The Washington Post is not wrong that ‘democracy dies in darkness’, however, the darkness is not, as they believe, the Trump presidency, the darkness is the shadow of America Incorporated and similar corporate coups in the rest of the West. Instead of pitching for a team this election, I will be watching the ensuing freakshow with a bag of popcorn and an iced coffee.
With the midterms impending, a series of unfortunate events mishandled by the inept Biden administration and the Democratic party, who have done nothing with a majority in the House and the Senate for two years, will likely lead to a massive red wave. My prediction is that the Republican party will pick up at least 30-35 seats in the House and will end up with a 52-53 seat majority in the Senate. Although this will lead to gridlock and bitterness from both sides, it could be an opportunity for the Democratic party and the lapdog journalists who forgo doing their jobs, holding the powerful to account, to endlessly praise the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris.
There is a wave of articles in neoliberal outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post decrying the looming end of democracy if the Republicans win a majority in the House and Senate. Biden and his cronies are delivering grandiose speeches on democracy and freedom and the threat posed by “Ultra MAGA”. Republican candidates like Kari Lake are criticized for denying the results of the 2020 election, however, Democratic candidates like Stacey Abrams, running for governor of Georgia against incumbent Brian Kemp, who she lost to in 2018, claimed that the election was stolen from her due to mass voter suppression.[i] In the eyes of Biden and the goons who put the blacklist of election deniers together, Abrams is a savior of democracy and voting rights, not an election denier. Abrams, in a recent debate with Kemp, did not say outright that she would concede if Kemp won the election.[ii] The reaction to her refusal to be forthright on conceding if she loses the election is markedly different from the reactions to Trump saying in the third presidential debate with Clinton that he will not immediately accept the results if he loses.[iii] Clinton herself audibly gasped in horror at such a prospect, and she then proceeded to deny and delegitimize Trump’s victory in 2016.
To the blacklist of election deniers many names could be added that will not be, and to name a few, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Maxine Waters, Jamie Raskin, and Adam Schiff. The argument from the Democrats is that if Republican election deniers get into office, then future elections will be undermined, and the electoral process will be delegitimized. How is this not election denial? It is a different nature of election denial, as instead of questioning an election that already happened, as Trump and his circle has (and the Clinton campaign and Democratic operatives in the legacy media did), they are questioning the results of future elections should their opponents win the upcoming election. The election denial executed by Biden and his team is much more sinister and effective than Trump’s fumbling, captured by his desperate pleas to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to “find 11,000 votes”.[iv] Mass censorship, which is made possible by the US security state working in tandem with the federal government, as recently revealed in reporting by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, and the dehumanization of their opposition justifies this censorship as well as draconian sentences and unjust treatment of those charged for participating in the events on January 6th, 2021, are a much bigger threat to freedoms than Trump and his followers.[v]
Ignoring the First Amendment
In Fang’s reporting, interestingly, efforts in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to curb the spread of disinformation in relation to elections and the electoral process began in 2018 under the Trump administration.[vi] This effort has only continued under Biden, and in 2021, Biden’s appointee to the Orwellian “Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation” team Jen Easterly said that she’d shift resources to tackle the spread of disinformation on social media platforms, and at a conference in 2021 she said that “One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,”.[vii] By building resilience, Easterly inevitably means controlling the flow of information and ensuring that the dominant narrative of the Washington establishment is the only narrative that is allowed to spread and thus consolidates it in the minds of voters.
Government pressure to censor information is a violation of the first amendment, and the federal government not being held accountable for this violation because of this reporting by Fang is contemptible, and it shows that the constitution is set aside and trashed not just by Trump, but also by his opposition. The US federal government as a singular entity, no matter the party affiliation of the administration presently in power, violates the constitution, especially the first amendment daily, yet its Trump and his followers we are supposed to be deathly afraid of. We are supposed to be thankful for platforms like Twitter and Facebook setting up teams to police dis and misinformation ahead of elections.[viii] Tech platforms should be broken up and made public utilities, as the monopoly they hold over politics and information are not able to be competed with, and the destruction of Parler proves that those who say “just start your own platform” are wrong.[ix] Hate Trump all you want, but his unpersoning is a major contributor to his continued popularity, as he has been made a martyr. This mistake is being repeated with figures like Ye/Kanye West and Andrew Tate.[x] People like Easterly, who present themselves as the righteous and the protectors of our ‘cognitive infrastructure’ are no more than sheepherders. It seems many are content being herded, rather than speak out and be ostracized from the herd.
Consolidation of the Castles
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter may have provided a moment of euphoria for those on the right who are tired of censorship favoring liberals, but Trump and others whose accounts have been suspended have still not been allowed back on the platform. Musk’s critics are freaking out that Twitter will become a far right hellscape, and even free speech advocates like Suzanne Nossel, director of the Pen America Foundation, argue that Musk’s promise to bring back free speech are a threat to free speech, as allowing unfettered free speech apparently risks dis and misinformation flowing freely and clouding truth.[xi] This is absurd, and Nossel said on Trump’s Twitter ban immediately after it happened that those arguing it was a violation of the first amendment are “completely baseless”, and that “People tend to be unfamiliar with what the exceptions and limitations are to the first amendment, and in many ways have lost sight of why we protect free speech.”.[xii] She is right, however, those who are unfamiliar with the exceptions and limitations to the first amendment and more importantly, have lost sight why free speech must be protected include her and other ‘free speech advocates’ who cheered Trump’s social media ban.
On Musk’s takeover, Nossel wrote that if Musk guts content moderation on Twitter, it will be disastrous, as “Without them the platform would be overrun with spam, harassment, doxing, vitriol, obscenity, hucksterism, conspiracy theories, quackery, propaganda and calls to real world violence.”. I doubt she would include in this list of ‘harmful ideas’ Russiagate, McCarthyite smears, propaganda from the US State Department and the Pentagon, or Democratic party members questioning election results and the electoral process. Nossel claims that “Tearing up the rulebook would bury Twitter users under an avalanche of digital detritus, driving eyeballs and worthwhile conversations elsewhere.”, and this is hysterical, as anyone who has ever used Twitter for a few minutes knows that it is already an outlet for outrage from users across the political spectrum.[xiii] Journalists who engage in obscene behavior like doxing and harassment, like Taylor Lorenz of The Washington Post are lauded for exposing the depravity of the far right, while journalists like James O’Keefe of Project Veritas are demonized and targeted for censorship due to their right-wing ideology.[xiv] The arrogance of ‘experts’ like Nossel, who wrote a book on free speech, is deleterious to debates on free speech as they cover their partisanship with claims of objectivity and third-party expertise, when evidently, they are biased against figures like Trump and are more sympathetic to figures like Biden. Human rights careerists and so-called free speech advocates like Nossel and the UCLA beclown themselves as they criticize nations like China and Russia for repressing the flow of information, and then proceed to decry Musk for wanting to bring free speech back to Twitter. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
Those in power are terrified that their dominant narrative will be exposed, as it was during Trump’s presidency and the acts of censorship and the domestic war on terror that followed. Trump is best described as Max Blumenthal pointed out in an interview after the events on January 6th, 2021, as a rogue president.[xv] He could not be controlled or cajoled, as Biden is by Jill Biden and his other handlers. Trump was “unpresidential”. That is an important element of his legacy. His rogue presidency was the perfect embodiment for a rogue grand strategy in US foreign policy and a destructive domestic policy. Biden is a friendly face on Washington’s rogue policy. The midterms are not a referendum on democracy or Trump, they are a referendum on the tyranny and the façade put on by the Biden administration and the Washington establishment. Biden and the Democrats, as well as Liz Cheney and the Never Trumpers, are channelling former Senator Joe McCarthy, deeming half of the country as unpatriotic and undemocratic, and waving around blacklists of election deniers, while pre-emptively denying the results of future election if their opposition wins.
The coverage of the midterms and the desperation of Biden and the Democrats is proof of the emergence of what Bertram Gross referred to as friendly fascism, where a hollow corporate state, America Incorporated, is presented under the guise of a smiling face serenading us with talk of democracy and freedom, and multiple ‘castles’, a reference to Franz Kafka’s final unfinished novel, have unbridled power and are unknown to us, the common folk.[xvi] The Washington establishment is not, as Gross notes, an identifiable organization or network, it is far more complex and intricate, and “It is a complex of complexes, a far-flung network of power centers, including institutional hierarchies. These are held together less by hierarchical control and more by mutual interests, shared ideologies, and accepted procedures for mediating their endless conflicts.”.[xvii] The mutual interests or binding ideology of these elites is not Democrat or Republican, it is interwoven with the interests of corporations now run by woke corporatists and the interests of the military-industrial complex.
Ballots cast in the midterms, just like those cast in any other election, are theatrical paper shuffling meant to instill in us the feeling of empowerment. We only get to choose between circus acts. On Tuesday, the Republicans will make major gains the House and Senate. Just as they learned nothing after 2016 or 2020, the Democrats and their lackeys in the mainstream media will lash out and blame miasmic forces instead of self reflecting, and the ruling class will work to sustain the false divide between the US citizenry.
Conclusion
Trump is rumored to be announcing his 2024 presidential run in the next couple of weeks. His advisers are saying that he will put his hat in the ring for president after the midterm elections.[xviii] If the Republicans do as well as they are primed to and are being predicted to, then he will be able to ride the upcoming red wave and all the rage and disenchantment with the fumbling Biden administration back into the White House. Secretly the liberal corporate media and political insiders must know this, as the case of the Democratic party is still that a vote for Republicans is a vote for Ultra MAGA extremism. Trump is still the boogeyman being propped up by leaders like Biden to smear all his opposition. If the midterms end in a red wave, then a red carpet will be laid down for Trump. The reaction from the media to the results of the midterms will prove Trump right, and he will be able to point and say ‘fake news’ and be proven correct repeatedly. He has plenty of political ammunition to make this case, from the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression to the lies of Russiagate. Trump, as usual, is sadly right in his criticisms of US foreign policy and the corruption of the US news media. None of the outlets who pushed hoaxes and rumors have been held accountable.
On the 1964 US elections, Malcom X delivered a speech in which he argued that the Democratic party must have their feet held to the fire on helping Black Americans, instead of making false promises to gain their votes and then proceeding to do nothing when put in power.[xix] His statement that, “If we don’t do something real soon, I think you’ll have to agree that we’re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It’s one or the other in 1964. It isn’t that time is running out — time has run out!”, is especially resonant today as time has run out, and to enact real change an actual resistance must be fostered against the interests of the current oligarchy that is teetering on becoming a full-blown benevolent dictatorship.[xx] One of the main factors that ended US involvement in the Vietnam War was protests at the Capitol and the White House, which pushed Nixon to pull the plug on a catastrophic war. What Malcom X means by using the bullet if the ballot does not work, as it has not, is a mass uprising that could turn violent. Going by the examples of the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street and the thuggish behavior of the FBI towards dissent against Washington, violence is likely inevitable at some scale. In standing up to the ruling class, the heads of the first to speak up will certainly roll, however, it is a necessary sacrifice. For this to occur, the real fight must be acknowledged- it is the polite tyrants versus us, the mere peons, not Republicans versus Democrats or liberals versus conservatives. The opening words of the US constitution read “We the people”, not “We the righteous” or “We the rulers”.
Those in Washington who seek to police the flow of information and to wage a domestic war on terror behave like the US is modelled on Plato’s Republic. The Washington Post is not wrong that ‘democracy dies in darkness’, however, the darkness is not, as they believe, the Trump presidency, the darkness is the shadow of America Incorporated and similar corporate coups in the rest of the West. Instead of pitching for a team this election, I will be watching the ensuing freakshow with a bag of popcorn and an iced coffee.
[i] Dam, TuAnh. “Judge Throws out Lawsuit over 2018 Georgia Governor’s Election.” Axios, October 1, 2022. https://www.axios.com/2022/09/30/stacey-abrams-lawsuit-2018-georgia-governors-election.
[ii] P. Carney, Timothy. “Stacey Abrams Is Still an Election Denier.” Washington Examiner, October 18, 2022. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/stacey-abrams-is-still-an-election-denier.
[iii] Collinson, Stephen. “Donald Trump Refuses to Say Whether He’ll Accept Election Results | CNN Politics.” CNN, October 19, 2016. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/19/politics/presidential-debate-highlights/index.html.
[iv] Bowden, John. “Trump Asked Georgia Secretary of State to ‘Find’ 11.7k Ballots, Recalculate Election Result.” The Hill, January 3, 2021. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/532433-trump-asked-georgia-secretary-of-state-to-find-116k-ballots/.
[v] Klippenstein, Ken, and Lee Fang. “Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation.” The Intercept, October 31, 2022. https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/.
Myers, Fraser. “Andrew Tate: Free Speech Is for Twats Too.” http://www.spiked-online.com, August 22, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/22/andrew-tate-free-speech-is-for-twats-too/.
[vi] Klippenstein, Ken, and Lee Fang. “Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation.”
[vii] Klippenstein, Ken, and Lee Fang. “Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation.”
[viii] Feiner, Lauren. “How Social Media Platforms Plan to Fight Election Day Misinformation.” CNBC, November 7, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/social-media-platforms-prep-for-election-day-misinformation.html.
[ix] Nicas, Jack, and Davey Alba. “Amazon, Apple and Google Cut off Parler, an App That Drew Trump Supporters.” The New York Times, January 10, 2021, sec. Technology. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/apple-google-parler.html.
[x] Myers, Fraser. “Andrew Tate: Free Speech Is for Twats Too.” http://www.spiked-online.com, August 22, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/22/andrew-tate-free-speech-is-for-twats-too/., and Myers, Fraser. “The Unpersoning of Kanye West.” http://www.spiked-online.com, November 1, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/01/the-unpersoning-of-kanye-west/.
[xi] Nossel, Suzanne. “Elon Musk Wants to Unlock Speech on Twitter. Here’s How He Can Advance Free Expression for Good.” Tech Policy Press, April 29, 2022. https://techpolicy.press/elon-musk-wants-to-unlock-speech-on-twitter-heres-how-he-can-advance-free-expression-for-good/.
[xii] Noor, Poppy. “Should We Celebrate Trump’s Twitter Ban? Five Free Speech Experts Weigh In.” The Guardian, January 17, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/trump-twitter-ban-five-free-speech-experts-weigh-in.
[xiii] Nossel, Suzanne. “Elon Musk Wants to Unlock Speech on Twitter. Here’s How He Can Advance Free Expression for Good.”
[xiv] Rindsberg, Ashley. “Taylor Lorenz Is a Crybully.” The Spectator World, August 22, 2022. https://spectatorworld.com/topic/taylor-lorenz-is-a-crybully/., and Italiano, Laura. “Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe’s Twitter Suspended after CNN Exposé.” New York Post, April 15, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/04/15/james-okeefes-twitter-suspended-one-day-after-cnn-expose/.
[xv] Guan, Wang. “Max Blumenthal of Grayzone: Trump Will Go down in History as a ‘Rogue President.’” news.cgtn.com, January 16, 2021. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-16/Max-Blumenthal-Trump-will-go-down-in-history-as-rogue-president–X5PDxrvLDW/index.html.
[xvi] Gross, Bertram M. Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America. 2022. Reprint, New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2016.
[xvii] Gross, Bertram M. Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America p. 145
[xviii] Gomez, Fin, Robert Costa, and Arden Farhi. “Former President Donald Trump Mulling 2024 Announcement in Weeks after Midterms, Sources Say.” http://www.cbsnews.com, November 4, 2022. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-2024-presidential-run-announcement-timing/.
[xix] X, Malcolm. “Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet.” Edchange.org, April 3, 1964. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html.
[xx] X, Malcolm. “Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet.”
Bibliography
Bowden, John. “Trump Asked Georgia Secretary of State to ‘Find’ 11.7k Ballots, Recalculate Election Result.” The Hill, January 3, 2021. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/532433-trump-asked-georgia-secretary-of-state-to-find-116k-ballots/.
Collinson, Stephen. “Donald Trump Refuses to Say Whether He’ll Accept Election Results | CNN Politics.” CNN, October 19, 2016. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/19/politics/presidential-debate-highlights/index.html.
Dam, TuAnh. “Judge Throws out Lawsuit over 2018 Georgia Governor’s Election.” Axios, October 1, 2022. https://www.axios.com/2022/09/30/stacey-abrams-lawsuit-2018-georgia-governors-election.
Feiner, Lauren. “How Social Media Platforms Plan to Fight Election Day Misinformation.” CNBC, November 7, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/social-media-platforms-prep-for-election-day-misinformation.html.
Gomez, Fin, Robert Costa, and Arden Farhi. “Former President Donald Trump Mulling 2024 Announcement in Weeks after Midterms, Sources Say.” http://www.cbsnews.com, November 4, 2022. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-2024-presidential-run-announcement-timing/.
Gross, Bertram M. Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America. 2022. Reprint, New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2016.
Guan, Wang. “Max Blumenthal of Grayzone: Trump Will Go down in History as a ‘Rogue President.’” news.cgtn.com, January 16, 2021. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-16/Max-Blumenthal-Trump-will-go-down-in-history-as-rogue-president–X5PDxrvLDW/index.html.
Italiano, Laura. “Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe’s Twitter Suspended after CNN Exposé.” New York Post, April 15, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/04/15/james-okeefes-twitter-suspended-one-day-after-cnn-expose/.
Klippenstein, Ken, and Lee Fang. “Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation.” The Intercept, October 31, 2022. https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/.
Myers, Fraser. “Andrew Tate: Free Speech Is for Twats Too.” http://www.spiked-online.com, August 22, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/22/andrew-tate-free-speech-is-for-twats-too/.
Myers, Fraser. “Andrew Tate: Free Speech Is for Twats Too.” http://www.spiked-online.com, August 22, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/22/andrew-tate-free-speech-is-for-twats-too/.
Myers, Fraser. “The Unpersoning of Kanye West.” http://www.spiked-online.com, November 1, 2022. https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/01/the-unpersoning-of-kanye-west/.
Nicas, Jack, and Davey Alba. “Amazon, Apple and Google Cut off Parler, an App That Drew Trump Supporters.” The New York Times, January 10, 2021, sec. Technology. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/apple-google-parler.html.
Noor, Poppy. “Should We Celebrate Trump’s Twitter Ban? Five Free Speech Experts Weigh In.” The Guardian, January 17, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/trump-twitter-ban-five-free-speech-experts-weigh-in.
Nossel, Suzanne. “Elon Musk Wants to Unlock Speech on Twitter. Here’s How He Can Advance Free Expression for Good.” Tech Policy Press, April 29, 2022. https://techpolicy.press/elon-musk-wants-to-unlock-speech-on-twitter-heres-how-he-can-advance-free-expression-for-good/.
P. Carney, Timothy. “Stacey Abrams Is Still an Election Denier.” Washington Examiner, October 18, 2022. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/stacey-abrams-is-still-an-election-denier.
Rindsberg, Ashley. “Taylor Lorenz Is a Crybully.” The Spectator World, August 22, 2022. https://spectatorworld.com/topic/taylor-lorenz-is-a-crybully/.
X, Malcolm. “Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet.” Edchange.org, April 3, 1964. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html.
Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes 
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