I just spent 2 1/2 months in the cradle of American elitism and I have some takes.
First Take: “America” is not long for this world and I welcome our collective demise. “We” are a federation held together by myths of slaveholder apotheosis and a constitution that acts more like a suicide pact in the face of climate change. The position of global hegemon insulates from the nagging fear that what is here today may not be tomorrow, but that doesn’t change anything. The Soviets had a term for this. Look up the Adam Curtis documentary; I’m not explaining it right now. The collapse can still come, regardless the education-by-empire that the inhabitants of the imperial core possess. And I’ll be goddamned if the experience of door knocking isn’t one of the surest fire ways to peek into the political id bred by imperial education. You know what we learned from the door? The boomers will burn us for fossil fuel before they change their lifestyles. And millennials? We’re too broken down to even vote. And it’s so fuckin easy to vote. So, yeah, apathy plus catastrophe minus a generation that ever had its hands on the levers of power before the prior generation relinquished control equals a collapse that could potentially end this union. My prediction for the final triggering moment is water shortages in the American West. Then we’ll splinter and balkanize and race to seize the nukes in WY, SD, and ND. RIP America. Good riddance.
Second Take: radicalism will not come from the Blue States of our rich American coasts. The comfortable, smug liberals who made up my candidate’s base convinced me. Oh boy, did they convince me. They’re too fat and happy at the apogee of American empire. They have no incentive to change–barring PRESIDENT CHEETO occupying the thing they think was portrayed by The West Wing but was in reality created: the honorable presidency. I’m not going to do my pet history lesson again–the one where I show that American labor struggle was 99% between Chicago and Reno–but the liberal (not left) assumption that CA, MA, and NY would be able to do anything is perhaps partially correct. They’ll ban plastic bags and straws. They’ll create renewable energy standards. They’ll even start to consider pricing carbon! They’ll also vote down pro-union ballot measures, vote down pro-worker ballot measures, vote down pro-tenant ballot measures, and vote for Rockefeller Republicans who will maintain the status quo (and marginal tax rates). I used to think it was a problem of the machine politics of those states. Now I know better. MA Dems LOVE Charlie Baker. NYS vote overwhelmingly for Cuomo. CA didn’t pitch Feinstein. These people like what they’re getting. So fuck ’em. The elevator pitch version of my history lesson is this: successful American radicalism used to come from flyover country, and goddamn we’re gonna have to get back to that.
Third Take: running as an unabashed progressive is always, always better than running scared. I’m not gonna elaborate on this one. It’s self-evident. Authenticity is key. Medium, message, and all that shit.