Several
months ago, some of my friends urged me to look at the November
election in a positive way, to think that Biden would win and that if he did
win, that these dark days of our country’s rule by big money, big military, and
predatory capitalism would come to an end. I was not convinced. While Biden is
a better choice at the helm of our government since he, at least, is not a
neo-fascist, I don’t think that the removal of Trump from office will end the problems
we face in the United States today.
The anger,
rage, and frustration behind the infamous insurrection at the US Capitol
Building on January 6th has been festering, sometimes beneath the
surface, for decades, beginning as early as the Civil War, which many in the
South seem to still be fighting. (A confederate flag was brought into the White
House that infamous day.) I understand optimism. Really, I do. However, looking
at our socio-political situation with rose-colored glasses will not help
address the neo-fascism that has been festering in society for decades. It is
important to look at the policies of both parties, the Democratic as well as
the Republican Party, to understand how we got here, how a mob of unruly,
disparate rioters stormed the United States Capitol and came close to stopping
the certification of Joe Biden’s win of the presidency.
The coup at the Capitol, the culmination of months of Trump’s
exhortations to his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election based
on baseless claims of fraud, left dozens wounded and five dead (seven if we count
the police officers who committed suicide after the riot). Without complicity
with some members of the Capitol Police Force, many Republicans who challenge
Biden’s presidential certification, and even some Democrats, it would not have
been possible for the angry, unruly mob to have breached the Capitol and to have
entered the chambers and offices of Congress members.
How did we get here? The answer is not so simple. Donald
Trump and Trumpism are merely the symbols for a sickness, lurking deep within our
society. Trump and his allies may have stoked the violence, but they didn’t
create the phenomenon. Trump and his supporters were merely capitalizing on the
deep despair, the shattering of families, and the lessening of social and
community bonds in the country today. The sociologist, Emile Durkheim, whom I
studied in my undergraduate days, calls this mass loneliness and alienation,
this American malaise, as Chris Hedges calls it, ‘anomie’. The disappearance of
Trump will not solve the problem. Nearly half of the US population voted for
him. Massive unemployment, underemployment, poor wages, questionable jobs,
inadequate health care, deteriorating schools, inequality of people of color,
women, and immigrants have laid the foundation for the seething unrest, and
makes some people become easy prey to politicians with right-wing agendas.
Will Biden be able to help heal the nation’s wounds, as he
claims? At best, the new administration will be able to put a few band-aids on
the gaping wounds in society. The Democratic Party is closely tied to Wall
Street, super-PACS, and big money, without which most of Congress could not
have been elected. In an RT “On Contact” interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning
author and activist, Chris Hedges, Dr. Cornel West, Harvard professor, moral
philosopher and activist, asserts that Joe Biden’s economic team has never
understood the depths of division in the country and how inequality percolates,
the hierarchy in which a tiny minority at the top make decisions and make the
profits. We may be seeing increased repression, increased social misery, and
even gangsterization, (https://youtu.be/jHW0Q0CPpqQ)
Twenty million
Americans are reduced to unemployment compensation. Anger is rooted in ever-deteriorating socio-economic conditions. There is a predatory capitalist system
that is commodifying everyone, all of which conditions contribute to an
underlying general malaise and anomie. Many people feel hopeless and alone and
don’t know how to change their lives or to create societal change, either. Biden can expect an even larger group of angry
people directing their rage at him unless he is willing to face the changes that
need to be made. However, it was Biden who was one of the advocates for the war
in Iraq, and other US-led wars in Central America, repealed the Glass-Stegall
Act (banking regulation), and also crafted the legislation that has put millions of
poor and people of color in prison for low-level drug offenses.
What we have is a
mediocre, nostalgic, middle-of-the-road president who, rather than working to
transform the economy and repair the ruptured social bonds in the nation with a
New Deal-type jobs and social programs initiative, instead he will most likely
be working to preserve the American Empire. To do otherwise would lose him and the neoliberals now in charge of the government, their jobs.
As Cornel West and
Chris Hedges assert in their interview, what we need is a total transformation,
a complete restructuring of society so that everyone can live their best lives
and feel connected with their families, communities, and society again. They
don’t really lay out a game plan. We need a new system of government, one that will provide
minimum necessities to all, give all meaningful employment, and strengthen
communities by returning control to localities, rather than lining the pockets
of billionaires and big business.
As said Amanda Gorman, the first US youth poet laureate, at the inauguration::
"There is always light
Only if we are brave enough to see it
There is always light.
Only if we are brave enough to be it."
Onward into that light with renewed resolve to create that better world.
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