Not Stupid, Just Ignorant

Having read mainstream pundit critique for the last three weeks, I have to add my two cents to the post-mortem. Where I live, people are jubilant that the Great Entertainer is filling his cabinet with freaks and billionaires. Watching the stock market sizzle, they sense that America is already greater! And what fun watching libs mourn! These are people who drive around in brand new 70,000 dollar pickups and bitch about the price of eggs. These are people who are still looking for the Weapons of Mass Destruction, are fearful of a woke communist takeover and the imposition of Sharia Law. They have no idea of the U.S. role in the Middle East, no idea of how we intervened in Latin America, no knowledge of history. They couldn't find Iran on a map. These people, trying hard not to gloat too much, are plastering their hybrid cars with bumper stickers that say: "I'm saving fuel so I can buy more guns". They believe climate change is either a hoax and/or uber-wealthy high tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk will fix it. Whatever. It turns out the low paid exploited worker craves status and enjoys a "share in mastery" over neocolonial subjects like starving Africans or Palestinians, just as poor whites lorded it over black slaves in antebellum South. Voting for the "change" candidate they desire tradition and its sedimented roles. Go figure. We can sympathize with these fellow workers but shouldn't condescend or patronize. As Roxanne Gay puts it, these people: "are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc." Making excuses for them only demeans them futher. They believe stupid things because it is in the interest of the capitalist state, which wants wants consumers, not citizens. They believe as they are told to believe and because they are convinced more treats will come their way. Plus, they are enjoying the thrill of being successful revolutionaries ( yes, I'm jealous) and having something like a political community, no matter how incoherent and contradictory its manifesto. Joisannce mixed with schadenfreude, what could be better! According to Left pundits, Ye shall know the revolutionary subject by her education level/wage and she shall overturn the power structure by withholding her labor in a general strike. Also, "youth" are workers. In other words, keep waiting for Godot. Ye shall not engage in incremental reformism but the stready march through institutions (building a Party, running for office) is fine. Workers will embrace transgender athletes in collective struggle because they both are oppressed. Somehow, this time around, the transitional demands of social democracy such as public services, living wage and progressive taxation( not to be confused with incremental reforms) will lead to socialism rather than the usual backlash ie..capitalist strike and reaction, and/or worker compacency. Unlike the history of mass mobilization and protest in the last two decades (Iraq war, Occupy, BLM, Womens March, abolition, Palestine ) this time around the tactic will lead to revolutionary change. Grab a sign, learn a chant. Somehow, ecosocialists can challenge capitalist cultural production through political education. While the Left manifesto advocates adaptation, it promotes a program that would be recognizable to revolutionaries 20, 50 or 100 years ago. This despite the fact our adversary, capitalism, has revolutionized itself in profound ways. On Saturday, Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of the board at Saudi Aramco, the state petroleum company, sat ringside with Mr. Trump at a U.F.C. fight in Madison Square Garden in New York City. Investors are fleeing renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is sabotaging the pledge from the last COP to transition away from fossil fuels. The current COP is failing to find the money to help that so-called transition. That's enough for tonight. .