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US election 2020 thread

On a bit of a different note, this was interesting about the actual experience of living in DC:

Look — I don't give two shits about the ghouls in the Capitol, small handful of elected milquetoast socialists notwithstanding. And nothing bad happened to them anyway, so, you know, who cares about that. What I care about is this wanton horde of scumbags being basically welcomed into a government building with open arms, and then turned loose onto a city I love, their dignity and weapons and lives perfectly intact...

DC is a city that's really two cities, and one of those cities is forgotten, abandoned. Washington is the center of power that wonks all get really excited about, and move to Clarendon for, and work hifalutin jobs in; DC is my home. Washington is a puppet city, a playground for federal careerists; DC doesn't even have representation in Congress. (If you don't know much about the fight for DC statehood, happy Googling, and I'm here to respond to any messages of outrage you may have once you're all caught up.) Approximately 79% of Washington's Congress is white; approximately 51% of DC is Black.

And now we're back to me being tired. Tired, now, of people I agree with on many things refusing to take it seriously that a white militia was granted entry to a white Congress by the martial arm of white supremacy and then turned loose with barely a slap on the wrist to run wild in a Black city, hyped up on their impenetrable power. I think most of us found at least one thing funny yesterday, but it ultimately could not be less funny that such a thing was allowed, was welcomed.

And by the way: shit like this happens all the time in DC. The KKK marched on Pennsylvania Ave less than a hundred years ago, so let's not act like any of this is totally unprecedented. DC is also Washington, and Washington is some shit that a lot of people (rightly!) have issues with, and people of all ideologies work out those issues, sometimes, in the streets. This is all well and good. The right to assembly is a precious thing. And yet, when the people working out their issues with Washington in the streets of DC are a rabble of petty bourgeois brats merrily putting all these lives on the line in service to capital, we should say seriously and firmly that it's bad. That's the bare minimum, and so many otherwise thoughtful and respectable people just won't do it! They'll hem and haw and look for ways to turn all this to a leftist advantage, and fine, do what you need to do, but quit forgetting that actual people live in DC and start acknowledging how tiring it is — to have your neighborhood serve as a battleground for a fight you're not even electorally eligible to join.

I have long been defensive about DC because, simply put, I love it. I don't love it as the capital of a bloated, avaricious empire. I love it as the place where my dad tried to teach me to ride a bike and I bloodied my knee so badly that I refused to ever mount a bicycle again. I love the Bishop's Garden at the National Cathedral for being the first place I ever smoked weed. I love DC for its population of brilliant, idiosyncratic lifers with razor-sharp senses of humor — if you're lucky enough to fall in with a group of people who were born and raised there, you'll never stop laughing the rest of your life. I love mumbo sauce, and half-smokes, and carryout (simultaneously like the take-out in other cities and unlike anything you've ever had). I love this strange, secretive city where I lived most of my life, and it's everybody's afterthought, because it's home to wonks and Black people — two populations which few people bother to give a second thought. At least the wonks deserve it.

When people have admitted to me that they don't like DC, their explanation is typically that the residents are rude and unfriendly. Imagine you've grown up in a city with two populations, one of which is totally transient, gone every two to four years. And you hit your teenage years and that means you have to start working, probably a shitty customer service job, like my first legit job at Starbucks, and that means you come into close contact with that totally transient population every day, maybe for the first time in your life, because now you're serving them. Those totally transient people, they don't give a fuck about the city where they live. They want their Starbucks right now and they don't want to look you in the eye or get off their cell phone in order to get it, and if you're me, you pass years of your life this way: in service to people who don't bother to treat you like a real human who exists, because they'll be gone soon enough.

And the whole time you're living this life of especially humiliating service, you're also trying to build a gratifying existence among that other population of people who have lived here their whole lives and actually care about the place and its residents. You go see DIY and go-go shows with your friends and they come to see you play your own terrible DIY shows because it is understood that community is at stake, and the whole time you're syruping and steaming for rude fucks in great suits, sometimes go-go til dawn and then straight to Starbucks, always for two separate populations, understand? And never the twain shall meet, and that's just the way things are.

Now tell me. Under the circumstances, are you friendly to strangers who visit your city? Or are you guarded?

I can think of no strangers more strange than yesterday's appalling visitors. But for all that they were trying to, uh, "storm" the Capitol to "teach a lesson" to members of the government, all I could think was that they're so much more aligned with those members of the government than they want to admit! They're business owners, just like the Congresspeople. They're both protective of capital, antagonistic towards the working class. You only needed to watch the police opening the gates to see it. They "stormed" Washington, but if they actually dare to harm anyone, it'll be DC, like it always is.
Click to expand...
 
ska invita said:
Hitmouse asks what does it serve to use the word now? I think it helps to focus minds on potential destinations. And when there are self-identifying open fascists involved and welcomed in the mix, i dont think its that big a jump. If you are actively enabling fascists, that makes you a fascist in my book.
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But this, perhaps unintentionally, does exactly what Lyons argues against.
To argue that the potential destination of system loyal hard right (or populist radical right) is the same as the system opposition far right (or extreme right, pick your preferred terminology) you are reducing the analysis to a 2-dimensional one, and ignoring the state/capitial.

This is the path that some have ending up following, out of fear of populism they have, if not embraced, at least accepted a technocratic anti-populism. Any class politics surely needs to consider the state/capitial (and of course labour!) in any analysis, and once these other forces are considered the distinctions between the radical and extreme right start to become clear.
 
he also said in an interview I just listened to that he doesn't want to get bogged down in nailing down exactly whether this or that form of far-right politics is fascism or not, and fighting it is the priority. ;)
 
ViolentPanda said:
I'd hope for a Soviet Union-style collapse - that is, at least the 1st couple of years: Largely peaceful, although awesomely ridden with Robber Baronage.
Click to expand...

I was in the Soviet Union many times during and just after its period of collapse. The similarities with the contemporary US are cosmetic at best.

For a start, the average Russian/ex-Soviet is way more sensible and sceptical than the average US citizen seems to be.
 
RD2003 said:
I was in the Soviet Union many times during and just after its period of collapse. The similarities with the contemporary US are cosmetic at best.

For a start, the average Russian/ex-Soviet is way more sensible and sceptical than the average US citizen seems to be.
Click to expand...
I mention the Soviet Union not for a really close parallel but because when I say I think I'll probably outlive the US (if anyone does), people tend to go straight to imagining how we might arrive at some geographically different future entity like a split into different nations and the USSR demonstrates that failure doesn't necessarily have to mean that.
 
mauvais said:
I mention the Soviet Union not for a really close parallel but because when I say I think I'll probably outlive the US (if anyone does), people tend to go straight to imagining how we might arrive at some geographically different future entity like a split into different nations and the USSR demonstrates that failure doesn't necessarily have to mean that.
Click to expand...
I thought the ex-Soviet Union did split into different nations.
 
mauvais said:
Poor wording on my part. Yes, sort of, but it didn't lead to the fracture of Russia.
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In the geographical sense fair enough (if you exclude a little problem they had in Chechnya). But in most other respects, Russia is fractured beyond repair.
 
Wilf said:
Do you really think there will be any meaningful action against trump personally, other than the theatre Pelosi is engaging in? Genuine question, as they say.
Click to expand...

i'm not sure it is a theatre. for us on the outside it was mostly harmless after all, a bunch of rather confused people walking around, taking selfies, smearing some shit on the walls, but for pelosi, pence and the rest it must have been terrifying, they were attacked in their place of power, told to lie down, pur on gasmasks and bundled away to safe rooms... they must have been fearing for their lives.
and rudy, brooks, even the fucking president himself are live on camera egging the crowd on.

these are the most powerful politicians in the world, and trump and his hangarounds broke every rule in the book and 'unleashed the kraken' upon them. a policeman got killed, a noose was erected, nazis running around their workplace with zip-wire cuffs looking for them.

i think brooks, cruz, rudy and even trump have every reason to be really afraid and not just for their political careers.

we'll see.
 
teuchter said:
One of the comments on twitter

View attachment 247774

My instinct is to read this as sarcasm/satire but I guess it's the USA so it's not?
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She's got a point though. A shotgun would be a better weapon for home defence, loads of stopping power without the risk of shooting through the wall and killing your neighbour. If you're worried about home invaders wearing armour, you can load a shotgun with slug rounds.
 
NoXion said:
She's got a point though. A shotgun would be a better weapon for home defence, loads of stopping power without the risk of shooting through the wall and killing your neighbour. If you're worried about home invaders wearing armour, you can load a shotgun with slug rounds.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but they don't look so sexy.
 
www.bbc.co.uk

Twitter 'permanently suspends' Trump's account

The social media giant bans the US president "due to the risk of further incitement of violence".
www.bbc.co.uk

tenor.gif
 
NoXion said:
She's got a point though. A shotgun would be a better weapon for home defence, loads of stopping power without the risk of shooting through the wall and killing your neighbour. If you're worried about home invaders wearing armour, you can load a shotgun with slug rounds.
Click to expand...
<backs away slowly, grinning sheepishly<
 
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