The U.S. Election

The Fallacy of the Lesser of Two Evils, General Strikes and Cultural Differences

This piece is going to be longer than usual, and whilst these types of posts are reserved for the paying subscribers, it is more than clear that this upcoming U.S. has severe global implications and with that, this belongs to all of us. If you do wish to support this work hit the button below and aside from my usual brain farts, you get discount codes for any and all Black Lodges gear and my never ending gratitude.

I have been wrestling with this piece for a good month now and it does require a number of statements before I get into detail. This article is a shared piece with a dear friend of mine from the U.S. whose intellect, experience and opinions I value greatly who shall remain nameless for all the obvious reasons. We have been talking about these topics for a while and I asked him to explain a few questions to me. Irrespective of my own experiences in the U.S. as well as with U.S. social and political culture there are still several fundamental aspects that simply do not make sense to me. I am and hopefully will remain passionately curious and this piece is mostly that - me trying to understand and present several sides of a coin. Specifically, this piece is centered around the U.S. election, the un-electability of either candidate, the lack of discussion for political solutions outside of voting, and an explanation as to why.

Regarding the upcoming Presidential U.S. election: I am not telling you IF or WHOM to vote for. I fully understand the argument that, despite disagreeing with everything Biden says and stands for, voting for him is an act of defiance against Trump and his party. I understand that there is more at stake than the White House. I understand the general U.S. notion that voting is a right and privilege and not to be taken lightly. I am not shaming anyone that votes for Biden, all of this, is entirely you.

With that out of the way, both the Democratic and Republican Party are not electable unless you are comfortable with the status quo, and / or are apathetic to the realities of both parties. Yes, Donald Trump and the Republican party represent a 21st Century Proto-Fascist, Religious Death Cult paid for by Wall Street, unfortunately so are large parts of the DNC. Whilst the corporate owned infotainment onslaught has brainwashed the entire world that there is genuine difference between the two and that the DNC is in fact currently an opposition party the actual work being done proves otherwise. Essentially, democracy has failed in the U.S., a more accurate definition would be a hybrid of klepto-and oligarchy. The U.S. government does not represent, nor act in the interest of the majority of its fictional bosses, you, but the select billionaires rich enough to pay both parties to do their unfettered bidding. That is is my take, and to be clear, not only of the U.S. but every European country as well as the EU itself, just without that massive army.

There is no need to discuss Trump and the Republican Party as an option. He and They are not, not in any universe, nor at any time. Now, admittedly, I don’t understand the technical details as to why a multi-party system doesn’t exist in the U.S. - I know there are some technical, legal reasons standing in the way of that- but it would be a start for political progress, as well as abolishing that whole electoral college nonsense, possibly a good idea 200 years ago, but today? Nah mate. That “leaves” the option of voting for the DNC candidate, Biden and his VP pick, Harris. I am in no way interested in debating aspects such as personality, age, race, religion- the only way to truly judge a politician is: what did they promise to get your power, what did they do during their time with your power and what effect did this have on your country. That, unfortunately, makes the Biden/Harris bid impossible to vote for, could I, obviously. Their past political track record and the campaign promises mostly stand in direct opposition to my core beliefs and wishes. Again, no voter shaming, and yes, I understand the larger plays at play here, but again, even then, historically, even that argument has always proved wrong. Simply put, even the larger stakes at work here have never been delivered and if fractionally so, at costs so immense that they do not balance out.

To offer you more personal context in regards to my understanding of democratic politics in the 20th/21st Century: you and I relinquish freedoms for a representative democracy in which every citizen has a say through a voting process. To start with, power assumes and will never relinquish authority derived through this process, it is hierarchical and thus inherently violent, and more importantly, we are born into this process ( if we win the genetic lottery of being born in the global North West ) and aren’t asked if we want to continue to cede individual freedom for representation, quite frankly, we don’t have a choice in the matter, again, illustrating the nature of the beast. The social contract binding a representative democracy is by ceding power we expect representation, and to a certain degree leadership and none of that is happening. It is a facade that offers you and I platitudes of comfort, or rather forces consumption upon us as the only viable source of comfort to ignore the abuse of power by the powerful at the expense of the global 99%. There is no room for debate regarding structural change in this system and should you find yourself in opposition to this construct the full force of said representative violence will rain down on you. With that, the participatory performance of “voting” every 4 years is at best hypocritical and realistically a meaningless act of self-delusion to further intoxicate ones self through consumption, contributing to the ever-increasing destruction of this planet, neglecting the core reason of existence: providing a better tomorrow for any and all existence on this planet.

There is of course an option to make the corrupt and powerful listen, do our bidding as we asked and paid them to do and if not replace them, yet, I do not see it being realistically discussed and put into action in the U.S. arena and that is a General Strike. The government only works because we pay it, the refusal to work and consume puts a stop to the income of the billionaires that actually pay our politicians and nothing creates action faster than threatening that income. Before anyone screams: FUCK THAT COMMIE SHIT, here is a list of strikes that really changed things and you’ll see the majority of them, historically took place in the U.S. The fact that the largest labour movements in the west, historically were born and executed in the U.S. is something no one learns in school and is often lost on the majority of us, especially to anyone born from the late 70s onwards. The vast history of exercising genuine political power outside of the corrupt and ineffective charade of modern day democracy has deep roots in the U.S. and at this point I would very much suggest to spend time with my friends over at Working Class History to give you a good insight into that.

I don’t need to explain why class consciousness and unity doesn’t exist past Reagan / Thatcher / Mitterand / Kohl in the Global North West - entire libraries are filled with the neoliberal coup d’etat that took place. The genuine lack of discussion regarding this option in the U.S. seriously, seriously shocks and surprises me. After 4 years of Trump and a mask-off RNC, I genuinely expected a critical mass radicalization in the U.S. to affect genuine change - not the celebrity billionaire bullshit Biden/Harris are pushing. Whilst a few talking heads are amazingly utilizing their platform to bring this option back on the table I do not see it happening, yet, and a Biden/Harris election will essentially silence large majorities of angered citizens in the U.S. In my personal context I struggle to understand this, which is why I asked to have this explained to me, which is the second part of this story from aforementioned friend in the U.S.:

There seem to be at least three tightly connected reasons a General Strike isn’t just unlikely in the US, but practically unthinkable on a scale large enough to have a political impact. They’re all more or less “cultural” in a generous sense of the term. Vaguely ordered from more fundamental to historical or accidental, they are the following.

• Founding mythology and moralized rhetoric of individualism

• Valorization and/or moralization of work and material success

• Demonization of any political options cast in the rhetoric of “collectivism” or “socialism” 

Gramsci (via Sorel) was on to something regarding hegemonic culture’s constraints on live political options. The US is founded on a mythology of rugged individualism and the moral value of hard-won, individual success epitomized in the “American Dream”. This is the founding myth at the center of the US mindset. The fully atomized individual is the ideal moral agent whose worth and worthiness is established through hard-earned, neither given nor aided, individual success. Individual success is the important bit; any assistance along the path to success and credit is lessened. This rugged, wholly self-made individual is the moral center and personifying hero of American mythology. Essentially, community assistance should be shunned; accepting an external helping hand is weakness or at least lessens the moral impact of eventual success and should therefore be avoided. So right out of the gate, the notion of community structures or collective action for assistance are normatively suspect. They’re crutches or “hand-outs” by which the weak or otherwise morally imperfect get a shortcut to success, an attack on the virtue-ensuing moral foundations of our society.

This has led directly to the valorization and moralization of labor, of work. Material success is a direct measure of your worth, and even the poor seem to have internalized this belief. The hated “elites” here are not necessarily the rich. They are the educated liberals, whiny and effete in the eyes of the indoctrinated, demanding that society provide help to those morally suspect losers unable to succeed solo. In contrast, the hardy and robust captains of industry, driving prosperity, magnanimously allowing you to work for them whilst wisely seeking ways to pay you less, are seen as moral paragons. After all, material success is a signal of moral worth. Screaming for redistribution is just sour grapes or manifest laziness as all success is a direct and inevitable result of individual moral action, not an accident of social arrangement or luck. 

Because work is moralized, your labor isn’t seen as a commodity you bring to market in the role of a worker. Insofar as you buy into the pervasive hegemonic mythos, work is not a means or a commodity you can withhold for political leverage anymore than your personality is. Self-actualization through work is an end in itself and fundamental to your worth and moral value. Your labor can’t be objectified into a shared “working class” weapon of leverage. It’s too individuated and tied to your personhood to be thought of in those collective, externalized terms. For deeply enculturated Americans, your labor can’t even be thought of as something you share with others or pool for collective action, because it’s not something you do, it’s who you are. It’s not a leveragable commodity so much as the gravitational center of your self-worth. Unfortunately, this weltanshauung is the unarticulated cultural context on both sides of the fence in the US. And though its absolute grip may be lessening, it’s still the de facto framing narrative through which live political options are considered. 

Finally, there’s also the historical context. The US was one pole in the Cold War, seen as a great moral battle between the godly, libertarian free market and the godless, freedom-hating commies. It was a time of hysteria and fear in the US and we still reflexively demonize anything remotely smacking of “socialism” or “collectivism”. Commies and spineless socialists were bad and they lost, so, clearly, any ideas associated with them are suspect if not morally bankrupt. In the US culture at large, there’s an automatic, culturally conditioned pejorative connotation to any terms or ideas associated with socialism, anarchism, or even the broader labor movement. And even though these days we’re hearing more about American socialism, it’s always introduced apologetically, prefaced with all sorts of diluting caveats, and effectively stuck in a hole it has to dig itself out of. Broadly speaking, anything couched in the rhetoric of organized labor is seen as suspect, bad, or immoral out of the gate. Even unions are more often associated with the mafia and loafing than the 8 hour work day, worker safety, and child labor laws. That’s how deeply the polarizing rhetoric of the Cold War pervades all aspects of life here. So, a General Strike isn’t an option most folks will readily align themselves with. 

The point is, getting folks to understand, say, the practical and moral benefits of equitable resource distribution achievable by a General Strike isn’t going to cut it. Rational argument won’t work because moral reasoning here tends in the other direction. The normative and moral framing in the US, a function of “hegemonic culture”, is such that collective action involving one’s labor, the center of the moral universe and foundation of our national mythos, is not a live option. Particularly if it would be used to allow “morally inferior” slackers to succeed. And, just practically, given the political and informational divisions within the US, the coordination overhead associated with calling a general strike would almost automatically fail to reach half (and probably significantly more than half) of the relevant workers.  

Concluding, for now in any case, the option of a General Strike as powerful and more importantly, genuine political act needs to be re-introduced, broadly. I hope the above offers you insights into why this is the case and what obstacles are in the way. Dismantling these should be at the forefront of any and all leftist strategies and I am here for it.

Please feel free to share, comment and discuss this with your friends and families.