Untenable Order

I just saw a quote from a Democratic lawmaker Hakeem Jeffries, who is among the many offering the "we're going to look forward, not backward" line when questions of investigations into the Trump administration are asked.

Kalief Browder spent three years in one of the countries most notoriously brutal jails, beginning at 16 years old. Two of those were spent in solitary because he fought back when attacked by other inmates. When it came time for the trial, which was required because Kalief refused to plead guilty after three years, the DA had to drop the charges, because they had no evidence to go to trial with. Kalief was accused of stealing a backpack. Two years later, because of the trauma of the entire ordeal, Kalief died by suicide. 

I still believe that combined with people's quality of life deteriorating as capitalism fails, the failure to prosecute anyone from the financial institutions that caused the crash in 2007 is one of the central reasons we're seeing such a loss in confidence in government and democracy. It was a traumatic experience for tens of millions of people, and the evidence of a number of different kinds of fraud was revealed, but no one was held accountable. 

I understand the dangers present in the perception of "investigating political opponents," but I don't think the danger presented by continuing to add evidence to the sense of betrayal people feel in the reality that we have not just two, but many different standards of justice depending on one's class, race, gender and mental health status is being accurately assessed, at all. The lack of consideration this is given, when "consent of the governed" is as important to the concept of democracy as "one person one vote" is dangerous to the nation's stability. The governed can not be the only one's held accountable for wrongdoing or for undermining the well being of the nation or community. It's certainly true they governed aren't given anywhere near the level of consideration about what the appearance of their prosecutions say. We've done very little to change the reality which is Kalief Browder's story. 

This is also representative of the problem of having a two party system, which is more dedicated to order than it is to a genuine peace. One party is demonstrating its outright antagonism of the concept of democracy or even a democratic republic. Whether or not there are investigations isn't going to change their attitude toward their opposition as the thing standing in the way of establishing a hegemony of power. The perception of lack of accountability based on class threatens to undermine loyalty to the order the Democrats are attempting to preserve in the first place.

As people continue to lose faith in the idea that power and wealth can be held accountable, the likelihood of their recruitment to more and more radical solutions to this problem grows exponentially.

Meritocracy is so fundamentally centered in the American concept of self (collectively and individually), the far right is able to manipulate the clarity with which the divergence in the application of "accountability" is evident, with claims about shadowy ethnic and racial conspiracies. "The Jews are behind it all," "Black people just don't want to work to succeed, so they want to take what we have," and on and on. To believe class (which despite some unfortunate confusion and wilful ignorance in sections of even the left is inextricably connected to race, but not in a way which addressing class issues will address the problems of systemic racism) is the driving factor in this divergence and the thing responsible for the deterioration in their quality of life, means to overhaul their entire sense of national and individual identity.

The center right, which by any rational assessment is the majority of Democratic leadership, has to essentially act as if there is no divergence in the application of law, justice or accountability, because it would mean significant changes to the order they are desperately trying to protect.

What Democratic Party leadership seems to be unwilling to acknowledge is the degree to which the order they are attempting to preserve is untenable, and becoming more precarious at an increasing rate. Nothing is as sure to see the failure of the United States to continue to be a nation than attempting to preserve the order we have and have had. That order is being assailed from all sides because of its failure to meet the needs of the majority, and probably as much because of its inability to even recognize it hasn't changed the myths it offers in response. The fascists are at least offering a different interpretation of the old myths. The refusal to acknowledge this is the epitome of the whole "fiddling while Rome burns" idea.

This is an untenable situation, and if some entity with institutional power doesn't come to recognize it and begin to address it in a pretty straightforward way, offering something more than symbolic relief to the majority, and accountability to the wealthy and powerful, this is all going to come to a crashing, deadly denouement for the history of the United States. 

Completely aside from any of my personal feelings about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party... We are in need of some variety of leadership which is going to recognize the current state of affairs, the current order is untenable. Without it, we have to begin to start genuinely asking ourselves exactly what leadership is for because we have been in need of it related to a number of issues, and what we have passed off as leadership has consistently failed to meet the responsibility of recognizing and addressing those issues, the combination of which has put us here today.