Everything Begins to Move

Only when the manifold terms have been driven to the point of contradiction do they become active and lively towards one another, receiving in contradiction the negativity which is the indwelling pulsation of self-movement and spontaneous activity.  

G. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, bk 2, ch 2, c

When you jam the contradictions up against each other, everything begins to move.  

C. L. R. James, Notes on Dialectics, p 217 

What terms can be found in the State of the Union? What about "legislation v. investigation"? Well, I'm as eager to crack a case as any irregular but, no. How about this? "We are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country". Just not feeling the contradiction here. Obligatory applause from Republicans and uncomfortable silence from Democrats. Let's dig a little further down.

“No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.”

I think we can do something with this. 

The wall took root in Trump’s mind as a mnemonic. Its existence has oscillated in time, geography, and qualities. It’s a metaphor and we should take it as such. 

The city begins with a wall. Capitalism dismantles the wall around the city but the metaphor remains, especially where the reach of the city is tenuous. The further the distance from the city the greater the suspicion of strangers and the more the appeal of protection from them. But the reference is to the working class. It’s the only one and, other than a couple of invocations of the middle class which are, as always, an evasion, it is the only reference to class at all. This is more than casual ideology. It is the ground of Trump’s political strategy.

Going into the 2016 election the Republican party had done little to rebuild its stature following the financial and military debacles of the Bush administration. The Trump campaign gave shelter to the most retrograde parts of the Republican electorate and openly called on everyone who was willing to side with the powerful against the opposition, against the “invading socialist society”. In communities which capital has abandoned in its long term global restructuring of production the fairy tale was spun of a golden age which would return once capital was granted three wishes.

The metaphor of the wall was key to all of it. It represents the protection which the bosses will provide against the enemy outside. An enemy that is no more than another worker trying to sell the same thing, labor, to the same bosses. The “political class” is not a class at all but a straw man to deflect the militancy of the working class away from capital.

Trump, who takes great satisfaction from the enthusiasm of his rally audiences, appears to believe there are workers who will show the same enthusiasm fighting his political enemies. He may mistake the heavily armed agents who round up the undocumented or who guard the pipeline projects from those protecting their water supplies for just such workers. But he should note they are no different from the agents who have arrested many of his campaign staff.

Any admission that the wall is unnecessary would further expose the policy which underlies a Republican party desperate to deny the erosion of its position; expulsion and intimidation of whatever part of the working class is unwilling to bargain for protection. But the party has no protection to offer other than to those who can already afford the walls and gates and guards that are theirs not by membership in a political class but because they own the means of production and exercise political control of the state. Even though they may be embarrassed about an idiotic executive.