The Dada Apocalypse

“Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?” “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Line our pockets, appoint bad judges, try to wreck the Post Office, and …”

The Political Revolution of 2018 and 2020

The socialist Senator Bernard Sanders, as most of my readers probably know, called for a “political revolution.” By this he meant an uprising of young people, leftist intellectuals, and genuinely working-class people who would, by the vote, beat back the rising tide of fascism. He also hoped he could bring along the petite bourgeoisie, the upper middle class whose wealth has been so thoroughly looted by the Republican Party. And, as most of my readers probably also know, he didn’t get one. Sanders was not popular enough with enough people, young people did not turn out, the US working class, after decades of attacks on organized labor, could not turn out enough votes, and the upper middle class, covertly white supremacist, threw in its lot with the truly wealthy despite their depredations, proving that yet again that identity trumps class consciousness.

But the USA did have a political revolution after all. In response to the election of Donald Trump, a coalition of women, young people, and Blacks brought the Democratic Party into control of the House in 2018, and then the Senate and the Presidency in 2020. This was a stunning defeat for the Republican Party. It was also a defeat for the faction of the far left which rejects electoral activism.

So the counter-revolution began