The Flag in Red, White, and Blood

Photo Credit: Doug Mills, NYT

This weekend, in unison like an ancient Greek chorus, prominent liberals and Democrats tweeted that they were deeply distressed to hear about the assassination attempt on Trump. They were relieved, they added, that he was not more badly hurt. Some were even praying for him. There is no space, they all opined, for political violence in our democracy. While I may question some of this, on this last point, I take them at their word. There is no space for political violence at home when you are so busy exporting it abroad.

These are, of course, odd comments to make from the same people who have been crying Chicken Little that the cloudy sky of fascism is falling upon America and that another Third Reich is around the corner.

Are they really praying for Hitler’s speedy recovery? Of course, this is the 2020s, the era of the Upside Down, so why not?

An assassination is indeed a grotesque act of political violence. It is crass and loud and sensationalistic, which of course makes it fitting for a consummate showman and opportunist like Trump, who knows how to seize a photo-op even when he risks getting killed in the process. That image of Trump pushing out through his own secret service – fist upraised, his bloodied face over a blue jacket and white shirt like some Jackson Pollockian incarnation of the American flag – to expose himself not just to the crowd and cameras, but also to any snipers who may still be out there, has elevated presidential assassination to high performance art. It will never be surpassed.

Photo Credit: Eric Lee, NYT

The Democrats, meanwhile, are embroiled in a velvet version of political violence. The same people who for years now have defended Biden against accusations of cognitive decline, who have framed any video clips of Biden’s lapses and freezes and word salads as mere right-wing deep fakes, are suddenly claiming that he is mentally unfit. Disclaimers aside about how much they cherish him, they are now — gently, lovingly — staging a coup against him.

The presidential debate was Biden’s The Emperor Has No Clothes moment and the unbrainwashed mashes cannot unsee that. As the big donors have turned, so too have the media. They no longer believe he can win, and they now employ the same language that weeks ago they called misinformation and smear tactics. When politics, as John Dewey wrote, is the shadow cast on society by big business, that’s just how the game plays out.

And yet Biden, a career politician who has spent his life clambering and angling for the presidency, as patient as Sisyphus, is not going to release his rock of power now that he’s finally reached the top. The man is as tenacious as Trump, even he lacks the energy and drama. Hell no, we won’t go, the Bidens chant. Suddenly it’s Biden who is Trumpishly employing the populist rhetoric. It’s Biden attacking the elites and media for trying to take him down.

Welcome to Joe Biden, the newly fashioned anti-Establishment president of the Upside Down.

The chicken has come home to roost. The same Democratic National Committee that refused to hold an open primary and the corporate media who coddled and guarded and whitewashed Biden at every turn have all built themselves into this maze without exits. And they are now scrambling to find a way out before the Minotaur gets them.

There is no space in our democracy for political violence, they told us this weekend. And yet American democracy nowadays is nothing but political violence. Violence within parties, violence within the demos. Violence ringing from a rooftop. Violence schemed in the shadows.

What a splendiferous shit show. Some may fret and despair, but I can only marvel at it.

I sat this morning, intending to write this as a brief foreword to another planned post, but as you can see, I got carried away. So instead, I’ll let this stand on its own.