Trump-weariness

(Reposted from Reddit)

Among the "Left" crowd, readers are starting to see signs of Trump-weariness, a sort of "let's elect Biden and get it over with" attitude. Apparently Trump so fills people with rage that they're willing to forget some basic facts. Let's review:

1. Joe Biden was chosen because he was the most credible guy to beat Bernie Sanders, and by most credible I mean not credible at all, since what happened in 2016 should have revealed the Democratic Party's penchant for election fraud to the world.

2. Biden was also chosen because Barack Obama wanted his legacy to look good -- presuming that a Biden victory would send a message of "they loved me so much they elected my VP" to the world. We should remember when reading this that if any "good-looking" legacy deserves to look bad, it's that of Barack Obama. In this regard, we are not to say a word about the much lower competence we'll all be dealing with with the Joe Biden campaign in crunch time, even though Obama himself said such a word.

3. The primary point of Biden/ Harris is not to win an election, but rather to get the Left to "shut up." Oh, sure, he might also win the election, but what he really wants everyone to think, win or lose, is: "look, we made a Black woman Vice-President and we tried to get rid of Trump so quitcher complaining about social issues."

Anyway, let's proceed. One recalls how Marianne Williamson and Cornel West told everyone to vote for Joe Biden at the Movement for a People's Party convention, and how Doug Henwood told the DSA in New York City to vote for Joe Biden. But now for instance we have the case of Paul Street. He posted something on Counterpunch first of the month: "Take it to the Streets." Here's what Paul Street said.

Biden? He’s absurd. Reject him and then try to elect his sorry ass. If he sneaks in (I’m not betting on that for reasons given above), then fight him and the whole damn system that gave rise to him, Trump, Obama, and to the rest of the POPC. It’s like the great Left moral and political leader Dr. Cornel West recently said on CNN: vote “for” the neoliberal mass incarcerationists Joe Biden and Kamala Harris but don’t lie for them. West will vote “for” them, but he won’t endorse them.

The problem with such a "strategy" is that it isn't coherent. If you're going to elect Joe Biden, you can't be seen rejecting him. You must, indeed, attempt to flip swing states for Biden, assuming the Biden campaign approves of your efforts. Otherwise you're not helping elect Joe Biden -- you're just voting for him. There's no point in being self-righteous about voting for Joe Biden in a state where the outcome is decided anyway.

Street must have seen this upon post-publication reflection, because his most recent post focuses instead upon whether or not there will be any sort of free or fair elections. Here it is argued that:

we will have to protest in large numbers to make it possible for there to be an electoral process that can actually rid of us of “the dangerous criminal in human history.”

I have a question. The prospect of maybe electing Joe Biden is going to motivate protests against Donald Trump's rigging of the electoral system? Electing John Kerry didn't motivate any protests against George W. Bush's rigging of the electoral system in 2004. At any rate, we move on to Matt Taibbi, and his recent piece "The Trump Era Sucks and Needs To Be Over." This Taibbi piece actually has some good rebuttals to common arguments against Trump. Here's one:

Donald Trump is so unlike most people, and so especially unlike anyone raised under a conventional moral framework, that he’s perpetually misdiagnosed. The words we see slapped on him most often, like “fascist” and “authoritarian,” nowhere near describe what he really is, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. It’s been proven across four years that Trump lacks the attention span or ambition required to implement a true dictatorial regime. He might not have a moral problem with the idea, but two minutes into the plan he’d leave the room, phone in hand, to throw on a robe and watch himself on Fox and Friends over a cheeseburger.

What's weird about this Taibbi piece is the end, in which he argues that even though:

A surging activist movement will be deflated without him, along with a host of related fundraising groups and businesses (watch what happens to “dismantling white supremacy training” in a non-Trump context).

But Taibbi still thinks Trump should still be defeated:

Isn’t four years of this enough? I don’t even care anymore whose fault it is: Trump has made us all crazy, and it’s time for the show to be over. We deserve slow news days again.

Ah yes, those good old slow news days, in which nobody was motivated to protest or do any dismantling white supremacy training. I for one don't look forward to them. "Normal" sucked, and we can't have it anyway. Two further questions:

1. "We" are going to defeat Trump by electing Biden? Who's "we"? The Biden campaign is supposedly pulling in record money; he should be doing just fine. But the Biden campaign is not "we." The Biden campaign is "they," the folks who do the bidding of the top 20% who sent in that record money. "They" are going to elect Biden. Isn't that the story they should be telling themselves, and not that "we" are going to elect Biden?

2. Supposedly the "Left," that collection of ostensibly pathetic losers who couldn't get Bernie Sanders nominated, is now a group of superheroes, the Guardians of the Galaxy, who are going to get Joe Biden elected President even though Biden is either unwilling or incapable of doing the job himself. How did the Left's sudden transformation occur? Or was there no transformation at all?

Honestly, people need to be developing better things to do with their time than obsessing over who becomes President in November.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

Paul Street, who, along with Chris Hedges, was, for many years, one of my favorite writers. He's absolutely lost his way. IMO, he's no more than a DP shill.

(Having said that, guess Street is at least slightly better than some of the vacuous and clueless folks that I've seen featured on progressive podcasts the past year, or so--yikes! Biggrin )

Mollie

"The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation."
~~Matt Taibbi, The American Press Is Destroying Itself, June 12, 2020

"I know, I know. All passion; no street smarts."
~~Captain West, 1992 Rob Reiner/Aaron Sorkin Movie, A Few Good Men

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
~~Will Rogers, Actor & Social Commentator (1856-1950)

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12 users have voted.

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

“Out first job is to defeat Trump”

It’s almost always spoken by someone trying to sell progressives on swallowing and voting Joe.

Ice Cube did an excellent rant about this. Essentially he said Biden wins. Day one, Trump is out. Now what? Nothing else changes, so now what?

As far as I’m concerned, our first job is to force the people in power to start acting in the interest of the 99%. We can worry about specifics later, but they need to understand we are not fucking around any longer. If that includes defeating Trump, then so be it.

But this whole “first we have to defeat Trump” bit implies that is going to fix things. I see no evidence of that. Ok, so Biden has started throwing some vague words out there about a trillion dollar relief package. How does that jive with his people who just a week ago said “the cupboard is bare” and that they would have to go in on more austerity?

It just sounds to me like Biden is throwing something out there because he’s aware enough to know he should. He doesn’t have a plan and nothing in his record indicates he’s going to do the right thing.

We’re into September now. All they’ve run on is “not Trump”. Yeah, that’s going to be enough for some to get back to brunch, I guess. I just don’t see how it changes a thing.

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26 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Hawkfish's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

I’m voting Green here in WA and backing non-establishment local Dems like Beth Doglio who came in second in our open primary.

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8 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Creosote.'s picture

@Hawkfish
and also supporting the very decent and effective AG Bob Ferguson.

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3 users have voted.
Granma's picture

That will be accomplished by electing Biden. I gather the point is just to get rid of Trump. I’m all for seeing the last of him. But I’m beginning to wonder if between the time he is voted out, should that happen, and the time Biden is sworn in, there will be civil war.

I don’t remember a time when there was so much hatefulness spewing from people’s mouths. I can’t even think of anything which has not become political in the US. Everything seems to be political now. Given the wrong form by a busy clerk who then turns to help someone else, and it is because of the Democrats. And a rant follows, from a normally friendly, generous, kind person. It feels as though I live in a whole different country.

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20 users have voted.

Oh, well, it is what it is. Hunker down.
I spend zero time discussing the election
but will absolutely agree what politics is the reason for the food we eat, the air we breathe, and then about, anymore, of the means we have for self-protection.

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10 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Don't legitimize Biden.

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14 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Cassiodorus's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness are those voters who would empower any piece of work that gets into power as long as they have a (D) next to their names because they think of that as "winning."

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11 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Bisbonian's picture

@Cassiodorus Our team never makes a mistake, and never cheats. Theirs does...all the time. (Choose a team at random).

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5 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Cassiodorus's picture

@Bisbonian Because, obviously, the Democratic Party's performance during the Obama administration, especially in the 2010 and 2014 elections, can only be called an "own goal" by such standards, one which all Democrats are asked to ignore.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-dem...

Politics is of course not really a team sport.

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2 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Shahryar's picture

First and foremost it was a stop Bernie move. It could have been any of them. Boot, Bloomy, Klobocop. As long as they were all still running Bernie was going to clean up on Super Tuesday. I think we can all agree on this, so far.

This Super Tuesday was coming up quickly. Clyburn had just helped Biden win in South Carolina. A decision had to be made. Everyone out except one (but leaving Warren in). Had South Carolina been after Super Tuesday I think Boot or Klobo would have been chosen. But with Biden's win there "they" (the dark, shadowy figures) had no other option. They couldn't ask Biden to quit when he'd just won a primary. So it was hastily decided and the others were told they were out.

It wasn't because Biden was a better centrist candidate. It was simply an accident of the primary calendar.

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15 users have voted.

anyone who thinks that Biden will be more "reasonable" than Trump. Trump will start to do whatever comes into his head then forget about it and move on to his next silly idea - but sometimes that silly idea will be to make it look like he's doing the right thing. Biden's whole campaign is to make sure nothing good is ever done. Biden's whole career has been a crusade to make sure the worst possible things are done. He has said repeatedly that he will do nothing good, and that he will undo any good that has been done in the past. Take him at his word. We might survive Trump if we fight hard enough. We will not survive Biden, but most of us will not realize they're being killed. Hard choice, but a clear choice.

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21 users have voted.

On to Biden since 1973

from our hearts and call it progress.

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13 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@doh1304 is there to 1) make sure government remains punitive with the police in the hands of fascist paramilitaries and 2) make sure nothing is done that would undo the worst of it, which would mean welfare guarantees, limits on corporate power, and a breakup of billionaire wealth.

As I've argued here and elsewhere, "vote for Biden" is a waste of time. Make the political revolution. It's still probably too early, but the more we emphasize it, the less early it becomes.

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13 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Biden would be an absolute disaster in terms of governing.
But you know, G W Bush was pretty normal too. I mean, at the time he was the worst person in the world; but upon reflection, it was all just pretty normal incompetence.
You know, normal things. Like torture, invading sovereign nations or being completely absent during a national crisis. Normal shit. You know how Washington is.
We just need to get back to that same kind of boring normalcy again. Who cares about fixing shit? All I want is a nap. Then we can forget about this awful carnival barker crap, all the late night twitter diarrhea.
We can all just go back to sleep, and pretend that the world isn't on fire.

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17 users have voted.

Trump's election is THE Obama legacy. Period. Pass it on.

Your question #2 reg "transformation" - touche!

I am going to start rambling here. Libs didn't protest stolen elex in 2000 because the "right person" stole it. I mean he fell within the acceptable spectrum of the ruling class. It is also why Pelosi said "impeachment is off the table" in 2006. But in 2016, the "wrong person" won. His elex is legitimate compared to Bush the LESSER's. Problem was he didn't fall into the acceptable spectrum on Russia diplomacy, trade etc. Ruling class don't care about his racism, sexism etc (actually they love racism, sexism etc - to divide & conquer the proles/unwashed/peasants). Maybe they were pissed that 45 is openly racist/sexist in a vulgar fashion, airing all the dirty laundry of the MOTUs.

Vote suppression has been there all along - since before 2000, into 2016, into now. Dems give diddly squat about it and want to have it as an option in case....

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19 users have voted.
Bisbonian's picture

@Funkygal "Trump's election is THE Obama legacy. Period. Pass it on. "

Isn't that obvious? Why isn't everyone saying this?

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7 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Pluto's Republic's picture

If the 2020 election has any meaningful impact, it certainly won’t be in evolving domestic policies. The American people will contnue down the same low road they have been traveling since the Clinton years. Even if Joe Biden could think straight, the last thing he would ever do is reform his legacy of institutional corruption. He has always deceived the American People about his political intentions while delivering additional economic and social decay into their lives. Americans are not going to achieve a single human right on his watch. Not the right to nourishing food, nor the right to affordable housing, nor the right to health care or to a full education, which confers upon both individuals and society — true liberty and opportunity. The people will continue to be robbed of their rightful inheritance — the civilization that they and their ancestors built with their labor.

There’s no need to compare Biden to Trump. Both men and both parties are infiltrated and hustled by Neocon snakes. Both regard the People as gullible and disposable lumpen. Voting lumpen. The election won’t change the People’s destiny, one way or the other.

The real drama in ths election is purely geopolitical. The Rogue Empire hangs by a thread. The US is an object of global contempt. Fewer than .01% of voters follow along at this level.

This should go well.

This image popped into my mind as I read your essay:

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16 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic and now that guy is a respected elder statesman. Only in America...

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13 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic

They can be so dumb because they can't bear to believe that American elections could be fraudulent. Most Americans can't bear to know that. Even the ones who know that constantly act as if American elections can be won or lost by enough of the little guys casting a vote. That includes people who have had their noses literally rubbed in the fraud by living in counties where the fraud actually happened in both 2000 and 2004. Yet they still think it's super important to vote for Joe.

This kind of politics is the intellectual equivalent of stress vomiting.

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16 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Maybe the “journalistic” likes of Rachel Maddow have an explanation for that election too? Or not. I guess it’s only Russians fucking with our elections when Hillary or Joe Biden run against Trump.

C652D15D-9BED-4FC0-B765-2CF7CFF6601E.jpeg

The stupidity. It reigns supreme.

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12 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

snoopydawg's picture

@Anja Geitz

how much do they think Israeli lessons would be. I’ve been using Israel for Russia on every tweet about Russia. People are starting to notice the xenophobia that has gripped the country for 4 years.

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10 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Anja Geitz's picture

@snoopydawg

Pity I don’t live in New York anymore. It’d almost be worth going to jail to deface this poster with some effectively persuasive snark.

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6 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Creosote.'s picture

@snoopydawg

This Russian stuff is incredibly stale, and the actuality is profesionally hidden.

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4 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

"How could 59,000 people be so stupid? But now centrists have fallen in love with the guys who swift boated John Kerry. Now that’s some damn boggling of their minds ain’t it?

What we’re seeing here is a fight for which neocon warmongers gets to be in charge of the next war. I swear I saw one centrist link to the Times that was upset that Trump bailed on the Iran attack. Color me stupefied for how people can change that much.

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10 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

brains a lot, as seen in the last 4 years. Now this elex is scrambling progressives' heads too. I am pulling my hair.

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10 users have voted.

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8 users have voted.

"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin