Re: <nettime> why is it so quiet (in the US)

Hello everyone -

Dan is basically right about everything, especially the anxiety and horror this election produced and the devastating realization that you live in a country where almost fifty percent of the population is willing to support an openly white supremacist and fascist political formation. Election night was the most sobering and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.

From my viewpoint though, there has in fact been a lot of attention to the danger of a coup. For instance, all the political-ecology and leftist organizations that I follow repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces starting two months ago. This movement from below was paralleled by mobilizations among political figures, career administrators, lawyer types and corporates, filtering both down and up into the mainstream, to the point where a few days ago, some large unions declared their readiness to hold a general strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.

I kept up with everything through the organizing work of XR Chicago, and this Monday, when coup anxieties focused on the possibility that Republican legislators could present rival (and illegitimate) slates of Electoral College voters to Congress on December 14, I drilled down into constitutional law to see how likely this could be. It goes without saying that you have to worry. Probably everyone knows that the 2000 election was stolen by the Republicans with the ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that stopped the recount in Florida, followed by a Supreme Court decision that handed the election to Bush, with all the consequences. Probably it will come out soon that the whole "Stop the Steal" movement flourishing just a few days ago was similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by Roger Stone himself this time). Others might remember that slates of rival electors were in fact presented by three states in 1876, leading to tremendous chaos, a back-room deal in Washington, and ultimately, the end of Reconstruction in the South, with even greater consequences that still face us today (the myth of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the persistence of slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country).

However, my conclusion is, this Electoral College scenario is not going to happen for many reasons. Not least of which, because the Electoral Count Act of 1887 really clarified the process, and it turns out that in case of disagreement over the validity of the rival electors, either the House and the Senate would have to agree on which ones to support (which they obviously wouldn't) or the decision would go back to the Governors of the states (and in the case of the Northern swing states that are really at issue, those Governors are Democrats). Trump does not have the support to overturn all that, his lawsuits are meritless and serve another purpose. For anyone who wants to wonk out on the question, read this: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685392.

That does not mean the nightmare is over. The explanation of Trump's failure to concede that has gradually consolidated over the past three days is no longer that he is planning organized fraud or an Electoral College coup, but instead, that he is maintaining the fury of his reality-averse base in order to keep his hold over the Republican Party, which desperately needs his support to win the two Senate seats that go to a vote in Georgia on January 5. Additionally Trump wants to start a new TV channel to maintain his grip on the party and hold himself up as a candidate for 2024. This thing could go on forever! Trump's defeat, or what the idiots will refer to as "the stolen election," could easily become a new caricature of the old Lost Cause, with everything that entails (basically it would be, or really, already is like yet another return of the Ku Klux Klan, this time including armed militias throughout the North). Plus, we don't know what's behind the firing of top military officials and what kinds of damage Trump is preparing to do out of sheer spite in the upcoming months, as Covid spirals out of control... It could go a lot of ways.

Not all of them are bad though. Trump is likely to lose some popularity, and depending largely on that, the Dems could take those two Senate seats in Georgia!

As for the carping on the left about Biden, I don't get it. We have a president who pledges to root out "structural racism" (his exact words, which target every police department in the country) and who has already released a 300-page white paper detailing what every agency of the federal government can do about climate change. The new administration actually has parallel plans under development, one if they take the Senate, the other if they don't. Plus we have a powerful progressive caucus that's basically headed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez now (with Bernie in the background) and she just delivered an incredible riposte to all the quivering Dems who say that radicalism cost them seats in the House. AOC says, look, seated progressives didn't lose *their* campaigns, but instead, incompetence in both fundraising and social media lost those seats! Biden's politics are crucially influenced by the continuing progressive mobilization, and equally if not more, by Black and Indigenous radicalism. It's the first time I've ever seen serious left politics in this country, and it all began almost a decade ago now, in the wake of Occupy. Everybody who is seriously on the left says Biden is a president we can push, they're right about that, and the carping comes from people who are either fatalists or are just not paying attention.

So anyway, the silence comes from exhaustion, uncertainty and a measure of relief. I am sure there will be more outbursts soon enough, as the Republicans try new gambits to maintain minority rule. Unless there's a political miracle and the Dems take the two Georgia Senate seats, this nightmare is going to go on, and who knows, maybe we'll yet have armed risings and a state of emergency and other undreamt of things between now and January 20. I am amazed that violence hasn't already happened, but this thing is not over. And Dan is particularly right about the blindness of liberals to most of what actually goes on in this benighted country. I am probably afflicted by some of that blindness too - even though calling me a liberal would be fighting words, so watch out, nettimers!

yours in sorrow, Brian

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 6:09 AM Dan S Wang <danswang@protonmail.com> wrote:

Hi Nettime,

Here in the US along with millions of others I have been consumed by the
election drama for the past ten days. Every day beginning with November 3
has been its own news cycle. That Tuesday went deep into the night. And it
was a dark moment. Early returns made for the appearance of a Trump-led
tidal wave across all the swing states. Trump made his first statement
well after 2 AM East Coast time, basically declaring himself the winner
even though the counting continued. Shortly thereafter the whole mood
changed as Biden's count gained on Trump's 118k lead in the state of
Wisconsin and then dramatically overtook it. Wednesday morning dawned with
a new optimism. But I didn't sleep soundly until Saturday, the day the
states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada were called for Biden, putting
him in a commanding lead for the Electoral College--that political
anachronism and relic of slave vs free state negotiations. I had a stress
rash and lost a few pounds over the week--and I was comparatively
confident compared to many of my nervous wreck friends.

As has been his way all along and now pushed into an extreme even for him,
since Election Day Trump's produced a cascade of hair raising statements
and tweets, abrupt firings across the security and defense sector that may
signal sinister intentions, and stepped up a blatantly obstructionist
intransigence in relation to the Biden transition team--complemented by
his usual inadvertently sad/hilarious acts of incompetence, ranging from
his campaigns instantly ridiculed press conference outside a random and
unappealing landscaping firm to his chief-of-staff testing positive for
COVID, followed a couple of days later by the confirmed infections of the
billionaire Uihlein couple, major donors to conservative causes, big
supporters of Trump, and noted corona-skeptics who had recently visited
the White House.

The ten days since the election have forced yet again the crash course in
the peculiarities of US election laws, the arcana of legal scenarios, many
of them varying widely depending on which states may be involved, and the
gaming out of Trump's dwindling but still very dangerous options. Felix, I
think you've got it mostly correct. But it's still a long shot for
Trump--pulling off reversals and/or machinations regarding the electors in
at least four states, each with its own political personalities and local
agendas, all at once in the next four weeks is near impossible. Beginning
today a trickle of Republicans have said as much. If this snowballs even a
little bit, then Trump will soon be running on fumes.

Meanwhile on the left I see already lots of carping about Biden's
centrism, lots of fawning over the various constituencies that delivered
the victory--the young voters that turned out in record numbers, the
Republican defectors that cut margins in conservative hinterlands, and
especially the Black voters of Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and
Atlanta--and lots of anxiety about a coup unfolding in broad daylight as
Trump does his very best to delegitimize the counts by crying fraud and
pushing legal challenges that thus far have amounted to nothing, so
ridiculous are they. What worries me is that the left seems to be watching
all developments with neither much of a contingency plan, nor any
agreement on best strategies for countering Trump's assaults on our
democracy. As Felix noted, the loading up of Trump loyalists sets the
stage for repression and new levels of abuse. And it makes provocation the
big danger right now, particularly as Trump runs out of legal challenges.
There hasn't been much noise made about disciplined responses. New rounds
of disorder and street chaos are quite possible--all it would take is
another Kenosha shooting incident.

And on the right? This, to me, is the most unsettling thing going on
presently. Conservative media have attained a permanent state of frothy
delusion. Conservative radio probably has the deepest reach, providing
millions of listeners with talking points, exhortations from well
practiced voices, and vows to "save the country" from...well, from fraud!
election theft! tyrannical doctors! big tech companies! (Because the
latter have started--four years too late, at least--to place warnings on
Trump's outrageous lies, shut down disinformation-based right wing
Facebook groups, and declare that once out of office Trump's Twitter
account will be held to the same standards of conduct as that of any
private citizen.) Then the Trump grassroots turn to social media to find
each other, and personally reinforce for one another the stream of lies
emanating first from Trump but second from hundreds of conservative media
voices hellbent on winning the media sweepstakes to become the next Rush
Limbaugh (he of the terminal cancer--yes, Goddess, thank you).

I tell my friends, dare to look, dare to visit right wing media. Trump's
record breaking vote totals--second most only to Biden's--cannot be a
surprise to anyone that pays attention to right wing media. They had a
huge get-out-the-vote effort, a massive campaign to register new voters
(usually a beneficial strategy only for the Dems), particularly young
voters. Moreover, they targeted Black men, Brown men, and Asian men, all
with a measurable degree of success. The shock of your average liberals on
Election Night, sent into despair upon seeing so many of their fellow
Americans choose Trump, confirmed for me that consensus reality is no
longer. And that continues right now, with millions of Trump voters loudly
rejecting a Biden victory as an impossibility, because to them there is
simply no way the country contains this many Biden voters. However the
next few weeks play out, what is clear is that reactionary populism is
here to stay as a major force in US politics. In addition to his repulsive
(and thankfully uncharismatic) sons, there will be plenty of would-be
Great Leaders looking to help themselves to the fat electorate Trump
brought into being. Defending the society against an armed fascist threat
that is networked on a mass scale will be a generation-long struggle, one
that opens in earnest now. COVID and climate remain wild cards.

Plenty more to say, surely with additional twists to consider by the end
of tomorrow. Thank you friends for helping to think through our situation.
I return the positive energy, particularly for comrades in Vienna.

Dan W.

—Resident Artist, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA

IG: type_rounds_1968
danswang.xyz

On 11/13/20, 2:07 AM, "Eric Kluitenberg" <nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org
on behalf of epk@xs4all.nl> wrote:

>
>Hi Felix, all,
>
>The post-election situation in the US is very worrying in many respects.
>
>The darkest scenario, a slow coup d’etat against a clear election result
>has been suggested to me by several friends over the past few days.
>
>I can’t read the local situation that well, so it would be great to hear
>some US subscribers on the list weigh in.
>
>However, when adopting a ‘realist’ perspective on politics it seems that
>Republicans are keeping all options on the table, mostly to secure future
>positions, when a.o. more senate seats are up for election (in 2 years?).
>
>What is significant about the election outcome is not just that the Biden
>/ Harris ticket has won, but that the landslide victory of Democrats did
>not happen, that their majority in the House declined, and that it seems
>likely they will not gain 50 seats in the Senate (to be decided by the
>Georgia run-off in January).
>
>It seems that voters have voted against Trump, but not for the Democrats,
>and that the electorate remains as bitterly divided as it has been for
>the past twenty years. That is not a good thing for the country and the
>stability of the political system in the world’s most militarised state,
>holding the largest nuclear arsenal.
>
>So it is justified to be worried right now, let’s hope it is a ‘realist’
>game for the post-Trump constellation.
>
>bests,
>Eric
>
>
>> On 13 Nov 2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
>> cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
>> has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.
>>
>>> From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
>> recount will change that.
>>
>> But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
>> fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
>> to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
>> up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
>> states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
>> majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
>> refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
>> fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
>> wings for the FBI and CIA.
>>
>> I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
>> strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
>> a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
>> a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
>> its strongest point.
>>
>> In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
>> 'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
>> corporate insiders like it's 1992.
>>
>> Am I totally misreading the situation?
>>
>> Felix
>>

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