II. ceasefire now/four more years
dysregulation and denial in the body politic
A few days ago, I was lying in bed scrolling on my phone, watching atrocity after atrocity committed against the Palestinian people circulate through Twitter. My partner taps me to get my attention, and plays a video that, I believe, will be remembered in history. We watch it over and over again, and I feel a deep, clear pang of fear, the fear of a student of history. So I write now to remember this moment, while it’s still fresh, while we are still here.
Joe Biden stands against the stained glass windows of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. The light is golden and bright. He stands in what passes for Presidential Regalia in our society: a tailored suit, an enamel flag pin, a tie, a white collared shirt. Nothing that would give away the true extent of wealth and power; no, only a quiet Protestant assertion of superiority hidden in the fine details.
This is, by design, a campaign event with special meaning: he is speaking at the pulpit of the very church where, in the basement, white supremacist mass murder Dylann Roof killed 9 people during a bible study. To speak here—the clip I am referencing begins with some remarks on prescription drug prices—is vital set dressing for the party. The Democratic party has for decades branded itself in opposition to the Republican party: for every deplorable white neo-fascist seeking immortality through immorality, there is a democrat champion of the oppressed, who chants: BLACK LIVES MATTER! SLAVA UKRAINI! TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!
And here he stands, at the pulpit, with the Christogram IHS emblazoned on the liturgical linen, two microphones pointed directly at his mouth, a look of aged concentration on his face. He moves on through the remarks:
“The word of God was pierced by bullets and hate and rage. Propelled by not just gunpowder, but a poison; a poison which for too long has haunted this nation. What is this poison? White Supremacy. All it is, is a poison; throughout our history, it has ripped our nation apart. It has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow, or ever.”
He is met with approval, with murmurs of agreement and a smattering of applause. He connects the shooting and the loss of the churchgoers to the loss of his favorite son, to Obama singing Amazing Grace. Three men flank Biden, two wearing clerical collars—clergy—and one without, but no less a leader in the community. The message is clear: this congregation fully supports this candidate, this presidency, this institution. how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
“As many of you know, Jim is a teacher and a student of history. He He knows the power of truth, and the power of lies. He knows what happens when people are allowed to whitewash history, erase history, bury history. He knows what the Bible teaches: we shall know the truth and the truth will set us free. But the truth is under assault in America. As a consequence, so is our freedom, our democracy, our very country. Because without the truth, there is no light; without the light, there is no path from this darkness.”
A closer look into the rhetoric: in America, there are forces of good and evil, light and dark, afoot; the force of darkness is the poison of white supremacy (as a white President addresses a Black congregation, eager for their votes, eager to keep his grasp on power) which has “ripped America apart” throughout its history. But this, itself, is a distortion of history. White supremacy has a place in America; it is the beating heart of the national and global order that America supports. White American settlers committed genocide against the Indigenous people who helped them survive their first winters on the continent. They extirpated the buffalo to starve Indigenous people and force them onto reservations; they used the land and the buffalo hides and bones to power their own industry. They plowed indentured Chinese workers into the ground, crushing their bones into the beds for railway ties, to build a route to bring settlers and commodities “from sea to shining sea.”
Enslaved people in the South cultivated and picked the cotton that fueled Northern textile mills, nurturing the industrial base that the United States would eventually use to exert global hegemony at the end of WWII. A hegemony seared into the bodies and memories of Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a military-industrial complex so eager to extinguish Asian lives that the strike was carried out despite knowledge of Japan’s immanent surrender. A hegemony that would later be used to establish the settler-colonial state of Israel, America’s foothold in Western Asia.
In our moment, fittingly, the speech is interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire. They are scattered throughout the crowd, perhaps four or five; less than ten, certainly.
“If you cared about the lives lost here, you should honor the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Palestine. CEASEFIRE NOW!”
Biden stutters, looking annoyed, maintaining his composure with the kind of grace that only sociopaths can call forth on command. “That’s…that’s alright.” The camera pans out as he bites his lip, clears his throat, and changes focus to the protestors, who are about escorted out by security. These protestors cry for peace in a Church, in a Church which has seen bloodshed as so many of the Churches in Palestine have, and they are shepherded out, back into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. If Biden, and the Democratic party, are the light and the truth, then these protestors and all the people of Palestine have been forsaken.
As the protestors are escorted out of the church, a chant erupts: “FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!” The camera returns to Biden; it zooms out to take in the room as Biden becomes smaller and smaller, dwarfed by the moment.
The congegrants begin to stand, and Biden tries to move on. Biden “understands their passion” and has “been quietly working” to “reduce” and “signficantly get out of Gaza.” This is a lie: Biden’s administration has expedited billions of dollars of support to the Israeli war machine.
One loyalist’s voice rings out:
“You’re a sane person, an understanding person. They don’t realize that. You’re a good man.”
Another round of applause. He moves on quickly, describing the “self-serving” lie of the Confederacy. He continues, noting that we are currently living another self-serving lie. The one he talks about is January 6th. But at this moment, it is clear that the real self-serving lie is different:
The socially progressive Democratic party is America’s last hope. The rise of neo-fascism, the rise of cults of authoritarian personality, the instability that America is experiencing is not due to the Democrat leaders who have been in charge, on-and-off, since American hegemony was cemented in 1945. It is due to the opposition party; it is due to the opposition’s inherent faults, their anger, the poison they carry within.
The moment that we are facing: widening inequality, an eviction and homelessness crisis, an epidemic of deaths of despair, mass loneliness, crippling debt, the erosion of free public education, systemic racism, a failing healthcare system, attacks on higher education, attacks on freedom of information, the curtailment of freedom of speech, a growing police state…this moment is not the fault of the surgically workshopped political rhetoric that Americans are constantly subjected to from two parties. No, it could not be that both of the parties in America are capitalist extremists that exist to serve the industry lobbyists who pay for the consultants, and the ad buys, and the staffers necessary to win an election.
No, it’s definitely Trump and the Republicans. It’s not like Trump and the Republican party are the pus which has seeped through the diseased flesh of the American body politic. It’s not like the Democrats merely hide the wound from sight. In the last quarter of his speech, Biden quotes a former president’s callous words in response to a school shooting:
“All those kids dead? We have to get over it.”
But isn’t that Biden’s actual response to what is happening in Palestine?
In a cosmic irony, South Africa—formerly an apartheid state, which the US supported until forced to acquiesce to peace and reconciliation—has brought a case to the ICJ in the Hauge with absolutely compelling evidence showing that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. This is the first time that a genocide has been shared with the world in real-time. The response from the little people of this planet has been a resounding support of Palestine.This weekend, over 400,000 people marched on Washington to demand a ceasefire at the White House. In New York City, protests occur every day. Sometimes I join. Sometimes I just listen and feel a little hope.
But why am I bringing this moment for analysis? Do I just hate the Democratic party or something? This is horseshoe theory at work right? Lefty! You don’t understand what’s at stake! Vote blue no matter who! I’m ridin’ with Biden!
I am bringing this up because the cold, sober analysis of history says that in moments with intolerable social conditions, when the government fails to maintain the wellbeing of its citizens, when states wage war while their people beg for peace…when people are so loyal to their political party that, in the house of the Prince of Peace, they turn from cries for a ceasefire to praise the warmonger—it is during these moments of denial that fascism truly takes hold.
I remember, last year, talking with a friend at a conference. He noted that these feel like the Weimar years: admirable social progress side-by-side with book burnings, a sense of disbelief, a hope against hope for continued stability. Surely, surely these Nazi’s won’t win; surely, surely they won’t plunge us into a war…surely, surely they won’t rip our neighbors from our community and kill them while we look on or loot their houses.
Every uncritical Democrat is living in denial about the real causes of our current situation and about the catastrophic consequences that blind loyalty to a political party leads to. Sure, it’s fine that there’s no primary despite a catastrophically unpopular president; it’s fine to remove Trump’s name from state ballots; jail opposition political candidates, it’s fine, this is fine, we are all going to be fine…
But it is not fine. We are not fine. Under Biden, with the excuse that Trump is an exception to the rule, long-held political norms are being broken. When these norms lie in shreds and a truly fascist Republican administration begins putting Americans into concentration camps (instead of just undocumented immigrants) and jailing the opposition, we will have this Democratic party to thank. In school, the people who would later become Democrats think, “hey, if I was living in Nazi Germany, I’d definitely try to save Anne Frank. I’d definitely try to be on the right side of history. I’d be in the resistance!” Or, “Why couldn’t they see what was happening? Were they just bad?”
We are on the cusp of the same type of historical moment. And yet you insist on believing that this man is a good man, an understanding man; that these protesters are misled; that everything will work itself out and your lot will be at least a bit better with this candidate. Actual dissent is, you know, unpopular and impolite. Radical change isn’t going to happen; work from within and grin and bear it, because the alternative is worse.
The truth is that we will need radical change to create a truly free and equitable America, to create a peaceful, thriving life on this planet. The truth, though painful, will set you free and lead you from this darkness.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound; that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.