On Teleology and History

We are nearly 2 months into this shitstorm, and it's still hard to comprehend. Democracy is hobbling along under the tyranny of the maga-gop coalition, as legislators violate their oaths to the Constitution, cancel town halls full of angry constituents, and try to pretend that "extra-constitutional" is a legitimate interpretation of "constitutional." In fact, it's another way to keep the majority of this nation from having equal rights. in fact, "extra-constitutional" isn't even consistent with republicanism, the term maga rolls out when they need to excuse undemocratic behavior, since a constitutional republic happens to be the kind of republic we have. Crack a book, Elon MusKKK.

I mean, it's bad enough that they bought the election. Those toxic rich men are like a football team that cheats, lies, and pays off the refs, except that instead of "Inflategate," their scams are like, "destroy the state," "women should do mother work" and "Putin is our best friend now." It's hypocrisy incarnate, given that so many dudes wouldn't tolerate this shit in a football game, but look away when it's our literal democracy being played. For me, the real gut punch of this election cycle was that Americans chose this shitstorm of dirty tricks. Patriarchy and white supremacy are just that, if you think about it: Dirty tricks. So the fact that men voted with their patriarchy, and white people voted with their racism, is just a reminder that America was founded on dirty tricks. And our great Constitution, which turns out to be a depressingly vague and easy to disregard.

Every day now, I wonder: When will we start marching and rioting in the streets? People say to me, the time will come. What is the red line of fascism? I've posed this question to more than forty legislators and a lot of regular citizens. Frankly, I'm just not sure people are comprehending the stakes. I wonder: Are they in denial? Do they lack imagination? Do they hope someone else will act for them? Or do a lot of people just suffer from Whiggery?

"Whig history" is a term historians use to describe the belief (and methodology) that progress is inevitable. If you go back and try to find evidence that the moral universe actually bends toward justice, you'll probably find it. But you'll be doing bad history that way. Dr. King wasn't a historian, of course, he was a movement man. A spiritual leader. He was guided by faith, and he also used language specifically to inspire and comfort his flocks through struggle. Sometimes I think that liberals and progressives forget about the struggle part. We get so impassioned about our (obviously superior) ideals, that we assume their manifestation is inevitable. Maybe not for this election or that election, this candidate or that candidate, but overall. For humanity. And America.

If teleological thinking is bad for history, it also inspires terrible political decisions. Think of Susan Sarandon, who helped 45 win the last time by spinning a fantasy that Hillary was worse than a revolution, and the inevitable socialist utopia that would arise from it. Now that we're into his second term -- oh look, the revolution has still not materialized -- I remain pessimistic. I learned my lesson in 2000, when I voted for Ralph Nader (in New York, where Gore thankfully won) because I was somehow sure back then that an ideologue named "Ralph" was the right person to lead the revolution. Subsequently, I watched the Supreme Court hand the tight election to George W. Bush. It was a harbinger of what was to come: Razor-thin margins. Unfair maps. Misinformation. Wars. Dubya was the second worst modern President behind the current one, and yes, I'm including Nixon. Nixon would've spoken out against Trump.

I know that "Whiggism" can't explain everything about why liberals so often lose to extremists and robber barons. People are selfish as fuck. They're not critical thinkers. They vote with their hearts, their friends, their tribes, their churches, their fear, their hatreds, their favorite lines in the Constitution. But Whiggism is an acute problem, as are teleological assumptions. I would never have believed that in my lifetime, government would be taken over by the same kinds of white supremacists I studied for my doctorate. They were oligarchs of their time. They lived by their own rules, hoarded wealth, clung to patriarchy and white supremacy, admired South Africa, and made little girls work in factories. They worshipped on Sundays in Christian churches, but spent Monday through Saturday lying and cheating and outrunning the constitution. The only thing that stopped them from going full apartheid --in my humble but expert opinion -- was the courts and the federal government. The same courts and federal government which the neo-confederacy now controls.

It's not just Reconstruction history that makes me anti-Whig. Have you ever wondered why, after the first World War and the first (flu) pandemic, Americans voted for Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover? Again, America voted for rich, corrupt, tax-cutting, tariff-raising, anti-federal government patriarchs who hired each other until their trickle down economy hurled America into the Great Depression. Voters liked the conservative catch phrase, "return to normalcy." They wanted to buy all the new products and use all the new technologies without disruption. They weren't just tired of pandemics and wars, though. They were also voting against the disruption of mass postwar labor strikes, the Great Migration of Black Americans to northern cities, the women's suffrage movement, and the idealist foreign policy approach of Wilson and the League of Nations. The disruption was real! The state of Wisconsin elected a third party Presidential candidate in 1920: Bob Lafollette. I'm not a 1920's cultural historian but I would confidently draw a political line directly from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre to Herbert Hoover's callous approach to poverty following the stock market crash of 1929. Hoover had been Harding's Secretary of Commerce, in 1921. Whenever white supremacy and/or patriarchy take a hit, there's a backlash. Remember when we had a Covid pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the metoo movement, and an uptick in labor union strength, and the next thing you know, we got Trump, Elon, Big Balls, dick rockets, and stock market crashes? Well, guess what: "Normalcy" always means white supremacy and patriarchy.

There's nothing inevitable about America or democracy. It's only lasted this long because people fought like hell to keep it. We say "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it," because progress is more cyclical than inevitable. I'm not certain that the moral universe is bending toward justice, but I'm certain it will only bend that way if people lock in and start bending it.