Sebastian Junger: I just had breakfast with Graham Platner

[mainer]

An excellent interview.

It’s received wisdom that under-served working-class voters propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2016, so I find it encouraging that working people in Maine seem to support Platner. I’m encouraged by that not because Platner is a Democrat or because he’s Graham Platner, but because I believe that a system where people cross party lines to vote their interests and values brings us one step closer to a true democracy. Is it possible that a candidate with left-wing social values could appeal to conservative workers with a message of economic reform that some say borders on socialism? Is it possible that the culture wars that have been exploited by both conservatives and liberals to consolidate power can be overcome by a category-defying candidate like Platner?

(snip)
One of the things that makes Platner appealing to some and threatening to others is that he is almost impossible to categorize. His worry about Trump’s capacity for full authoritarianism is rivaled only by his disappointment with the Left, which he sees as performative and weak. This concerns him, he says, because he believes the moment to save America is now.

“Establishment Democrats and normie liberal types love talking about fascism and authoritarianism,” he says. “They use the words and then nobody does anything to prepare. I do believe these people [in the Trump administration] are fascists and will try to maybe interfere in the elections come November, weaponize or militarize federal law enforcement as a political tool. So, that’s why you have to fucking organize now…just saying so on MSNBC isn’t enough. Talk to the labor unions, talk to the community organizers, start building the mechanisms that we’re going to need. Resistance isn’t magic; it requires time and discipline and energy. The Trump administration is full of incompetent morons; of all the versions of this we can beat, it’s this version. What I’m very much worried about is if we don’t resist and defeat this version now, then the next version is actually competent.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/sebastianjunger/p/i-just-had-breakfast-with-graham?r=930pp&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Fighting the revolution from your couch is not an historically verified strategy.

He's right. Societies that have shaken off fascism, and even countries where radicals have seized power, have involved active elements of society - labor, military, loyalists, even intellectuals. We trust the ballot box, free and fair elections, and money, and we don't particularly have control of those areas right now.

[Igel]

2. I joined DU in 2004, after the elections.

And democracy was doomed, I was assured, come January '05.

In 2008 I saw pictures posted saying where the bases for rounding up the "wrong sort" (us, apparently), would be rounded up by the fascist Bush II, with the logistics of flying in food for the bases, each holding millions. I asked why the signs to and from the bases were already posted and were, weirdly, written in English and Croatian if they were in Illinois and Colorado. Another did the math and showed that the C-130 flights then existing would have to taxi to the unloading are, unload or load, refuel, and take off within 10 or 15 seconds, 24/7/365, with no time for maintenance. (Even OldLeftyLawyer applauded that take down.) Because if Bush II was inaugurated, no (D) would ever be elected again as the fascist dictatorship was installed. Plans were made, already in place--maybe even to be executed if the Democrats won! And that "TIA", total information awareness. I mean, it's hard to argue that most of us all being monitored with every call we make and email we send if nobody knows anybody who's jobs is monitoring anybody else.

The problem is it's hard not to even talk about those claims without appearing to be mocking them. In hindsight, they're so ridiculously wrong that it's hard to think that they could be taken seriously. Yet at the time to oppose them was to not be taken seriously by their true believers.

Then there the BBV miasma over 2008 elections and all the "the election was stolen, and this is how!" with "red shift." Which led to all the paper ballots which, of course, could not be faked--until they happened and, well, it was discovered that they always could be faked. And remember, there was no chance in hell that the 2012 elections would ever happen, the fascists wouldn't let them take place if they were going to lose. Then the skullduggery that so many believed would definitely end democracy unless Obama managed to overwhelm the voting fraud already in place and in in 2012. With claims that actually his win was much larger than it was because, 'red shift.' < sigh >

But January '17 for sure would end democracy if Trump ever won. That was it! Trump would abolish the 2020 elections and we'd all be rounded up.

At some point, this sounds like June 2007,

I do believe these people [in the Trump administration] are fascists and will try to maybe interfere in the elections come November, weaponize or militarize federal law enforcement as a political tool.

As do the 'they'll round us up' and 'they'll steal the elections'. That's not being indulgent, that's looking back at every single election. Even the ones we won involved loud cries of "they're fascists, we're all doomed unless we win."

[AZProgressive]

3. Bush did a peaceful transfer of power for Obama

McCain also graciously conceded. I think these are different times. If you told me what politics would be like and that Trump of all people would be President I wouldn't have believed it. Those that stormed the capitol are being given jobs in this administration and they recently tried to do a slush fund for them.

Our Democracy may survive this but the image I had of this country with strong and powerful independent institutions is long gone.