Trump's Tariffs Aren't Economics. They're a Cultural Purge | Washington Monthly
Trump's Tariffs Aren't Economics. They're a Cultural Purge | Washington Monthly
Trump's blunderbuss tariff policies are a declaration of war on the half of America that didn’t vote for him.
Stop asking, "but don't they know how much harm they're doing?!" Yes. They do.
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That’s what’s behind the economic shock therapy now underway. It’s similar to the disaster economics that the U.S. used in Chile and post-Soviet Russia, and Javier Milei is inflicting on Argentina today. But it’s inflected with the fervor of a Cultural Revolution—ironically more reminiscent of Mao than Pinochet with its war on intellectuals and its bestowing glory on farms and factories. The goal is to destroy the professions that make resistance possible—this is why you start with law firms instead of HMOs—then tighten the screws once people are desperate enough to submit. When the unrest comes—and it always does—so do crackdowns.
This article fucking nails it. They don't care if they lose a lot of the talented people to Europe. The people who don't have the capacity to leave will be forced to fall in line anyway.
It's why the only way to fight it realistically is to build parallel systems outside of capitalism. Begin building a new community built on bartering labor to support one another. It will allow enough people to bail on US capitalism to send their plans into a tailspin. Of course, there will be violent pushback against this, so like the Black Panthers who first pioneered their own parallel systems because US capitalism punished the black community for existing, we must have people ready to protect the new systems that have been built. Fighting fascism is more complicated than just buying guns and taking them on. It's going to have to be a combination of building systems we can rely on other than capitalism as well as building groups who can and will do their best to protect those systems.
We will have more Fred Hamptons, and they must be willing to accept that they may be assassinated just like the original Fred Hampton.
Yeah, we really fucked up making individual wealth so powerful. A healthy society needs at least a balance of collective wealth and individual wealth, and we went way too far. And now they're trying to dismantle the last major structures of collective wealth we haven't already ruined.
Of course, there will be violent pushback against this, so like the Black Panthers who first pioneered their own parallel systems because US capitalism punished the black community for existing, we must have people ready to protect the new systems that have been built. Fighting fascism is more complicated than just buying guns and taking them on. It’s going to have to be a combination of building systems we can rely on other than capitalism as well as building groups who can and will do their best to protect those systems.
agreed, but this part feel unrealistic given my interactions with american liberals.
lemmy represents the left-most sampling of the american liberals and even they decry leftists platforms and shame their own people for not towing the pro-capitalist line; especially on this instance.
also from the article:
Democrats must not treat this as a misguided trade policy. It’s not a debate over economic theory. It’s an assault on the idea of an open, educated, pluralistic society. We must recognize it for what it is if we are to fight it with the urgency it demands.
this is also seems unrealistic as evidenced by booker's pointless filibuster; blocking aoc from the oversight committe; and obstructing bernie from the nomination twice.
Don't use social media to gauge public opinion, take a bus and talk to randos instead.
those randos are going to more conservative than lemmy users
I don’t know, if you are good at speaking to them I bet you’d have the best pickings to get a small mob together of any place.
In my experience, people who ride the bus are already radicalized. Perhaps confused politically, so avoid political terms and just speak at the level of playground justice.
if i were any good at speaking to people; i wouldn't be on social media. lol
So what if they are? It would likely be a more genuine exchange than this one.
I live in Chicago so most would be liberals.
The liberals mods on .world literally remove my comments that gain traction so the exchange would likely be on par irl
The best alternatives to most corporations are worker cooperatives. Anarchist communes have implemented this in past during Spanish civil wars etc. Modern day equivalents are things like REI.