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Published by Caitlin Johnstone
It looks like a safe bet that Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th after successfully campaigning on returning the murderous and oppressive Orwellian US empire back to its pre-Trump "normal".
The problem with this, apart from the obvious fact that it was an embarrassingly close victory only made possible by the Covid outbreak, is that returning to the pre-Trump "normal" is returning to the exact positions which created Trump. It's like using a time machine to prevent a train wreck, but only going back to one millisecond before the train wreck occurred.
It is clear that Trump's election was the result of the easily exploited dissatisfaction caused by years of neoliberal austerity at home and neoconservative bloodshed abroad which Obama forcefully expanded and facilitated throughout two terms as president. Trump voters famously defended opting for the reality TV star over the anointed establishment favorite Hillary Clinton as a middle finger to the Beltway orthodoxy which did nothing but enrich the "swamp" Trump pretended to oppose on the campaign trail while ordinary Americans suffered.
And from all appearances it looks like Biden is going to be worse.
Unlike Obama, Biden did not campaign on hope and change, he campaigned on opposing the socialist inclinations of Sanders progressives and an aggressive foreign policy of planetary domination. He assured rich donors that nothing will fundamentally change under his presidency and his transition team is full of corporate sociopaths, war pigs and propagandists. Biden has been a corporatist warmongering authoritarian throughout his entire career, and as his mental capacity continues to deteriorate he will function as nothing more than an empty vessel for his establishment handlers to advance their most pernicious agendas through. The empire has not gotten less desperate since Obama was in office, it has gotten more desperate.
If I prove right about this, the Biden administration will generate backlash just like that which arose in response to the Obama administration, and that backlash will be more severe than its previous iteration. This is absolutely guaranteed. You can only oppress, neglect and enrage a population so much before the discontent begins to grow.
There is absolutely nothing American leftists can do to prevent this backlash from coming. They will have absolutely no say in this administration's policies or behavior; BidenCorp has no reason to listen to them, has made no pretense of having any interest in listening to them, and is even freezing Sanders and Warren out of cabinet roles already.
All US leftists will have any control over is whether this backlash will break to the left, or if it will break to the far right.
Contrary to what many mainstream liberals seem to have been imagining, American racism and far right extremism did not begin with Trump, and will not end with Trump. The white supremacists, xenophobes, ethnonationalists, QAnon cultists and right wing militias are not going anywhere after Biden takes office, and the backlash against his administration and its worst impulses will be inflamed and co-opted by mainstream Republican narrative managers. This will set the stage for something a lot uglier than Trump down the road if it's successful.
What the left can do is get ahead of the game. Take control of the anti-Biden, anti-establishment pushback by leading the charge-sooner, more aggressively, and more compellingly than the far right does. Use the awfulness of the Biden administration to ignite a true leftward zeitgeist in mainstream America that is so strong it eclipses the inevitable rightist backlash in energy and appeal.
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