RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 316 A Personal Take On A Pivotal Situation
Episode 316 of RevoluitonZ begins with a short letter to a friend and the friend's response. The episode considers views about becoming active, online activity, today's situation's pluses and minuses and our options, and Trump's voters. Should I and you be despondent, step aside, and wait. Slow and steady patience will win the race. Or should I and you be militant, dive right in, and battle full bore? The early days will set the stage for later days. And what about Trump voters? A case for each side exists. I believe one is right and one is wrong. But which is which? My friend and I disagree. He has lots of support. I have you, I hope.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 316th consecutive episode and yet again it is a little different. I wrote an email to an old friend who is, and has had, a lot of experience organizing and living among working-class Americans who, of late and for some time, have voted for Trump. He himself, however, has been a left activist, organizer and revolutionary, though for a time he has been largely separated from such pursuits. I wrote him.
Speaker 1:Imagine a voter for Trump becomes seriously disenchanted and wants to try to stop Trump's agenda. This person hears about a site where one can connect to volunteer for organizations or campaigns to do just that. And here she goes to the site. There is an option to use a search tool that accepts various conditions to find possible paths to volunteer to help resistance seek better than is now coming our way. Might any disenchanted Trump voter utilize such a site? If yes, what might the search need to provide to filter a whole list of resistance options down to a usable list for that particular person? He wrote back. I don't think many of them will become seriously disenchanted surely not disenchanted enough to try to stop his agenda? No, I don't think they would use such a site, and the chances of them finding such a site are slim to none.
Speaker 1:The left doesn't look like, talk like or speak the language of our average Americans, let alone Trump supporters. This has been the problem for a long time. Furthermore, people need to stop spending time online. Real political efforts take place in person, face to face, and anything other than that is just a bunch of bullshit to make people feel better about themselves. Most importantly, don't drive yourself nuts, because people won't be doing protesting over the next four years. So what do you make of our brief exchange?
Speaker 1:I thought I would indicate what I make of it as the topic for this episode of Revolution Z. First, what about my letter to him? It hypothesizes, I suppose, as a way to describe it, that there will be a lot of Trump voters not to mention Harris voters, independents, leftists, etc. Who will be seriously disenchanted and in many cases, even horrified and outraged by what Trump undertakes. With that hypothesis, I asked if that is true, particularly about Trump voters, how might they relate to a site that is designed to facilitate contacting and then, when suitable, engaging with projects or institutions that work to block Trump and also to attain positive gains.
Speaker 1:My friend's reply made a number of claims. One not many Trump voters will become seriously disenchanted with him. 2. Those few who do become disenchanted wouldn't use such a site or even find it. 3. The left doesn't look like, talk like or speak like the language of average Americans, let alone of Trump supporters porters. Four anything other than direct face-to-face engagement, for example. All online activity is just a bunch of bullshit to make people feel better about themselves. And five finally, and he says most importantly, don't drive yourself nuts, because people won't be protesting over the next four years. So I want to consider my friend's five claims each in turn, because I think lots of people, at least implicitly and sometimes, as in his case, even explicitly, feel his claims are true and also feel that their validity pretty much makes futile any attempt to speak anything good against the Trumpian MAGA tide anytime soon. So claim one not many Trump voters will become seriously disenchanted with him.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how it is that people come to this conclusion. I know many people do, but I don't honestly understand how they arrive at it If Trump voters were all voting for Trump because they're little Trumps, because they are little Trumpians, because they are overtly and seriously racist and misogynist, and they welcome the idea of a dictator, of a diminishment of participation, and on and on. If there are all those things, then the claim is certainly true. Why would they become disenchanted with him? They would, in fact, revel in what he tries to do and if he succeeds to the extent he succeeds they would be that much more enchanted with him. But what if a significant number of Trump voters in fact more than half of Trump voters, in fact well over more than half of Trump voters didn't vote for him because he's a racist or a sexist, or a strong man who will become a dictator, because he will cut social security, because he will interfere with health care, and on and on and on. They didn't vote for him for those reasons.
Speaker 1:Suppose they instead voted for him because prices are high and they think he'll lower them, because they suffer conditions at work and in their neighborhoods which they hope he, by turning everything topsy-turvy, will alleviate. Then, when he doesn't do those things, and when he induces great strife and struggle, and when he even goes after some of their neighbors as immigrants, they will become disenchanted. I think they will become disenchanted. I certainly hope they will become disenchanted. I think they will become disenchanted. I certainly hope they will become disenchanted, but it seems to me that assuming they won't is assuming something seriously adverse. Not about one person, not about two people, but about half the American working class. That seems like a poor place to start to address the question of dealing with oncoming fascism. Next, consider claim two.
Speaker 1:Even if disenchanted enough to want to resist, such Trump voters wouldn't use such a site or even find it. This claim, I think, has considerably more weight to it. I can understand various reasons why. It would be true, suppose a particular individual who voted for Trump he's not, or she's not a Trumper in the sense of being a strong advocate of MAGA positions and so on but somebody who voted for him becomes disenchanted, will that person want to resist?
Speaker 1:Well, to that person's mind, what does resisting mean? It means going against what they take to be their community, their neighbors, lots and lots of people who they don't want to become adversaries with. So that's a disincentive to them, acting on their disenchantment. And would they use such a site? Well, that's a reason why they wouldn't, even if it appealed to them, much less if its tone and character was such that it seemed to them to be just more liberal noise. That wouldn't aid them or anybody they knew, or would they even find such a site? Well, that's another issue. They don't travel the same online roads that progressives travel. Is Joe Rogan going to describe the site to them and talk about how they can act on their disenchantment to try and stop those aspects of Trump's agenda that they oppose? Not likely. So there's a serious point to this claim, which is that any such effort needs to reach out very actively to find a way to communicate with people who may be disenchanted. Look, it also holds for other people Harris voters, independents, non-voters. In all those cases, if a new person is roused to a feeling of dissent, of resistance, of protest by virtue of things that Trump does, how do they become involved? How do they find something to relate to, and will it have features such that they will want to relate to it?
Speaker 1:Okay, the third claim the left doesn't look like, talk like or speak the language of average Americans, let alone of Trump supporters. I think this claim is, to a considerable degree, true. It certainly isn't totally true. The UAW was speaking to average Americans, workers and Trump supporters. There are various movements who try to do that, but I think the claim has a certain weight to it, because I think it's the case that leftists do speak a language that derives from their political ideologies. They do speak a language that is oriented to other leftists, not to what this friend of mine called average Americans, let alone Trump supporters, and that is an obstacle. I mean, just take it to an extreme. Suppose all leftists in the United States could only speak German or French or whatever language you want to put in there. Well, obviously, it doesn't matter how intelligent what they're saying is, and it doesn't matter how empathetic they are to average Americans and working people. They're not going to be heard. The substance just doesn't matter. Okay, the same thing can be true if we speak and conduct a dismissal of them to exude a sense of importance and of intelligence and of aptitude that the talking seems to imply they don't have. If it seems to them that we are like Hillary Clinton when she calls them all deplorable, that we are like Hillary Clinton when she calls them all deplorable that we are like liberals who write off working people. If it seems to them, regardless of whether it's true or not, if it seems to them to be true, well then it's going to be very difficult to reach them, to reach the bulk of the American population. We're not talking about two people here. Next, the American population. We're not talking about two people here.
Speaker 1:Next, the fourth claim Anything other than direct face-to-face engagement, for example, online activity, is just a bunch of bullshit to make people feel better about themselves. Well, yes and no, that does happen. I do think it's fair to say that some of what people do when they're not talking, when they are not talking face-to-face, is sincerely oriented to have an impact on how people relate to society. Hell, the right-wingers who use online activity certainly are trying to do that. They're trying to do it to despicable ends, but they are trying to do it, and so a lot of leftists who use online activity are trying to do it. If the claim means to say, ultimately, face-to-face engagement is incredibly important because without it, you don't have trust, you don't have a sense of sharing and of community, I think that's largely true, and I think it may even point to a difference perhaps between, say, maga and the left. Maga may be providing more of that to its participants than the left often provides to its participants, and so this becomes and is a serious concern.
Speaker 1:This fourth claim and the fifth claim. My friend says, most importantly, don't drive yourself nuts because people won't be doing protesting over the next four years. Okay, so he's talking to me here and he's saying I shouldn't get depressed, I shouldn't get agitated, I shouldn't drive myself up a wall because people won't be doing protesting over the next four years. Well, the second part of it that they won't be doing protesting over the next four years is his deduction, which I think is incorrect. I don't think it's the case. I think there will be a tremendous weakening of protest, let's call it partly among communities that never supported Trump and partly even among communities that did support Trump and feel let down, feel lied to.
Speaker 1:But there's another part to this claim that I think is a little strange, which is that it says most importantly, is it most important that I'm not upset, that you're not upset, that we don't drive ourselves nuts? Of course, driving oneself nuts is not a good thing, but the implication here is here is pay attention firstly to self and secondarily to others. I'm reminded of an ad which I only saw once, when Sanders was running, I think four years ago, and the ad comes on and it's Bernie talking to the audience, audience, and he says something like. I can't replicate it, I don't remember it to that extent, but he says something like can you feel sympathy with, empathy with, can you feel for people who are not your neighbors, not your family, but across town and even across the country and even across the world, like you feel it for yourself? If we can do that, we win.
Speaker 1:If we can't do that, it's going to be a tough road to hoe that somehow, some way, we Americans have to think about our activity in terms of its consequences, not just in ourselves, not just even on our families, not just even on our neighborhood or our identity group, our constituency, but have to think of our actions in terms of their consequences on what we're trying to do, what we care about, what we are moved morally, ethically, organizationally and every which way to do which is to make society better. So the bottom line is I think that these claims that my friend made, ironically, are a little like what he says about working online. They're claims about a huge cross-section of the American population which have the effect of rationalizing, not acting. If it's true that Trump's voters half the population, let's call it is not going to do anything except support Trump, whatever he pursues, and if it's true that our ability to reach a large proportion of the rest of the population is nil because we don't speak the language and we don't walk the walk the way they speak and walk, well, then there's not much point in doing anything, is there? In that case, it seems like our efforts to organize will be futile and we will, in fact, drive ourselves nuts. And therefore, why shouldn't we go to the beach? Or why shouldn't we, at the very least perhaps, I think, like my friend not put much time or energy or effort into organizing to stop Trump, to stop fascism and to win better?
Speaker 1:If there's no point, there's no point. These claims work, like the idea that there is no alternative works. It is a bulwark of the current situation. If there's no alternative, there's no point in fighting for an alternative. The fact that it's moral doesn't mean it makes sense. If there's no alternative, it doesn't make sense. If nobody is going to relate to what you do, then it doesn't make sense to do those things.
Speaker 1:I don't think this is rocket science. I think and I'll grant look, it could be the case that there's no alternative, that history is such and our natures are such that we cannot escape vile oppression and dissolution. I suppose it could be the case. I don't see much evidence for it. The fact that it has been the case doesn't mean it will be the case. Once upon a time people were cannibals. It was everywhere. That doesn't mean that it was going to always be everywhere. Once upon a time, women didn't have the vote. Women didn't have anything except the right to serve some man. That didn't have to be forever. It wasn't forever, it isn't forever, and so on and so forth, including through issues of elites, of economic dominating classes, and on and on. We don't have evidence that should lead us to believe there is no alternative. We just don't have that. And so it isn't the case that we have to act only because it's fun or only because it's morally right, regardless of the impact.
Speaker 1:We can act in light of trying to act in such a way to be successful. And that's what these claims obstruct. They obstruct even trying, and for a lot of people I think that's what current thinking tends to do. It obstructs even trying, and that's a horrible mistake. Chomsky used to say I know that if I do nothing, the effect of that will be negative. It will accomplish nothing. If we all do nothing. We'll have more of the same until humanity is wiped out. So I have to act. That's what I have to do, and he's logically right. When is he logically wrong? He's logically right about that. To not act is to abet disaster, dissolution, catastrophe. So you act. But there's a problem.
Speaker 1:Suppose you're a member of a family and you ask the question which activity on my part is going to most benefit my brothers and sisters, mother and father, kids, whatever it is, depending on who you are in the family and myself. Is it to try to grab what I can, to try and get ahead, to try and function within the contours of the system, to do as well as I can option one. Or is it instead to look at the system, discern that it is horrific, discern that its pursuit business as usual into the future is disastrous for all and decide to try to orient my activity to change things? The truth of the matter is that the activity that will most materially benefit you and your family is likely option one. It certainly will seem to be option one and in many, many, many cases it will prove to be option one. So, betting on option one, self-aggrandizement makes sense, and so Nome's position requires an addendum.
Speaker 1:For a person to act, they have to feel a sense of efficacy, a sense that their actions can matter, can contribute, and they have to feel that actions can go someplace worthwhile. Is healthcare for all possible? Is a minimum wage of $25 an hour possible? Is a whole new society, differently structured, in which people are the beneficiaries and profit doesn't exist and hierarchies are reduced to an absolute minimum possible? The urgency that if I don't act, things get worse, if I do act, maybe they'll get better, so I have to act, doesn't work for a person who feels that action literally cannot succeed. I think that's what these claims are about. It's what the claim there is no alternative is about. It's what the claim people will do what they do and can't do anything other than that is about, and on and on.
Speaker 1:I don't want to leave this episode quite yet. I know it's short and we have time. I want to first be clear about these times, their prospects and our needs. So I return to my initial hypothesis and the questions I asked my friend. Why are these questions on my mind in the first place? I look around, you look around, and we see harsh, but also perhaps positive prospects. What's the harshness? I don't want to minimize this.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people on the left people who might listen to this podcast even underestimate the situation that we find ourselves in. I don't want to be apocalyptic, for the sake of it, but the reality is, trump has made perfectly clear that he has not only his policies that he has mentioned in mind his policies around deporting people, his policies around tariffs, his policies around eliminating elements of the government which protect working people, protect the elderly, and so on. He hasn't just done that. He's also made clear that he wants to change the government. He wants to reorganize the way decisions are made, the way actions are carried out. He wants to do it in such a manner that basically promotes, facilitates and ensures the continuation of one-man rule. He's made that clear. So that's what we're facing. That's the worst downside of what is currently unfolding. That's what has to be stopped. That's what it means to say we want to organize against fascism, we want to organize against Trumpism and we want to organize for the opposite, for a better society. Are there positive prospects? Yeah, I think that those harsh ones are so blatant, they're so in our faces, they are so pronounced all over the place that we tend to not see that there are also positive prospects. We tend to not see that Sanders was the most popular politician in the country. He may still be that Trump's voters are not, in fact, little Trumps.
Speaker 1:Aoc looked into the reasons why something peculiar happened with her vote this time around. The peculiar thing was lots of people who voted for her that's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her district in New York City voted for Trump for president, and they voted for her as well. How can that be? And she was so struck by that that she went out and found them and talked to them and even recorded it. And what did she say she found? She said she found that the people who voted for Trump and for her weren't confused. They said I voted for you and I voted for him because each of you, unlike everybody else I see on the horizon, is tough enough to do what you say you're going to do and will try to do what you say you're going to do. You will not just fall into line with business as usual.
Speaker 1:Okay, the voter is confused about Trump, but set that aside for a minute. It means that those voters were simultaneously supportive of Trump and AOC, and the same thing happened with Sanders. After the fact interviews of Trump and AOC and the same thing happened with Sanders. After the fact interviews of Trump, voters often led to the formulation that, well, I would have rather vote for Sanders, but he wasn't there, so I voted for Trump. That's a positive circumstance, a positive sign. It means confusion and manipulation and ignorance and also an honest reaction to other Democrats, to Harris, to Clinton and so on, were at work, but not solely desire for one-man-rule fascism, and that's a positive thing. It's positive as well the number of issues on which the vote, the vote on referendums and the after discussions on candidates revealed support for Harris' policies which nobody believed she would be able to implement, and even further left policies, say AOC or Sanders, but a belief that Trump would actually get things done, and getting things done might at least might make their circumstances better. Again, that's positive. These kinds of observations about the election are positive.
Speaker 1:And then you come to the big one. Trump won by a hair right. He won by a minuscule 1%. Imagine it had gone the other way. Imagine Harris had won the election by 3% or 4%, 5%, whatever. What would be going on now? We would not be miserable. Lots of people would have been elated and would have been celebrating and would not have been bemoaning the impossibility of better outcomes and would have been, you know, willing to try for better outcomes.
Speaker 1:But that swing in votes, while it's incredibly important for the power that it lent Trump, for the fact that it puts him in the White House I'm not minimizing the importance of that 1% but I am saying that it doesn't reveal a country that has gone down the drain, a country in which everybody is already goose-stepping behind fascist rule. It doesn't reveal that at all. It says that's a possibility and it is a possibility. It says if there's no resistance and Trump piles up what he will call successful actions, one after another, and what he will say is on behalf of his supporters, and what he will rationalize away the pain that's caused by saying well, that's a function of my enemies within, that's a function of Bidenites and Harrisites and Democrats much less, I don't know communists and whatever, then his support will grow.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the initial questions, I ask them because I believe I hope I'm wrong, but I believe that unless resistance, unless opposition to Trump can rise to the level of interfering with, obstructing, even preventing his policies from being undertaken by him step by step.
Speaker 1:In his initial months the situation will get worse, and I don't mean it 'll just get worse because well, okay, we'll have those policies and those policies will be hurting people, that's true and that will make I mean that's horrible. But it will also get worse because he will have increased his support and because he will have been able to institute changes in the way decisions are taken and the way government operates and the way police operate and the way the courts operate on behalf of one man rule. So the point of my questions was how do we act now to develop enough opposition, to develop enough resistance, to subvert, to obstruct, to even totally block a subset of Trump's policies and continually work against the rest and continually begin to develop desires for more? I ask how can we do that? Because I feel that if we don't do that soon, starting now, weeks from now, we will be in a much more difficult position to do it later. And that said, this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.