Alessandro Delfanti on Mon, 5 Oct 2020 20:46:29 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> A question in earnest 

Hello, my two cents from Canada and with an eye on my old country Italy.
While I share some of Brian's and Molly's hopes about the fall of the Republican party, I would not write Trump out just yet. He may very well manage to turn this hospitalization in his favour. Like for other contemporary populist politicians, the body of the leader is very much a biopolitical battleground here. I am thinking Berlusconi's sexual drive, for example -- or rather the way in which he managed to successfully use revelations about his habits as signals of his masculinity and youth.
Trump has already started weaponizing his recovery from the virus. We can very well expect him and his entourage to use it as a key propaganda trope, e.g. portraying him as strong, moralizing his ability to 'defeat' the virus, and en passage confirming that the virus is not that dangerous after all. If he quickly gets out of the hospital and nobody in the White House outbreak dies or gets seriously ill, this may turn the table with regard to his role in the virus crisis.
Finally, the American public and even more so the Republican electorate may not necessarily be aware and/or care, but let's not forget that many other leaders have caught the virus. Nobody was as careless as the White House, of course, but remember Johnson, Trudeau, ministers in many European countries and in Brasil... the list goes on.
Biden may be able to step up his own biopolitical game and inject even more care and empathy in his public persona -- he is certainly good at that! -- and this will help defeat the evil egoistical superspreader president.
On a different note, Biden and/or the Democratic Party have been incorporating demands and platforms from the left but none stems directly from Biden. He is struggling to convey energetically any iconic policy or political proposal because his platform conflicts so much with his history and ideological dispositions. He's got nothing like Trump's wall, or Bernie's socialized healthcare system. From this viewpoint in my opinion he is even weaker than Clinton in a sense. 

Definitely NOT a boring election
Alessandro



Molly said it all, but let's give Joe Biden his two bits:
"The economy. Climate change. Health care. Civil rights. Racial justice. 
The U.S. Supreme Court. Our democracy. They’re all on the line. Vote."
(https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1312907856161705985)

Biden is an old hack and a political weathervane, for sure. But we
progressives and socialists are creating the weather. On all of the
subjects listed here, we can make huge changes happen by pushing the
Democrats to the left. This can be achieved by an explosion of pent-up
demands nurtured by civil society during the long political quarantine of the Trump administration. The first step is removing Trump and discrediting the Republican party, which can be achieved by what's called a "blowout" - that's a crushing defeat that flips the Senate to Democratic control and increases the margin in the House. It's now a realistic possibility, after the utter disgrace of Trump's behavior in the debate, plus the deep sense of disgust generated by the White House superspreader event. If a blowout 
happens, does anyone think Progressives and Socialists will stop there,
suddenly becoming passive and complicit with a don't-rock-the-boat
administration? Hell no, after any sort of victory at the polls we're going 
to push urgently for structural changes in the way this country is run,
including statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, which would add four new
senators and solve the Republican problem for a long time to come, thereby 
opening up political space to deal rationally with economic, racial and
ecological crises.
There have been two major obstacles to the kind of changes we are seeking: 1. a hegemonic link between conservative values and neoliberal policy; and 2. fiscal austerity. The basic contradiction and stinking hypocrisy of the neocon link have been incarnated by Trump, and that coalition of cultural 
conservatives and extractivist capital will fall with him, for the time
being at least. As for fiscal austerity, it will be replaced by a sweeping 
economic stimulus based on fiat money -- an urgent measure which will
definitely pass a Democratic House and Senate, but whose final forms could 
vary tremendously, between maintenance of the status quo and
transformation. This election offers a chance to push for the latter, along 
the lines sketched out by Bernie Sanders and AOC. The creation of fresh
money for federal policy goals (and not just to support the financial
system) is the only conceivable way to literally retool the economy, while 
simultaneously reshaping the racist and frankly imperialist social
relations that are inseparable from the current extractivist toolkit. Biden 
is already proposing a Green New Deal in all but name, so let's add the
name and make it really work.
This US election is a potential turning point for the twenty-first century - as the last one was. The difference is, this time a lot more people are 
fully conscious of its importance, plus the swing will likely be to the
left. It is up to all of us, even outside the US, to create the new
hegemonic link between ecological/egalitarian values and industrial
transformation that alone can create any hope of a viable future.
Capitalism remains one system, and while the US may no longer be its center and linchpin, it can still help turn the tide of future development. For instance it is clear that a blowout defeat of Trump would be of great value to progressive political outcomes in Brazil, much of Europe and potentially 
Australia.
None of which erases the need to help prevent a coup over the next three 
months! We are still in an emergency situation. It's hard to fathom all
that's at stake.
Not so boring an election in my view... Like Molly, I am totally curious 
how people in other countries see it.

BH



On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 1:59 AM Molly Hankwitz <mollyhankwitz@gmail.com>
wrote:


Hello!

Now that DT has Covid-19, it is as if some kind of sense has descended
upon this nation, a place recurrently gripped by sensations of flackery, 
fakery, and flack. It is all quiet on the White House lawn...Left
candidates *have*retreated to the sidelines...sure. Biden wants us in the 
Paris accord...wow!
What has become evident after that first debate and now with Covid is how Trump didn’t want his job — and only as he got a taste for greater power - look wistfully into the distance and say, “...greater power”...did he start 
to like it.

He’s gone. His believers see that through his own personal
irresponsibility he got the virus. Hes transparent. A ghost. A trouble
making ghost. Historical facts and figures are now outweighing any tripe he 
comes up with. His model is old. It cannot sustain us.
More importantly these last few days have exposed his cowardice. He wasn’t going to say anything. I just hope Joe Biden doesn’t come down with Covid, 
then there would be more upheaval.
Biden is a “decent guy”. We need a decent guy for a while. We can’t take the bombastic and we don’t have anyone else right now - ironically - to 
beat DT. Honestly, I don’t care that Biden is the last husk of
neoliberalism and the Clinton effect. He’s capable, at least of civil
discourse and collaboration. He won’t shaft women. He is planning to rejoin the Paris Accord and fund education so that our schools have enough money to reopen. He doesn’t stomp around on his teeny tiny hobby horse screaming threats and sanctions. If we never have to hear that kind of civil abuse again, perhaps we can as a nation pull ourselves together to fight climate 
change because scientists (who know more than DT) are real.
We’ve been putting up with a gross uncle for the last 4 years. A deeply 
cynical unhappy boorish sort of man who knows so much, he lacks all
curiosity which is the essence of the capacity to learn. Such a know it all 
and a no nothing.

Our election is teetering. Why isn’t Europe writing about it?
I wonder...lay it on...right-wing groups in Europe are emboldened by DT 
support for white nationalists?
Is Europe waiting to see him voted out? What does Europe think about our 
violent protests? Trumps use of Antifa...how backward he is?
Surely you must all be as eager as I for social change? The good that has arisen is all the young smart progressive politicians that have been voted 
in, the flipping of the Senate, Sanders and Warren working on
committees...the life breathed into the Dem party, alongside
#BlackLivesMatter and huge support for that movement. The times have
changed in do many ways socially that the economy is going to have to
change. Macroeconomics. Money is going to have to be put into new budgets. The whole place is a conversation that’s been trying to happen. What is the 
conversation in other countries?

Molly
On Oct 4, 2020, at 5:26 PM, Vincent Gaulin <gvincentgaulinjr@gmail.com> 
wrote:


The election is a sorry excuse for politics, let alone democracy.
There is no Left candidate. Biden is a human placeholder for the washed up hollow promises of neoliberal “normalcy”, and Trump is the cartoon version of a rich person with equally cartoonish ideas around governance (which 
isn’t to belittle the vast and very concrete destructiveness he has/is
enacting).
There is very little room in “the election” and mainstream discourse to 
attend to the pressing issues bearing down on everyday life.
On Sun, Oct 4, 2020 at 5:16 AM Max Herman <maxnmherman@hotmail.com> wrote: 



Why is there nothing appearing here about the US election?
I sound like a jerk to myself typing this but the silence is unexpected. 

Are we all too afraid to say anything, or all just busy with other
platforms?


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*G. Vincent Gaulin*

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