When Hunger Turns to Hate, And Global Capital Cashes In On The Spectacle (Yet Again):  The Tsakraklides View on the US Election.

The result of the American election exemplifies a pattern witnessed multiple times throughout the history of human civilisation.  A hungry and angry electorate will always imagine witches they need to burn and fascist saviours they desperately want to believe.  But this need for modern-day witches and false saviours reached a flashpoint in recent years, as inflation demolished the fantasy theme park of American consumerism in the very country most addicted to consumption.  It was unavoidable society would split in half.  As impoverished consumatrons went into panic, someone had to become the recipient of their anger.  The people chose those in power.  Nothing new or surprising here.

Except that this was not simply a protest vote.  This is a hate vote from one America to another America.  From an America that is so angry, it blames the other America for its situation so much so that it wants to hurt it.  What was once a class war has become ideological:  the blue-collar America used to hate white collar America for the wealth it had.  Now it hates it for what it is.  This is another level.

The result of this anger is an attack on the liberties and life choices which made this country an illusion of freedom and individualism in an otherwise oppressive, and repressive, capitalist dystopia where people are forced to live to work and consume, and consequently have very little political intelligence.  Obviously, the blue-collar America rightly felt that it had been excluded from this dream, however toxic and fake it was.  Today’s election is the beginning of the American Dream coming full circle and beginning to unravel.  Because a country which works itself to death yet considers itself “free”, a country which considers itself wealthy yet deprives its citizens of basic universal healthcare, was only ever going to maintain this illusion for so long. 

Yes, “American freedom” is a narrative which was overinflated by global capital anyway.  Americans were told that the American Dream is a “freedom” you buy yourself into by “working hard”, not one you are entitled to by simply being a citizen of this country.  Why then not rebel against this bullshit?  Why not feel angry for the Americans who do not have to work three jobs to barely make ends meet?  Blue collar America is giving the big finger to the “free” America, and no one can blame them. 

But they have chosen a fascist to channel their anger.  In the same way that global capital served Americans the illusion that the more they purchase the more “free” they become, Trump will seek to titilate an alternate reward system of the brain: national identity, via an expanded quest for more witch hunts: the immigrants, the LGBTQ community, anyone and anything to divert from the economic issues he cannot solve, as long as his mantras align with the culture of his voters: he will execute the ideological war between the two Americas.

The problem is that both the angry America of “have nots” and the educated America of the “haves” still believe in the delusion of the American Dream promised to them by decades of consumer marketing by the Unhappiness Machine.  Brainwashed by brands, they still believe they all “deserve” the big houses, big cars and trips to the shopping mall in a world economy that is buckling under the climate crisis.  The angry America feels its future was stolen out of its hands, and they are correct.  But we are entering an era of global impoverishment, whichever America you think you belong to.  The big houses and big milkshakes are over.  Voting out of hate and voting against democracy is a self-defeating action.  It will only make The Elon Musks of the world that you hate even richer.

Whichever way Americans voted, they have voted for Business as Usual, more inequality, and more natural destruction – because Republican and Democrat parties were the only two choices put in front of them, paid for by billionaires in a country where corporate sponsorship determines the political result more than anywhere else in the world.  Americans simply chose a different flavour this time, for a milkshake which gets progressively more sour (and expensive) as the planet’s polycrisis unfolds.

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons

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