Re: <nettime> Leftists, don't fall in the trap!

["marc.garrett via nettime-l" <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Thank you,

Excellent read :-)

marc

On Monday, 11 November 2024 at 10:21, Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> So, now that the unthinkable has happened, now that the fascist, racist,
> misogynist Trump has been elected by a clear majority of Americans, we on
> the left are supposed to admit that we are wrong by essence, offer our mea
> culpa, and move to the center where our Democratic leaders want us. In this
> way, elections can supposedly be won by a party representing the
> repressive, militarist and above all plutocratic elites of a social order
> forged by triumphant neoliberalism and ready to maintain class privileges
> by whatever grotesque war it takes to keep empire alive.
> 
> The monumentality of this trap, its totalizing foreclosure of all future
> possibilities, may be exposed by a simple injunction: "Commit suicide now,
> you will be reborn as all you once rejected, you'll be happy at last."
> 
> Refusing the moral injunction to move to the center is the vital necessity
> of the moment and the only key to future social and ecological change. The
> left did not lose this election for the Democrats. Instead, the Democrats
> lost it for the American people and for the world.
> 
> Momentarily adulated by desperate voters after the late exit of a
> narcissistic zombie leader who had promised a one-term, transformative
> presidency, Kamala Harris was the candidate of the upper third of American
> society, among whom the Democratic share of the vote increased
> significantly, even as it fell off a cliff amid the lower ranks of the
> wealth distribution. Her policies - or rather, lack of policies - did not
> aim at the slightest transformation of this society, because after all, the
> good people already have all the good jobs, live in the good neighborhoods,
> profess the good opinions, and therefore have the right to tell everyone
> else not only what to do, but who to be. According to them, acquiescence to
> the condescending authoritarianism of a former prosecutor with a Glock in
> her closet was supposed to be your return ticket to the status quo,
> offering you a secure perch in a rusty cage where a collapsing world could
> fall with a crash on your obedient little head. Within such an ideological
> framework, a Trump victory was effectively unthinkable - and inevitable.
> 
> This is not to say that the progressive left in all its factions and
> splinters does not need its own multiple rethinks and self-critiques.
> Trump's landslide win may be the fault of the Democratic party, but it is
> still a massive and highly threatening defeat for our aims, values and ways
> of life. The incoherence of a Republican coalition divided between its
> cunning billionaire elite and its enraged populist base all but guarantees
> a chaotic administration, seesawing between unlikely solutions to
> intractable problems and improvised responses to crises caused, in part, by
> those same "solutions." To cover up their wavering missteps, it's clear
> that the Republicans will resort to their favorite tactic: further
> polarization. They will bait us with provocations, then use their
> formidable televisual and social-media machines to create a cacophony of
> hatred, distracting everyone from the substantial issues. This is the
> second trap set for the left over the upcoming years.
> 
> In this perspective, the first necessary move for many groups is probably
> an inward turn, in order to rediscover who you are, where you want to go
> and how to get there. There is no formula for that, because there is no
> unity of the left, that's obvious. However it's safe to say that the point
> is not to simply double down on the ideas and tactics of the past, but to
> assess the new situation and invent the strategies of a possible future.
> Democracies are governed by majorities, not only at election time but day
> by day, and whatever each of our factions and splinters produces will gain
> in power and potential through some kind of address to the outside: not
> only to other factions and splinters, but also, somehow, to the larger
> shares of the population betrayed by the Democrats and abandoned to the
> mercy or direct control of the new overlords. The assertion of self can be
> combined with a kind of selflessness, a renewed commitment to the
> solidarities that have always distinguished the left from the arrogant
> individualism of the professional managerial class. Yes, I know, we just
> did that during the pandemic - proof positive that it can be done again
> today.
> 
> In an interview published by the New York Times, Nancy Pelosi just claimed
> that the Democrats had run the best campaign possible, supporting the best
> policies available, apparently for the best outcome imaginable within a
> dead-end framework that had already failed with the financial crisis of
> 2008. Don't accept this bullshit from anyone anymore! But don't accept your
> own bullshit either. What's needed now are not spectacular acts and
> polarizing confrontations, but a reality check and the invention of new
> strategies and new solidarities under increasingly adverse conditions. So
> start with who you already are, and find the ways to become more open and
> available to many more people. This thing is not over yet. A realistic
> sense of tragedy is the price of utopian empathy. These are the wellsprings
> of transformative resistance.
> 
> Yours across the desert,
> 
> Brian
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