A few days ago, I posted a short (“quick and dirty”) diary detailing my personal alarm about this particular moment in time. The main point was this:
We need people truly devoted to the principles of self-government to be able to stand tall and be a bulwark against this rapidly rising tide of fascism. We need people to turn out en force in both 2022 and 2024. Because our constitutional government depends on it.
Demoralizing liberals at this point is the exact wrong move. It is shooting oneself in the abdomen with a shotgun, then defenestrating oneself. It’s folly.
What this move, should the party wed itself to Manchin’s demands, would represent is a total capitulation to rigid interests. It would signal that we really aren’t committed to moving the country forward but rather will heel when confronted with a united front (that of extreme economic ideologists committed to overturning every vestige of the New Deal and cultural extremists who want to keep the country from advancing decidedly into the industrial age at all but especially not the technological age). We are being squeezed. This combined front sees the percolation of labor resistance as something they must squash in total—they’ve already suffocated the union power from politics, so if they can, to borrow a phrase from Steve Bannon, kill this nascent labor rebellion in the crib, they will take this opportunity to do so. They want to tame the left, and this bill is their best fulcrum by which to do it.
That is, not only are we facing complete GOP obstruction; not only are we facing the monumental self-dealing stubbornness and obstruction from Manchin and Sinema, which may have implications for climate change and thus represents an existential threat; not only that but above and beyond that, we face the growing tide of fascism here. Now. In our everyday lived lives.
These are interconnected. If not in terms of a coordinated effort of various forces on the far right wing of the political spectrum, then at least in terms of our own stamina in facing these fights. We have a store of morale, and when that gets depleted, momentum is not only lost on our side but is gained on the other. At some point, a critical mass of dynamic forces will occur and the trend will not be reversible. We need this inner determination in order to hold the constitutional line here in our defense against this fascist onslaught.
Friday, we went into the weekend where some left voices were openly questioning if the progressive caucus should reject the BBB package in general, because of the message that would send to the liberals of the party. I highlighted in my earlier diary that not only that, but in addition it would help confirm the cynicism and disillusionment of the very segment of the right spectrum we have a realistic chance of peeling off, which would be the populist right. They already believe the corporations own and run everything. If we give into the armtwisting held out as honest negotiation by Manchin (and Sinema), then we confirm the fix is in, there’s no difference to either side of the political spectrum, so why not try to change the entire fundament of government. It’s all corrupt.
I’m not the only one who has made this connection between the need to fortify our side’s morale (with regards to this policy fight) and the need to hold off escalating radicalization as manifesting in our everyday lives as intimidation, censorship, and physical violence:
Please watch the above video in full. It really informs this entire diary. These people are openly calling for “burning town halls and schools to the ground.” Actual quote. The folks riling up crowds are using graphic imagery when calling for resistance to government authority, which invites the audience to literally imagine picking up a physical gun. They are invited to imagine themselves participating in that specific action. This is direct emotional manipulation. This is propaganda.
The urge to bloodlust is becoming less and less inhibited, and these incidents are escalating rapidly. Just over the weekend, we’ve had several rhetorical calls to violence, or open ideation of fantasies that involve violence, such as recently “joked” by Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert.
So this weekend, just when people were starting to come around to accepting that progressives have relented to Manchin’s demands, many of these local neighborhood threats have blossomed; and yesterday, Manchin came out and dashed all of the good news that the Democrats had tried to inject into the news cycle, that finally Biden would get a legislative victory. He tried to smash that as hard as he could.
So now we have a second bite at the apple. We have a chance to make a different choice and model our fundamental values instead of confirming the worst expectations of those we could actually enlist in the fight against fascism.
Please also in your spare time ingest these other videos that expand on the growing violence and social suppression (such as censorship) that we’re seeing escalate, almost all from this weekend: