No Kings?
Our problems are rooted in liberal democracy and capitalism.
They were not rebelling against royalty. They were rebelling against a ruling class that was royalty. So they made sure that which empowered the royals would no longer be primary. Monopoly control of the government, economy, and legal system under the Monarch would be countered with democracy, private ownership, and Due Process.
They foresaw that private ownership would make the ruling class—they ensconced it in their laws and the majority of the Bill of Rights, but they held too much faith in democracy itself as a counter to that. The People could not vote to constrain the influence of private ownership upon the democracy itself.
The very things the Founders saw as problematic are so routinely practiced in private (commercial) relationships they fade into the background. Confusion reigns among those who think the first amendment applies to the Terms of Service (TOS) they have to comport with if they want to use the code their social media platform provider offers.
It is not a question of whether those who would use private services should get the protections the constitution provides the People from the state. Search without probable cause, judgment without Due Process, censorship; these are not violations in a private, contractual relationship. They are versions of the means by which the ruling class that displaced the monarchs, rule.
I believe the line was, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
We are not done liberating ourselves, but we need to clean up the one tool we have left to do it with: Democracy. We do it by adding voters (lower voting ages and re-enfranchise the disenfranchised), making participation easier (early, mail-in, and online—coming as soon as we want them—ballots), and putting in the greatest protection we can against a repeat of January 6—one the Committee will fail to recommend, but which would render all attempts to flip state election results moot—eliminate the Electoral College and go to direct elections for president.
2022: Vote as if your Right to Vote depends on it.
A “No Kings” protest is hegemonic. As Trump pretends nothing happened on January 6, the organizers of the No Kings protest pretend he is the source of the problem we have. Trump himself is not the source of MAGA, his personal peculiarities such as his authoritarianism and love of projecting his fantasies upon the world, are not themselves the problem. The day he drops dead, there will be an escalation of “his” policies and practices.
We all can see the Insurrection Act is about to be invoked. They have been mentioning it by name for months and have cited the Antifa-led violence that will happen later today as the reason. Will there be Antifa-led violence? YES. The Administration has told you this, and they will continue as if it is true—until it IS TRUE. Just like those Patriots who stormed the Capitol to Stop the Steal® did absolutely nothing wrong.
For years, the January 6 Committee and the Biden Administration persecuted them, but now justice has been restored and they walk among us, now as ICE agents and other federal operatives.
If it was not a multi-generational decline in the quality of life suffered by the large majority of Americans that laid the foundation for the MAGA social movement, what was it?
Why were the January 6 rioters so old? Despite “young” Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA providing fleets of buses to move the foot soldiers into position, Gen Z was scant, among the convicted (and now pardoned). How did Trump win the popular vote the second time? What were his campaign promises and who voted for him?
The cost of living (food, especially) is climbing and wages have been incapable of rising to meet it, into the third generation. It was noted in the 1990’s that Gen X was the first American generation that would not earn as much wealth as the generation that preceded them. The Millennials became the first generation that had a lower quality of life than their parents did, at the same age. Gen Z is the first American generation to see a shorter life expectancy than the generations that preceded them.
Our economy is failing us.
The quality of life for most Americans was going downhill for a while, before MAGA ever existed. There is nothing in the Trump Administration’s policies—in either term—that promises to alleviate these problems. In fact, since January, Trump has been dismantling the nation-state’s social supports, which were created to mitigate the shortcomings of a market that always fails to meet needs.
The problem is not in supply—we have no shortage of food, shelter, literacy, or basic health care—nor demand, for all people need these things. Our problem is a distribution system that defaults all value to a small minority of people, prior to the fulfillment of need. This ruling minority is so dependent on exploiting workers that they imagine the universal fulfillment of basic needs would itself be the downfall of society. They have a point—it would mean the downfall of their rule.
The problem in 1775 was not royalty per se, but a ruling minority that had insulated itself from having to respond to the needs of the people. The revolutionaries empowered individuals to an astounding extent, giving them direct voice in governance and the ability to claim private property in a way that a monarchy could not tolerate. They lacked the foresight to see how the state could be commandeered by corporate owners who would use their TOS and control of social resources to exact all the injustices a king may, on his subjects.
We can build the economic form and social institutions we need, but it means starving our current ruling class of their ability to rule, just as the first American Revolutionaries did.