What is to be done?

Like everyone else, I'm not immune to the "not surprised/still in shock" feelings surrounding the reelection of Donald Trump. It's a time of confusion, anger, and feeling besieged. 

For Trump's band of MAGAs it's a time of vindication and lurid anticipation. Retribution was a major part of Trump's campaign, a primal need to teach the left a lesson and they are salivating at the chance to make them suffer. Thinking about the number of messed up things he can now do with a blank check from the Supreme Court boggles the mind. I think of Children of Men when a character says "I just don't think about it" as the world collapses around him.

Many have written at length about failures of the Kamala Harris campaign and the muted response from the left in the aftermath. While #resistance proved a galvanizing force in the early years of first Trump administration, at this point in 2024 the left is leaderless and rudderless. 

For the left the temptation to capitulate or go into total apathy is strong. Among "establishment" or "corporate" democrats, there's a willingness to work with Trump, which of course means total surrender. Among the Progressive left there's a realization that Trump must be resisted on all levels. A popular front of resistance is possible, but it will take time.

As someone who's been strongly opposed to Trump since 2015, the sense of defeat is palatable. It's now clear a slim majority of the voting public no longer believes in democracy. They have their strongman and nothing else matters. He's their battering ram and god emperor. As someone who always viewed the Second World War as a vindication of democracy for all its flaws was better than fascism as brilliantly expressed in FDR's Four Freedoms, the authoritarian turn is devastating. 

Many have speculated on what will happen if Trump fails to deliver on his promises or even openly do things that will hurt his base, like impose tariffs that will make the last few years of inflation look mild in comparison. Or blunder the United States into a costly foreign conflict? Go after Medicare or Social Security? Start locking people up? Once again, paying $5 a gallon for gas might hurt, but at least we're owning the libs! Sure, there's a chance of his presidency imploding or becoming unpopular, but that will depend on many factors, and he gets away with almost everything.

As has been written about in books like Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism by Brooke Harrington and American Kleptocracy by Casey Michel, billionaires are starting to coalesce their power around the world. Offshore money has made them free from taxes and any legal consequences for their wide-ranging illegal activities. They hate democracy because it means less money in their pockets and more rights for people they consider their inferiors. Trump's victory was a triumph for the generation of swine. 

You'll find no predictions here. To repeat a cliché, it's impossible to know how things will turn out. Will there be a bird flu pandemic? Will T2 achieve everything and then some? Mass Deportations? End free elections? Deploy the army to pacify blue states? A new Axis alliance of China, Russia, and the U.S.? Installing Trump for life and making Barron the heir apparent, insuring a dynasty into the next century? Will extraterrestrials finally land and set us straight? I'm with Klaatu.

I'm historically minded, which fails to count for much these days, as I'm barely scrapping by while billionaires party and fleece the masses. Waging class war on the less fortunate will have consequences. Many will not quietly obey as their rights are being taken away. Maybe we're just circling the drain as we descend into a dark age of oligarchs and theocrats. Maybe not?