The Democrats’ Big Night, or Political Economy in Times of Fascism

Hi! How’s everyone? Sorry I’ve been away. We’ll talk about that a little bit more tomorrow. 

Today we’re going to talk about the political economy of democracy, and how it implodes into fascism. By way of…it was a good night for the Democrats. Right? Right. These were solid victories, and meaningful ones. A blue wave, of sorts.

They were also foregone conclusions. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger won. Her opponent was a lady who was so crazy, emanating it right in the eyes, that by the end she was running ads desperately saying, hey guys, wait a second, I’m not crazy. Go ahead and chuckle. 

Virginia right now? I’m here, by the way. In the little town I grew up in, just outside DC. And it’s a little bit mind blowing to me that it’s probably now about as close as you can get to…Europe…in America. Northern Virginia, anyways. The little historic town I grew up in, much to my surprise, and delight, has changed. It’s not painfully boring anymore. There are three French cafes in shouting distance. The teenager in me is like what happened here?

Let me tell you a funny story. It’s so liberal around here right now, that every day, I’m at one, wait, maybe all three of those cafes. And it happened slowly. An old lady would walk by. Wearing a “FASCISM SUCKS” T shirt. Then, the next day, carrying a bag with “TRUMP SUCKS!” in giant red letters. And me being the guy I am, I’d point, and say: “great bag.” They’d be delighted.

I’ve come to call them the Angry Grandmas Club. And they have real power. Power in their communities, power to shape opinions, power to form young minds. I know it because I see it—they often have coffee with young women, their nieces or granddaughters, maybe, and all they talk about is politics. I’m going to write a post about the Angry Grandmas Club soon, and how there should be a chapter in every town. For now, the point is that a liberal victory in Virginia, which is practically Europe in 1848 by now, was something you could feel in the air. 

And just as in Mamdani’s victory in NYC, it was a foregone conclusion, because the opponents were laughable. In that case, it was a disgraced Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa, who’s been running for Republican Mayor since like 1772. Come now, did we really think New York City was going to elect…a Republican…in the age of Trump? 

So what does all this mean? What is it really about? It’s about two things, if you ask me, which are Havens, and the Democrats not understanding how fascism happens. 

Here we have a party without a working theory of fascism. And that is incredibly dangerous, but it’s also why the Democrats are so useless at politics in this day and age. Until last night, maybe. I’ll come back to that.

As societies collapse into autocracy, a race often begins to create domestic Havens. And that’s what’s happening here. Despite America hurtling down the abyss of authoritarianism…you wouldn’t know it from Northern Virginia, which is more cosmopolitan, functional, and easygoing than ever before. And if were to pick a sort of textbook spot for a domestic Haven, of course, it’d be NYC. Here we have two nascent domestic Havens developing.

I don’t say that in a mocking way, by the way. Seeing domestic Havens develop is a good thing. They tend to follow self-reinforcing dynamics, attracting more people as they stay functional, sane, and resilient. Perhaps they can check, a little bit, authoritarian abuses of power. Still, there’s a sense in which you shouldn’t read too much into places that are about as liberal as it gets in America electing Democrats while the rest of it collapses.

The question for America is really about the Democrats and fascism. We all know that. But it isn’t talked about, well, enough.

The Democrats have been nonexistent since their loss in the Presidential election. They’re lost. Why? Way back when I predicted Trump would win again, even many of you got a little heated about it. I was right, in the end, though, because…economics. Not point-scoring, just trying to teach a lesson about how societies work. 

Fascism and authoritarianism rise when economies go into decline, institutions fail, and people lose confidence in their futures. This is a lesson as timeless as Athens, Rome, Soviet Russia, and Weimar Germany becoming Nazi Germany, by the way. 

So what should we do in times of rising fascism, to stop being useless at politics? 

What Spanberger and Mamdani have in common is that they focused on the economy, and more to the point, how broken it is. How unaffordable it is just to live a pretty normal life, as a regular family, from groceries to childcare to paying the bills. Almost single-minded was this focus.

This is the diametrical opposite of the Democrats per se. How did they lose the last election? By telling people the economy was great, wonderful, never been better. Wasn’t going to work, and no, this isn’t a time to debate me, unless, like me, you predicted Trump’s victory, too. You cannot tell people the economy is great in a country as hollowed out as America and expect them to trust you. This is how Trump won, and the core of his appeal, at least outside the rotten MAGA base.

So Mamdani and Spanberger both focused on the economy, how broken it is, and what to do about it. That was easier for Mamdani, who’s a young outsider, and harder for Spanberger, who’s a consummate outsider—but, crucially, a place Virginia was one where she could take risks, because of a weak opponent and a favorable climate (and credit to her that she did.)

So: it works. The obvious, which is running on the economy.

But here we meet a Gigantic Problem, known as…The Democrats. They’re captive. They’re not really a party anymore, they’re an expression of a failed ideology. That ideology is of course neoliberalism. The Ezra Klein wing of the party does all the not-really-thinking—he’s written another book saying that neoliberalism is the answer, and all we have to do is deregulate, shrink the government, and let the wealth trickle down, which at this point is sort of like Netflix making another really shitty show.

How is this distinguishable from conversatism? It’s not. Liberalism in America is conservative, and conservatism, of course, went full-on fascist. And that is why the Democrats don’t appeal to anyone, really, because when you begin with “the economy’s great,” people don’t trust you, and by the time you end with what Newt Gingrich proposed in 1992, they’re running away screaming. How is Ezra Klein even…

Now. Parties which have become instruments of ideological capture don’t give easily. The intellectual apparatus is controlled by Ezra and his ilk. And then there’s the execution end of things, which is equally dire, maybe more so. There, there are legions of “consultants” and “operatives” and “surrogates,” who’ve never had experience in actual marketing, branding, analysis, and so forth, as in, outside the Democratic machine, and they literally have no idea what they’re doing, because their only real job is not to rock the boat.

I used to literally be the Chief Strategy guy at one of the world’s biggest communications companies, and believe me, we weep at the quality of stuff this weird industry-within-a-complex produces. Meanwhile, see how good the GOP is at this? Reaching people with modern technology and so forth? They actually invite young people in to do it, which is sort of a miracle, considering once you work for the GOP you’ll never have (consensual) sex with a human being again.

So the Democrats are a failed institution. That’s sort of often said, but I want you to know how deep it goes. It is a formal and technical thing: its processes for anything don’t work anymore. Creating a vision, making it resonate, executing on it. It is just completely broken, and not in the good sense, “can’t get it done,” but in the bad one, which is “doing exactly the wrong thing perfectly, forever,” which you can see in Ezra writing yet another book about neoliberalism while everyone under the age of 35 wants to sort of light torches and hurl them from the ramparts. 

All this can be, therefore, one of two things. The beginning of reinvention for the Democrats. That’d mean throwing out the dead wood, the New-York-Times-Ezra-Klein-Industrial Complex, its mindset, guys let’s write-another-book-this-year-that’s-delusional-about-reality, ignoring the raging neoliberal centrists who’ll splutter their coffee all over their neckties, the insiders, the operatives, the surrogates, all of it, reinventing the machine, from the ideas to the execution—the entire Washington to Manhattan axis of the party would have to reinvented, and I say that in the way that a corporate CEO says “turnaround.” The axe would have to fall, guys.

Or it can be just a blip, and a somewhat exciting event, which moves the party a hair, a fraction, away from the iceberg which it’s programmed to autopilot itself into, over and over again, forever, and that’s about it. 

I wouldn’t wager on the former. The incentives for parties are too strong to maintain the status quo. 

Then again, there all those Angry Grandmas. In them, my friends, I think lies at leasat my last best hope for the future. So if your’e one…thank you, and it’s time to get even busier.

Lots of love,

Umair (and Snowy!)

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