Y'know, generally, when the mobbed-up US Supreme Court justice resigns, that's a good thing.
Political white supremacy in the Anglosphere presently rests on white women preferring to categorize themselves as white, rather than as women. There's a demographic trend towards identifying as women rather than as white. Going full-blown women-cattle-and-slaves while there's still a demographic window is not something that represents a position of strength. (Nor is it something which acts to slow that demographic slide, AND it risks a major shift in the consensus of the matrons.)
The US hegemonic position arose from the Second World War combined with economic supremacy. (Half the planetary GDP, because the rest of the planet had been burned down, fought over, and economically exhausted by war.) That's gone; Trump's going to have plenty of time to wreck something that was getting mighty tottery.[1]
The US Right is trying to recreate the Confederacy (nigh-certainly with overt slavery, no freedom of speech, and no civil rights including votes for women); this is driven by a great screaming howling whimpering emotional need rather than a careful economic analysis. It has already done a great deal of damage -- straight up ethnic cleansing does great harm -- but the Confederacy was a low-information, low-control, and low-capability state. It can't actually do much that requires widespread organization. As a response to climate change, it is certain to fail.
The international-conspiracy aspects of the rise of fascism are the same desperate need to avoid negative change that usually drives fascism; "I am not getting the status I believe I deserve and I am resorting to violence until I get it". If you're the leader of a petro-state, you desperately need to avoid change. Only you can't. And most of them can't retire, either.
Sometimes a former empire sits there and gnaws on its metaphorical toes for centuries, but that's not really an option this time. The time of angry weather isn't going to allow a slow fade from former glories.
Most of these people are trying desperately to avoid having to admit they were wrong before they die. They're not good people, they don't merit much sympathy, they're doing enormous harm, but fundamentally they're in the position of both trying to ignore reality and outstubborn their heirs. It's not going to work. The tactical problem is not to limit the damage as to make it not work as soon as possible.
[1] want some moral authority again? pauperize an awful lot of republicans and get right out in front on decarbonization. That'll work fine, and it's pretty obvious that will work fine.
29 June 2018
Perspective is everything
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