{"id":16519,"date":"2020-11-14T10:36:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T18:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=16519"},"modified":"2020-11-14T10:39:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T18:39:36","slug":"ding-dong-the-jerk-is-gone-but-read-this-before-you-sing-the-hallelujah-chorus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/11\/14\/ding-dong-the-jerk-is-gone-but-read-this-before-you-sing-the-hallelujah-chorus\/","title":{"rendered":"Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah Chorus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Thomas<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Frank<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s defeat is a time for celebrating \u2013 let us praise God for victory. But let us also show some humility in our triumph, and think about how we got here<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sat 7 Nov 2020 Last modified on Sun 8 Nov 2020 (theguardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. Finally, we have come to the end of Donald Trump\u2019s season of extreme misrule. Voters have rejected what can only be described as the crassest, vainest, stupidest, most dysfunctional leadership this country has ever suffered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations to Joe Biden<\/a> for doing what Hillary Clinton couldn\u2019t, and for somehow managing to do it without forcefulness, without bounce, without zest, without direction and without a real cause, even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a time for celebrating. Let us praise God for victory, however meagre and under-whelming. But let us also show some humility in our triumph. Before we swing into a national sing-along of the Hallelujah Chorus, I urge you to think for a moment about how we got here and where we must go next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that 2020 has been a year for reckoning with the racist past, for the smashing of icons and the tearing-down of former heroes. Also for confronting the historical delusions that gave us this lousy present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spirit of this modern iconoclasm, let me offer my own suggestion for the reckoning that must come next, hopefully even before Biden chooses his cabinet and packs his bags for Pennsylvania Avenue: Democrats<\/a> must confront their own past and acknowledge how their own decisions over the years helped make Trumpism possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know: this was a negation election, and what got nixed was Maga madness. The Democrats are the ones who won. Still, it is Joe Biden who must plan our course forward and so it is Biden who must examine our situation coldly and figure out the answer to the burning question of today: how can a recurrence of Trumpism be prevented?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s instinct, naturally, will be to govern as he always legislated: as a man of the center who works with Republicans to craft small-bore, business-friendly measures. After all, Biden\u2019s name is virtually synonymous with Washington consensus. His years in the US Senate overlap almost precisely with his party\u2019s famous turn to the \u201cthird way\u201d right, and Biden personally played a leading role in many of the signature initiatives of the era: Nafta-style trade agreements, lucrative favors for banks, tough-on-crime measures, proposed cuts to social security, even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Biden must understand now, however, is that it was precisely this turn, this rightward shift in the 1980s and 90s, that set the stage for Trumpism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us recall for a moment what that turn looked like. No longer were Democrats going to be the party of working people, they told us in those days. They were \u201cnew Democrats\u201d now, preaching competence rather than ideology and reaching out to new constituencies: the enlightened suburbanites; the \u201cwired workers\u201d; the \u201clearning class\u201d; the winners in our new post-industrial society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n