12 Comments
Sep 25Liked by Paul Street

Thanks, Paul, this is such an important contribution to understanding a phenomenon that we've witnessed "up close and personal" here in Chicago but is not just "local." Perhaps this essay can help break some decent people out of their stubborn "identity politics" perspective that assigns ideological and political views according to "race," gender and national origin. One addition I'd suggest, that's maybe 8.5 (between your points 8 and 9), and that's the attraction to some Black men of Trump's overt, violent misogyny, similar to your point that disparaging Trump as a felon can have the opposite impact as intended on some people. So too can his disgusting male chauvinism attract some men (and not only Black men, not by a long shot).

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Sep 25Liked by Paul Street

This is an intense lesson to share. Thanks for it, Paul.

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Sep 25Liked by Paul Street

See also Malcolm X speech excerpt "Malcolm X: The House Negro and the Field Negro (1963)." It applies not just to Black people, but women who support Trump, poor people, etc.

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It's six of one, half (a) dozen of the other” is how most Americans are dealing.

Moi

People

Planet

Peace

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For some reason you breeze by and dismiss the disadvantaged Americans whose communities have been inundated with cheap , mass imported/ immigrated and tax subsidized labor ( that’s celebrated by the owner and managerial classes as good for the economy) Faced by increased demand for housing and elevated rents is it any wonder the working class is angry about being forgotten, neglected and replaced by the profit mongers who pretend that Black Lives Matter etc. Then have the gall to suggest they are just being self-centered and racist in their objections. It’s even worse when communist thinkers pile on them too.

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author

No denial of the broader economic exploitation of the US working class at all;...an effort at explanation and a case against divide and rule and for solidarity against the capitalist-imperialist system at the taproot of the all this intolerable shit.

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The point isn't that the white working class has no grounds for complaint, but is it immigrants who are driving down wages and raising rents? Or aren't those direct outcomes of the workings of the relentless drive for profit and domination over competition, i.e. capitalism imperialism? Paul breaks down some of the many ways people are misled to blame anyone and anything other than the system that is the source of this misery. And struggling with people to dig deeper and understand that and the solution - revolution - is not "piling on them" but a mark of respect for their ability to rise up and free themselves as part of freeing all of humanity.

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Could very well be Trump is lesser of two evils for people of color as well as the US . Should Harris win despite the fake lip service, revolutionary speech and thought are likely to be severely curtailed as well civil liberties in general. We are more likely to move in the direction of devastating war, destruction and economic collapse due to the Democratic neoconservative efforts to maintain hegemony and Empire.

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Why even get into who is the Lof2E? Fascist Trump, No, Killer Kopmala No, the whole damn system has to go!

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PS. How many blacks/browns imprisoned by Democrat prosecutors or Democrat judges....ask Harris that?

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author

The Black population is disproportionately urban and urban areas are blue/Dem so obviously the lion's share of arrests and convictions take place under Dem authority. Hardly means the Republifascsts aren't even harder "law and order," white supremacist, and mass incarcerationist. Red states are disproportionately rural and so have less total and Black prisoners but their rates of racially disparate incarceration are horrific.

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