{"id":10110,"date":"2018-10-28T12:42:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T19:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=10110"},"modified":"2018-10-28T12:42:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T19:42:07","slug":"slavoj-zizek-trumps-rise-is-a-symptom-of-a-dark-and-subtle-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/slavoj-zizek-trumps-rise-is-a-symptom-of-a-dark-and-subtle-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavoj \u017di\u017eek: Trump&#8217;s rise is a symptom of a dark and subtle force"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1\">\n<div class=\"headline-container\">\n<h4 class=\"headline h1\">Instead of focusing on President Donald Trump, the Slovenian philosopher says liberals should incrementally challenge the fundamentals of the economic system.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-author-list\">\n<div class=\"post-author\"><a class=\"post-author__name\" href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/community\/stephen-johnson\">STEPHEN JOHNSON<\/a>\u00a0(bigthink.com)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"post-date\">24 October, 2018<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1 revContent-loaded\">\n<div class=\"body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url\" data-elid=\"2614880848\" data-authors=\"Stephen  Johnson\" data-headline=\"Slavoj \u017di\u017eek: Trump's rise is a symptom of a dark and subtle force\">\n<div class=\"body-description\">\n<ul class=\"ee-ul\">\n<li>Slavoj \u017di\u017eek and British political writer Owen Jones recently spoke about American politics, the left and global capitalism.<\/li>\n<li>\u017di\u017eek sees the success of President Donald Trump as proof that the left needs a major overhaul.<\/li>\n<li>\u017di\u017eek said one positive aspect of Trump&#8217;s presidency could be the rise of a new movement on the left.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The crucial battle in American politics today is what&#8217;s happening within the Democratic Party, not what&#8217;s happening against President Donald Trump, according to the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj \u017di\u017eek.<\/p>\n<p>\u017di\u017eek recently sat down with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/video\/2018\/oct\/24\/slavoj-zizek-tells-owen-jones-clinton-is-the-problem-not-trump?CMP=fb_gu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">political commentator Owen Jones<\/a>\u00a0for an interview that covered the changing nature of global capitalism, the successes and failures of modern leftist movements, and the best ways to change existing political structures.<\/p>\n<p>\u017di\u017eek, a frequent critic of both capitalism and the shortcomings of the modern left, said liberals focus too much on social issues, such as LGBT rights and racism, and on new right-leaning factions. The cost? The majority of working-class voters may not hear what&#8217;s in it for them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The crucial event today is not the rise of the New Right,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The crucial thing is the disintegration of the central-left welfare consensus. This is why the crucial battle in the U.S. today, it&#8217;s not against Trump, it&#8217;s what happens within the Democratic Party.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"rebelltitem1\" class=\"rebellt-item is--desktop col1\" data-id=\"1\" data-href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/politics-current-affairs\/slavoj-zizek-hillary-clinton?rebelltpage=1#rebelltitem1\">\n<h3>Donald Trump is &#8220;not the real problem&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"rm-shortcode\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"VK6RF91540746626\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"youtube-4932197\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lnI6E7WiHNE?rel=0?enablejsapi=1\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lnI6E7WiHNE?rel=0?enablejsapi=1\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/span>Hillary Clinton and what she stands for\u2014the status quo, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/slavoj-zizek-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-us-presidential-election-bernie-489993\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">preservation of global capitalism<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/d3xa7q\/far-left-philosopher-slavoj-zizek-explains-why-he-suppored-trump-over-clinton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">even the Republican tradition<\/a>\u2014is the primary problem for the left, which \u017di\u017eek said has ceased to question the fundamentals of the system.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Capitalism is changing, but we simply don&#8217;t notice this in front of our eyes,&#8221; \u017di\u017eek said. &#8220;It&#8217;s crucial to bear in mind that Trump is, to use your terms, a reaction\u2013a consequence\u2013of the new processes in global capitalism, which brought about the disintegration of this welfare state, liberal capitalist consensus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u017di\u017eek said people are dismissed as radicals if they identify as Social Democrats today, even though policy proposals from figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are relatively modest compared to mainstream European democracy in the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I claim, maybe this is also our hope,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Maybe we will not succeed but we will trigger a process. Officially, Occupy Wall Stress was a failure. But they laid the foundation, they fertilized the ground.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u017di\u017eek said a similar new movement could arise as a result of Trump&#8217;s presidency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I see a possible positive function of Trump,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He from, the wrong side, nonetheless unsettled this liberal consensus and opened up a space also in this sense, for a more radical left. My idea is that, in some deeper sense, [there&#8217;s] no Bernie Sanders without Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of focusing on President Donald Trump, the Slovenian philosopher says liberals should incrementally challenge the fundamentals of the economic system. STEPHEN JOHNSON\u00a0(bigthink.com) 24 October, 2018 Slavoj \u017di\u017eek and British political writer Owen Jones recently spoke about American politics, the left and global capitalism. \u017di\u017eek sees the success of President&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/slavoj-zizek-trumps-rise-is-a-symptom-of-a-dark-and-subtle-force\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10111,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10110\/revisions\/10111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}