#i blog to this day....where's unfiction (rhetorical)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

the sense of having any lore about the ancient [ten to thirteen years ago] of marble hornets times like granpa granpa tell us a greentext story....the only hitch is not having stories and instead having "i guess you had to be there" tales from the fringes, unless instead of a hitch you frame this as a bit

[welcometomy20s]

March 19th, 2020

Warren’s Gamble (and other musings)

This is a rumination of a Medium post and the response regarding the need for unification in the current Democratic party after the climatic win on Tuesday.

I have talked throughout this blog about my waffling decision between Warren and Bernie. I liked what Bernie was trying to do, but I felt Warren was actually more effective at what Bernie was achieving... and instead nothing came forth.

One of the comments that I’m starting my inquiry is how one said Warren’s biggest difference with Bernie was that Warren was trying to bridge the gap. I agree with that, and that is a key point in the tragedy of the campaign. To re-interpret the story I have told countless times, Warren’s tragedy was the realization that the two sides of the party were more separated than thought.

I think this what Warren, or least her campaign believed. That center and the left of the party were essentially going for the same objectives, but have different paths. Best way must to be synthesize the two paths. That would have worked, until they realized the center actually had very different objectives in mind.

Why did the center have a different objective? Honestly, I think they were responding to the rightward shift in the Republican party. Centrist Democrats wanted civility in the chamber foremost, so they just shifted their position as the Republicans slowly shifted rightward. But did the rightward shift happen?

To explore that question, we must go back to the days of Roosevelt. The defeated Right slowly built their adversarial tactics and by the time we get to the 50′s, organizations were starting to form. They had their first triumph in having Nixon be the running mate of Eisenhower, their next triumph was putting Goldwater against Johnson in the election of 1964.

I’m going to take a scenic break and talk about the Democratic Presidents in the modern era. Roosevelt was brilliant in my minds, but Johnson I admire more, because I think he displays the magnificent combination of political smarts and passion for idealism. Throughout the New Deal, the Right was waiting for the New Deal to crack. In a multicultural democracy, Keynes-ism for one group was not going to work indefinitely, eventually the safety net had to be expanded.

It was good thing that we had Johnson heading that effort, because he believed in the ideal to help the people he hated the most, which was black people. He knew that his distaste couldn’t deny the fact that having everyone covered would be good for the whole country, and he did his best to try to make that happen. That’s kind of rhetoric that Bernie like to use, and I think we sorely need for our ideal to pass over the hatred that we espouse. Bernie Bro might hate you, but they will fight to the death to give you expanded Social Security and Medicare. They are going to make your lives better, even if you think they hate you, and they do, honestly. They still care about you. All the shouting comes from care.

After the painful defeat in 1964, the Right learned two things. Right might not be good at making stuff, but they are good at learning. They learn the important thing to build was to have a slate of judges ready at the back end, and good media strategy in the front end. What unites Roosevelt, Johnson and Obama was their media strategy. Roosevelt got lucky the method of communication went for people speaking in porches to radio transmission, so that people didn’t have to comment on your disability. Johnson masterfully crafted Goldwater as an existential threat and media didn’t stop Johnson. Obama’s message of Hope and Change in 2008, and his brilliant populist attack on Romney in 2012 was the main reason the ‘legacy’ of Obama’s administration exist in the first place.

So, after trying to needle through with Nixon, they eventually found themselves in the stardom of Reagan, and they were able to put their agenda to work. This worked for forty or so years, until series of big crashes happened.

At this point, I’m actually going to pivot to the Democratic side. Roosevelt always struggled with the eventuality of expanding the safety net. Truman did too. By the time Kennedy barely won the election, the brewing was too strong. Fortunately the hope of Kennedy and cunning of Johnson got things through. But by the end of Johnson, the demands were growing too fast for the economy to appreciate. The Left now threatened to shake up the entire economy and the technology wasn’t grown fast enough to accommodate. Democratic party didn’t know what to do with the resurgent Left, and eventually tried to crush it, they didn’t even if they won (in 1968) or they lost (in 1972) and they didn’t know what the Left was going to do. While the ideas of Right were familiar, the ideas of The Left were not. They didn’t know how to do social democracy. They didn’t want to know. So they tried to run away, and in that running they moved to the right.

Around the same time, technology shifted. I think one of the most fascinating argument against faking of the moon landing was the fact that media technology in 1969 was not good enough to fake the moon landing. We don’t quite recognize the incredible rise of media over infrastructure after the crisis in 1970′s. This was coming from the new winners. In the rise of media technology, PBS (a brilliant strategy by the Right to fund their own supposed opposition) created An American Family, and with the end of the Fairness Doctrine, the concept of Reality TV was starting to become institutionalized.

There was reality TV in 1950′s, but it was still a niche subject, and hearkened back to people standing crowded in a theater. By the time TV started to showcase reality and reality became more bizarre, people were starting to get used to the blurring of reality and fiction. Then recording media became plenty.

Yesterday, I had mentioned that I have been going through the history of what the documentarian called Unfiction. The narrator talked about the rise of the internet and viral campaigns in the turn of the millennium and how the idea of unfiction started to form. Narrator also mentioned ‘kayfabe’ and Professional Wrestling... which became an industry in the ‘70s, ‘80s and the ‘90s.

I think I need to append an extra part to Unfiction, and it’s super important, because, well, you know where we’re going. Right took on the idea of unfiction and ran away with it, eventually producing a president known as Trump, who famously played in unfiction. He was bolstered in his way of saying This Is Not A Game. This is a real business, this is a real deal-making, this is not a game.

At this point, I think I’m going to consider the Left’s conception of Unfiction. I always felt that UK was a strong democracy, because there was a sense of play in their politics. They knew all the pomps were silly and that meant they could focus on the circumstances. The pomp gave the scaffolding, but the real work could be done inside. They were able to make bold moves when needed.

Then the Third Way happened. They made a dangerous move by taking the pomp seriously. Taking the norm seriously. Building a government around the scaffolding rather than... probably anything else. It was as if Baby Boomers died in the ‘70s, and became a ghost, diddling around the same routine, thinking they would make them sane, when they crossed that river a long time ago. 

The Left resurged in the face of that. They know all the institutions are constructions, but the fact that they are constructions means we can focus on the material conditions and work to change the institution to fit our current need.

(Break - God I know how absurdly long this post is, but I realize we are not nearly done yet, and also I already have an idea for the next post in the series. So I actually have to continue this post. So, please stick around for a bit longer)

Okay, with that, let’s cut to the chase. What Obama created in 2008 was a Golden Coalition, one that could ushered in a Green New Deal and Medicare for All, but Obama promptly forgotten that... as in like he just forgot, as if he didn’t realize how momentous the coalition was. Democrats decayed, while Republican built fortresses and started to amp their unfiction tactics. The ruminant grumbles eventually became part of the unfiction and that was it. For most, this should be the time they should have abandon the planet. Democrats apparently didn’t know what is coming even if they stumbled across the answer! Answer smacked them right in the face! And they didn’t do anything!

It is because they are dead. They are haunting the halls of Capitol, their only job is to remain and to keep the hall standing. They do not have any beliefs, they were crushed a long ago, and they are too scared to be shrewd. I thought Sinema would be a shrewd politician, but she became more of a scaredy cat.

We live in the twilight of the Sixth Cycle, and if we cannot innovate away from the grips of the internet, once the promised land, now perverted by the Right, this would be the endless twilight. The system would collapse in the worse way. Inwards, killing all the people inside, and yet have the structure standing.

The gaudy McMansions that only showcase our worst impulse would be what grazes the world after we’re gone. We would be seen as mad savages, who have gone blindness with the knowledge of creativity. We would not deserve any form of pity. We would be worse than failures, we would be disgrace to the idea of sentience itself. Others would hide our planet in shame and spit on them.

But we know we can do better. We know. Can we actualize it? I don’t know as of this moment, but I want to die trying. I want to die with hope and brightness in my faculties. I don’t want to be a ghost. I want to be a phoenix.