Political Hyperreality
Discovering my assumptions were wrong
Symbols stand in for quanta, typically. But there are times when the quanta and the symbol become one-in-the-same. We are seeing this. For the symbolic significance of America having its first Black president (Obama did not make any particular advancements with regards to race and civil rights—recall the bungled “beer summit” —certainly nothing like he led with regard to sexuality and civil rights), the reactionary response was overt racism on the part of many who disliked him.
That reactionary racism took one form in Birtherism, and we saw who led that, and what came of it.
By BEN SMITH and BYRON TAU
Updated: 04/24/2011 05:33 PM EDT
Just when it appeared that public interest was fading, celebrity developer Donald Trump has revived the theory that President Barack Obama was born overseas and helped expose the depth to which the notion has taken root—a New York Times poll Thursday found that a plurality of Republicans believe it.
Four years of the Trump regime and we have seen overt racism play out in ways it had not in fifty years. But the gains from that past era remain: Voter rights are no longer restricted specifically by race. There are proxies, and there are institutional means of disenfranchising swaths of voters, but if you are eligible and have the desire, no one will refuse to hand you a ballot because of your race. And that is what brought us here.
BIPOC are saving America from white people. Not all white people, just that 2 - 5% above the majority that put Rumpt in office the first time, and would have re-elected him.
Without BIPOC, Trump wins 2020. Without BIPOC, Georgia, and the Senate, are still red. Without BIPOC, we do not see the potential that is opening up in front of us today. The future of American politics is brown, and it has started. This is the Republican Party’s nightmare, and it is the new status quo.
Published on the morning of January 6, 2021
The Receipt:
Obama foreshadowed what would become his approaches to Civil Rights related to sexuality and marijuana policy, through the Beer Summit: Hands-off, and let things play out. The Beer Summit was social class pedagogy—teaching beer-drinking, white, working class Americans that there is a selection of African-Americans who have much more social power and influence than they do, and who are neither athletes nor entertainers. Obama showed it through winning the Presidency. Gates had earned tenure from Harvard, and owned a house in a very expensive Cambridge neighborhood. Despite Gates having a series on PBS, Sgt. Crowley did not recognize him. Crowley arrested Gates for trying to get into his own house, after having accidentally locked himself out.
I incorrectly assumed that the rise in BIPOC voter participation that showed in 2020 to put Biden and other Democrats into office was going to continue to surge. Instead, not much was done to rectify the income suppression and wealth distribution problems that led to Trump’s initial popularity and the rise of MAGA. But there were no forward steps on single-payer health care, no forward steps on tax policy, and no forward step on minimum wage. Not even talk. I misjudged the Democrats and thought the party would try to do more than a photo op on a picket line, when it came to supporting the working class.
There’s a Democratic meme that goes something along the lines of “Kamala wouldn’t be violating the Constitution like Trump has.” It completely misses that, until late July, 2024, Kamala was not the candidate. With just a slightly better debate performance, Biden would have been the candidate, and he would have lost, too. It was not sexism or racism that made Kamala Harris unappealing to prospective voters—it was the dysfunctional Democratic Party that did not accept the candidate who could beat Trump in 2024. The next Presidential primary Kamala Harris wins will be her first. Kind of like Joe Biden, who never won a primary (in three Presidential runs) until…Super Tuesday, 2020.
Recall the Des Moines Register pulled their 2020 pre-caucus polling, claiming a “font error”? Then the caucuses showed that yes, indeed, Bernie Sanders was that popular.
Instead, the Democrats fucked around and found out. It is not the responsibility of BIPOC to save the party, despite the party containing almost all the people of color in national politics. Once again, the Democrats actively opposed recognizing social class in regards to social policies, choosing a losing position. You don’t win the white working class by becoming a less-racist and less-sexist version of Republicans—you win it by making pro-worker policies into law. Strategically, that means alienating donors and having to build grassroots support. We have seen this can be done, by every candidate since Bernie Sanders who runs as a Democrat and wins, while being opposed by party leaders.
Do not expect the party that invented keeping unwanted voters from the booths to be excited about welcoming the working class, when the game is fixed by billionaires.