Don't Get Carried Away by the Results of the 11/8 Elections

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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)

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Indeed, don't get carried away. Of course, there were some very important wins, for example, against "election denialism," for freedom of choice in the outcome of pregnancy, and in general for liberal Democratic policies (without naming names, some Dems. who tried to find that "middle ground" didn't do so well). The Democrats have held the Senate, and if Senator Warnock is re-elected, Senator Manchin may go back to running his family's coal company.

They did lose the House of course, by possibly as few as three seats. Interesting historical point. It was the make-up heir Ron Lauder who funded very well the successful Republican appeal of the New York State Democrats' pro-Democratic re-districting plan which, while not nearly so radical as those run by the Repubs. in any states that they can run them in (many), that appears to have cost the Democrats four House seats, including that of Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. (You can do the arithmetic.)

This is bad, but the early info. on what they plan to do with their majority indicates that if they can put their infighting (far-right vs. farther-right) aside they will take up most of their time with trying to throw a whole tool-kit of monkey wrenches into the policies and priorities of the Biden Administration as well as undertaking very important investigations such as of Hunter Biden (last I heard he did not have a position in his father's administration, but perhaps I missed it) and impeaching the President. If handled the right way by the White House that could actually work out to be an advantage (although a messy one) for them.

But the major point here is that that (rather large) segment of the ruling class that has created over time the modern Republo-fascist Party is not going anywhere. Let me admit here that in the column that I published the day before the election I was totally gloomy about the outcome. As I said in that column:

"As noted, I, and many others to be sure, have come to the conclusion that it is tomorrow's election which will seal the doom of the nation, not the Presidential election of 2024. The latter will just be the capstone of the long-term process that has been undertaken by the Republo-fascist Party (that is unless the Democrats can somehow pull off a series of major victories tomorrow, all around the nation). That is because the Republo-fascists have developed a method for enabling the fascist takeover of the state apparatus in their nation that is historically unique. Horthy was appointed by an outgoing king. Mussolini was also installed by a king. Hitler was appointed Chancellor by a democratically-elected President. Franco won a civil war. In contrast, the Republo-fascists will take power by subverting the electoral process on a grand scale."

Fortunately, I was totally wrong on that prediction. Election denialism and "election-rigging" were widely rejected by voters around the country. And of course, on a broader scale, Trump and Trumpism were widely rejected as well. Even the underneath-it-all-right-wing New York times columnist Bret Stephens, who tries oh-so-hard from time-to-time to pretend that he is a genuine middle-of-the-roader, on November 16, 2022 published a column entitled "Trump is Totally Finished." In the same issue of The Times, Tom Friedman published a column entitled "The Big Liar and His Losing Little Liars."

BUT, the Republo-fascist Party and that (major) segment of the U.S. ruling class (see the previous column for the several important definitions) which has created it over time is not going anywhere. As I said in two columns that I published about a year-an-a-half ago, there is what I described as a "Republo-fascist train" that is roaring down the track. As I pointed out in a recent column: "several recent books have traced both the long-term and shorter-term history of what has become what I term "Republo-fascism." The important point here is that the historical development of the contemporary version of the Republican Party has been underway for a long time. Indeed, big hedge-fund guys like Ken and Stephen Schwartzman have already announced that they are leaving Trump, with the latter already singing up with DeSantis.

The system of government of the United States is what can be best described as "bourgeois Constitutional Democracy." That is, it has a written Constitution, it has elections and it (supposedly) functions under the rule of law. That rule is of course sharply tilted in the direction of the Ruling Class (and again see the recent columns cited for a discussion of what that means) but it does include voting.

But, as also previously discussed, the demographic changes taking place in this country over time, would eventually tilt the voting process away from the present power of the ruling class. And that is why (previously discussed) they are so hell-bent-for-leather to undermine the democratic voting process. However, in my view, what (happily) happened in the last elections will just put a pause-and-rethink-how-to-proceed process in place for the Republo-fascists.

It is unlikely that process will involve Trump. (See the next paragraph for why I think this.) It is well-known that he has recovered from so many previous disasters-in-the-making. It is hard to say this definitively (as Bret Stephens for example, has). BUT for me the critical indicator that Trump is finished is that Rupert Murdoch wasted no time at all in turning on him in, for example, The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.

What? You think that Murdoch did this on his own? Well, I don't. I think that he got calls from and he made them to the top levels of the Republo-fascist ruling class for which he has been a major media spokesman for quite some time (so major that a James Bond film was actually made based in part on his character). They have been working on this project, primarily based on voter-repression and vote-alteration to permanently keep them in power without the bother of violent repression, for over 30 years. Again, as I pointed out in that recent column, just now several books have been published tracing the history of these developments in great detail.

I have previously described "The Oncoming Freight Train of the Republo-Fascist Party: With a Disposable Headlight Named Donald J. Trump" (Click Here). He certainly has been their headlamp, and they were delighted to have him lighting the way, for as long as he seemed capable of turning that trick. But I think that it is now clear that they are turning away from him. Of course, he will do everything he can to say in the spotlight, like, as is well known, declaring his candidacy (again) for the Presidency ridiculously far in advance of the next election. (It has been widely speculated that one reason he has done this is because he thinks that doing so will protect him from one of the numerous criminal and civil legal actions that he is facing. In this he will be very disappointed.) But, the Republo-fascist ruling class still has their train roaring down the track. They have and will be taking note of what happened to it, with Trump as the headlamp.

My point here, folks, is don't get too complacent following the results of the past election and why they happened. The Republo-fascists will soon find a new headlamp, Ron DeSantis or other. But that train will keep on comin' down the track, just as regularly as it did in "The Perils of Pauline." We better learn soon what we have to do to deal with it.

(Article changed on Nov 17, 2022 at 7:46 PM EST)