I admit that I am not a laid-back sort of guy. I mean, after all, what eventually became my best-known book, In Defense of Anarchism, grew out of my desperate reaction to an anxiety attack I had that was triggered by an argument about nuclear weapons with Zbigniew Bzrezinski. But the more I see, the more I fear that America is stumbling toward a full-scale political crisis that could, if it goes south, result in the end of what we call democracy here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
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Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
25 comments:
Like watching a slow moving train wreck. We seem powerless to stop it.
In a previous post on the same subject I commented that the best way out would be to divide the country in two, given that there are two irreconciliable cultures roughly divided by geographical regions.
Someone else then commented in favor the "two state solution", so I'm not the only person with the above idea.
I'd bet that as the 2024 election approaches, we're going to see some opinion leaders in the mainstream media offering the same solution.
Diversity has its limits.
Professor Wolff
The problem I see it is that the Republicans are killing democracy in broad daylight, not in Times Square but in the capitol and in capitols throughout the land, and on cable news.
It is war on democracy by democratic means- but don't feel in your bones like some ancient Rabbi that Hitler is coming-
the Republicans are just your run of the mill reactionaries, not apocalyptic hordes
Perhaps you feel bad in part because your past your active time and all you can do is watch- history does not go in straight lines even if those lines seem destined for the bottom of an abyss
you have millions of homies ready for action and I am one of them
If one reads the old slave codes and the laws and customs that imposed Jim Crow, it is clear that the states under those regimes were, to an extent, authoritarian for whites and totalitarian for Blacks so it shouldn't be surprising that a significant number of folks are perfectly receptive to herrinvolk democracy and authoritarianism.
Given that I live in CA which with WA,HI, and OR would make a more then viable nation, I don't find division unattractive but when one takes a closer look it is clear that it wouldn't be easy or pretty.
While counties are arbitrary subdivisions of states which themselves are arbitrary lines on the map, the folks who live in them (especially the rural ones) often see them as something else. Also the larger cities in Red states are often Democratic. Also, two isn't doable - see Bangladesh.
The present situation was inevitable once Movement Conservatism, which owes much to Lenin, took over the Republican Party. Note for example Representative Cheney's refusal to condemn the Party's anti-democratic initiatives in the states and the recent speech by Paul Ryan which focused on "Conservative Principles."
The hard-wired parts of the Constitution are analogous to Russian roulette - we already lost once, so...
Howie, a Hitler isn't an issue. That plutocrats never understand that kleptocrats don't see them as allies, they see them as prey is.
You are exactly correct. Joe Manchin and his fellow Democratic senator from Arizona could save us. They seem too stupid to see the truth. Maybe the courts will save us because under a dictatorship they will have no real power.
I believe the Union should stay intact as long as is possible. If it doesn't, some areas may revert to segregation or even slavery.
The Roman people also tried a "two state solution" (the Eastern Roman Empire & the Western Roman Empire) and as a result it eventually made its military and political power weaker for the rest of its history.
If a "Red/Blue state solution" is nonviable, then split the supreme court into the Red supreme court and the Blue supreme court.
But the Eastern Roman Empire survived about a thousand more years.
Maybe the Mexicans will take advantage of the confusion to take back Texas. As long as the blue states survive and prosper, constructing a society closer to Denmark or Holland, why do you care?
Obviously, as I said previously, under the conditions of the divorce, the children should be free to elect which parent they want to live with. That is, if all the blacks, gays, trans people, free thinkers, socialists in Texas want to migrate to California, they should be welcomed and their setting up a new life in California should be subsidized.
Equally, if all the racists, fascists, homophobes and misogynists want to leave California for Texas, we should reward them with a bonus.
Given the serious nature of the problem and concerns expressed in Prof. Wolff’s post about the dangers confronting democracy, it is disheartening to read the idiotic, nonsensical solutions proposed above. This is a serious problem, that calls for serious thinking and analysis, not such hogwash as splitting the United States into two separate nations and having all the liberals migrate to one part of the country, and all the conservatives to another. There is no easy, obvious solution to the issue raised by Prof. Wolff, but making frivolous comments offers nothing to solving the problem, assuming there is a solution. None of what is offered above would seriously be considered in any journal on national affairs. And a rejoinder, “Well, Anonymous, how would you solve this problem if you’re so smart” does not enhance the merit of anything which is offered above.
While I probably would not use such strong language, I tend to agree with Anonymous (for once). At the risk of sounding both pompous and platitudinous, I think one has to consider that history -- however ugly, brutal, dispiriting, and depressing it often (or perhaps almost always) is -- creates a certain weight that can't be ignored, and I think some of the above proposals can fairly be accused of ignoring the weight of history. As Marx (famously) wrote in the 18th Brumaire, "the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
Professor Wolff, I wish you were exaggerating the dangers we face, but, in my opinion, you are not.
A Republican steal of the election would spark massive protests. Indeed, as with the last election, a coalition would already be prepared for large-scale protests in big cities and small. Some labor organizations would attempt to organize a general strike, though outside of Seattle or Berkeley I don't know how effective such attempts would be. The weeks between the Congressional usurpation and the inauguration would be crucial for building a sustainable movement.
After the Republicans inaugurate one-party rule, we can expect the federal government to suppress dissent by any means necessary. I fully expect what started out to be, for the most part, peaceful protests to devolve into systematically violent attacks on dissent itself. I doubt the courage and ingenuity of blue-state governors to resist. In the face of growing state-sponsored violence and incarceration, I would imagine that some activists will retaliate openly with violence, while others will move to underground resistance, including sabotage. My hope is that new leaders will emerge who will lead us in the new circumstances under which will we live. Our current set of leaders, such as they, will have proven to be ineffective and incompetent, at best.
I think seriously about leaving the country, but I'm discouraged because I realize that many countries which would take us have their own political problems and could easily devolve into authoritarian states themselves. I find it difficult to reconcile myself to staying in the country and fighting the good fight for the rest of my life. At least I live in a solidly blue state.
I agree with LFC. さようなら��
"But the Eastern Roman Empire survived about a thousand more years."
Yes, but the Western Roman Empire died out in less than half that time. We don't always get to choose which result will happen to which nation we belong to--and it could go heads-or-tails in whichever direction our ideal one-of-two states will go in the long run. Even so we should still always take into consideration the future generations of what is yet to come when making national policy--which is why I don't agree with dividing up the Union. --The slaveholding states and the states that were pro-abolitionists (in the beginning of the 19th century) were basically cut off from one another in legal travel in the opinion of most African-Americans during that time. Although, I'm not African-American, I can and do sympathize with African-Americans and the torments they suffered over the past 200 years (plus) of slavery in American History since colonial times. You don't need a futuristic machine to give you the memories of former slaves for such sympathy--just read the works of the great orator and statesman Frederick Douglass. For those written works are just as good as what that sort of futuristic machine could do in portraying the lives of African-American slaves in any generation that they were slaves or physical property.
Per Prof. Wolff’s post:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/02/politics/american-democracy-gop-trump-democrats-biden/index.html
We are in a very bad place, all due to the internal collapse of the Republican Party and its idolatry of an ego-maniacal demagogue.
For more on Profs. Ziblatt and Levitsky and their book, "How Democracies Die,: see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v4NTtS2f5k
Once upon a time I felt that Lincoln got it wrong. Maybe we should have let Dixieland go. We'd still have California, the Oregon Territory, the mid-west and the plains. That would have been a two-star solution. More recently I had the idea that when they were spitting up Ma Bell, they should have split up the USA in line with the new Baby Bells. We, in the Northeast would have a simple flag with just "9X". But then some Baby Bells got to eating up others and each of the survivors became national corporate behemoths. So now, the solution might just be insisting on the cleansing truth - again, again, and again.
two-state
Jon, the Confederacy would have been involved in wars in all directions and they would have wanted the "South" to extend across the continent and into Mexico at a minimum.
The key mistake back then, of course, was Lincoln picking Johnson as VP which would eliminate the possibility of the "state suicide" solution as well as hanging folks like Jeff Davis and Alexander Stevens.
And everyone look at a map - a "two state" solution is impossible.
As to the map, isn't Alaska a part of the United States, with Canada in-between?
One other expressing thing is that the Democrats are of a mind that since the insurrection failed, things are ok.Republicans, on the other hand are retooling state election law to guarantee a republican win based on the claim of voter fraud and a legislature over turning the results. Without aa voter rights act passed very soon, and a DoJ actively seeking to overturn those law and succeeding, we face an imminent constitutional crisis. Republican AG’ will fight the DoJ up to the SCOTUS and no predictions on how that will go.
Several options come to mind.. The House and Senate could refuse to seat the illegitimate winners *aka losers.” Biden could send troops to the capitals of the racist states to ensure that the vote count and certification by the Sec. of State is made. If the states continue on to reject the vote count the at least there has been a normal voting process that produced a winner who the federal government could seat. Sending in Federal troops would certainly incite state by state insurrections but, facing federal troops those efforts would fail.
The two state solution would be a disaster for the red states as most, if not all, receive more that they pay to the federal government in taxes. The loss of federal funds would be catastrophic and require massive tax hikes in those states. I hate to think of what the KKK and other militias would do in such circumstances.
SW, you miss my point and in a breakup AK's choices might be the other Pacific states or Canada (given the proximity to Russia, its size, and its population, independence isn't an option. The problem is the distribution which is independent of state boundaries and the liberal clustering on the West Coast, the Northeast, and large cities (e.g. Atlanta and Houston).
Maintaining state boundaries and under the best of circumstances there's still a lot of distance between the eastern boundary of NV and the Eastern states. What about Colorado? Are LDS folks really going to be comfortable in a Fundamentalist nation? Are states like TX and FL going to be willing to support states like MS? And we might consider separatist movements in the Western states which are always present (e.g. there is no way CA is going to let a few thousand right-wingers seize parts of the Sierra Nevada.
A break-up would be three or more and bodies, lots of bodies.
Sure, it will be chaotic, but the alternatives outlined by Christopher Mulvaney above, which I have no reason to doubt, are also chaotic and in addition, will produce bloodshed.
I have no idea what the solution will be, if any. You could imagine years and years of conflict between blue and red states.
We who grew up in an era of peace and order imagine that that is the "natural" state of human society and maybe it's not. Maybe a new "dark ages" will happen, at least within what once was the U.S.A.
No one knows what will happen, but it seems clear we're not going back to the early 90's and the triumphalist "end of history".
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