ President-elect Donald Trump’s road back to the White House weaved through testosterone-fueled corners of the internet, breaking from the circuit of daytime talk shows and local radio broadcasts. the online ecosystem of conservative influencers.”

Or again: “Gab, Parler and other right-wing social media sites were flooded with thousands of memes glorifying Mr. Trump. No similar spaces existed for the left. Meta’s Instagram, Threads and Facebook had publicly de-emphasized politics leading up to the election. Mr. Musk had transformed Twitter into X and shifted it to the right. And no other tech platform had gained momentum as a public square for liberals. It has become starkly evident that the left, the Democrats, do not have the same social media platforms to push their agenda. It has left Democrats in a huge deficit.”(The Times). Interviewed by the press, Josh Hawley remarked that “of course Donald Trump is pro-life.” No one calls him out for turning ideological horse-shit into an ordinary opinion. Time and again.

In this light, it’s useful to look again at Trump Immigration targets.
He’s has vowed to end a program that allows thousands of people from troubled nations — Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Haitians — to stay in the United States. His relentless portrayals of migrants crossing the southern border as an invading force, and Republicans’ false claims that Democrats were welcoming migrants into the country in hopes that they would vote for their party, effectively overwhelmed Harris’s milder attempt to neutralize the issue. One has to look back at the work of Joseph Goebbels and Der Sturmer to find the equivalent of hate mongering.

Again, looking back at Maureen Dowd’s sneer at Democratic elites and you have to ask, Should they hide their intelligence and education? No one asked either Bush to do that, or all those Fascistic Senators with their Harvard and Yale Law School degrees. No, that’s not the problem. If there is a serous problem, a large part of it is that these “elites”didn’t lie. Obama and Hillary said very offensive things, but they didn’t lie. Not to mention that Hillary would very possibly have won overall, if not for the interventions of Russian hackers and James Comey. Does any of this matter?

IV. Conclusion

Trump’s victory, then, was based on millions of struggling Americans who felt forgotten or invisible; and the establishment had not understood the fact-lite theater of the contemporary world. This is to say, finally, that lack of education has been, and is, disabling in domestic life but not so in the pursuit of power, where less-well-educated but ideologically enraged citizens hitch themselves up to trump’s star-–making themselves victors in the realm where they need do nothing but follow the autocrat.
He is the vehicle for their rage–but given the true sources of that rage, his plutocrat buddies are a major source of it. So we must never forget that they are the ultimate source of his victory.

I’m not going to offer any panaceas; for a disaster that’s painful in its complexity; wouldn’t know how. I do know, what everyone knows, that Democrats could do a much better job of explaining and justifying their policies, policies that are so much better for the working class than those of a plutocracy; but that lack, as does Biden’s progressive industrial policy, what must also be provided the sense, however false, of triumph over iniquity; of rural and suburban well-being over metropolitan carnage; of earned income over the power of finance: which, to repeat, is the real victor. Of hard work over advanced education paid for by loans that will never have to be repaid. and perhaps above all, the spurious outrage, fueled by the lies of the Internet and Fox News, about would-be immigrants who import guns and drugs and crime and vote in elections without being citizens–all false, but all persuading voters tto trade otheir power for nothing of material reality.

So yes, the policies of economic growth do not provide that immediate certainty that the autocrats promise. Still, Democrats will not, and they should not, give up the fight for equal rights. That will always be a difficult fight, especially since no one on any side of the aisle thinks of occupants of a common occupation or income as a deserving class,” since the big money will always go the representatives of submission, as will the willingness to invent and demand loyalty to a fantasy world of carnage and destruction. But that’s what the fight is about. And that is why, what pains me to say, that more education is not necessarily materially better than less; but is definitely more supportive of truths about the world.

V. The Heart of Darkness, Again

It’s estimated that “only 1%” of the population is trans-gender oriented. Elon Musk, the richest and most destructive private citizen in the world, has disavowed his transgender daughter. Mike Johnson, asked for a comment about Sarah MacBride, newly elected Representative from Delaware and the first transgender person to be elected to Congress. replied “A man is a man and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.” The embodiment of hatred.

Don’t look now, but Sarah is everybody.

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