game kings: September 2016

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Donald Trump's America Is Secure

The first commercial of the Trump campaign confirms what I wrote in July, (Trump the Game), that in Trump's political space/time he is no mere candidate, he is the President. Note the tense in the screen cap. What is it in the structure of American politics that allows the Republican candidate to assume the mantle of legitimacy and cast his opponent as usurper? And why is a man who has spent his entire life in the amoral world of big city real estate able to refer to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" with impunity?

I was reminded of the character of the Republican Party by the recent PBS documentary, The Presidents: Nixon. Nixon's early campaigns for Congress and for the Senate featured smears of his opponents as Communists. It is the same tactic, and one that is fundamental to the party, that is playing a major role in Trump's campaign against Clinton. Its continued foothold has nothing to do with details of the Clintons' political history. Rather it points to an ideological imbalance between Democrats and Republicans since the New Deal.

With FDR the Democratic Party assumed the role of protector of the working class. The contradiction between that role and its status as an essential institution of capitalist rule at home and globally is the source of its strength and its weakness with regards to its rival party. Everyone who has given any thought to the matter understands that socialism, in some fashion, is the political program of the working class. You may oppose it or support it. You may analyze it according to your specialized field. We can only hope you will not ignore the dialectic when you do.

But you will never hear this acknowledged by the Democratic Party. They will profess support for unions, for public education, for social insurance and so forth. But they will deny this is socialism.They will deny, because it is contrary to the class foundation of the party, that these are expressions of a working class platform that challenges capitalist rule.

The New Deal has always been an exchange of equivalents. The workers trade their support for American capital and empire for what is called a dream. That the terms of this deal are threadbare is hardly noticed in the boardroom but it is completely obvious to the rank and file. The Democratic Party cannot honestly admit that the economic crisis that it has overseen through the last two terms and which its rival party failed to resolve during the previous two terms will not be resolved within the existing economic system.

Why has a holdover from the two previous Democratic administrations been the only credible candidate from the party establishment? Why, given these credentials, was she nevertheless nearly upended by this cycle's outsider? By simply enunciating the forbidden word "socialism" Sanders was able to expose the poverty of the party and nearly succeed in a quest that seems to have been beyond his intentions.

This is the situation where Trump is able to pose as the only legitimate candidate. He is steeped in the most venomous traditions of his party and has an intuitive grasp of his target's vulnerability. Like Nixon, like Bush, he knows that the Democrat can only blush with outrage when baited as "soft on communism, terrorism, etc." while his own party's unashamed adherence to any and all methods of class rule will protect his flank.

Admittedly, Clinton has done little blushing. Her response has been to emphasize her imperial credentials and blast Trump's. But that has not been reassuring It is much easier to see the decline of the empire and the crisis of the economic structure during Obama's administration than to recall the contributions made to this by Bush. In any case, other than the occasional ejaculation to the sacred memory of Reagan, Trump is completely unfettered by American political history. Clinton, on the other hand, is wrapped in the last 24 years and bears the collective sins of both parties.