Today farce, tomorrow tragedy?

Submitted by AWL on 12 January, 2021 - 10:44
Biden

This [6 January] was a “coup” as social media spectacle. In their pseudo-Viking gear and Confederate patches, the far-right rebels were a distinctly unappealing lot. And their rebellion utterly lacked a coherent plan beyond smashed windows and selfies.

Rather than a coup, it was a pathetic right-wing putsch attempt and was put down remarkably swiftly. It was given the green-light by Trump and his inner circle. But it was overwhelmingly condemned by the spokespeople of the capitalist class: the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the CEOs of most major corporations, as well as Twitter and Facebook, which shut down Trump’s accounts.

For all that, there can be no doubt that the sacking of the Capitol happened with the collusion of the administration and police. Compare the police’s muted response to the violence of the far right with their paramilitary response to BLM protests across the country.

The immediate fallout will be contradictory, simultaneously damaging Trump and boosting the movement around him.

The ruling class and its political representatives will call for increased powers for its military and police to surveil, arrest, and detain “extremists.” They will do so nominally to contain and prosecute the fascists. But the left ought to refuse any support for the law and order campaign.

None of these actions will stop Trumpism and its fascist current from growing. They emerged from Wednesday’s actions emboldened. Not only do they believe they are protecting their rights against an illegitimate government, but they have laid foundations for even greater growth.

That said, they are still small and vastly outnumbered by our side when it is mobilised.

Trump’s inner circle and his GOP minions cast their lot with the far right and fascists [on 6 January]. When it came to the choice between capitalising on his presidency to make money or positioning himself as the aspiring Führer of a new fascist movement, Trump chose the latter. But Trump retains support of about 40 percent of the electorate and has the basis to remain a huge force within the GOP, or to build an alternative if the leaders of the latter disown him.

We can give no support to the bourgeois establishment, the new Biden administration, or their state repression at home and imperial reassertion abroad. Instead, we must rally our forces to build anti-fascist united fronts everywhere.

And crucially, we must redouble our efforts to build an activist socialist alternative that fights independently of the Democrats for demands that will address the multiple crises of the capitalist system.

• Abridged from the US socialist website Spectre

Comments

Submitted by NollaigO on Sat, 16/01/2021 - 13:16

Copied and pasted from the Facebook page of China Scholar, Gregor Benton:
A friend of mine in America just sent me this about the planned Trump demonstration, which I thought people would enjoy, especially the last bit:

Dear Greg,

[Trump’s antics today in Washington] have echoes of the March on Rome, with a bit of Reichstag fire thrown in. But I think that this time it will repeat as farce, or maybe a feeble beer-hall putsch. Trump is too incompetent, too solipsistic, and too cowardly to go beyond the performance-art stuff. Every time he's tried his wannabe-Mussolini moves it's fallen flat. He's now alienated pretty much all of the power structures in America, including the military and the judiciary. He does have support in some of the second-tier forces such as the Customs and Border Protection, some of the cop rank-and-file. For a while during the Black Lives matter demos in DC he tried mobilizing them -- tear gas, low-flying helicopters, etc. That episode provoked a scandal and the defense secretary and head of the army both backtracked and apologized.

So it leaves posturing thugs like the "Proud Boys" and others from the right-wing fever swamps. I think that they too are mainly performance and look much more threatening on-line than they will turn out to be. Certainly, they will be in DC tomorrow trying to create confrontations, violence, and the appearance of an uncontrolled breakdown. Meanwhile, Cruz, Hawley and the other reptilians in congress will do their part of the performance knowing -- and hoping -- that their challenge to the electors won't get anywhere and that they can somehow wriggle out of this without pissing off the Trump supporters in what is left of the republican party.

So for them all, it will be a messy flop tomorrow. But there's so much poison around in America right now, it will be hard to recover.

p.s. In my non-Marxist breakdown of the Trump supporters:

Shit-for-brains These are deluded, angry, disappointed folks who feel alienated, ignored and left behind. And somehow think that Trump is on their side. Heavily influenced by talk radio, Fox News, NewsMax, One America Network, online fever swamp, and other poisonous sources. They are victims of a cult and maybe one day they'll realize they've been conned.

Fuck-faces These are the cynical, opportunists, careerists, profiteers. They don't give a damn about the shit-for-brains, or for Trump, but support him on a transactional basis (it will get them elected, he's good for my 401k stock plan and taxes, etc. They'll walk quietly away from Trump when they need to.

Deplorables Hilary was right about these people. They hate blacks, Hispanics, gays, or anyone they regard as not in their group. Particularly strong in America as the residue of slavery, of Jim Crow, of segregation.

SFB's are the idiots who dress up in American flags, go to Trump's rallies, get infected with covid, etc

FF's Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and most of the congressional Republicans are Fuck-faces. Same for Sean Hannity and his buddies on Fox news (FF News), Trump supporters/enablers such as Mnuchin, billionaires like Larry Ellison...

Groups like the "Proud Boys" are an overlap of Deplorables and SFB's.

 

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