I guess I have to start by saying that I’ve been a “leftist” all my life, and while I completely abandoned the position as an ideology, and only judge things in practice, my views haven’t changed at all. And they haven’t changed now. So that title there looks like a contradiction, yes, so I’ll explain why here.
I’m tired as an observer about this endless fight and division into two factions. I only see humanity, and it’s about time that we face the consequences of our choices. I usually see things from a much higher level, for me politics are just one layer of human culture and evolution, of a species as a whole. But lets leave all this part about grander statements and lets focus on the more practical. I think it’s obvious that, world-wide (and post-Covid) there has been a rising tide of right-wing political power. There are obviously exceptions (like the UK, but due to effects of post-Brexit), but I see these as local events that don’t have lasting effects on the greater tide. I see this kind of change as inevitable. And, to be honest, I also see a pattern being followed very similar to the rise of fascism in Europe.
It doesn’t matter if its true fascism, if it’s close, or if it’s just a rhetorical argument to demonize what’s happening, what matters is an undeniable, progressive cultural hegemony of the right, that has probably started its rise before Covid, but was greatly accelerated by it. As I said other times, Covid didn’t change anything, it wasn’t a turning point. It only accelerated patterns (in the economy, culture, and everything else) that were already being enacted. We see things happening sooner, but not different things happening.
For all these reasons, this isn’t a “war”. This isn’t a fight. This isn’t a struggle between left and right, or good versus evil. We are all together in this, we are all part of the same wave. No matter the internal struggles and little battles, the overall tide is unchanged. It can be delayed, but it can’t be averted. And at the point we’re at, I’m not even sure a delay helps anything.
I do believe, after what I’ve observed through the years, that what we consider the “left”, worldwide, is either an hollow hunk, or a sock-puppet moved by the right for its own agenda. A convenient, animated straw man. All the left does in practice these days is either aping the right, or provide alibi. All the Republican strength and rhetoric exists because they have an enemy. All the propaganda, fake news and all that shit is effective because there’s a left that provides a target. The function of the left is to either delay the inevitable, or just add confusion. It’s like riding a bike with training wheels: it’s time to either go or crash. Can’t keep dragging forever and getting sunk in the “lesser bad”.
I am a pessimist, so I don’t believe there’s an happy way out. But I’m also a realist, and I’m perfectly conscious that I don’t have all the pieces, and I don’t know the outcome. When it comes to real threats like climate change, what the scientists don’t tell you is that we are already way, way, WAY too late. Sure, it’s not all the same, and a minuscule shift in the trajectory can save some millions of lives. But what Covid should have taught you, is that those who die are left behind and quickly forgotten. The world is made by who survives. Those lives lost cease to be perceived. What we are deep down: sugar-coating machines that constantly remove trauma from perception. We live in denial within self-serving artificial worlds.
This process we belong to as humanity can’t be faced as a struggle between two parties. It’s just one whole. And it’s about time that humanity, as a whole, faces the outcome. And takes responsibility.
The only way out of it, whether extinction or improvement, happens still from within. Those Republican idiots drunk on propaganda need to wake up. It’s not about control, it’s not about the supremacy of a group over another. They need to have the power to make their choices, so that the stage is clear of all the smoke. Once they stop having an enemy to blame their frustrations on they will see the reality of what’s around and what they’ve brought upon themselves. They need to crash into reality. And reality is blind and deaf to propaganda and rhetoric.
(though, of course, Republicans being as dumb as they are, would rather pray than fix anything, and in the end blame god as the cause of their woes)
Accelerate, go against the wall at full speed.
We all need to crash into reality, and hope to survive the process.
Yes. Let them win.