The media’s campaign to convince Republicans the election was rigged against them has been spectacularly successful.
Overall trust in elections has plummeted among Republicans: Prior to the election, 66 percent of GOP voters said they had at least some trust in the U.S. election system. In the latest poll, that dropped to 33 percent. Democratic trust, meanwhile, jumped from 63 percent to 83 percent.
https://morningconsult.com/form/tracking-voter-trust-in-elections/
Simply by asserting that allegaions are “baseless” and “without evidence” in almost every paragraph, the media has been able to halve the number of Republicans who have any trust in the U.S. election system. Increasing the proportion of Democrats who trust it by a third is not much compensation.
Now President elect Joe Biden is joining in the campaign:
Joe Biden : (09:12)
Even more stunning, 17 Republican Attorneys General, and 126 Republican members of the Congress, actually, they actually signed onto a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas. That lawsuit asked the United States Supreme Court to reject the certified vote counts in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials and one group of states to try to get the Supreme Court to wipe out the votes of more than 20 million Americans in other states. And to hand the presidency to a candidate who lost the Electoral College, lost the popular vote, and lost each and every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse.Joe Biden : (10:04)
It’s a position so extreme, we’ve never seen it before. And position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honor our Constitution. Thankfully, a unanimous Supreme Court immediately and completely rejected this effort. The Court sent a clear signal to President Trump that they would be no part of an unprecedented assault on our democracy.
Joe Biden Speech After Electoral College Vote Transcript December 14
That sends exactly the same two clear messages that the media has been repeating:
- The USA will now have a government that treats going to its courts to dispute election results as an attack by enemies of the people – exactly like every country that has rigged elections.
- Thankfully, the courts can be relied on to defend the government from such outrageous attacks by enemies of the people.
Can Biden succeed in halving again the number of Republicans who still have some trust in US elections so that only 1 in 6 Republicans remain trusting? Will he feel successful if he increases the numbers of Democrats with some trust by another one third?
He can certainly try!
It would be hard for anyone who does not support his government to fail to grasp this clear message that they will have to fight.
What remains to be seen is how many who oppose Trump will join in.
Trump makes it harder for people to oppose this attack on the basic principles of democracy. Biden is doing his very best to make it easier. Anyone who cops this shit from the government will cop anything.
I thought it would be extremely difficult for the Democrats to top the stupidity of having spent years claiming that the President of the USA was a Kremlin stooge.
I was wrong. Its easy and they are likely to become even more unhinged as the inevitable results of their efforts bear fruit.
Presumably they really do believe the conservative majority on SCOTUS is on their side.
So how are they going to cope if that turns out to be wrong? What if the same courts that refused to issue emergency orders without testing the evidence end up holding trials to consider the evidence? Obviously the media will continue to simply denounce that as an “unprecedented assault on our democracy” and insisting there is no evidence. Will repeating that again be helpful?
And what do they expect, and what does SCOTUS expect would happen if courts did simply refuse to consider election disputes as demanded by the President elect.
Are they going to find it easier to govern a country where more than half the voters don’t trust the election results, or the courts?
Not a problem. In the same speech where Biden denounced a majority of Republican voters for their “unprecedented assault on democracy” he also said:
Joe Biden : (12:32)
You know, in this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. We the people voted, faith in our institutions held, the integrity of our elections remains intact. And now it’s time to turn the page as we’ve done throughout our history, to unite, to heal.
That soothing message is bound to work out well. Can’t you just feel the uniting, the healing…
C21st Left 
I know what you were suggesting. 70% of americans dont take part in the electoral system outside of the celebrity vote for president in spite of the media trying to convince they should. No it wasnt the media turning them off they were already turned off and what has that meant? nothing. so perhaps another 5% join the 70% and of course this could be the tipping point but I doubt it. Seems a storm in a teacup for mine and I was aware you were extrapolating and hence my response, you may have tried to clear it up by saying voters in your response.
to answer your question, nothing!!! storm in a teaspoon
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I quoted myself saying “voters” in response because I said “voters” in original. You translated that to “americans” and then went off at a tangent about people who “don’t trust the system”, complaining the data was “from some survey for gods sake!!!”.
I seriously doubt that you even looked at the link. Why should you bother when you ALREADY KNOW it is all a “storm in a teacup”?
I am trying to understand what is currently happening. You are (more successfully) trying to just ignore it.
In my view the reason that morning consult is now tracking this issue regularly is because this very sudden and very large shift to the voters for one of the two parties believing the election was rigged against them matters a lot.
My answer to my question is that the other major party expects it to matter a lot and are gripped by a delusion that endlessly shouting “nothing to see here” or, as you put it, “storm in a teaspoon” will somehow make a problem they are VERY worried about go away.
The extent of that delusion is shown by President elect Biden joining in the chorus instead of pretending to be above it all and engaged in “uniting and healing”.
By explicitly enlisting SCOTUS as being on his side of “democracy” against the “enemies of the people” he is actively exacerbating the problem.
My view, is that it is now well established that it would be extremely difficult to maintain stable capitalist rule in a modern western industrialized society without regular free and fair elections between genuinely competing bourgeois parties.
Workers are still backwards enough to put up with just regularly throwing out one of them or not taking any interest in how they are governed at all.
But it is only in much less developed societies that workers would put up with being denied even that degree of participation.
Courts also understand that if they refuse to hear allegations of fraud, elections must inevitably degenerate into gang warfare between competing factions.
Business requires a stable rules based environment. The regular swing between competing parties is a major stabilizing force.
The teaspoon is far too small to contain the storms that would be unleashed if they were as complacent about the situation as you are.
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ok I,ve had enough!!!
83% of democrats thin elections are ok 33% or republicans do. This by the way from some survey for gods sake!!!
you then claim from out of your arse that 50% of americans dont trust the system! what this survey shows is that 66% of REPUBLICANS and 17% of DEMOCRATS dont trust the system. That equates to about 15% or less of the total population. do you have something else we dont know to prove your claim that 50% of americans dont trust elections?
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Fine. The “silent majority” trusts the system as demonstrated by their not voting for either party or any other candidate.
Nixon put a lot of emphasis on his theory about the “silent majority” supporting the Vietnam war. It did not work out well.
BTW the point of the 50% was an extrapolation on repeating the exercise of convincing an extra 50% of Republicans to distrust the system and an extra 1/3 of Democrats to do so. I was suggesting that Biden joining in the media campaign to foster unity and healing by shouting down opponents as enemies of the people will continue to be as unproductive as it has been for the past four years.
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PS What would your answer be to the question I raised:
“And what do they expect, and what does SCOTUS expect would happen if courts did simply refuse to consider election disputes as demanded by the President elect.
Are they going to find it easier to govern a country where more than half the voters don’t trust the election results, or the courts?”
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re read and yes you say more than half the voters dont trust the election results. The reason for the post is that the “survey” which you are hanging everything on doesnt say that!! this has been something of a consistency lately in your posts and no
I dont have the time to go over all your posts and do a statistical analysis, i think anyone who has any understanding of statistics could see it!
“My view, is that it is now well established that it would be extremely difficult to maintain stable capitalist rule in a modern western industrialized society without regular free and fair elections between genuinely competing bourgeois parties.”
My view is it is not!! Justice doesnt have to be done it has to be seen to be done and while you and the morning consult are aware that the election was rigged I like I assume most americans, which a small percentage are republican and democrat voters, dont see anything particularly unusual about this election. the bureaucratic bungling was probably less than normal elections.
While Trump is saying that the democrats rigged the election and he won, the vast majority of the population know he lost no matter what!!! I assume the courts will find the election wasnt rigged as it would be too dangerous to do anything else and you and the trumpists will know it was.
We will have to wait and see if trump has this mass base he can mobilise to destabilise and undermine the process by claiming he won and should be reinstated. I assume he will move on and start campaigning for 2024.
BTW If I get time I will look into the move to cities which seem to be more inclined to vote democrat and how that augurs for the republicans and trumpists. Texas looks like a flip state which could be the virus but suspect it is more the demographics
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1. Trump claiming he “won” is typical Trump and irrelevant.
2. I assume Biden got more votes. Would not be surprised if “vast majority” of “population” think so to. Not irrelevant, but not central either.
3. Currently Electoral College system is accepted. It should and will become highly controversial and eventually changed. So should Presidential elected monarchy and single member electorates producing two party system. All such changes possible within limits of bourgeois democracy. But they are not current issue.
4. There IS a “current issue” as to whether Biden was in fact lawfully elected by the Electoral College. The shouting that there is no such issue is confirmation that there is.
5. Trump’s claim that the courts should have handed him a non-existant Electoral College victory is also typical Trump and irrelevant. What the courts could have done is nullified PA, MI and WI and thrown election to the House of Representatives voting by State delegations. There was never any serious possibility of simply declaring Trump won.
6. Results in House voting by State delegations would have been an interesting test of both the importance of Biden having won the popular vote and the degree of opposition to Trump among Republicans in Congress. Could still happen though I am not claiming it is at all likely.
7. When justice is not seen to be done people get rebellious unless they are either crushed or spiritless. Americans are neither.
8. Your assumption that “the courts will find the election wasn’t rigged as it would be too dangerous to do anything else” would make sense if you believed that Americans are either crushed or spiritless. If the election was in fact rigged it would be far more dangerous to find it was not rigged. Certainly if it was not rigged it would be even more dangerous to find it was rigged. But you are repeating EXACTLY the theme of the Democrats insisting that the evidence must not be considered at a trial.
9. I expect that Trump will lead a strong right wing movement that will be fighting in each relevant State for changes in electoral system, legislature and Courts and against a thoroughly corrupt and ineffectual Democrat government that is paralysed by opponents holding the Senate (and SCOTUS).
10. That is dangerous and joining with the Democrat chorus that there is nothing to see here is even more dangerous.
11. Enforcing free and fair competitive elections is necessary for any revolutionary democratic movement that aims to transcend bourgeois democracy.
12. Joining in the chorus of denunciation of even inquiring into whether an election might have been rigged promotes apathy and cynicism rather than anything that could help prepare the working class to become a ruling class.
13. I don’t understand your references to “statistical analysis”.
14. I think I do understand your inability to “see anything particularly unusual about this election” and your “assumption the bureaucratic bungling was probably less than normal elections”. My understanding is simply that you know nothing about it at all but have a strong opinion anyway. Rather like Trumpists.
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. There IS a “current issue” as to whether Biden was in fact lawfully elected by the Electoral College. The shouting that there is no such issue is confirmation that there is.
Havent heard any shouting other than from you and the trumpists. You are reading things into what is being said and trying to find subtext that may or may not exist.
The sense you get in the USA is one of people that have been crushed and frustrated, but assume it is a temporary thing. I dont have a crystal ball so dont know this.
Trump lost the election and now the working class should suddenly decide that we should have fair elections!!!!! this is the revolutionary thing to do.
I think point 14 sums it up. You and the trumpists know the “truth” and everyone else is just ignorant morons for not following your sources while you ignore theirs. I wont waste your time by responding to any more posts
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We have been waiting a while (2 months) for reliable evidence to back the claim that the US election was stolen from Trump.
Providing some evidence here for such a claim and evaluation of that claim by Scott Adams. Adams is a Trump supporter who has spent time and energy debunking other such claims that initially looked credible.
See
https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2021/01/us-elections-kraken.html
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It’s hotting up again, Ted Cruz and 10 other Senators will not endorse US Presidential election results. Their full statement here:
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=5541
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Yes, it is starting to heat up again, though I think it will mainly be just “noise” in Congress this month.
I think Ted Cruz et al, actually voting to reject the certified votes from States is mainly posturing. Will help to enthuse the protest rally on 6 January and delay things for a few hours or even a couple of days. But that’s all.
There will be a more serious long term sustained fight, including others competing for Congressional leadership of the movement Trump leads, and battles at State level.
Very interesting that the former Chief of Staff for Ted Cruz and Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy, rejects the January 6 posturing while also disputing the November 3 results:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Roy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Caucus
Similar position taken by another wing of the Trumpist forces in Congress:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cotton
They both give a clear explanation of why Congress overturning election results would be a very bad way to go, even if it were possible, which it obviously is not.
If the results were overturned, it would be via the Courts and/or the State legislatures, as per the US Constitution.
Interestingly Chip Roy has initiated what appears to be an even more futile piece of posturing:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/532460-chip-roy-challenges-seating-of-members-in-arizona-georgia-michigan-nevada
He makes a solid point that the issues of electoral rigging do apply just as much to the other elections held simultaneously under the same local rules, electoral administration and ballot papers on November 3 as the choice of Presidential Electoral College Electors i.e. House of Representatives, Senators and also State and local elections.
But there could also be another angle. Democrats and the overwhelming majority of Republicans can be expected to vote against the challenge by Chip Roy and instead confirm the credentials of all the Congressional Representatives from all six battleground States.
The Republican plurality among the State delegations to the House of Representatives in each of those States is as follows:
AZ -1, GA +5, MI -2, NV -2, PA 0, WI +2.
PA is the only one of the 50 States that would have a deadlocked delegation if the House of Representatives had to choose a President by voting as State delegations in the event of the Electoral College not having chosen a President.
Including the above, a total of 26 State delegations would have a Republican plurality against 23 with a Democrat plurality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives
I haven’t checked the rules regarding credentials for the House of Representatives but I am pretty sure the Democrat majority in the House would have responded to any move by State legislatures (or a Republican dominated SCOTUS) that threw the election to the House voting by State delegations, by disqualifying enough members to reverse the numbers in at least two State delegations.
It might be too late after the House has been sworn in. But generally legislatures do have powers to disqualify or expel members. Anyway, having explicitly voted to reject a challenge now, would make if significantly more awkward to do that later.
In my view it is highly likely that SCOTUS will eventually declare the rule changes for the PA election to have been unlawful. If the same eventually happened for WI and MI the issue might then arise as to whether Biden and Harris were lawfully elected.
Perhaps it is more likely that would be considered moot, with SCOTUS deciding the Electoral College had been certified and the results confirmed, so it was too late to undo (as could be the case for any decision by a majority of a legislative body which depended on the votes of some members later found to be disqualified).
But one scenario could still be that the positions of Presdent and Vice-President became vacant.
One sub-scenario could be that the election would be thrown to the House at a later date than specified by the Constitution as the provision that had been explicitly laid out for the failure of the Electoral College to pick a President, which unfortunately had not been performed at the right time.
Alternatively, a more strictly textual reading of the relevant law could at least equally plausibly hold that Biden and Harris had become President and Vice President until the decision that they were not lawfully elected and events had moved on since the election was indeed over. So the provisions for a vacancy in both offices were now the relevant provisions.
It woud be entirely up to SCOTUS.
As explained in Notes 48 a vacancy would result in the next in line of succession, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House of Representatives, becoming President. At that stage the Senate could only confirm or refuse to confirm a Vice President nominated by the new President. The power of the Senate to choose a Vice President from among the top votes for candidates in the Electoral College would have ended with the certification on January 6 (and subsequent inauguration).
Trump would certainly prefer that the election was thrown to the 26 Republican State delegations rather than given to Pelosi. Although he might still lose in the House the challenge by Chip Roy could still be part of preparations to avoid losing.
SCOTUS could bizarrely accept the passionate arguments that the Speaker is an Officer of the House and not of the United States and therefore ineligible because the legislative provision was unconstitutional. That was argued by Democrats in law journals when they were worried that Newt Gingrich could become President. No doubt it would be argued with equal conviction by Republicans against Pelosi. The same would apply to the President Pro-tem of the Senate not being an officer of the United States. I cannot see that going anywhere but it has to be mentioned in the context of a very unexpected turn of events.
There is certainly a fair chance that the Senate would not have confirmed any appointments further down the line of succession such as Secretaries of State and Defence.
Anyway I am not expecting any real drama until the legal issues are actually tried in the Courts which could take quite a while. The next relevant date is a January 15 SCOTUS conference which could decide some schedule for one of the PA cases. But that only affects standing of litigants in future cases.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docket/docketfiles/html/public%5C20-740.html
What is clear so far is that nothing will get expedited to be heard before January 20 inauguration, let alone January 6. That could mean nothing gets heard at all, ever, but I doubt it.
Meanwhile the pointless petitions for expedited hearings are still being filed, accompanied by not at all pointless cases about the unlawful changes to election rules that allegedly produced the Democrat victory.
The relief requested is for the State legislatures to choose electors. In my view there never was any chance of that and it isn’t what Trump is aiming for in the courts, though it does help his battles in the States. Maintaining that pretense does require requesting expedited relief since the State legislatures do become completely irrelevant at least after January 20 if not by January 6. Meanwhile Democrats keep celebrating every decision not to provide expedited relief as though that is somehow conclusive and continue to praise the courts for avoiding the actual issues. As strategies go that is not quite as spectacular as “the Russia thing” but it isn’t very impressive either.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20-845.html
Case for WI has not been docketed yet:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/president-trump-files-wisconsin-case-in-united-states-supreme-court/
Cases for MI and GA have not yet reached SCOTUS level.
Eventual findings that the changes to election rules were unlawful would not necessarily result in a decision that the certified results should be nullified. That could depend on trial of factual issues about whether the effect was large enough to determine the result. That could take much longer. Nullification of the certification of Electoral college votes might not nullify the Presidential inauguration.
But the legal battles are not over and they are only one front of what is ultimately a political battle.
Two things I am reasonably sure of:
1. SCOTUS will take its time, but cannot avoid dealing with the issues.
2. The Democrats and media will continue to irritate more and more people by insisting that there is nothing to see here and it is all over. It isn’t.
Meanwhile, I think the most interesting development this month will be the results in Georgia.
The recently leaked audio and transcript of Trump’s complaints about Georgia is interesting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trumps-full-jan-2-call-with-ga-secretary-of-state/2021/01/03/3f9426f4-7937-4718-8a8e-9d6052001991_video.html
Outcome for Senate majority will be known soon and does greatly influence future developments so no point attempting to analyse the future before those unknowable results are known.
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PS I am not sure but it looks to me like the petition for WI might have to be refiled as it mentions 4 cases with a total of 46 electoral votes. However it mentions only three States, PA, GA and WI = 20 + 16 + 10 with a total of 46. My guess is that there is a typo left from a draft filing together with MI that has been delayed. I still think MI is far more relevant than GA.
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Reichstagsbrand Season Two
Trump 13 hours ago T0108
Events moving too rapidly for even a quarter baked comment.
Tentative title, subtitle and lead for future analysis:
“Reichsbrand Season Two”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm
Implausibly it currently looks as though the Capitol Police deliberately failed to prepare for riot to gain some advantage.
The proposals to impeach Trump would be as utterly pointless as usual if the aim is not to ban him from holding public office in future. It is not implausible that there would currently be enough Republican support in the Senate to achieve that as he has openly declared war on them and they really are desperate about getting rolled by Trump again, or at the very least Biden getting a second term because of Trump.
Democrats wanting to help them out with that fantasy could be plausibly explained by abysmal stupidity.
There is plenty of that around but I don’t find it a satisfactory theory. So I’ll wait and see if they actually go ahead with this farce. Needless to say it could not possibly work out well for its sponsors since conditions in the USA are rather different from those in Nazi Germany (ultimately of course it didn’t work out too well for them there either).
Meanwhile enjoy this video of the crazed mob of “dozens” wreaking havoc on the sacred temple of democracy while remaining within the red ropes and taking selfies.
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Glenn Greenwald identified the important issue as a new domestic war on terror last October. See the clip from his Joe Rogan interview then:
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Thanks. I’ve watched the 2’19” excerpt from Rogan interview (did not watch the long intervew as strongly prefer skimmable text).
Have also read:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/violence-in-the-capitol-dangers-in-67f
I don’t share his analysis of the Bush/Cheney/Neocon situation. There was the usual unanimity of corporate liberal opinion and exploitation of emotional reactions that is occurring now. But the “left” he now complains are supporting that same corporate liberal unanimity now, despite opposing it then, were not left at all and their further degeneration is no surprise.
Its good to see Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibi and presumably some others standing up to them. But joining with the paleocons in opposition to dismantling the fascist regimes the US propped up was not a good starting point.
Siding with Trump’s overt isolationism against the softer Obama version is not a good way to end up either.
Certainly the anti-democratic hysteria being promoted now does have echos of the way the Bush administration mobilized for war in Iraq. There was no revolutionary democratic left mobilizing for war against tyranny so it is not surprising there was so much confusion (though even the revionist “communists” in the Arab world knew they had to fight the fascist regimes and their Islamo-fascist opponents rather than continuing to mouth “anti-imperialist” rhetoric pretending the US was the still the main problem). Even with that manipulation the rather small “neocon clique” that genuinely supported the war eventually got pushed by the solid majority of the US foreign policy establishment that supported “stability”. The Arab spring got rolled back and the next round of “instability” will be much bloodier.
There is a battle for basic democratic principles in the USA right now. Lots of people with various political views will have to join together.
It will be no harder uniting with isolationists like Glen Greemwa;d and Matt Taibi on those issues than uniting with Trumpist isolationists on the same issues. In some ways easier.
But it will be much harder to establish an independent left analysis and program.
I cannot follow what is happening in the US with any hope of getting it right.
But my impression is that a lot of it is seriously deranged stupidity rather than consolidation of a stronger corporate liberal regime.
Ok, so corporate liberals are moving rapidly to establish levels of control over social media comparable to Chinese fascists.
As well as not being able to use twitter and facebook, people who want to organize through the internet will now need to learn how to get software that doesn’t come from an app store and learn how to use a peer to peer network.
That won’t take long when you are trying to shut down tens of millions of people who are already thoroughly pissed off.
The sixties left was much smaller than the current Trumpist right. We broke through with wax stencils.
The difference is that Chinese fascists can easily put the “troublemakers” away. That situation simply does not exist in the USA at present. There were tendencies towards it in the McCarthy period and some in the Vietnam period. But the levels of repression did not eliminate basic bourgeois democracy. The most effective form was fear of not getting or keeping a job rather than getting put in prison.
Perhaps that’s about to change. I mentioned a while ago that the electoral official in Georgia was right that there will be deaths. Not many yet, but we can expect more.
A fairly natural response to being shutdown will be various forms of militant resistance, including some rather more impressively violent riots than what happened on January 6. On the fringes there will be inevitably be some terrorists and that will be used as an excuse to clamp down further.
But where does that all end up? Fascism? Currently I don’t see it.
A somewhat weird and incoherent mass based right wing party now exists in the USA that is seriously opposed to the corporate liberal establishment. Will these measures either turn it towards fascism or crush it? They are a lot more embedded in “mainstream” society than sixties radicals were. Why would they not be able to just continue organizing in a way that isolates provocateurs and avoids repression?
Remains to be seen. But my guess is they will wipe out their Republican opponents at the primaries in two years and become the main opposition both in and out of Congress.
Part of the reason for that guess is my view about how hysterical and deranged the reaction to them has been. Trump has been quite skillful at helping the liberal splodeyheads to splode. But in addition they really do seem to be that fragile. If they go ahead to prohibit Trump from running from office I think it would reflect real fear and real stupidity rather than an actual capability to shift to a different form of bourgeois rule.
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