And Now For Something Completely Different...

Totally Not Too Soon

This is going to be the last email that normally would have gone out to the paying subscribers that covers the US election. The normal 2-tiered program resumes this week and I am sure everyone can appreciate the free-for-fall these last days. If you would like to be part of the extra newsletters, that aside from more essays also gets discount codes for any and all drops please feel free to sign up below and help me keep the lights on and running.

Let’s start this new week with some new new music first and foremost, the new Black Lodges Weekly Jams Playlist is up and available for your enjoyment. Another almost 3 hour long collection of tunes that is just as chaotic as last week was. Everything from new post-punk, blues, some metal, rap, experimental electronica, soul, hippie shit and some classic punk / hardcore is in here: it’s a damn fine one.

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So Biden / Harris won and Trump is out. That’s the one ain’t it. Admittedly, I was 99% certain that this was going to be the case but I truly couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a chance Trump was going to win it nonetheless and hell, for a hot minute it certainly looked like this was case! Sure, a lot of us had predicted that the early counts of election day votes would be for Trump and even saw his behavior coming once the mail in ballots were starting to be counted, but damn, even so, what a shit show!

There are a couple of takes that I find worth sharing before we can get into what is on the cards for all of us in the coming few years.

The fact that this election was this close is a probably the biggest elephant in the room, still. Sure, let’s all enjoy this moment of elation that the Orange Goblin has to leave the White House but that is just about it. Trump and his merry band of pseudo-christian fascists got near half of the vote, the blue wave across Congress was a total failure and so far the Senate is still in Republican Hands, with both Graham and McConnell still around to wreak their havoc - which they still are doing even as I am writing this. If I read it right, Biden’s win can predominately be said to have come from grass root organizers such as Stacey Abrams, as well as a lot of the so-called Democratic Socialist Squads, many of which not only worked hard to mobilize, but all but 2 possible people won their seats back and gained some.

The upper echelon of the DNC failed utterly in the same way that they failed with Clinton in 2016. Mostly, I interpret their willful ignorance as compliance with the same money that supports the RNC as well as the fact that a loss genuinely has no consequences for them - even IF they were to loose their civil servant seats, the party will continue to prop them, or worst case, they would immediately receive an even better job with a consulting firm, college or think thank. The game is utterly rigged and without consequence for those, in principle, working for us that even this election, after everything that Trump and his cronies have pulled, not even mentioning the avoidable and depressing 250`000 death toll was a close call. I don’t see this election win as a clear vote for Biden but a vote against Trump. Yes, I am elated Trump-o is out, of course, but let’s not for one second believe that Trumpism and the corrupt system that allowed a person such as Trump - and he is replaceable, he will be replaced in a few years now that the far right has seen what is possible - is defeated.

As to pushing Biden Left: that Class War has already started, with several Centrist Democrats as well as the grifters from the Lincoln Project punching down and left, which is only going to increase in intensity these next few months. Whilst large parts of the voting US is very much in favour, let alone need, of more humane, dare I say Socialist policies, Biden is already eying up Republican officials to work in his cabinet. A German newspaper broke the story yesterday that even a pardon for Trump was being discussed and hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised. Yes, Biden and Harris’ job will include building a bridge to millions of Trump fans - but the political spectrum has been shifted so far to the right since Reagan that this bridge building is going to have come from the right, in my humble opinion and yet I don’t see that happening.

Whatever will remain of an organized-left in the US is going to take some serious punches and the fight to even hold the DNC neutral, let alone shift even further right is going to one, incredibly taxing and difficult fight. Not only is the Capital of the US NOT interested in this, so incredibly important shift of perspective, but again, those in pay of said Capital within the DNC are being told so. Genuine grass-root organization from anyone left of the DNC is going to be key in the next few years. Yes, that is going to take genuine effort, money, and elbow-grease as my dear HS biology teacher Mr. Dunmire used to say. Interconnectivity is going to be key, presenting a unified front to not only the Republicans in office but more importantly to Biden and his cabinet will play a massive part in getting what is needed, let alone right, done.

I am not going to waste anyones time pretending I know how the future will play out, nationally let alone internationally, and yes, whilst I am still breathing a sigh of relief, the real work is now beginning. Today. As to being compassionate to Trump, his enablers both in government, media - yes, Zuck I am definitely looking at you - and finance, fuck them. Let’s take them all to war tribunals and break up their vicious, destructive sway on us all and let’s start by getting these kids out of the damn cages, dealing with the Covid-Pandemic in a humane way and again, holding them all accountable, day in and day out.

Let’s Start.