Thoughts on 250
Catching up on the dawg's life, and why the future is Democratic Socialist
Oh, what a time it’s been since I last put virtual quill to virtual parchment here. I had a birthday, I finally got a job after almost a year of unemployment, the Seattle World Cup matches are underway literally in my backyard, we have a new feline companion we literally rescued from a field, and last weekend was Seattle Pride. All of which has been cause for considerable personal reflection and the thought “huh, I should write about this.” And then there’s been the world of Trumpocracy, grand scale corruption, defective reflecting pools, and the absurdity of The Great American State Fair. All of which has been cause for considerable personal reflection and the thought “huh, I should write about this.”
But as I sit here on the 4th of July, enjoying a rum and Diet Coke along with some legal weed, grooving to some upbeat LoFi beats to chill and study to, the thing I really want to write about is Zohran Mamdani’s 4th of July/250th Anniversary speech. So, some quick hits on the personal reflections so they’ll stop rattling around in my head, and then on the main topic.
After almost a year of unemployment, I performed the magic trick of turning a part-time contract editing job into a full-time salaried role with nice benefits. I had to take a pretty substantial pay cut, but it’s worth it to be out of the tech industry and completely insulated from the effects of AI, and being in the employ of a privately held company that has been very successful over 30 years. As my partner puts it, I’ve now pledged my allegiance to the samurai class, a phyle that always finds a way to survive and prosper. I’m also pleased that I’ve been able to continue my career as a professional writer and editor, when the odds are very against that for others my of my age and professional background. My partner, however, continues to be unemployed a year after graduating from a prestigious business school with an undergrad degree and a minor in data science. Thanks, Trump.
The confluence of events over the past weeks has led to what feels like a historical moment that Don Delillo would chronicle in a work like Underworld. We live next to the stadiums in Seattle, and our neighborhood has been thronged with people from around the world for the World Cup matches, along with roving coteries of megaphone street preachers who bring a distinct apocalypse vibe wherever they go. Together they provide a concise illustration of our cultural moment: the many people who want to enjoy a moment and celebrate, and the few assholes who are out to ruin everybody’s else’s good time. This is truly the Era of the Asshole in America, in which all those guys, like Stephen Miller, who were the absolute assholes of their high school class, finally get to have their petty revenge on the dweebs and the queers and the “foreigners” that they blame all their troubles on. Again, thanks Trump.
Their era, however, is about to come to a no-doubt calamitous end. The absurd fiascos of the reflecting pool and the Great American State Fair, the blatant grifting and self-dealing, the rampant narcissism, the obvious physical and mental decline, are all coming together in a way that should make even the most die-hard MAGA devotee have a “hmmmm” moment.
Which brings me finally to Mamdani’s speech. My partner and I watched it this morning after watching Tim Miller’s commentary on it (I follow The Bulwark for Andrew Egger and Will Sommers’ commentary, along with Tim Miller’s fashion sense - oooh, black pearls!). My reaction is that Donald Trump and every one of his MAGA candidates should be shaking in their boots, while my partner got a little verklemmpt as we talked about it and described it as “cathartic.”
Here at the dawghaus we are of the mind that this is a moment of Hegelian dielectic like nothing that has happened in our lifetimes, where the contrast, and the choices, could not be starker. The Aufhebung is upon us, and Mamdani’s speech shows the way. As Miller points out, this is a speech that contains a critique of this moment, but one that is tied back to the very ideals that our democracy were founded upon.
I can claim to be an Original American in a way that very few others can - my ancestors were Swiss Mennonites who emigrated to Virginia in 1764 to escape religious persecution. Because they were pacifists, they refused to fight in the wars of Swiss kings, and spent time in prison for it. When the revolution broke out, my Ur-Grandfather addressed the House of Burgesses on behalf of Virginia Mennonites, and struck a deal in which they would not be expected to fight in the revolution, but would contribute food and agricultural supplies to the effot. My family was responsible for literally help feed the Continental Army.
This is what Mamdani’s speech kept returning to: that ours is a nation of immigrants who came here seeking new lives for themselves, and that this ideal is embodied in the American dream. I am a queer who grew up in isolated rural poverty, who was able to elevate their economic and cultural situation through education and a lot of hard work. I have seen what was on the other side of the Berlin Wall firsthand, and who knows what queers in other countries have had to endure, and I truly love the American ideal from deep familial and personal experience.
In this cultural moment, though, as Zohran points out (somehow it seems appropriate to address him by first name, like Bernie) the dominant political class is profoundly anti-American. It is oligarchal and kleptocratic, like the regime of George the III: it advocates a state religion in Christian Nationalism: it is anti-pluralistic: and it is class-locked without meaningful economic and social opportunity. Zohran creates contrasts between our present situation and the founding ideals as an argument for revolution: these are the same things that, 250 years ago, led the founders of this country, including my ancestors, to launch a revolution. There was significant symbolism in him giving this speech while sitting behind a desk that belonged to George Washington, but more in that he was sitting in front of the desk and that the viewer perspective was from where Washington would have sat. His was the position of the strategist advising the general who would be responsible for bringing about the revolution.
The strategy was clearly presented: reform campaign finance, expropriate the billionaires, break up monopolies, enact medicare for all, and recognize that it is the working people, like my ancestors, who literally built and fed this country, and not the oligarchs and capitalists who own it now.
As those charged with executing this strategy, the tactics are clear: elect Democratic Socialists and their allies at the local level, create regional coalitions, infiltrate the House to the degree that the Freedom Caucus and their ilk lose numerical advantage, and build upon Bernie’s position in the Senate, as he also probably does not have long among us.
In this situation, Zohran is clearly positioning himself to be a kingmaker with his endorsements, as we can already see in the New York House races. If those candidates win they constitute the kernel of a coalition with AOC, and from there, on to the Senate.
As a battlefield foe, Trump seems more like a Downfall Dictator than a Clausewitz: he burns all potential allies when they cross him, and tries to install flunkies who turn out to be unelectable against any opponent who seems to possess any degree of rationality. This is not the way you win a war, and I find myself in agreement with Tim Miller that Trump probably doesn’t care what happens in the midterms. My Kalshi bet is that Trump resigns before the mid-terms for health reasons and decamps to Qatar “for treatment and recovery.” This would enable him to avoid impeachment proceedings and investigation, Qatar doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, and Vance would be left holding the bag on everything.
As my partner said, this speech was cathartic because it is a statement of our cultural trauma and a way to overcome it. It spoke to the evil of our moment, but also the hope for the future. Democratic Socialism may not be the inevitable future, but it is the one we need.