Taming a raging fire
If someone tallied the number of times Joe Biden used the words “unity” and “together” in his inaugural address, it would have run over a dozen, but whatever the score was, it’s a measure of the dominant theme of Joe Biden’s inaugural address: in unity is strength, and unity is achievable.
And yet, when Biden spoke to the reality of political conflict at this time, his words were those of hope, but his tone was plaintive. “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire,” and “we must end this uncivil war.” These phrases hang in the air like pleas for reconciliation. But who will answer them?
Of the host of challenges facing Joe Biden, from a pandemic out of control to the plundering of the planet, the “raging fire” of politics and the fuel that feeds it are the most fundamental. We will get past the most toxic phase of Covid-19 in a matter of time. But most of the other problems—economic inequality, racial injustice, an inequitable health care system, environmental breakdown, our allies’ mistrust—will remain intractable without an end to the uncivil war.
Of all the politicians in the nation to take over the presidency, Joe Biden is the most capable of taming the raging fire, both by natural disposition and experience. After 24 years in the Senate and 8 years as VP, he knows Washington inside-out, and has established working relationships with many of the major players in the legislature. That includes political adversaries—in particular the cagey minority leader Mitch McConnell, whose cooperation is key to passing the legislation needed to pull this country out of, not just a recession, but the mire of disgrace, corruption, and governmental dysfunction the Trump administration dragged us into.
Unfortunately, so far (January 23), McConnell’s obstruction in the Senate suggests he is just as inclined to sabotage a Biden administration as he was the Obama administration. McConnell is not now interested in democracy, if he ever was. He has been corrupted by his donors and the feeling of power, and his priorities—such as installing conservatives throughout the judiciary—are to keep the ruling class which he serves on top. If that means impeding a recovery from Covid-19 so that Republicans can take back the Senate in 2022, he will do so.
McConnell’s institutional variety of fire is more smoldering than raging, but does just as much damage over time. It does not, to contort a metaphor, hold a candle to the blaze of acrimony issuing from the likes of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green in the House. None of these fires can be quenched, but perhaps they can be tamed.
To unbreak souls
“America is broken” is a phrase in vogue to express that our problems are deep and fundamental. The brokenness is not merely political, it’s social, economic, and cultural. Biden’s invocation to restore the soul of America in the inaugural address, having been repeated throughout his campaign, implies an effort to go deeper than politics.
Bob Dylan’s song, ‘Everything is Broken’ (lyrics here,) came out roughly 30 years ago. I remember, struck at the time by its ominous tone, wondering “Is that so?” Wondering if it was it just personal for Dylan. Did it convey a broader message about American society if not global society? It had an eerie ring of truth—if not a truth at that time, then a truth to come.
For a time on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol, breaking was all. The rioters, believing that the electoral system was broken, went about trying to break everything else. They had no plan to build anything other than a throne for Donald Trump. As with Donald Trump’s entire presidency, destruction reigned. The rioters sought death to Trump’s enemies in the legislature. As it played out, the deaths that did occur were a byproduct of a spree of vandalism, consistent with the record of hundreds of thousands of lives unnecessarily lost to COVID by the negligence of the Trump administration—for whom the motto was “it is what it is.”
Breakage is most visibly manifest in the widening political divide between Left and Right. Which side has the happiest souls is episodic. When Donald Trump won in 2016, souls on the Left were flayed, those on the Right were elated. When Joe Biden won, and Democrats took back the Senate by a whisker, souls on the Right were flayed and those on the Left were elated. Those on the Left who saw the Biden win as a return of healthy normalcy should keep in mind that almost half the country feels betrayed. The political see-saw with episodic hard landings that has been the rule since Newt Gingrich went to war with Clinton Democrats in the 90s has left no one satisfied in their bones.
If America is broken as badly as Chris McGreal opines in The Guardian a week ago, then is it possible to restore it?
Restoring is an ambitious goal if it means bringing back a civil society such as were moving toward before Bob Dylan intuited something different 30 years ago.
Unbreaking is a more modest, doable goal. It will look something like gluing together pieces of a shattered vase: what you get is run through with still-visible cracks and has a hole where the pieces were too splintered to mend it. It’s not restored, but it can still hold some water—unless, of course, the hole is near the base.
Can it be done? The odds are slim, when we consider three formidable obstacles in the way: plutocracy, tribalism, and social media, woven together like three strands of concertina wire.
The Big Three are subjects for another post. For the moment, it might be useful to consider what we face if we continue to keep capitalism as the foundation of the economic system. Such is the sinister prospect outlined by Richard Wolff in the following video that illuminates the roots of the Trump phenomenon: