2024-10-28

Rocking the boat

Before I get started, a bit of context. I'm not a historian or a scholar. Everything I write here is as a citizen interested in taking democracy seriously. I've largely defined my life by the notion that as much as I am a human being, I am also a citizen in a collective that purports to identify as a democratic republic.

As many seem to be doing these days, I'm thinking about the future of the US. I've written on this blog so many times about the limits and failure of the practice of democracy and citizenship in the US. The failure dates back to the first days of American government, which is to say, it's a failure of design and a result of the founders' efforts to limit participation in the process. From the first days, the system was designed to be a system of the privileged few, namely a subset of wealthy, white landowners. And this class resisted and resented efforts to broaden participation at every step.

For many decades, the people of the US have seemingly been content to go with the story that America is a democracy and that it functions as an advocate of democracy abroad. It was an easy story to go along with as it fueled a culture of national pride and exceptionalism. We view ourselves as the heroes on the world stage. The middle class grew, as did the domestic and global marketing of the American Dream, the good life of an ever bigger house with ever more stuff to fill it. A TV in every room, endless entertainment, and consumption. And don't forget the summer vacation for the kids: where are we flying this year?

But in the past 10 years, we've had a fundamental shift in our cultural and political reality. The country faces the possibility of a president who now loudly and openly advocates fascism, autocracy, and open violence against those he deems enemies. And he seems to have about half of the country's support. Of course, the supposedly democratic political system has been in the tight grasp of two parties for decades, and the result is that the only opposition to autocracy is the Democratic Party. And though this is supposedly the big-tent party of great diversity, the truth is that it is tightly controlled by its own establishment.

And so the predominate response to the threat of Trump and autocracy is a fear-based and simplistic reaction: There is no choice but to vote for the Democratic Party candidates. The only problem in the discussion is the threat of autocracy and a disruption to the status quo. The battle cry is simply: Democracy is at stake, democracy must be preserved. Nothing else matters!

Implicit in this shallow but predictable response is that in defeating Trump, democracy is preserved. There is little to no actual discussion of the fact that the core problem is that "democracy" as it is in the US is not actual democracy but the appearance of democracy. It is neoliberalism. Or, to put it another way, it is white supremacy, capitalism and empire in the costume of democracy. But that's good enough for the middle class of the US because it is the status quo they are used to enjoying.

Okay, let's look at this fundamental problem. The US is not actually a democracy. It's a system of white privilege initially designed by wealthy white men for their benefit but with the appearance of input from "the people". Hey, we're throwing off the yoke of tyranny! A government of and by the people, yeah! But it wasn't and isn't. Not really. We know this, but we're very good at pretending. Who's this we that's pretending? Well, see, that's the white supremacy of the equation. Those that find it easiest to pretend that the US is a democracy are those that are benefiting from the status quo. Those that know it's broken but will say: If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Here's just one tiny example of how this is playing out culturally. These examples are everywhere at this moment leading up to the election. If you're a white liberal of the US middle class, you're likely online fairly often, probably on at least one social media network. You're likely to have come across one of the various Substack newsletters, podcasts or YouTubes of something like Autocracy in America. It's one of several I've seen. It's the perfect example of the deeper problem masquerading as the solution.

I didn't have to listen long to get a quote. 2 minutes and 50 seconds into episode one "Capture the Courts". The hosts are explaining that while the courts of the US are not perfect they are not the kind of crazy found in Russia or other similar autocracies. It's implied that by comparison US courts are generally fair and that truth and equality can be assumed to be the norm.

Americans who study their history know, of course, that our courts, our judges have not always dispensed justice in the past. Of course, in the US, the law has been abused.

One of the most famous examples in recent history was the FBI bugging of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They then used the tapes they'd made of him to harass him and to leak and smear him. I mean, this is the kind of thing that's happened repeatedly in our history. But what we're talking about here is something different.

This is a fake case against somebody for something that didn't happen and that everybody knows didn't happen. Everyone understands that it's a kind of piece of performance art.”

This does well to illustrate the fundamental problem of "democracy" in the US. Only a couple of upper middle-class white people who live in privilege could have such a take on the American justice system. It is truly absurd. A more realistic look at the American justice system will tell you that it is deeply unjust with very different outcomes based on race and income. This is the status quo of pretend democracy that comfortable white people will describe as "Well, it's not perfect but it's good enough and the best we can get right now."

The status quo of white supremacy in the US relies on this premise that American democracy is not perfect but it works and it's what we have. To put it another way, the white middle class of the US serves as the ballast:

"Ballast is dense material used as a weight to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability."

You know, don't rock the boat and all that. Trump and MAGA are rocking the boat but not as advocates of democracy. They've gone the other way. Fascism is violent and deeply disturbing. But let's not continue with the pretend game that the status quo of America is democracy. The half of the US opposed to Trump are opposed to autocracy but they are not, by default, for democracy.

The status quo is no longer acceptable. The status quo was never acceptable. It's long past the time that this boat should be rocked.

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