The Politics of Despair
Peter Schultz
There is
currently a great deal of dissatisfaction, even despair, evident among the
people of the United States with our government, our political parties, and our
politicians. There are several good reasons for this despair but too often one
that is overlooked is that this despair has been created by our governing
classes as a way of fortifying their power and control. By not responding to
the wishes or the needs of the people, our governing elites create despair among
the people, which, in turn, leads the people away from politics and especially
away from political activism. Despairing of any significant changes, the people
relapse into their customary condition of passivity, as this seems the only “realistic”
option, while our elites continue their “activism,” that is, serving their own
and their supporters’ interests.
This is why
the Democrats are pushing for Trump’s impeachment even though the chances of
Trump being convicted by the Senate in an impeachment trial are between zero
and none. By pretending to be doing something significant politically, viz.,
removing a sitting president, the Democrats, when they fail – as they
undoubtedly will in the Senate – will have fortified popular despair with the
existing political situation. By failing to remove Trump, the
Democrats will thus succeed in fortifying the people’s intense dissatisfaction with
politics. What looks like failure is actually success, from the vantage point
of our ruling elites. Most people will turn away from politics, thinking
“What’s the point of being politically active?”
And it’s
important, even crucial, to keep someone like Bernie Sanders out of the
presidency because, otherwise, people would get the idea that political
activism isn’t futile. And then where will our ruling political class be?
Political activism is, willy nilly, a threat to the current crop of politically
powerful persons and, so, it must be stanched, repressed, or rendered
hopelessly “idealistic.” Thus, we see Obama warning against going “too far
left,” because if that happens and succeeds people will get the idea that
political activism is not futile, is not spitting into the wind, is in fact
realistic. I mean, heck, it worked in the former Soviet Union, didn’t it? And
they were Communists!
Endless
wars also help fortify our elites’ agenda of creating a politics of despair.
These wars don’t end, aren’t won or lost, and need not be. They feed popular
dissatisfaction with the government, with politics, and with human beings’
capacities to control their environments. And if body counts are kept under
control and the use of WMDs is also controlled, then these allegedly “useless”
wars are very useful for maintaining the status quo and the predominant
political classes.
Overall, a
politics of failure serves a politics of despair very well, Machiavelli taught that
fear and government go together very well, to which we may add that failure and
government also go together very well. The failure of 9/11, for example, led to
a fortification of the government that was inconceivable had the government not
failed
to prevent these attacks. Failure in US wars in Southeast Asia led
eventually to more wars, a greater militarization of American society, and
ever-larger “defense” budgets. Repeatedly, political failure leads to the
fortification of government and, simultaneously, to the fortification of a
politics of despair. Failure leads to
more government and more government, when it fails, leads to more despair.
So don’t be
surprised when our government fails. Those who hold and exercise our governmental
powers want it to fail; they do and don’t do things so it fails [cf. the the
occupation of Iraq or the war of 19 years in Afghanistan], because in that way
they undermine political activism, create a politics of despair, and preserve
their own power. And don’t be surprised when Trump survives impeachment,
because that is the plan. For the Democrats, as Bob Dylan once sang: “There is
no success like failure….” And they will emerge from their “failure” arguing
that they need more power so…..well, so they can “fail” once again.