America has already hit the iceberg. It’s going down

Democrats are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while Texans freeze to death. This is precisely how empires collapse. Debating arcane shit like the filibuster while people are literally exposed to the elements.

America needs generational change and they’re getting a bunch of bullshit. Instead of making black lives matter, they get Black Lives Matters PLAZA. Instead of relief from debt peonage, they get Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. Instead of an end to endless war, they get trans soldiers. It’s a fucking joke.

In lieu of different, Americans are getting diverse. A black arms dealer in the Defense (Offense) Department. A corrupt woman in the Treasury. Meanwhile many of the same sabotaging Trump bastards are still in their posts, like DeJoy at the Post Office. What’s the fucking point?

FDR gave America the New Deal. Joe Biden is playing ‘Let’s Make A Deal’. A $2,000 cheque becomes $1,400. $50,000 student debt relief becomes $10,000. Instead of a bold first term, Americans are getting terms and conditions apply. It’s not going to work.

None of this is enough to pull out of collapse. Democrats are just changing speed, not the destination. It’s like driving off a cliff and saying ‘what if we drive off the cliff… but slower?’ America’s fuckedness is the work of generations, and Democrats are still playing the Republican game. Obamacare is a Republican idea, not actual public healthcare. Biden is still deporting people and holding children in cages, just taking less joy in it. For over 40 years Republicans have been fucking America over. The Democrats just fuck you gently.

Look around. Incremental changes are not going to do. America faces fundamental problems that can only be solved by fundamental change. People say that Texas looks like the third world now, but bitch, no. As Gathara says,

Third world countries shudder at the comparison to the US. Inability to carry out presidential elections, to count votes, hold presidents to account, feed its people, tackle disease, provide power and water to citizens — these are the characteristics of a first world shithole.

In the third world, we are not this fucked up at all. We have a basic sense of pain and will make changes when we’re dying. Americans, however, think they’re exceptional, keep doing the same shit, and die. America has already lost more people than in World War II and they’ve stopped noticing. They’ll pass the death toll of the Civil War with barely a blink. This is not a country on the brink. America has already gone over the side. You don’t get it. You’re in free fall.

Americans can’t understand this because it doesn’t fit their belief system, but you are a failed state. America failed to defeat fascism, acquitting it instead. America failed to stop COVID-19, just ‘living with’ the dead. America failed to avoid poverty, lining cars up for bread. You can say that Biden is better on these points and he absolutely is, but that’s not enough. You can’t just be better at failing. You have to succeed.

Diversifying, dignifying, delegating — this is all Biden does, and it’s all good. It is also wholly inadequate. Biden faces two great challenges and he is meeting neither.

1. Power

Biden must first consolidate the sort of power that FDR. That means adding millions of people to the voter rolls by ‘legalizing’ the undocumented now. That means adding Puerto Rico and DC as states, solidifying the Senate. It means expanding the court. This is just the basic tool he needs to fix anything. He needs power. Instead Democrats are hung up on the fucking filibuster.

2. Using It

Biden must second use that power to deliver real relief to the American people. People are literally hungry, sick, and dying. Biden has to fix that or the country will eventually go full fascist. That means not haggling over cheques but just signing them. That means a Green New Deal. That means steamrollering opponents and doing the hard shit to make this century fundamentally different than the last, not just averaging out the dumb ideas of the day.

And… No

Needless to say, he’s doing none of this. So in the end, he’s doing nothing. America has better Cabinet going down the same path. It has a majority of Congress doing fuck all. They have all the levers of power but are afraid to take them, and so the ship of state, rent on multiple icebergs, sinks with catastrophic force down. People are literally in the water now, freezing to death. And to follow the Titanic metaphor, it’s already too late.

This is precisely how empires collapse. They make marginal changes because they can’t make big changes. You can’t turn such a big ship around. America needs to go back in time and build functional social services. But it’s too late. They need to go back and claw back money and power from their elites. But it’s too late.

In many ways rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic was sensible because there was nothing else you could do. The thing had already hit the iceberg. It was already going down. The original sin was not believing in icebergs, just as Americans did not believe in COVID-19, coups, and collapse until it was all too late. But they can sink your ship. You are, in fact, sinking. So rearrange the deck chairs I guess. Strike up the band. As Sublime told me,

We’re only gonna die from our own arrogance
That’s why we might as well take our time

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