The Dark Future of the USA
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Capitalism can exist under authoritarian regimes, China and Vietnam one-party states, being examples.
Alan,
That may be the case but I think there is a difference in the case of the US or the UK inasmuch as China and Vietnam and others of their ilk have not really gone through a sustained period of liberal bourgeois-democratic governance and, associated with this, the cultivation of an individualist ideology. This is different in the case of the US/UK. Once the bourgeois-democratic genie is out of the bottle it is very difficult to put it back in again.
This is particularly true of the US where individualist values, that are incompatible with totalitarian governance, have been able to set down deep roots over several centuries. These values will not be so easily thrown off. Even some of those NRA types that form the bedrock of support for Trump, ironically and enthusiastically assert their right to bear arms under a constitution that is at odds with totalitarian governance.
I am not convinced at all by the suggestion that the US is headed for a political dictatorship and if an attempt was made to institute such a dictatorship, it would come up against overwhelming resistance. The federal nature of the US would further undermine this attempt for reasons already given on this thread
An apparent counter-example might be the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany before the war. Germany overtook the UK as an industrial power sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. It was also the first significant practitioner of state capitalist policies and for which reason Lenin later urged that Russia imitate the German wartime model of state capitalism.
After WW1 we did see the establishment of the Weimar republic after decades of autocratic government under Bismarck. But the Weimar republic was just too short-lived a period for bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualistic values and expectations to take hold and set down deep roots. That takes time for that to happen and in the US these values and expectations became deeply embedded in the culture of that country over a very long period of time. The past as Marx said weighs like an Alp on the minds of the living.
We should not be misled by the populist struttings of a political clown like Trump. He is a prisoner of the ideology that brought him to power and the authoritarian sentiments he gives voice to are but the expression of the suffering and frustrations of his supporters under so-called neoliberal capitalism which has seen a significant widening between the haves and the have nots. Those sentiments don’t represent a fundamental challenge to the status quo, only a criticism of the status quo. Trump himself while claiming to be anti-establishment is part of the very establishment that is being blamed for the woes of these have nots.
Ultimately, the logic of capitalist development is to push countries towards a bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualist model of governance. Present-day autocracies and one-party states like China will also sooner or later succumb to this logic in the long run, notwithstanding apparent but temporary reversals in the direction some current events seem to be taking us…
You say: “The case is being made as Stephen S says, to shift power away from the federal level to the state and district.”
I understood him to be saying the opposite but he can clarify this himself. In any event more power in the hands of the federal government is central do his thesis of a “federal dictator” able to use his position as commander in chief to impose his policies on States, as Eisenhower did in 1957 when he ordered the Arkansas national guard to enforce desegregation.
Giving more power to the States will weaken federal power. I haven’t been following the Supreme court case on abortion but didn’t they rule that abortion law was a matter for the States or something to that effect?
The coming of a Latin America type “federal dictator” could only happen if the US Constitution with its touted “checks and balances” were to be infringed or suspended. I can’t see the top military brass agreeing to that given the fetish that is made on the Constitution in US political culture. As I said, it just ain’t going to happen. To think that it might is to engage in wild political fiction.
Yes, many elected and appointed officials within the machinery of government have resisted Trump, but Trump and his supporters and funders are working systematically to ensure that next time Trump loyalists will occupy as many key positions as possible.
I took this to mean referring to what Steve Bannon’s strategy has said the strategy should be – capture power locally. And yes an example would be individual state laws passed such as anti-abortion in Texas and school textbook censorship
Oklahoma might allow parents to ban books with LGBTQ or “sexual” content from libraries
A very de-stabilised USA is far from political fiction. There are those who genuinely believe the 2nd Amendment rights are to defend the threat to their perceived liberties and the idea of armed resistance is being increasingly legitimised by the Right
A very de-stabilised USA is far from political fiction. There are those who genuinely believe the 2nd Amendment rights are to defend the threat to their perceived liberties and the idea of armed resistance is being increasingly legitimised by the Right
So this is predicated on an individualist worldview in which case how is this compatible with the idea of a hypothetical fascist takeover of America? A deeply polarised and destabilized America is highly plausible and to an extent already exists and could continue for a long time into the future. A fascist America, on the other had, is quite another scenario and far less plausible for all sorts of reasons
I have always said that the WSM/SPGB is a university on socialism and political ideas since my first encounter with this organization up to the point that I requested the index of articles, but it looks that we do not read them, as well, the participation in this forum is very important too because we can learn from others peoples and members of this university and this socialist party
Several articles written by this organization clearly indicate that fascists and anti-liberal governments in countries like the USA and England are very difficult to be installed due to a long tradition of liberal or bourgeois democracy, the case of Germany and Italy is totally different and that type of situation do not exist any longer in both countries, and since the very beginning, the USA started as a capitalist country based on a bourgeoise democracy.
One of the best articles written about Fascism and Anti Fascism was published in the Socialist Standard and it was written by Adam Buick and educate us to understand the real meaning of fascism, its history and it also says that we can not associate all the right-wing movements with fascism, and that right wings ideas are becoming popular due to the failure of the left wings groups and the social democrats, that is the real cause of this problem, we can not adopt the same stand of the Stalinists who were always looking for fascists and nazis, and everything for them is fascism, even more, they have created a new concept named Post Fascism, but it is just the same old religion repacked.
China and Russia have authoritarian governments and they have certain industrial development, but they have never reached the industrial development level of the USA, and the same standard of living of the USA, and they have never had a long tradition of bourgeoise liberal democracy like the USA, and that authoritarian situation is not going to last too long in China and Russia, workers are going to eliminate that situation, even more, China is a boiling pot for future workers protest and workers rebellion to eliminate that authoritarian government
There are millions of right wings workers in the USA but most of them do not want the establishing of an authoritarian dictator and military government including the supporters of Donald Trump and they do not want the total elimination of the bourgeoise constitution, they have followed Trump because he has wisely used some of their political sentiments against emigration, welfare and that they are the victim and that foreign workers are taking their place, basically, it is bourgeoise nationalism like in others countries are being used including Chile and the left has used the scare of fascism to win the workers in their favor.
Mexico is a federal republic like the USA and most people do not know that and it is not so industrially developed like the USA, but it would be impossible to establish a fascist and military dictatorship and to eliminate the constitution, right now they are trying to remove the president thru a constitutional clause instead of overthrowing the president, they have the same electoral tradition of the USA, even more their electoral system is more advanced than the US, because president are elected by the majority of votes and Mexican are not going to support a fascists military goverment either . This case about the USA dictatorship does not hold water as the populace always says
The second amendment has always been used by the right since the very beginning of the formation of the USA as a nation, it was the same tool and law used to kill and lynch the black slaves and the Indians, even more, the Comancheros were taken to prison when they tried to sell guns to the Indians.
There are whites and black militias with opposite points of view, and some Asian communities are forming their own militias too.
Reactionary laws have always been passed in the USA by federal and local government but a reactionary supreme court was the one that eliminated the precedent of separate but equal and the law of one drop of black will make you black.
At present, Joe Biden has nominated more judges and District attorneys than Donald Trump, and probably he is going to expand the number of magistrates at the level of the supreme court
The government of California is going to challenge the anti-abortion law if they are approved by creating their own system and it is going to provide finance for people from other states who want to have an abortion, the people challenging the abortion law are the ones who do not have too many children, or don’t have any children
Statistics show that the police kill more ‘white peoples’ than blacks, Latinos, and Asians, and they also show that the biggest population of poor in the USA are the ‘white peoples’
More whites are killed and more whites are in poverty because there are simply more whites proportionate to the population.
The rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 37 fatal shootings per million of the population as of November 2021. While for White Americans, the rate stood at 15 fatal police shootings per million of the population.
Former president Jimmy Carter adds his tuppence worth
A relentless and powerful disinformation campaign to sow distrust – and a rising tolerance for political violence – has left the nation teetering “on the brink of a widening abyss.”
“I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally – the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power – has become dangerously fragile at home,”
Trump called on the “MAGA nation” to “rise up” against “egregious federal government overreach.”
Doesn’t look like he wants to be a “federal dictator”, then.
Agreed. It’s another example of how politicians are trapped or hedged in by their own ideological rhetoric which restricts their room for manoeuvre. “Freedom luvvin”, Trump-supporting, NRA types who wanna get the state “off our backs”, don’t immediately strike one as the footsoldiers of an impending fascist regime presided over by a re-elected President-cum-dictator Trump
He has also been rejected by his own followers when he has asked them to be vaccinated, and secretly he was vaccinated before everybody else, and he obtained the best medications to be treated for the virus
In the meantime, some officials are accumulating fines of $!00,000 dollars for violating the rules of the masks in the congress chamber and rejecting vaccinations.
He does not want to be a federal dictator, he wants to use some fools to collect money and spend his whole life enjoying the sunlight of Florida inside his mansion, and give some speeches to make money.
If you follow the argumentation of the USA politicians, the conspiracy theory inventors, and many others, you will get crazy, it is better not to pay attention to any one of them, the reality is that economic interests dictate politic
January 6, 2022 at 4:22 am #225499 REPLY
alanjjohnstone
Participant
More whites are killed and more whites are in poverty because there are simply more whites proportionate to the population.The rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 37 fatal shootings per million of the population as of November 2021. While for White Americans, the rate stood at 15 fatal police shootings per million of the population.
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You have forgotten about the class nature of racism, also whites have been discriminated against. Many ‘peoples’ from other groups are claiming that they are the real poor, we know that real poverty is wage slavery, and the majority of ‘whites’ are also wage slavesI think too much emphasis is being placed on “federal”
The popularity of Trump among Republicans remains strong despite his views on the vaccine
Trump’s approval rating has increased since he left office a year ago, and nearly 9 in 10 Republicans now have a favorable view of him.
52% of voters that they have a favorable impression of the former president. Some 47% don’t.
Among Republicans, 85% have a favorable view, with 63% declaring a “very favorable” opinion. Even 23% of Democrats and 51% of independents agree.
A full year after the Jan 6 mob, two-thirds of Republican voters believe the false claim of voter fraud. 58% of Republicans say Biden wasn’t legitimately elected
A CBS poll finds that only 33% believes US democracy is secure
Fortunately, most people do not approve of political violence even if they think it is likely to happen.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/january-6-opinion-poll-2022/
But I don’t believe those who seek a “coup” wish it to be violent.
They want it to have the appearance of legality and it is why they are subverting local and state institutions in those red states they control. 2022 Midterms are projected to increase the number of those.
We are all making assumptions and speculating. We all hope ALB and MS are right that such an event doesn’t materialise.
But the possibility that such a powerful nation becomes a failed sate and perhaps even a pariah state cannot be entirely dismissed.
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