The Lull Before the Storm
or the last action before paralysis
By Mike Meyer ~ Honolulu ~ January 21, 2021
The tremendous relief of a silenced, defeated, and exiled Trump is like recovering from a long and debilitating disease. Fast executive action by Biden brings a fresh breeze. That we hope will freshen into a cleaning wind to remove the Trump stench. But will the wind be strong enough?
No one wants to spoil these valuable moments of relief and hope, but the variables are mostly uncontrollable, and the historical precedents are not good. Our economic and political structure is not viable. The social psychosis fostered by the Republican Party in their decline was only amplified by Trump releasing the force of Hegemonic Masculinity built on racism, misogyny, and xenophobia common to all fascist movements. He left it damaged but still virulent.
We know this, and while heartened by Biden’s recognition that drastic change is required, there is an obvious question if he is willing to make those changes that will forever alter what he has spent his life protecting. But even if he can do that, we must give him the full benefit of the doubt. Will he be willing to break down the structure used to block any meaningful change?
His opposition is evil and fully committed to minority power to deny change. They are also led by shameless but wily politicians who will lay low to avoid political damage during Biden’s honeymoon while preparing for total obstruction.
They have no other policy but the protection of their tiny kleptocratic elite, who must keep everything the same to survive. Their minority of manipulated voters have been trained to deny all benefits in exchange for the pleasure of others being denied any rights in an artificial zero-sum world.
That minority provides the power from a dysfunctional and structurally collapsing system. With no structural change possible to eliminate this roadblock, how do we implement the changes needed? That requires revolutionary action. Biden wants to restore things but is not a revolutionary, but he will be driven to revolutionary change or subside into paralysis after controlling COVID-19. In an ordinary age, that would be good enough.
This is not an ordinary age. Allowing an increasingly criminal minority party to maintain a stranglehold on our population's future is not an option. It is already clear with McConnell's attempted use of the filibuster to block the new senate committee chairs that we are back to a safely obscure version of total obstruction. This needs to be stopped.
If all of the Biden plan’s funding and implementation is done via budget reconciliation procedures, that will open the way to remove filibuster and then either remove the senate or make it powerless. Removing it would require constitutional change but making it powerless is another matter. These are the types of changes that Biden must be willing to do.
While the removal of Trump has been an incredible relief from lying, whining, and endless displays of ignorance, this is not a solution. Action to restore the nation and the planet is being implemented, but action to remove the distorted tools that have allowed minority rule must be completed before the fascist minority recovers.
Biden has been told repeatedly not to make the Obama mistake of assuming a working governmental system and failing to deliver services quickly and forcibly to the people. We have known for years that is what the great majority of the people want. But they must understand what they are given and who is responsible. The neofascist fever will then subside, but the carriers of that fever must be controlled and contained.
