If Trump loses the election and leaves the White House, the question arises what happens to him afterwards? There will be a natural compulsion on Biden’s part to move on swiftly and establish his own agenda. As so often happens, the ‘dead’ politician is quickly despatched to history and in egregious cases are viewed as aberrations best forgotten. ‘Move on’ is a potent statement. In Trump’s case it certainly would be good for Biden to move on, but this does not apply to everybody else. There needs to be a reckoning, which I think could be best played out through the courts, not least the criminal, civil and bankruptcy courts. It will not be enough to defeat Trump in the election to eradicate his legacy, such as it is. He needs some form of full exposure for what he is and represents. Whilst he has the status of President he looks imperial, but once shorn of those purple robes how will he look facing a jury of ordinary citizens on criminal charges? And how else might the GOP come to terms with its hypnotised indulgence of this man (not that I care for the GOP)? It will be the case that if Trump is defeated, GOP grandmasters will be gadding about telling all and sundry how little they knew him and that they didn’t really approve. They were just following orders. But the subtleties of their differentiations will not assuage the anger of Trump’s hard core base, and it is they who need defanging. Is it possible that even for them the sham of Trump could be exposed in the courts? I can’t see many alternatives. Trump’s defeat may be celebrated by the victors, but at that point their job is done. Only natural justice can finish the job off. Trump’s epitaph loudly needs to proclaim ‘Here lies a common criminal.’
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How interesting (this is presenter Evan Davies’s catch phrase on the BBC PM Programme). As usual, we heard on the teatime news (whilst I was eating a very nice cheese and tomato omelette) only the views of Tory MPs. I suppose right now there could be an argument why the Beeb might only be talking to ‘senior’ Tory backbenchers about why they may vote against the government’s plan for another lockdown. Perhaps this is likely to be more interesting to hear than what some Labour MPs would have to say, since most of them have it seems very little to say which actually ramps up the debate. So we heard from leaders of the Tory 1922 backbench committee declaring that their government was becoming totalitarian, bent on attacking our liberties. Having spent some of the weekend dipping into the Freiraum [Freedom] Festival, with a parade of lefty arty types also having a take on how the pandemic could—is—leading to a more authoritarian state (aided by technology) I found the declarations of rightwing Tory MPs quite surprising—for the use of the same language. I’m quite sure they’re not talking about the same thing. The totalitarianism the Tories are talking about is the clampdown on capitalism’s freedom to do what it wants, dressed up as the right of the individual to do what she/he wants. With the Freiraum set, it’s quite the opposite. As things stand, the deceptive use of the word totalitarianism represents a fear on the former’s part and an opportunity on the latter’s, since the crisis throws a penetrating light on the fracturing nature of capitalism when individual lives are seen by governments even of a neo-liberal ilk of being worth saving. Life before profit? Always the mantra of the left, and now it has become the focus of the war. Even Johnson is confused, as demonstrated by the stark warnings of his recidivist backbenchers. Poor chap. He is being forced to look deep inside himself to see if he’s got any politics apart from self promotion, and so far he hasn’t found very much of a foundation. Unlike Trump, who obviously doesn’t give a shit about individual lives (a bit like Stalin) and is very firmly grounded in his ‘philosophy.’
+Another lockdown, another bonanza for Amazon and Co. Will we hear soon how the government will be introducing a windfall tax to help pay for the losses on the high street? What will Labour say about this?
+I seem to have spent the best part of this weekend on the laptop, on Zoom in particular. On Friday I participated in the final session of a CityLit online course called Religion and Nothingness, the Kyoto School, which was enjoyable and testing at the same time, and interestingly resonated somewhat with my dipping in and out of the Freiraum Festival, hosted by the Goethe Institute from its Greek outpost in Thessaloniki. This, over the weekend considered issues relating to the state of democracy in a digital/pandemic period, and how art may respond. I also ‘attended’ a Zoom Labour Grassroots meeting which dealt with Corbyn’s suspension. All in all, lots to think about, but I’m not going to dwell on it now since I think I need to stop staring at a bright screen and give the eyes a rest. But perhaps the one question that arises from all this is what—when and if it comes about—will the ‘new normal’ look like? With technologies like Zoom, will there be the same incentive to physically go to meetings? Not least if we get used to the idea that people from different countries and continents can interact at the same time? Then there is the issue of how such interactions will be increasingly monetised and surveilled. The pandemic is the great digital accelerator. Some of the consequences of this digital atomisation of society, if that is indeed the prevailing trend was well foreseen by E.M. Forster in his short story The Machine Stops. We might do well to reread it. |
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