Now Is The Time of Monsters

We'll return to Goosebumps in a moment but, folks, we need to talk about what's happening in the USA right now.

Here's the ABC's running report on the incident.

But the short version is that Trump supporters have stormed the Capitol Building in Washington DC. Trump supporters are violently rejecting the result of the federal election that saw Joe Biden elected as the next President of The United States.

And how's it going for them?

A lot better than it is going for the Black Lives Matters protests that have been going on for months now.

Here is the national guard mobilised to protect
the Lincoln memorial during a BLM protest

'nuff said

And this is awful. But it's not surprising.

This morning, as I have many days in the last few years, I've been thinking about the book 'Total Proaganda' by Helen Razer. Specifically, this part:

Nobody can predict the future. I can't tell you exactly how this is going to play out and I couldn't have told you that in January of 2021, Trump Supporters would storm the Capitol Building. But it is possible to look at the material conditions, and to look at historical precedent, and make educated speculation.

A butterfly flaps its wings. A tornado forms.

A state fails its people. A fascist rises.

And the USA has failed its people. Those failures are numerous: incredible wealth inequality, crumbling and dangerous infrastructure, malicious denial of health care. The USA has created a desperate population and history has shown us desperate people radicalise.

The US has also spent the better part of a century poisoning the socialist well. There is no main stream left wing movement in the USA. The media and the government will not even entertain the most basic left wing notions. Bernie Sanders' social democratic platform was even too much, too socialist, for the establishment and even for many of the USA's citizens to believe in.

So of course, when those desperate people radicalised, there was only one direction for them to go.

In 2016, when a lot of people were looking at the shit lives they were living in their failing state and asked "What the fuck is going on?" it was a fascist that answered their question. Not only did he answer, but he was the only one answering their questions with a political platform broadcast by the main stream media. 

And it doesn't matter that he has failed in almost every way to deliver on his promise, because he is still, for a lot of people, the only person making the promises they want to hear. Trump may have lost the majority, but those radicalised by his fascist rhetoric are demanding answers for the same problems they were in 2016.

But it wasn't just solutions Trump promised. He also gave them enemies.

Enemies both at the gates and inside the gates is fascism 101. Who can you blame for your shit lot in life? Who can you blame for your problems? Who must answer for these crimes? Blame the corrupt democrats. Blame black, indigenous, and people of colour. Blame LGBTQI+ people. Blame migrants. Blame lib elites. Blame antifa terrorists.

Side note: here's the same shit happening in Wyoming at the same time

As I said, we can't predict the future. At time of writing, a curfew is in effect in Washington DC and Vice President Pence has approved an order to mobilise the national guard. I'm not sure what goal Trump's supporters thought they would accomplish, so I certainly can't say whether it was a success.

But what they intended is not as important as what they did. And in this article from November, India Samarajiva that even if Trump leaves office, even if he is forced from office, extraordinary damage has already been done. The USA's already thin and fragile democracy is cracking like glass and can't be repaired.

One thing we can be certain of is that the current order cannot last. It will either kill us all, or it will crumble and something new will rise from the ashes.

Antonio Gramsci said: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” 

And Rosa Luxemburg said: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism."

These latest events are just another paving stone in the road we're all walking. Marxists and Anti-Fascists have been sounding alarm bells for years. We're not surprised.

But this isn't about "I told you so".

This is about ringing those alarm bells until our knuckles bleed.

There is a line to be drawn between the desperation caused by neo-liberalism, austerity, and modern free market capitalist economics and the current rise in fascism. The USA isn't unique, it's just farther along the path.

Australia is walking the same path.

The Liberal/National coalition wants us on this path. And Labor's vision isn't much better. It might be, at best, a slower step.

England too.

The whole Anglosphere and much of Western Europe is walking this path.

Right into the jaws of monsters.