Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Category: Partisan Politics (Page 16 of 17)

What Happened: Explaining the 2016 Debacle

December 17, 2018 /
What Happened Hillary Clinton

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:What_Happened_audiobook_1.png

Let’s start here: It’s hard to write a book about your own failure. And that was Hillary Clinton’s task in What Happened. Silicon Valley and the business press are full of schlock extolling the virtues of failure, but that’s shit people write after they’ve succeeded. They look back at how they learned from failure. Lessons from the road, and other nonsense.

That’s not the kind of failure Hillary Clinton is writing about in What Happened. What Happened is like writing a book about that time you hit a home run in Game 7 of the World Series, but you got thrown out because you inexplicably forgot to touch first base on the way in. Then your team lost. And then you retired.

Al Gore made a movie after he lost the presidency, and he forged ahead with a new career in stopping climate change. I don’t see a tomorrow for Hillary Clinton’s political career, even on the scale of Al Gore. It’s all the day after November 8. The presidency was supposed to be it for her: the defining moment of the career of the first woman president.

So that’s the kind of failure she’s writing about in her book. I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton’s politics. I didn’t caucus for her in the primaries or vote for her in the general election. And I’m not interested in revisiting that debate. I’ve said what I have to say on those issues.

But I do think it took some chutzpah for her to write about the election, especially so soon after it. What Happened is supposed to be the story of how that event…well, happened.

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Why Did Fred Hubbell Lose?

November 12, 2018 /

The 2018 election went pretty well for Democrats in Iowa, as I predicted. They took 2 of 3 Republican House seats. They won seats in the state legislature. Not enough for a majority, but better than last election. Democrats also did pretty well nationally, as we know. But it didn’t go so well for Fred Hubbell.

Fred Hubbell lost.

Why did he lose?

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White Women and Trump

August 29, 2018 /

Contemporary racial justice movements often focus on white women as both ally and enemy. They’re both lead consciousness-raiser and target of activist opposition.

On the negative side of the ledger, white women have bolstered the Jim Crow system. See, e.g., Elizabeth McRae’s Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy. They call the police on black people for going about their everyday business. See, e.g., Permit Patty and BBQ Becky. They strategically use emotions for racist impact and sometimes engage directly in violent assault.

These issues, of course, aren’t new. The case of Emmett Till is the usual case study when talking about historical precedents.

On the positive side of the ledger, white women often make up most of the audience at racial justice events. This is especially true at ‘Racial Justice 101’ events. They are also at the front lines on any campaign for racial justice within white-dominated economic or social spaces, such as workplaces or schools.

The reasons for this are complicated. But one common theme is that racial justice organizers, particularly black and other POC organizers, tend to perceive white women as simultaneously a group harmed along one axis of oppression (i.e., gender), which gives them a certain empathy for oppressed non-white Americans, but also advantaged along another (i.e., race), which provides them with incentives to bolster white supremacism. The accuracy of this perception is an issue I’ll set aside, though I think it’s accurate enough to proceed.

This all brings us to Trump. There’s overwhelming inertia, within this broader discussion of race, to place Trump’s win at the feet of white women. Outlets from the New York Times, to the Washington Post, to Emily’s List, to the Huffington Post, and the Huffington Post again, have all pointed to this group as the decisive factor in electing Trump.

How could white women vote for this man who abuses and insults women of all races? How could they vote for a misogynist?

So, why did white women elect Trump?

*Drum Roll*

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Cathy Glasson and Elections in the Midwest

August 15, 2018 /

Bernie Sanders lost in 2016. Cathy Glasson lost in 2018. Glasson is a Sandersista. Sanders is, well, the Sandersista.

Sandersistas have pursued many strategies since Bernie’s loss, with Cathy Glasson representing an electoral route. Sanders looms large over this strategy, endorsing candidates and providing support through organizations like Our Revolution. Doing things like organizing tenants’ unions and organizing against ICE represents an alternative strategy.

My readers won’t be surprised to find that I think there’s more potential to build popular power in the latter than in the former. Readers also already know I don’t think highly of electoralism as a central component of leftist strategy.

But elections are not totally hopeless, and they may provide lessons.

The Cathy Glasson campaign provides me with a convenient point of departure. One, I’m an Iowan. I saw the campaign literature, followed the press coverage, and know people who volunteered with the campaign.

Two, Glasson’s campaign is representative of how this strategy has gone, particularly in the Midwest. Successful candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have gotten more national press, as winners tend to do. But, e.g., Cathy Glasson, Abdul El-Sayed, and Pete D’Alessandro are more typical. Sandersistas usually lose, and often lose badly.

What lessons can we learn from the Cathy Glasson campaign? That’s my topic here.

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