Trump was elected our president to shake things up, and even the arguments for his unfit-ness suggest he will be our Schumpeter “creative destruction” president. People who were against him did not trust his taste and his nose as he uses creative control to leverage his way forward. Once he takes power, just his wake will screw some things up bigly. What happens to a neighborhood under development can be akin to total annihilation of anything aboveground. That might be what’s coming but many developers prefer to leave pieces of the original in place for character and historical tourism value. As a 58 year old lifetime liberal confirmed reform jew from New York turned California Episcopalian without ever needing to deny any part of my jewishness, I was for Bernie in the primary and Hillary on a human level right along. We will probably need Hillary real soon for some kind of help in this world. Bernie’s voice has been steady. Hillary: “I’ll be back.” (Terminator joke)
My point about Trump’s “wake” is that it by itself is really going to shake things up and we can use this to our advantage by trying to point Trump’s destructiveness at worthy targets, like vicious abuse of police law enforcement powers, like the craziest of the crazy with guns getting on a don’t-sell-guns-to-this-lunatic list, etc. The most extremely outrageous examples in each of our Bernie-Hillary policy categories are potentially limited targets we can point him at.
I expect both parties’ inner divisions to become more pronounced. I expect the David Brock-type people will maintain capable oppo while we are the quick response info-force. I also suggest that we can get a lot done while President Trump points his capacity to change and transform things at different objects. Isn’t this realistic? And there is so much more we can do.
People should organize in low-cost ways that have high social value and receive some sort of status recognition and actual subsequent protection. For example, if we could back YouTube celebrities and put half the profits into the dKos piggy bank, I think pissed off average-info people would watch Dem outrage theater endlessly so we could get traffic (the “Ministry of Truth” show?). But if we protected some of our leading activists while they did something vicariously dangerous, like drive through Oklahoma let alone Mississippi off the highway, especially at night, just think of what wonders could consistently be captured on video? Video civil activism online has to become excessively common. We can protect the most progressive edge with our noise of hundreds of hours of Walking While Black or Being Asian bodycam footage. The unedited could be uploaded so the edited would be transparent. Why not? Because it’s dangerous? It’s just activism. Not doing something where we really actually help POC and engage in meaningfully POSITIVE activism is more dangerous.
I think we accept that Trump will shake things up. I think just Dem resistance to Trump will cause a few earthquakes. I will be someone who feels the “liberal” earth move for me. But in my politics I have never been able to feel that I could make enough of a difference and I think we could set up something organized, through here and also wherever, where we become all the little people around where Trump is going to prepare to build his Trump America Towers. We are expected to fight development but also to be needed, and we are expected to organize. We need a cooperative and powerful voice to torque this bit in places we believe the Trump effect would help.
Once Trump saves the first three black men from death we will see who loves him. People will pull together for and against Trump in the years ahead and his responses will be unpredictable and some of them will really shake things up.
To the living! a Thanksgiving rant … who will we remember on the other side of Trunp’s presidency?