In his article in todays Guardian, There will be no Civil War over Trump Mr Reich makes the classic intellectual error that people do things for clear reasons, and with good understandings. And thus they will not generate war over Trump. This proposition is simply not true. People do things for non-rational reasons; feelings of disquiet, distrust, disgust, misery, not having a vision of a beneficial future, ‘knowing’ stuff at an emotional level which they cannot express and so on.
Trump appeals to this knowing, and his inarticulateness and personal grievance, make him appear to be one of those people who, like us all, share grievances and cannot express them. People can relate to Trump, and he allows them to displace their grievance onto the State and the Democrat/Liberal ‘humanist’ elites, and distract them from the real cause of their misery. And as the State is part of the problem, it no longer appears to stand for the people, it is not a completely false target.
Most people in the English speaking world have experienced over 40 years of neoliberal policies (promoted by media, politicians and corporately sponsored think-tanks), in which corporate power has been protected from democracy, wages have stagnated or declined, working conditions have declined, social welfare and social security have become punitive and inadequate, bosses have gained arbitrary power, wealth has been siphoned off to the already hyper-rich, wealth inequality has increased along with political inequality. People’s futures have been taken over by crisis and the realisation that their children and grandchildren and not going to have it good. Community co-operation appears to be breaking down. There are apparent threats everywhere, increased violence, political corruption, corporate corruption, climate change, ecological destruction, pollution, irresponsive government, friction between social groups. Disorder seems to be increasing, and there is little attempt to put in a new order which benefits most people.
The problem people face is neoliberalism, corporate dominance and wealth syphoning. The State is part of this problem, because it has enabled all this to happen through its overt support of neoliberalism, and coporate power.This is a story which ‘the left’ does not seem to want to tell, because it (just like ‘the right’) depends on corporate donations, and fears organisations of corporate bodies, like the ‘minerals council of Australia’ or whatever, which have the huge monetary resources to make that attack count. The Media largely does not want to tell the story, because it is owned by corporations and billionaires, and depends on corporations buying advertising space. The right does not want to talk about it, because it is their fundamental policy.
Hence we have a stressed out working and middle class, who are risking descent into poverty all the time. Nobody is giving them a real explanation of their problens, or a set of policies which deal with the problems or can get traction without the promoters risking political death from corporate backlash. Trump voters know something is wrong. They know the system is not working. Trump, for all his faults, acknowledges this loss. ‘Make America Great Again’, expresses a feeling that it is possible to restore previous plenty, and this is welcomed by people. Sure Trump has few policies, and those policies almost certainly do not benefit the people who vote for him, but that is not the point. He is showing awareness and concern for the problem. He, and the Republican establishment, are generating scapegoats for the real issues, to explain why things are not better: as if drag queens, tran-sexuals and people worried about racial discrimination are responsible for economic decline and loss of futures. These people are made to symbolise all that is wrong, without threatening the market-elites, so supporting Trump seems secure to those market elites. Trump seems funded by his supporters, to an extent which seems unusual in modern politics and shows his appeal, and he is funded by the rich-elites.
In a way Trump is perfectly correct, people might need to join in a “final battle” for America -“These people don’t stop and they’re bad and we have to get rid of them. These criminals cannot be rewarded. They must be defeated.” The problem is that the people Trump wants to fight are often not America’s problem, they are just scapegoats, or people who point out that Trump is the criminal. It is as Reich says…. “a final battle over … himself,” but Trump is no longer just a corrupt politician, he has become a symbol for fears and aspirations which are real, no matter how fake he is.
As Reich reports, Trump has mainstream Republicans supporing violence to defend him. For some reason Reich decides this unimportant, rather than an indication of how Republicans are bound up with Trump and protecting Trump, and violence against Trump’s ‘enemies’.
There are many more posts on Twitter which incline more to violence than these, because people have been convinced that Trump is innocent, that the Department of Justice and the FBI are weaponsed against all ‘conservatives’, that the whole thing is an attempt to distract from Biden’s corruption, that Trump is the only honest politician and that he will smash the corruption (something also being said by Trump), that revenge is necessary on those who are really corrupt, and so on. It is endless. There seems to be a real fury out there – and it is absurd to pretend people are not being stoked for war. That may not mean war is inevitable, but the possibility is there, and little can stop it – certainly Trump being convicted is not going to stop it, whatever the evidence against him.
According to a CBS poll 76% of Republican voters think the charges are politically motivated, 61% think the charges won’t change their views about Trump, 14% changed their views for the better. 80% think that even if Trump is convicted he should be able to be President. If Trump could not run, then 74% of Republican voters want someone like Trump. 45% thought it important to punish the Democrats.
Oddly the more Trump is attacked, and shown to be criminal, the more he can be seen to be one of the masses, victimised by the powers that be. He can’t be guilty any more than ‘we’ are guilty for what is happening to us, and if he is guilty what hope is left? The rationale that the current charges he faces seem justified is completely irrelevant to Trump’s supporters. These charges are another fake, another step in the battle to keep them down.
The more that the left attacks Trump’s followers as stupid ill-educated morons (which is really common), then the more they fall into the Republican Trap, because they make it seem clear that ‘Democrat elites’ have nothing but contempt for working and middle class people, and therefore, as Republicans allege, are generating the problem. Democrats are not acknowledging the real problems people face, or their feelings as valid.
If this continues, there is no reason not to expect violence and highly disruptive violence. It may not be organised. It may be sporadic, but it will happen.
Modern weaponry means that a few well organised people can do significant amounts of damage, and protect themselves through generating fear and images of heroism.
As long as the violence is against Democrats or scapegoated outsiders, then Republicans will support it, or not object….. The violence can be repressed, which will generate more violence as more people get caught in the hunt to suppress, or the violence will be met by a violent oppositional response. What level of continued violence counts as civil war is irrelevant, what matters is using violence to promote and protect Trump and allow him to create a state of terror.
If Democrats don’t put forward a coherent world view as to what is wrong, acknowledge that wrong, acknowledge the real grievances of Trump voters, and put forward plausible solutions, then Trump will win. People seem not to appreciate that his vote increased in the last election, with people’s experience of him still fresh. It is simply optimism to think his base is moving away, that Biden will win without effort, and that there is no possibility of continuing political violence.
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