The Capitol Riot: Grand finale or trailer for what to come?
B.Pal : 1/7/2021
(1)
I love democracy for its drama and cacophony. It’s a reality show with a consequence for our future. Most of the Indian Americans like me enjoy the boisterous spectacle of the oldest and the largest democracy. Despite differences in color, level of poverty and education, we are united in our spirit of freedom of expression and in our hatred for oppressive Govt even if they are elected!
To understand what happened yesterday in Washington DC, we have to carefully understand why increasingly, politics is so polarized. We have to understand the genesis of the “Alt-right” and “Ultra-left” movement and why so many people around us are feeling democracy is failing them. Why is political belief becoming so acrimonious that even in our local community we have started hating our neighbors?
This was not the way of life in the 80s and 90s. I grew up in a small non-descriptive village town of India where irrespective of political affiliation, the bonding of the neighborhood was strong. This was the same in the USA in the 80s and 90s for most of the suburban communities. Then both in the US and in India, over the last two decades, we have witnessed mind-blowing political polarization which resulted in so much hatred even among the neighbors, batchmates, family members, friends and so on. Forget about race relation in USA and Hindu-Muslim riots in India. So I should start by asking this question- what happened in the last twenty years so that politics become so divisive? So far apart that we can’t even talk to each other with civility?
(2)
I tend to believe this has to do with the growth of social media and the internet. Prior to the Internet era, there were only a handful of media outlets controlled by capitalist class. Capitalist class always wanted less polarization in politics as that serves the best interest of business. And thus they tightly controlled the media narratives between left center to right of the center- a very narrow invisible centrist lane in between. With the advent of facebook, twitter , Youtube, media was no longer in the control of political elites who had a good symbiosis relationship with business class since the foundation of the republic. Hunger for power is just as lusty as sexual obsession. Since 2007, we have seen meteoric political growth of the new leaders who are not born into political families and who didn’t have a chance in the old paradigm. Think of Barack Obama in the 2008 primary. While Hillary was spending massively in mainstream media ( because she was funded so well compared to Obama), Obama was using facebook groups to build his organization. In those days, I was a volunteer for the Hillary campaign and when Hillary tested her first defeat on Jan 3 Iowa Caucuses we came to know about a Black senator, Barack Obama. Even Edward was more visible in mainstream media. Obama was nobody and we thought it would be a cake walk for Hillary! So I immediately turned my attention to the Obama campaign and realized his volunteers were very active on Facebook while the Hillary campaign had very little idea of how to use it effectively. Hillary was old school, tied to an old capitalist class and she was depending on the old paradigm of mainstream media generated hype. Obama campaign showed social media has changed politics forever. His war cry that US politics needs change reverberated in FB and reached to more people. But he was a gentleman, idealist and romantic. Therefore his eight years didn’t produce any significant change despite him doing the right thing by bringing sweeping change in the US education system. But neither teachers nor Republicans were with him. He messed up with Obamacare and many of his so called socialist-like actions actually ended up helping big corporations while killing small business.
When Obama won in 2008, Democrats also swept both the houses. Capitalist class which so far had a good leash on politicians of both sides, found Obama presidency threatening for two reasons. For the first time, there was a President who didn’t need to listen to them. Secondly when a party wins a significant majority in all three branches of Government, political class becomes more powerful than business class. That is also undesirable for business.
So a relentless campaign was launched against Obama to disown his victory by terming him Marxist, Socialist etc. Koch brothers poured billions of dollars to start the tea party movement as they too realized without a grassroot movement another grassroot movement can’t be challenged on its own terms and turf. We won’t understand what happened yesterday in Capitol, if we fail to understand these two important developments fueled by old style oil capital in 2009-2011
a) Disowning a legitimate victory of Obama by terming him Marxist, anti-American etc…
b) Intense counter social media campaign to build Alt-right movement to take on the grassroot organization of Barack Obama. Thus personality like Steve Bannon was born to counter growth of ultra left messiah like Michael Moore or Robert Reich ( BTW- I subscribed to all three of them to educate myself on how these otherwise brilliant people are fueling more polarization in our society by their selective narratives devoid of any critical thinking) .
This was a total misapprehension by American capitalism. Obama was a centrist and all of his actions led to the booming of the big capitals and failing of small business. In fact his educational reform was absolutely necessary for American capitalism. A country’s economy can’t survive by importing engineers from India and China forever.
By 2012, Obama was quite comforting to American capitalism. He has been proven to be harmless to them and in fact a good friend of Big Techs. Google, FB, Tesla and a range of OTT platforms will be grateful to him for a number of reasons. By then the GOP had also gained the control of both the houses. They didn’t need to fear a centrist lame duck president. But the Alt right movement which started with double hatred against socialism and people of color, didn’t stop. By then it has gathered its critical mass so much so that it had already eclipsed the original republican party.
By the next election of 2016, we saw those important changes. Republican party old guards lost the control of its own base. So victory of Trump beating all the GOP heavyweights was not surprising at all. Trump was having Democratic membership till 2012. Being seasoned in media and reality shows, he appeared as a new messiah of the ALT-RIGHT movement. He realized the anger of white males who have been left out due to globalization, immigration and the rise of big retails. He has channeled those angers into his campaign and emerged as their cult hero. There is practically no difference between the rise of Hitler and rise of Trump. Except Trump has been humbled by the powerful US constitution and its provision against the emergence of dictatorship.
When Trump came to power, he legitimized the Alt-right movement which exuberated his base. They believed Trump was working for him. And he was. But Obama didn’t have this fortune. His base eroded in the second term . Obama received less votes in 2012 both by absolute and by percentage. Whereas Trump received more absolute votes compared to his first term. It’s another matter he had to face a candidate who could unite the entire democratic party only because of the “Trump” presidency. Otherwise, it was almost impossible to beat Messiah Trump. He not only retained his fanbase, on second term, he also added a new section of support-specially business owners. His frustration is obvious. Despite keeping the base intact and increasing many middle of the road support, he lost.
He was disillusioned to believe the election has been stolen. But blame his poor Math skill. Simply because in his very first term he was not supposed to win but he did win as ultra-left Dems didn’t show up to vote thinking Hillary is Killary and as corporate vice as Trump. This time, as much as they hate old Joe, they did show up. And Trump has no appeal to the new generation which voted against him in overwhelming percentage. It’s this simple math that sealed his future. Nobody cheated. Fact is, he would have lost in 2016 if the entire Dem base would have turned up against him as it did happen in 2020.
(3)
To understand why Trump was entirely disillusioned and hallucinating since he lost the election, we need to revisit the genesis of the Alt-right movement.
So what is the ALT-Right movement?
They go by various name-Tea parties, underground patriots etc. There is a common theme that binds them-which is loss of Americanness due to invasion and influx of “immigrants” “leftists” “Chinese” “Asians” and so on. Listen to some of their videos. They think the US is invaded by the “Satanic force” of multiculturalism brought in by the immigrants from unknown foreign countries.
If you travel miles after miles in the heartland of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky – you will notice almost every home has a placard of Trump-Pence. You won’t find even an iota of blue there. Unfortunately as it is, the new democratic party is a Urban phenomenon which is totally disconnected from the US heartland. As the US urban population has grown fueled by the immigrants, multiculturalism and inclusiveness have become part of daily life in most of the US cities. During 2004-2008, I had to travel all over the US, mostly in the rural areas. Rural heartland is still 100% white, very traditional and still believes in many of the old American ways. Just like a good old conservative Christian family. In this part of the US, I have witnessed terrible apprehension towards the fast city lifestyle. They find little difference between aliens and immigrants of color. BTW, they are not bad people. They are great people. They are viewing the advent of multiculturalism as an invasion on their traditional way of life.
No, they are not jobless uneducated white males. Many of them are highly educated and talented. It’s just that they believe their old American way of life is great as much as many Indians believe old Indian style Dharmic living is best for them.
Most of them are disfranchised working class white American men who have been marginalized due to globalization. Chinese have stolen their manufacturing jobs and Indians have hijacked their service jobs. But whom would they turn to protect their living ? Both Democrats and Republicans are in favor of outsourcing of manufacturing and service because that’s what is the wish of the capitalist class of America. Anything against outsourcing is a lip-service. So their anger was growing quite unnoticed in undescriptive Facebook groups, Youtube channels, Radio shows etc. But till the arrival of Trump, they had no mainstream leader who could take their voice to the election.
The way disfranchised Indian Hindus embraced Mesiah Modi in 2014, otherwise ignominious Alt right found their new Prophet -Donald Trump. Being a businessman in New York and indulged in lavish lifestyle, Trump shares no common value or character with his own base. But being in the Media, he is an able and effective communicator. Alt-right movements were desperate for a leader who would listen to their Alt reality not 10% but 100%. GOP leaders were so far giving lip service to them because they were fearing being too close to Alt right nuts will deprive them of election funding. After all, corporations and businesses only like centrists. Trump had no such dilemma as he didn’t need an external fund to run for the presidency. Instead he found symbiosis love with Alt-right base who are full of crazy ideas and conspiracy theories. After finding this political gold mine of gullible people (although their grievances may be genuine in the aspect of unplanned globalization ) , Trump clearly wiped out his republican opponents in a matter of a few months. The whole Republican party, the grand old party of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest politician of all the time, became hostage of Alt-right groups, conspiracy theorists and all kinds of nonsense. Political decency, centrism, civility-everything that we know off, simply vanished from the Trump campaign. Although most of the GOP politicians loathed Trump, they had to hug him and become his lickspittle because by then not a single Republican candidate can win without support from the Trump base. It is still that way today and there lies the biggest danger of America.
(4)
However, this is not the end of the story. We saw mindless violence and riots by Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the summer of 2020 over murder of George Floyd. Just like Republican party has been hijacked by disfranchised alt-right groups, Democratic party is on the verge of being hijacked by ultra-left groups led by Bernie and AOC. Despite they are on the opposite spectrum, they have the same line of political philosophy if you can skin them out and look at the flesh and blood. Like Alt-right, ultraleft is also a staunch believer of victimhood theory. They are hijacking the mind of youths and other minorities to indoctrinate them against American capitalism. Their “America '' is an armpit of poverty, racism and sexism created by rich white male. Wealth is evil! But they are not Marxist/Leninist. American left progressive movement is run by God loving Church going people who find their inspiration of equality and hatred against wealthy people from the Gospel of Bible. Das Kapital, Marx, Lenin, Mao are alien in American left. Unlike Indian lefts, who are totally disconnected from the religious tradition of the soil and embraced a totally foreign (Russian) ideology, American left movement is a homegrown Christian spiritual movement.
Even the Alt-right group is also a Christian spiritual movement.
In my understanding, both the groups are different Christian faction groups who are trying to build a spiritual-resistance movement against disruptive and cruel capitalism. Even if their grievances are genuine, like any other religious resistance movement, their ideology is not based on facts but on fictions, rumors and distorted facts. Conspiracy theories. There is no rationality out there.
Sandwiched between these extreme factions of Christianity and political spectrum, we are at a crossroad to be overrun by these extreme political groups. Seize of the Capitol is just a trailer of the future. Neither side can bring any good to the United States and its citizens.
However, American capitalism has to play its role to show it does care for the American people and profit over people and the environment is not acceptable. As long as American people will find they have to pay 10x more for a medicine that is available in Canada at a fraction of cost, they won’t trust the American political establishment. If they find, their jobs are lost because of an overseas Indian or Chinese, Alt-right and ultra-left groups will continue to find new recruits.
It is easy to blame those who stormed the Capitol. But no one can deny the vandalism at the Capitol is a reflection of total loss of faith in American political establishment.
Six year ago, I was visiting a workshop in Pennsylvania. As soon as I entered into it, I realized there was a time when more than hundreds of lathe machines were running and milling the parts. When I visited, barely two CNC machines were running, and the rest of the lathes were gathering moss and rust. The dilapidated condition of the workshop made me very sad. They lost their business to China thanks to the WTO treaty signed by Clinton. Then Bush favored even more outsourcing and more globalization. Obama promised “Change” but did nothing to protect them. And they have hopelessly seen how demand for their products evaporated by dumping of Chinese goods.
Will you blame them if they have lost hope in American political establishment to do any good for them? Every president promised, none delivered anything for them. So what is their alternative other than to join Alt-right or Ultra-left? Did mainstream American politics ever listen to them? Did it ever work for them? At least Trump listened to them and the devil deserves his due.
I am not upset or dismayed over the seizure of the Capitol. I am more upset because most of us are not realizing more and more people are losing faith in American political establishment because it is not working for them.
