Skip to main content

Beware the Red Undertow following A Blue Wave

I hate the current Commander in Chief.  It’s visceral, my desire to rebel. But in America, the idea of the current Resistance actually leading a conventional revolution against him becomes problematic under this President because all those Americans most prepared to revolt, those in the armed forces and police, people with the know-how and weaponry to lead a rebellion largely support his agenda.  “We’ve got the guns but they’ve got the numbers.” Jim Morrison sang to rally up the youth, forgetting of course that they’ve got the guns! When they have a monopoly on bullets, the only option is the ballot. But after the election there’s still the guns.  
Say you run a grassroots campaign with socialist candidates using many small donor contributions and face-to-face politics to get the message of big love government out to the masses and there is truly a blue wave in this country. That’s not it, it’s not game over.  The people who support this president would then position themselves as the resistance, but they will call it something different cuz the Resistance is gay, bro. So now you have an angry group of people with a playbook for how to speak truth to power and, more importantly, a rule book for rebellion and dissent in the 21st Century.  This dissent will include vulgar language, harassing officials in public and intense dehumanization both online and in person. Particularly if the newly elected American leadership is socialist or largely socialist, this President's supporters will view the government as tyrannical, (which is what they’ve always wanted in the first place. That’s what the guns are for!) The primary differences between this group and the current resistance will be this group will en masse lack empathy and they’ll be well trained and, most frighteningly, they’ll be heavily armed.  
The left needs to understand that if we get what we want, this is where we could be headed.  Barring some change in how we communicate across party lines, some huge natural or national disaster or other galvanizing tragedy, there’s no reason to think the undercurrent of conflict in this country will deescalate. I’m not saying to leave centrist democrats in power - to do so would be to further forfeit the country to the forces of fascism.  I just think the left needs to remember that casting our vote in November is likely the start of the real conflict, not the end of it. 

Comments

More Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad...

Dad Rock, Revisited

One of the few upsides of having been a real judgemental dickhead when I was younger is there’s all this great art I dismissed out of hand then that I can discover now.  Here are some bands and albums I used to hate that I was big time wrong about. Fleetwood Mac    I used to joke that I lived my life in a Fleetw ood Mac Free Zone, which was constantly moving, three foot radius that revolved around me.  Their hyper-produced, glistening blow rock was antithetical to everything I thought popular music should sound like. Though I’ve always loved, “Dreams” because of Stevie Knicks witch-like hypnotic abilities, the rest of their songs seemed like they were written to be listened to when you’re half asleep.  Somewhat ironically, I fell in love with “Rumours” on a trip to Los Angeles which was full of spiritual awakenings, largely triggered by a very, very stoned listening to “Rumours” on vinyl. This listening, and the guttural sobbing which accompanied it,...

LieuteNate DeWitt

Tuesday is one of the days when I’m Trixie’s primary care provider, so I get to play Mr. Mom, or as my wife likes to call it, “Dad.”  Trixie and I spend the day together while my wife works. When she gets home around six we have dinner, give the baby a bath and put her to bed.  Last Tuesday my wife had to work late which meant I was on my own for dinner, bath time and bedtime. I don’t get too flustered by the tasks required of fatherhood, so it was no big deal.  In college, I babysat my three younger siblings during the summers. The older ones were 7 and 8 and the baby was 8 months old one summer and 20 months old the next, so I’m no stranger to changing diapers, making bottles or entertaining the endless monologue of questions which can come out of kids.  Naturally, it wasn’t a problem to feed and bathe my daughter. In fact, when it’s just me and her, I kind of love it because I get to make all the decisions. I think of myself as Lieutenate DeWitt. LieuteNate ...

The United States Human Resources Department

A huge plank of current Republican political ideology is the idea government should be run like a business.  Let’s call it USA, Inc. The philosophy is that areas of fiscal waste should be tightened, businesses should be allowed to thrive, our defense should be strong and our international posture should be aggressive. These are corporate virtues, these are right-wing American virtues. Thinking of a government this way has led to decades of US economic and military dominance.  But amidst all this growth, a basic aspect of corporate structure has been omitted from USA, Inc. and as a result, morale among its employees is very low. We’re angry. We’re mistrustful. We’re worried about the future. It feels like nobody’s looking after We The People. USA, Inc.  doesn’t need tough leadership and a swift kick in the ass to solve these issues of morale. We’re already doing great in terms of performance and productivity, which a firm hand encourages. We now need someone in gove...

Solitary Man (and also two other people, I guess)

As a man, I value my alone time; as an academic, solitude is integral to my scholarship; and as a writer, you can’t be in here right now, I’m closing the door and putting a 25lb kettlebell in front of it, I’ll be out in a couple hours, bye!  There’s a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on which Jerry Seinfeld jokes his first words weren’t “mama” or “dada;’ rather, they were, “leave me alone!” I’ve never agreed with another human being more.  When I say, “I want to be left alone,” it’s a cry for help, and the help I need is for you to get lost. It’s a miracle I ever found a partner who understands. Thankfully, my wife values the work I produce in my alone time, so she's as understanding as a person can be when i tell her to scram. My isolation solution has been hampered considerably by the addition of baby. My baby is a brand new person who requires constant attention; more than that, she’s reliant on my wife and me to teach her everything. Since she would not exist on thi...