The Next Four Years Begins Today

Today marks the beginning of the coming struggle. 8 years ago, I thought that the incoming president was merely an idiot who would just embarrass the United States. What came after changed my life significantly.

That is when I learned about Hypernormalization during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Everyone knew the state had failed: the government, the citizens, the media, the party elite, everyone. And yet, no one could imagine doing anything else, so they just kept going through the motions while the state failed around them. Reality was too complicated, so everyone just decided to participate in a made up world.

Watching The Matrix: Resurrections reminded me of the first Trump administration:

That’s it isn’t it? If we don’t know what’s real. We can’t resist.

That’s the whole thing. It’s all lies and corruption, all the way down. First it was Russia and Facebook that were to blame for our problems. Then it was China and Twitter, and now it’s billionaires and TikTok. Different names and faces, but it’s still the same story. It’s not a democrat or republican thing. It’s a fascist thing.

The “divisiveness” and the “partisanship” is the made-up world. These cultural issues are made up in order to keep us from thinking about class issues. White workers and immigrant workers are kept divided and fighting amongst themselves because real solidarity would affect the profit margins for the capitalist class. All of project 2025 is bad, but fighting about that shit doesn’t weaken corporate power. It doesn’t dissolve the police state. It doesn’t protect working class people.

You know what will do all of that and protect everyone: LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, and people of color? Worker protections. Instead of asking the federal government nicely to protect people as a campaign issue, make protections for people’s identities part of strong labor unions. If any of this shit goes into law, let’s have a general strike.