President Trump

Moves the hand of the doomsday clock forward a little.

We were right about the direction things were going, but we were wrong about the time frame. We thought Clinton would win the election and only then be discredited by new scandals and the challenge of maintaining an increasingly unpopular status quo that would have spawned a reactionary wave like the one that recently toppled Dilma in Brazil. Instead, the scandal erupted before the election, with the announcement of further FBI investigations into Clinton-related emails. And as with the Brexit election, everyone underestimated how desperate and reactionary the population has become - at least those who still identify with the existing order enough to vote. It's later than you think.

It's telling that the event that saved Trump's presidential candidacy was essentially FBI interference. This tells us a lot about the age we are entering: it is the security apparatus of the state that is in charge, not the aspects of government that purport to improve the lives of citizens. Capitalism, long stabilized in the so-called First World through the compromises that created the middle class, will now be imposed by force. The abundance of the 20th century has run out. The velvet glove is pulled by the iron fist. Of course, populists like Trump and Sanders will continue to promise us the blue sky every four years, but it won't be peace treaties that will preserve general order - it will be the police.

News like this must create despair, but we must not allow this election to make us lose our faith in all of humanity. Elections serve to show each other the worst of each other by distilling the most disgusting, cowardly, and submissive aspects of our species. Many people who would never personally tear a mother away from her children are capable of supporting deportations in the privacy of the voting booth. Just like most people who eat meat could never work in a slaughterhouse. If it were not for the detachment that is a hallmark of government, most of the ugly principles that make up the Trump agenda could never be implemented.

Presidential campaigns are designed to encourage apathy by creating the impression that all of the world's important decisions are out of our hands. That is the purpose of state politics: to keep us quiet outside the halls of power by distrusting each other and ourselves.

Today, even the most law-abiding liberal would have to realize that we can't continue to watch from the sidelines. We must counteract the spectacle of powerlessness with our own power to act. But for what purpose? Certainly not to launch another political campaign. We have to think bigger.

The fundamental problem is primarily that power is structured in such vertical concentrations. If the president of the United States did not exert such a disproportionate influence on the fate of humanity - if the free market did not empower businessmen to amass so much influence over society - then Donald Trump could not be as dangerous, however despicable.

Those on the left who persisted in the naive belief that the right government could solve the problems caused by global capitalism are partly to blame for this situation. Democrats were foolish to support an establishment candidate at a time when so many people are desperate, angry and rebellious. By legitimizing the idea that America is or should be great, they paved the way for Trump's promise to make it great again. Every tax dollar that good liberals paid to the government in the hope that it would take care of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the underprivileged built the steamroller that is now rolling over their civil rights. Any law they continue to follow will further and fuel this process. And when the media and politicians who decried Trump as a candidate for the apocalypse now accept him in the name of the democratic process, it only confirms their complicity.

The problem is democracy itself: the form of government that brought Adolf Hitler into office. In response to the elections, we declare that no one should have the right to rule over anyone. Neither Donald Trump nor Barack Obama nor Mother Theresa could ever use such power for good. We need to create horizontal structures and autonomous movements that directly meet our needs, rather than continuing to feed structures with resources that are used against us for the benefit of a few.

Let's look for the silver linings in the cloud of oncoming tear gas. Maybe it's better that someone like Trump comes to power now and not in four years. Let the right wing demonstrate that their solutions are just as inadequate as those proposed by the left. In a time of economic crises, ecological collapse, and spreading wars, the state is a hot potato: no one will be able to hold it for long. Those who voted for Trump will indeed be disappointed if they actually believe that he will bring back the heyday of Fordist capitalism to a globalized world.

Of course, disaffected Trump voters will not necessarily join our ranks. They will likely move further to the right, just as Sanders' supporters may simply bury themselves deeper in hopeless and antiquated fantasies of 20th century socialism. We should set out to debunk the arguments from both sides, open to dialogue with all we can, as we prepare for open conflict with those determined to bring about an even more totalitarian world.

We must not allow the indignation that people feel today to become a hopelessness that could become the new normal. Only by taking action, however small, can we gain a sense of our collective agency. Now is the time to strengthen the bonds between struggling communities and those who will be most affected by Trump's policies. This is the time to finally let go of the hope for any solutions from above, of the hope for some brighter future that is independent of the actions we take in our immediate surroundings every day. It's time to learn and practice proper online security - who knows how far the state's repressive actions will go or how quickly.

There will be new social movements, new uprisings, new struggles ahead. It's time to find each other and prepare to enter into this decisively.

Sow the seeds, even in the mouth of the volcano. Good luck out there, fellows.

From: b. traven (CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective) / Translation: Caterpillar / published in Gai Dao

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