Expecting Chickens to Roost

Before you pearl clutch on me, violence is unacceptable and I speak no ill of the dead. This piece reflects on what is revealed after Brian Thompson was assassinated (likely) because he was a large corporation CEO.

Thompson’s killer could be seeking retribution for denied care. Or a red-hat wearing Q-anon who thinks UnitedHealhcare is run by lizard people. Who knows today? What the surveillance video does reveal is a killer who appears organized and may stay at-large for some time, which means sustained media attention as it goes unsolved. While corporate media CEOs may have some strong personal motivations to cover the story, the public response is telling. “I wonder why this hasn’t happened sooner” social media comments rival the “thoughts and prayers” posts. What drives this indifference, resignation and hostility? Progressives and Democrats should listen to it.

Angry

Thompson’s assassination is a dye test making visible our country’s fault-lines between the rich and the rest of us. There is an angry Malcom X chickens coming home to roost feeling out in America revealed by this event.

The rich become rich through exploitation and, whatever your color or gender, most of us live on the exploited side of the capitalist ledger. Even ascending up through the middle-class, people are one paycheck away from fiscal collapse. And, simultaneously, the cherished American home buying tradition is harder for the young because corporations are driving prices up by purchasing houses, then colluding to skyrocket rents for housing the young can no longer afford buy.

The macroeconomy recovered under Biden, but the rising tide did not lift all the microeconomic boats. The not-rich see CEOs doing well for unfathomable reasons while they struggle for long-term security and comfort. These class disparities injure people—from the tangible denied resources, such as healthcare and affordable housing, to the hidden psychological stress of daily facing uncertain futures lacking sufficient resources. Voters are angry from their injuries as they see what they or their children do not have that was once obtainable. Machiavelli in The Prince said, “men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.” Seeing the once possible just out of reach, multiplies anger. Many now see the world solely through this anger lens and respond to Thompson’s assassination saying “wonder why this hasn’t happened sooner.”

Trump uses class injury to his advantage, weaponizing its angry gestalt to win elections, all while promoting policies that will just increase the anger. This is the uncomfortable truth the current neo-liberal crowd running the Democratic National Committee could not and will likely never face—class politics. Race and gender politics is less threatening to large donors and future private sector employers of DNC staffers than the Baba Yaga class politics. But the Democratic Party must embrace social class struggle as we did in the New Deal to prevail.

It is the economy, stupid.

Identity of Identities

What can be more of an unifying identity than the fact nearly every American is, in the old IWW parlance, a wage-slave? In any way Democratic leaders or their consultants pigeon-hole people into demographic boxes, the one category most of us fall into is we work for the Man.

This is what Bernie Sanders gets at, but he is a too old school socialist sending soup back in the deli guy. If you do not like Seinfeld, you will tune him out—but his perspective is correct and Democrats need to agree with his position. It is inter-generational structural economic injustice generating today’s anger. And instead of letting this anger roam about free-range so Trump can perversely ride it into office, we need to connect people with their anger, then to the source of their anger and on to a solution for it. A clear, truthful position on class identity will be what most Americans could rally behind and end this Trump-era before it is all too late.

Chickens are coming home

For myself, I do believe chickens are coming home to roost. The rich, striving to be richer, commit violence daily against the rest to secure wealth and power. Over generations, their pursuits built a tremendous pressure from unresolved conflicts and continuing injustices that now force a dangerous anger up onto the political surface. An anger created by the rich now threatens to engulf us all.

This anger made Trump possible and his pending return to office is a threat to democratic governance on on scale not seen since Hitler became Chancellor. First-term Trump was making it up as he went. Now he has experience, scheming henchmen and a plan.

The choice now is Fascism or a New Deal. There is no way to put this fight off to another day. The day is today. The Democratic Party, if it hopes to save the country once again, must respond to our anger for what it truly is and address what really matters everyday to most Americans—the injuries of class. Otherwise, our experiment in democracy may well fail in our lifetime.

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