Populist neo-right toughies gear up for a counterattack

by Kumar David

Confirmation of the inevitability of Trump’s departure and the promise that covid-19 vaccines will be available in weeks has created euphoria not seen since the lifting of prohibition in America 97 years ago almost to the day – December 5, 1933. The Dow briefly pierced the 30,000-point ceiling, women and the elderly exposed to heightened domestic violence at the hands cooped up bar-less men espied a light at the end of the tunnel, and millions of Anthony Fauci defying covid-asymptomatic youth took to the skies to go home for Thanksgiving and infect grandparents and elders. (“The young in one another’s arms; those dying generations at their song; caught in sensual music all neglect, monuments of unageing intellect”). But there are dark sides to the jubilation. First, there is some way to go before distribution and mass administration of the vaccine become reality and science though pleased with results so far remains cautious about the duration of immunity. Most important, no vaccine can offer protection against reckless behaviour of a hara-kiri besotted populace.

Challenges to Joe Biden

This piece however is not about covid-19, it’s about an equally virulent plague; the rednecks and fascistic heavies gearing up for a counter-attack while Trump calls them to arms, literally, by tweeting “we must overturn the results of the election” and by making all sorts of incendiary interventions. Trump has virtually checked out of his current job as President, he rarely makes a public appearance, refuses to take questions when he does, and most significantly refuses to intercede in burning national issues such as the explosive spread of the pandemic, economy or foreign policy and China. Instead he has taken to stirring up a counter-attack on the election results and mobilising his semi-fascist troops. Mobilisation rallies have been scheduled by team-Trump in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere though the participation of President-Reject has to be confirmed. The attacks on the incoming administration are geared up around these slogans: Biden’s nominations are an Obama third-term team; there is a retreat from standing up for US interests under the cloak of rebuilding international relations; they are soft on China trade and on will China get away stealing American jobs; Biden team’s accommodative policies in the guise of climate change harm the economy and let foreign polluters off the leash (Who is John Kerry? Obama’s Foreign Policy Tsar who sold out to Iran, now he will sell America to US-hating Global Greens), and overall, the gist is that instead of putting America First, team Biden will let others exploit America and put ordinary Americans last.

These cries will resonate with the rejected-dejected white working-class and with the majority of poor and less educated whites across a swathe of mid-western ‘red states.’ It seems Biden is putting together a clean and elitist all-liberals cricketing team to engage in no holds barred mud wresting with the muck and filth of Trump-rabble. Joe will lose unless he wakes up to reality. CNN reported that Biden has poured cold water on the idea of nominating Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders to his Cabinet, instead suggesting he would like to keep them in the Senate to carry forward his agenda. He claimed, quite incorrectly, that there is already significant representation of progressives in his cabinet but he did add that nothing is off the table.

Biden’s thus far yahapalana appointments

From senior appointments made thus far it seems Biden wishes to form a good-governance (yahapalana) liberal not a radical administration. Thankfully, unlike Lanka 2015-2020, he will not be encumbered by an ignorant, self-seeking nutcase like Pissu-Sira. Be that as it may, Trump’s conspiracy in collaboration with Republican leaders (Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and media types Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) was to execute a palace-coup but this came undone when public, political, media and business pressure mounted and Emily Murphy, Chair of the General Services Office authorised transition funds for the President Elect, and Michigan and Pennsylvania certified Biden victories; also when in Georgia Bidden scored a third win in a third count. But Trump is selfish, petulant and a vengeful liar and until his political coffin is sealed and riveted down at noon on January 20, 2021, just about anything is possible.

Musing on of Biden’s leadership team and its prospects can benefit from reflection on recent Sri Lankan experiences. Despite the chasm in wealth and historical experience between the countries, don’t dismiss the thought that there are useful parallels. Some common features are that in both cases diehard populism with racist overtones are entrenched, and in both countries, there is deep resentment against the well-to-do classes (Washington Swamp, Colombo 7 elite) who have it all while working-people suffer. A third factor is nationalism and xenophobia. A fourth is that America suffered a loutish president while in our case a suave and avuncular former leader and his near canonised brother prevailed, but in both cases these powers had a firm grip on a big section of the mass mind.

Now a there is new parallel; the Biden Administration in gestation and a hypothetical yahapalana government without Pissu-Sira, have much in common. Biden is a man of working-class origin with an earned a BA (double major in history and political science and minor in English; Wikipedia says he was rated a C student). He also has a JD (doctorate by coursework). His stutter was an obstacle, but it also endeared him to ordinary people. His team as announced so far consists of high-flying ideological liberals and liberals-in-economic-outlook (the former pledge loyalty to justice, parity before the law, freedom of speech and religion, and oppose race bias, while the latter stand for free-markets and business-friendly policies). The former Fed Chair who defied Trump, Janet Yellen (Brown and Yale) will be Treasury Secretary (Finance Minister), Antony Blinken (Harvard and Columbia) an Obama era liberal will get State (Foreign Ministry), Cuban-American Alejandro Mayorkas (Loyola and Berkeley) will head Homeland Security and John Kerry, well known as Obama’s Secretary of State is to be climate Tsar with cabinet ranking. All are policy wonks with a clear mission to rebuild, at home and abroad, the America that Trump wrecked. Non-Cabinet postings are also significant. Two able women, Avril Hains (Johns Hopkins and U of Chicago) will be Director of National Intelligence and a distinguished black Linda Greenfield (U of Wisconsin-Madison) will be UN Ambassador. Jake Sullivan (Yale) will be National Security Advisor. If you look up the CVs of these people you will see that it is a team with a strong intellectual, liberal or liberal-economic bent – better for a University Liberal Arts Faculty than a Cabinet maybe.

There is more liberal talent waiting in the wings; Susan Rice, Pete Buttigieg, Vivek Murthy, Andrew Yang, Sally Yates and too many to name. On the left we have Bernie Sanders (Political Science, Chicago and a “mediocre student” in his own words) potentially for the Labour portfolio, and Elizabeth Warren (BSc Houston, hooray a scientist at last and JD from Rutgers Law School) fit for any portfolio.

However so far, they both seem a bridge too far to the left for Biden to cross. So, Biden team may be all-liberal without a daub of red or radical. Thereby hangs a tale: Will this team deliver; will it be able to carry through a programme of economic and social restructuring which can mollify, not just the baying wolves of the Trump Base but all less privileged America? Markets are cheering the appointment of Ms Yellen instead of Ms Warren to the Treasury; America’s political and military allies heave a sigh of relief that reliable Obama era boy Blinken spells the end of a cranky President who put alliances in jeopardy. Greens the world over cheer the return of the US to climate sense. That’s what the liberals can deliver.

But there are critical issues on which liberalism will fall short; like the things yahapalana fell short on and opened the flood gates for the Rajapaksas to came storming back. The poorer three quarters of the population be it America or Lanka have problems yahapalana-type liberal economics is not designed to address. Indeed, that’s why a Trump Base came into being in the first place and why like a Rajapaksa phenomenon a neo-fascist populist option may storm back in four years in the US. The plain truth is that in January 2015 in Sri Lanka and today in the USA the middle-class, liberal intellectuals and indeed the left hail the defeat of ugly autocracy and the confirmation of democratic values, but in the medium term the lower orders of society, the majority, are driven by the need to feed their families not by the bliss of liberal nirvana. A Biden team without radical colouration does not inspire confidence that that it lives on the same planet as rust-belt workers faced with loss of livelihood and mid-west rural folk who have lost hope in modern capitalist America whose economy is networked into globalism. There is indeed no hope for an all-capitalist USA that is unable to restructure itself profoundly.

One does applaud the return of decency, diversity and political discipline to the US. One is relieved that the institutions of American democracy held up against the most brutal attack they suffered since the Civil War 160 years ago. However, none of that will save America now unless livelihood issues and the social cancer rooted in the country’s soul are taken in hand. I fear that a liberal-democratic Biden Administration which shuts out radicals and eschews a transformative programme will fall short. The failure of numerous yahapalanas style governments stud the contemporary global landscape.