A House on Fire

I was talking with a friend on the phone and we were laughing about the state of American politics. Laughing, in one of those perverse ways because the effects of US politics are far reaching and devastating. Because its death drive is only matched by its self importance.

But we were laughing not because of the politics, not because the house is on fire, but because any semblance of a remedy, as I put it, the extinguisher was let go in a restructuring campaign meant to enact higher market flexibility and allow for greater capital reinvestment. The house is on fire and the extinguisher is nowhere to be found. The house is on fire and we have no way of putting it out. And we have done it to ourselves. (The we is doing a lot in that sentence, I know).

I was thinking that I don’t write too much about politics per se on this space, but perhaps everything I write has a bit of a political edge, a kind of underlying political ethos that makes its way through. But I wanted to write a little bit about some of the recent US political clusterfuck. The absolute wildness of this political landscape, just for shits and giggles.

Of course, my political bubble is influenced by the algorithm (the almighty algorithm), which allows or hides from view those posts on social media that coincide with my likes or dislikes. Of course, the political is a big thing, one that does not limit itself to the US and its elections.

But I was thinking about how utterly wild it is that within a week Trump had survived an assassination attempt, named the malevolent grifter JD Vance as his running mate, Biden had dropped out of the race, and Kamala Harris had been nominated (all but officially) as the Democratic Party nominee, and who the fuck could have predicted this? Oh and then, fucking Netanyahu actually came to the US Congress and delivered an astoundingly bellicose, obfuscating address on the moral virtues of civilization vs. barbarism like it was the 19th century and he was a fucking Argentine colonizer (if the shoe fits). Who the fuck could have imagined that now, we have in this country a felonious hack in a presidential race against a multi-culti cop, and a man presiding over the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people would be welcomed into Congress.

I’m just sitting here shaking my head. But I shouldn’t be. Because this is America.

But the reactions I’ve seen around the Interwebs have been curious. A few notes:

1. The “coconut” memes are getting out of hand. But the meme-ification of the discourse is reflective of the hyperreality of our times. Which is to say, we live in a world in which the original referent has so little holding power, so little body, that the memes taking on a life of their own is actually the most interesting and effective way of reaching people. We live in a world in which the original referent is constantly transmuted into a reflection of our own disbelief in the reality of the original.
2. JD Vance is a transphobic hack now, but maybe wasn’t always? Yes, he was, but thrusting him into the national spotlight has led to a scouring of his previous statements, positions, friendships, and dealings. And of course, he’s a grifter a hack and a dangerous man, but I get the sense, too, that he’s such an opportunist that he is willing to become whoever Trump wants him to be, or, really whoever the bloodthirsty America that Trump has whetted and cultivated, wants him to be. And this is perhaps not new, but also, perhaps, indicative of the mutability of political positions in the present—it doesn’t really matter what one said or did in the past because one can always become an avatar of oneself, a new version apt for whatever racist, transphobic, xenophobic discourse needs propping up to win an election.
3. The bombs, the bombs, the bombs. The genocide of Palestine continues, and every day is an apocalypse. Every day is a world shattering spectacle of greed and violence and brutality. The genocide continues, and the death toll rises, and the politicians crack their knuckles and wring their hands, and cannot bring themselves to stop arming Israel, or they cannot stand up to Netanyahu, or they cannot find the spine to demand an end to this devastation. Instead, they applaud him.

If I were to put some of these threads together, perhaps the lesson has to do with the spectacular and the real—perhaps I’m on a Debord kick recently—or maybe I’m thinking of my last post, too, and the spectacle of violence. But maybe the threads I’m pulling at have to do with the way the real and the hyperreal (or the real and the virtual) are no longer so distinct, no longer separate spheres, but instead part of an ongoing echo, a mutually reinforcing echo chamber in which the underlying structures of colonialism and racism are shielded by the proliferation of images that themselves spawn further images, in a chain of multiplying resonance that is not the thing that was said, or the thing that was meant, but a spiraling network of incandescent violence. A thing that is both what sustains this violence, and what makes it more difficult to discern how we got here in the first place.

IDK, I’m spitballing. But fuck. Shit has been wild out there.

Lemme know what you’ve been thinking about all this?