The structural failures under it all
This is an excellent summary of where we are and the realistic range of actions we can expect. While I’m not optimistic about the survival of the US in anything like its present form, there is a chance that a complete change of Congress and the executive this year could make that possible. That’s a long shot, though, as the two party system is a shambles and the extent of Russian disruption is far greater than anyone wants to admit. Mueller’s Russian indictment and report documenting their actions lays out the pieces. My bet is that this will remain buried as the effective complicity of the current government party predates Trump. Trump’s ownership by Russian financial groups generally loyal to Putin was an unexpected stroke of luck to the neo-fascist rulers of the Republican Party. This allowed them to fall in line behind their idol, Putin, without risking their own asses to charges of foreign collusion and treason. Everyone takes Trump as the useful, and disposable, fool.
I think it was a shock to Putin, although maybe not, when the current Republican Party leadership threw their full weight behind his plans to disrupt and cripple the US as a symbolic, representative country. It so happened that Putin’s goals coincided with theirs. The Republicans have managed a ten year campaign to destroy faith in the electoral system in order to gain and maintain control for an aging, white racist, reactionary, and shrinking minority. That time was not on their side has been known for over twenty years. Minority racist rule in a majority diverse, educated, and socially focused country guarantees a fractured and internationally weak America. The Republicans are betting on Russian support to ensure their hold on power. Both sides win and only Trump’s crony’s need to even talk to any Russians. That deniability was all they needed to control their core minority who will never even hear any of this suggested. And if they do it’s all fake news anyway. And Putin is no fool. He can wait, work carefully, and get what he wants. Trump and the Republicans will be loyal lieutenants while maintaining the appearance of opposition.
No wonder there is not even a tiny chirp of dismay from the Republicans at the collapse of US influence internationally in only one year. Their core has been effectively isolated from the rest of the planet for years and has no interest in learning anything. The oligarchs who support this don’t care for anyone but themselves and their wealth removes them from having to deal with the undeserving masses. Besides they are celebrities. It’s a completely closed system. You see, then, the source of my pessimism.
The only hope for the Democrats is, as you say, the resurgence of grass roots groups that aren’t party people but the majority who were shocked into action by the Russian orchestrated and Republican enabled Trump coup. Sadly these groups are diverse and many recognize the structural collapse of both the capitalist system and the semi-representative governmental systems in the onslaught of social media and virtual reality. I have not been able to visualize a way to bring these groups together in any form that would be effective in the system that they know is failing. You simply cannot use defective tools to repair themselves.
This is a truth of revolutionary, i.e, paradigmatic change: the proposed solutions are the problem because the problem is the solution. The medium is the message.
