Greetings. I hope you all are retaining a semblance of equanimity during these really difficult times.
I wanted to write a couple brief things, provocations really, rather than carefully-reasoned and measured positions. They have to do with the elections next year.
I realize that it’s many months away, but if present conditions remain or deteriorate, the Democratic National Convention is going to be an absolute mess. Because of Biden’s support for the genocide in Gaza, the split between liberals and the Left has turned into open combat. As in 2016 and 2020, the DNC will try to impose a vision of centrist unity, and will do everything in its power to silence its leftist critics; unlike those years, there doesn’t appear to be an insurgent candidate so I expect that demonstrations will be a way to manifest what is profound and near universal disaffection with the status quo. This will be a moment that looks like the opposition to the Vietnam war in Chicago ‘68, but unlike that time, the Democratic Party will have no anti-genocide candidate. The demonstrations will have a different, more desperate and probably disruptive tenor for this reason. One could ask whether it makes sense for the Left to protest the party under these conditions, and I would say in fact Yes it does. If there’s going to be a fundamental breach or break with the Democratic Party, it makes sense to make centrists and liberals as uncomfortable as possible when it happens.
Does this mean I support some sort of third-party candidacy? No, in fact I do not. Cornel West is not a serious person. The aporia of the current condition means that liberal democracy is an experiment that has run its course.
I usually don’t make predictions, but if the current conditions remain or worsen, I would expect a strange state of affairs: initially the DNC and its allies in the party will try (once again) to browbeat, cajole and shame so-called progressives to voting for Biden. Unlike 2016 with Hillary and 2020 with Joe, these tactics will not work. Those who identify as Left will not support Biden even contingently, and a lot of Arab voters in swing states who identify as progressive will leave the party. It will be clear very early on that the party will lose to Trump. This is an important point that I must stress: by supporting the genocide in Gaza, Biden is ensuring that he will lose to Trump, and this will become very evident to Democrats, perhaps as early as the (chaotic) National Convention. What then? The most likely scenario is one whereby the well-tested liberal affinity for the “rule of law” will force them to abide by a Trump victory while attempting to blame the Left. We can expect the worst kinds of histrionics from the Resistance brigades; the shock of a Trump victory has a small chance of forcing liberals into some unprecedented state of consciousness and perhaps action, but if the recent past is any indicator, this is unlikely.
I don’t think accusing anybody of “supporting Genocide” because they support Joe Biden in this coming election is constructive in the slightest bit. And what good is it if all it does accomplish is getting Trump back into the WH?