It’s not even summer yet and we’re close to the boiling point in politics too. I’m talking about the point at which frustration over a political process dominated by elites and an economic system dominated by plutocrats drives ordinary people to join mass movements and begin breaking things. It’s a potent mixture. Add a little heat and pressure and it becomes explosive.
Boom!
The boom point could be reached on 18 July in Cleveland, Ohio. Or 25 July in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first is the date of the Republican National Convention. The second is the date of the Democratic National Convention. Let’s deal with the Republicans first.
After vanquishing the theocratic Ted Cruz in Indiana last night, reality TV star Donald J Trump now looks like he’ll formally accept his party’s nomination in Cleveland. But Trump’s opponents – both within and without the Republican party – may not be done fighting.
What do I mean?
If Trump doesn’t have an outright majority in delegates by the time the convention rolls around, it’s possible it could be a “brokered” convention. That’s a fancy way of saying the Republican nominee for the highest elected office in America would be determined by a bunch of back room deals negotiated between political, corporate, and financial elites over cigars and brandy.
That’s a bad look for democracy, even by Republican standards. It could happen. But for better or worse, expect what’s left of the party faithful to get behind their man Donald and put on a brave face for a television-watching American public.
Meanwhile, there are those outside the party. And they’ll be in Cleveland too. The City of Cleveland has been given a $50 million federal grant to prepare for the convention and the arrival of all those who fear Trump. The city will spend that money on things like party tents, bunting, balloons, clowns and candy floss.
Just kidding. The city’s preparing for a small-scale urban civil war.
Get some popcorn and find a comfortable chair
In March, Cleveland solicited bids for enough right gear to outfit 2,000 officers. They asked for batons, upper body and arm protectors, and reinforced steel barriers for “crowd control”. They’re preparing, in other words, for armed conflict in the streets with a small army of Americans, professional protestors and anarchists who view Donald Trump as the next Adolf Hitler.
The last time an American political convention threatened this much violence was the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. That meeting was in the dog days of August, on the 26th. The political machine of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was in full control. The Democrat party was out of control.
Keep in mind the social climate. On 4 April 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr had been shot dead by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Then, on 5 June 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, after having just given an acceptance speech for winning the California primary, Robert F Kennedy was killed by Sirhan Sirhan.
America was in full-scale social meltdown. The Chicago convention was a tinder box before it even started. Lyndon Johnson had refused to run for a second term. You saw a street fight for ideological control over the direction of the party and of the country. Which brings me back to today.
My friend John Robb has succinctly and accurately, I think, described the four major candidates in the US election as representing new factions in American politics. Or factions that have always existed but are only now being recognised and coming out into the plain site of the American public (who thought they lived in a democracy).
What factions?
Trump is the man of the plutocrats, the established wealth of America. He’s keenly interested in their own position but he’s not of the political class, which is why they fear him. Hillary Clinton is the candidate of the political class, the oligarchs who cross party lines to run the show from Washington. She’s nominally a Democrat. But she represents the political establishment.
Ted Cruz, who suspended his campaign last night after his defeat in Indiana, is the man for theocrats. These are Republicans in name. But they’re big government Republicans in the sense they believe Christian values and morals are the founding principles of the US Constitution and ought to be the governing principles of 21st century America.
Bernie Sanders is the big government man for the non-Goldman Sachs wing of the Democratic Party. The real standard bearer for American progressives – after Barack Obama – is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She’s stayed above the national fray, for now. Sanders, meanwhile, carries the water for the Democrats who believe government can be a force for social justice, the fair distribution of wealth, and probably fighting climate change (just a guess).
In the Republican party, you have a plutocrat beating a theocrat. In the Democratic party, you have an oligarch beating a socialist. If you’re keeping score at home, the general election is a contest between entrenched money and entrenched power.
Something has to give. It’s probably going to be civilised society.
Category: Geopolitics