Pill Pod 189 - Theorizing America's Vote
Added 2024-11-09 01:51:06 +0000 UTCThe federal union of the United States has decided to elect Presinald Trump as its leader from the years 2025-2029, as God wills.
Here, three Canadians provide you with unsolicited opinions about the meaning of this event or lack thereof.
Comments
You could see a Trump victory coming a mile away. It’s great how if you read the right theory, you can end up being able to predict election results pretty well tbh. One thing I expected someone to say something about is that ultimately, on a systemic level, which party wins or loses is irrelevant: the main function of both parties and the bourgeois electoral system is to maintain the supremacy of capital, and so who wins or loses is irrelevant. That the parties want to win the election is secondary to this. Ultimately, Kamala and all the major figures in the party are well off and will still make money despite their losses. Also, I’m surprised a political philosophy phd can have that much faith in the efficacy of a union takeover. You need money to win elections, and a left leaning dem party will attract no major campaign contributions. That plus these major healthcare/educational changes needing to be voted on by the house and the senate means that even with a leftist president, these policies will be gutted shells by the time they are going to be acted on and implemented. There is no hope for radical change through the liberal democratic electoral process. This is one of the baby steps for radical, anticapitalist politics.
anacidcommie
2024-12-02 09:24:28 +0000 UTCI think it is fair to say that the whole pills team is fairly deficient when it comes to pre-2000 history. Knowing little about such distant history is, I think, the reason you all seem to be way less concerned than you should be. Global warming and elitist Naziism (fascism is a pretty weak word to describe the Trumpian crew) are really, actually, for-sure existential threats to the humans. Go figure.
steve willis
2024-11-24 19:14:27 +0000 UTCI would be careful about calling an instance of trans-law a “loser issue” as it can be twisted into “caring about trans = abandoning the worker class” (and this also seems to be a pretty mainstream take actually.) Apparently Republicans are using a similar trick with Black Republicans basically arguing “being pro-abortion = you want less Black people to be born.” Also, if votes keep being close to 50/50, doesn’t that mean that, especially if you include non-voters, most people simply do the same thing again and again? If that’s the case, it either doesn’t seem like the “material reality” makes much of a difference to a lot of (potential) voters or those material conditions are in fact pretty comfortable for most. As for incels “finally shutting up,” it obviously won’t happen — there has been one Trump presidency already and that didn’t do it, these guys have a crypto-scam victim’s mindset (just look at the Polymarket vote prediction with comments like “follow the whales,” I suspect those sets intersect to some degree.) I don’t think dismissing Trump and his allies as simple morons is a good idea, there are people in there that know very well what they’re doing (like Jared Kushner) and this whole “kakistocracy” show that is happening right now is also a distraction — treating these guys as just incompetent fools makes them look less dangerous than they actually are. Overall I am surprised that you seem to treat these elections as just another cycle, when even the fact itself that Trump was a candidate and not behind bars is crazy — I don’t think you can be optimistic to any degree here, this all bodes very very badly.
ntoxeg
2024-11-18 20:35:39 +0000 UTCGod I wish the democrats were as progressive about anything as you all spoke about because at least then they would have something to stand for in their campaign that was remotely left. The only thing they really had nailed down was abortion rights which was only in reaction to the Supreme Court stripping it away. Everything else was like a vague threat that Donald Trump was going to lead a fascist takeover of the government and Project 2025. Their entire strategy was based around not being progressive on social issues, they were so hungry for that republican vote that they campaigned with Liz Cheney. While I agree with what most of what you all said about their stupid strategy on economics, the whole being too progressive angle was not true at all, if anything it was a fake conservative talking point. Republicans spent millions on ads to pin being progressive on trans issues on Harris when she's been extremely weak on it.
Matt Chen
2024-11-15 02:49:32 +0000 UTCApart from the two things you mentioned I can't think of a point she focused on more than abortion. And while she may not have directly spent too much time on overt identity politics like Hillary in 2016, her surrogates were quite consistent about it. Both Obamas, Walz, and a series of ads that honestly felt like parodies all telling men just to vote for her for "the women in their lives" and insinuated or straight up just said they were misogynists if they wouldn't. I can't imagine any man who was on the fence or had his own issues he cared about was persuaded by that and I can imagine it putting at least some off voting for her. Maybe not enough to go Trump if they weren't inclined to already but enough to sit it out.
Alyn
2024-11-14 11:34:09 +0000 UTCWell, looks like Pills was on the money. Musk really became the secretary of government efficiency.
Florian F.
2024-11-13 08:56:59 +0000 UTCPills u were articulating the “ratchet effect”. Republicans pull things to the right, Democrats hold the line and prevent leftward movement.
Tyler Harmon-Jenich
2024-11-11 18:23:59 +0000 UTCWill add that I really agree and resonate with many aspects of your analysis!!
abby
2024-11-10 19:23:18 +0000 UTCAmerican here, agree that it is not true that the Dems ran too hard on identity politics. They absolutely fucked it as they always do because all they care about is fundraising. I *wish* Kamala had run stronger on LGBTQ issues, abortion… really anything at all besides telling Palestine solidarity protesters to shut up and “Donald Trump is Hitler… and that’s why we’re pleased to congratulate him on his win!” That would have gotten young people out — those issues are actually popular. Biden’s administration hasn’t done shit, the Democrats don’t care. This should be a moment for deep introspection for them but my strong prediction is it won’t be.
abby
2024-11-10 19:01:21 +0000 UTCFirst question: Why are you saying racism is over?
Andy Louie
2024-11-10 16:18:02 +0000 UTC“Wrestling with the Real: Politics, Journalism, History in Frost/Nixon, and the Complex Realism of Kayfabe.” Amerikastudien – American Studies 61.1 (2016): 11-31.
Florian F.
2024-11-09 20:56:39 +0000 UTCFun fact: I had a professor who did quite a bit of research on kayfabe and as it pertains to the American political process. On both Nixon and Trump
Florian F.
2024-11-09 20:55:53 +0000 UTCAlso I don’t think Harris ran a woke campaign but perhaps fell this way by association because she was not populist enough in her rhetoric. Someone else said that her swing right made it such that there was insufficient contrast: “why get the 2 percent conservative when you can get full fat”
Jonathan Hung
2024-11-09 20:09:34 +0000 UTCBtw I agree with the take on wokeness as a waste of time (as a Marxist / economic materialist) But surprised to see so much denigration of it by the left in this post-election period. My personal opinion is that people blaming wokeness for additional trump votes really think poorly of the electorate. It seems implausible that people would vote on who they see on TV, or different gendered bathrooms. What I would say is that the aesthetics do nothing but signal elitism and tell people that this party is not for them.
Jonathan Hung
2024-11-09 20:07:39 +0000 UTCA great piece on kayfabe as it connects to the greenwashing of “green capitalism” from comrades at TMK https://www.patreon.com/posts/86664749?utm_campaign=postshare_fan Would be curious to hear more, in the line of your talk of Beaudrillards emphasis on political aesthetics.
Jonathan Hung
2024-11-09 20:03:41 +0000 UTCYeah they wouldn't have seen the ads we do on tv cause they're in Canada. On the federal and state level there was so much "get biological men out of women's sports" and "Kamala is for they/them, not you." Last year the dems had symbolic support that went out the door this year. And Victor should know that sports are just a way to get their foot in the door. Four years ago it was bathrooms, then drag queens and banning books, parental rights and protecting the children, but what's stuck is sports. I guess it appeals to people's sense of fairness. At the end of the day I agree that they lost because they didn't offer any "cookies." In 2020 they were riding off of covid, had stimulus checks, college debt relief. George Floyd's killing too. This year it was nothing. Maybe not countering one of your opponents main talking points is a bad recipe actually. Biden and Harris had years to *put into law* protections and didn't. We know that when a policy becomes law its approval shoots up, it happened with gay marriage. I know they're afraid of backlash to it, but they already get backlash. Their opponents present a perceived problem and solution to it, dems abstain from acknowledging it. So now who has complete control over that? Fun fact: Miss USA started allowing trans women to compete in 2012. Trump owned Miss USA from the 90's until 2015, the reason he stopped owning it was comments about immigrants not trans competitors. Guess it wasn't unfair back then.
Ashley H
2024-11-09 18:24:48 +0000 UTCWill Trump & Musk finally kill the myth of meritocracy?
Alex B
2024-11-09 18:07:33 +0000 UTCLmao always laugh at Musk's cringy ass Waluigi USA chant
Matt S
2024-11-09 17:05:37 +0000 UTCThanks Victor for bringing up the Bernie statement. It's crazy that even a speech act breaking party norms for authorized speech stands out so much. Like, just the speech act lmao. My honest assessment: DNC doesn't do anything, they just get beat up until the next catastrophe when they'll win again and donors are ok with that. To do otherwise would require the entire party to openly admitting that they were making decisions based on their donor input and not the working class, and to nominate union bosses or something. It does truly feel like it's now or never. Totally agree Obama was like the last straw in making promises and people having some semblance of belief, and I think that is why Trump's base is so unshakable, because they have firm belief, not without good reason (Supreme Court) that for the 5-10 things he hammers on, he's gonna take his shot for the thrill of it. It's wild to see him on the donor thing as the same as Bernie but for polar opposite reasons. Trump was immune from being bought (which appealed to his voters) because he projected being already rich enough to not car, and Bernie was immune from being bought (which equally appealed to his voters) because he projected relying on the direct financial support of the working class, thereby the equation of if he was beholden to a group, it would still be the one that funds him, but that just happens to be the working class. In conclusion, it's crazy that the topic of having a livable environment has had zero airwave time, and will likely continue to have nmzero airwave time, despite all these crazy storms and wildfires and so on that are just devasting people. Like, how the fuck does that remain buried and out of sight. I guess it's like the breadline. I guess it's like people forgetting how critical oxygen is until they don't have it. How bad does it really have to get? How normalized can having your house get blown away by a storm every two years get as a fact of life? The inertia of the inescapable work week is a hell of a trance inducer I guess.
ageOfBumFires
2024-11-09 14:46:18 +0000 UTCI strongly disagree with your take that the dems pushed trans issues too radically for the average voter. In fact, Kamala was extremely weak on trans issues. When asked just before the election about trans rights she gave the supremely non-committal answer that she would "follow the law" (clip: https://x.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1846679636115087431). The second she got the nomination, she completely stopped talking about LGBTQ issues. It's absolutely not correct to say she ran on a platform in favour of trans rights. She did not once advocate for trans people in sports during the campaign as you claimed. At most, her position was that she wouldn't change anything from the current administration.
N0THANKY0U
2024-11-09 08:43:06 +0000 UTChttps://youtu.be/RKPO5uB2YtQ?si=NnvKCvWwqkUCz75B Did Victor see this yet?
DilloBear
2024-11-09 08:33:45 +0000 UTCGood to know you are actually in your best elements. Is Diego joining for Althusser episode? I was thinking how criticism of 'a thing of virtue' almost always ends-up adding to the virtue, including Pills's self criticism. Althusser seems to be a good choice in understanding the economy of polemics.
Mrityunjay Awasthy
2024-11-09 03:17:12 +0000 UTC
