The Revolutionary Lesson to Be Learned from the Victory of Mr. Trump

There’s of course a quite significant bit of edification to be derived from the outcome of the recent presidential election, however many seem to be learning precisely the wrong lesson, i.e. that the racism, Islamophobia, and sexism of Trump voters should be treated with kid gloves. The real moral of the story, rather, is simply that the American working class direly needs to be conscientized, to have its consciousness educated and enlightened about the basic socioeconomic facts of life under capitalism, i.e. that what’s fundamentally causing its immiseration is a system geared for the enrichment and empowerment of economic elites at the expense of workingpeople; that it’s the working class vs. the capitalist ruling class, not scapegoats such as immigrants, liberals, and Muslims; and that the working class certainly can’t look toward an arch capitalist fat cat such as The Donald to be its advocate and savior, that it must begin to rise up and tear down the unjust capitalist system and status quo that Mr. Trump quite obviously has a vested interest in, represents, and as president will function to uphold.

But, quite predictably, the corporate-owned American “news” media is doing its part to steer the wage-earning masses away from such a revolutionary anti-capitalist epiphany by immediately (one could hear it beginning forthwith on election night) formulating a narrative according to which the blame for Mr. Trump’s victory belongs to progressives because they failed to cozy up to the electorate’s Archie Bunkers, because they were allegedly guilty of being “condescending” and contemptuous toward rather than holding their noses and catering to AWMs. In short, this narrative fails to fault working-class Trump voters for the false and bigoted consciousness that led them to self-defeatingly cast their ballots for a demagogic member of the capitalist pigocracy and instead chides the left for being too progressive and enlightened for its own good.

The actual and catastrophic failure of the left of course lies not in its advanced ideas, not in its enlightened advocacy of tolerance and inclusiveness, social compassion and justice, or other humanistic and socialist tendencies, but rather in its failure to do an adequate job of putting its conscientized and decent viewpoint up against the ideology so effectively promulgated by the conservative movement. That is, there’s been a war going on for the minds of Americans, and conservatives have been doing a far more diligent and able job of fighting it than the left.

Of course it’s not simply that the left has made a lackluster effort to combat conservatism, conservatives have the advantage, as promoting their viewpoint doesn’t necessitate educating and changing the consciousness of the ignorant, rather it plays quite well to the unsophistication, bigotry, fear, and unkindness of ignorant mentalities. The task for progressives, on the other hand, fundamentally involves transforming consciousness and fostering more intelligent, accepting, and compassionate attitudes in order to get the masses on board with profoundly transfiguring socioeconomic structures, which is indeed a seriously tougher row to hoe.

Well, the blame-the-left narrative and the spare-the-Trump-voter-any-criticism political correctness that instantly became in-vogue with the talking heads on news shows after the election of Mr. Trump fails to get us wise to any of this, it instead validates the Trump voter and disparages the evolvedness of leftists. Which points up the other advantage that conservatives have, the corporate-owned media. With being able to more easily appeal to the lowest common denominator and the aid of the mass media going for it of course the conservative movement has outstripped the left at inducting members of the working class into its ranks. And of course this exploitable pre-existing conservative base of support just waiting for a demagogue to pander to it is what actually enabled Mr. Trump to defeat his Democratic opponent and win the White House. So no, the gist of what the election teaches us is not that progressivism is too abstruse, not that its proponents need to hide their light under a bushel and cynically sell themselves to benighted mentalities to win elections, but rather that they urgently need to do quite the opposite, to make more of an effort to share their light, to battle harder and better to bring the working-class dupes of the conservative movement out of the dark and to illuminate for them a real path to working-class empowerment so that they no longer so easily fall prey to faux populists. Well, my fellow leftists, if this isn’t our takeaway from the election of Mr. Trump, if we buy into the COM’s (corporate-owned media) interpretation, internalize blame, subscribe to the idea that it’s a mistake to double down on promoting social and humanistic enlightenment, and try to work with rather than struggle against bigoted mentalities; in short, if we “pragmatically” forsake our values to win elections, shame on us and heaven help our society, for a society without an authentic left fighting the good fight for truth, justice, and the abolition of capitalism, is headed straight for the dustbin of history.

 

Something occurred with the site that prevented the inclusion of some text when I first posted the OP, here's the corrected and complete version

There’s of course a quite significant bit of edification to be derived from the outcome of the recent presidential election, however many seem to be learning precisely the wrong lesson, i.e. that the racism, Islamophobia, and sexism of Trump voters should be treated with kid gloves. The real moral of the tragic story of the rise to political power of Donald Trump, rather, is simply that the American working class direly needs to be conscientized, to have its consciousness educated and enlightened about the basic socioeconomic facts of life under capitalism, i.e. that what’s fundamentally causing its immiseration is a system geared for the enrichment and empowerment of economic elites at the expense of workingpeople; that it’s the working class vs. the capitalist ruling class, not scapegoats such as immigrants, liberals, and Muslims; and that the working class certainly can’t look toward an arch capitalist fat cat such as The Donald to be its advocate and savior, that it must finally and courageously begin to rise up and tear down the unjust capitalist system and status quo that Mr. Trump quite obviously has a vested interest in, represents, and as president will function to uphold.

But, quite predictably, the corporate-owned American “news” media is doing its part to steer the wage-earning masses away from such a revolutionary anti-capitalist epiphany by immediately (one could hear it beginning forthwith on election night) formulating a narrative according to which the blame for Mr. Trump’s victory belongs to progressives because they failed to cozy up to the electorate’s Archie Bunkers, because they were allegedly guilty of being “condescending” and contemptuous toward rather than holding their noses and catering to AWMs. In short, this narrative fails to fault working-class Trump voters for the false and bigoted consciousness that led them to self-defeatingly cast their ballots for a demagogic member of the capitalist pigocracy and instead chides the left for being too progressive and enlightened for its own good.

The actual and catastrophic failure of the left of course lies not in its advanced ideas, not in its enlightened advocacy of tolerance and inclusiveness, social compassion and justice, or other humanistic and socialist tendencies, but rather in its failure to do an adequate job of putting its conscientized and decent viewpoint up against the ideology so effectively promulgated by the conservative movement. That is, there’s been a war going on for the minds of Americans, and conservatives have been doing a far more diligent and able job of fighting it than the left.

Of course it’s not simply that the left has made a lackluster effort to combat conservatism, conservatives have the advantage, as promoting their viewpoint doesn’t necessitate educating and changing the consciousness of the ignorant, rather it plays quite well to the unsophistication, bigotry, fear, and unkindness of ignorant mentalities. The task for progressives, on the other hand, fundamentally involves transforming consciousness and fostering more intelligent, accepting, and compassionate attitudes in order to get the masses on board with profoundly transfiguring socioeconomic structures, which is indeed a seriously tougher row to hoe.

Well, the blame-the-left narrative and the spare-the-Trump-voter-any-criticism political correctness that instantly became in-vogue with the talking heads on news shows after the election of Mr. Trump fails to get us wise to any of this, it instead validates the Trump voter and disparages the evolvedness of leftists. Which points up the other advantage that conservatives have, the corporate-owned media of course. With being able to more easily appeal to the lowest common denominator and the aid of the mass media going for it of course the conservative movement has outstripped the left at inducting members of the working class into its ranks. And of course this exploitable pre-existing conservative base of support just waiting for a demagogue to pander to it is what actually enabled Mr. Trump to defeat his Democratic opponent and win the White House. So no, the gist of what the election teaches us is not that progressivism is too abstruse, not that its proponents need to hide their light under a bushel and cynically sell themselves to benighted mentalities to win elections, but rather that they urgently need to do quite the opposite, to make more of an effort to share their light, to battle harder and better to bring the working-class dupes of the conservative movement out of the dark and to illuminate for them a real path to working-class empowerment so that they no longer so easily fall prey to faux populists. Well, my fellow leftists, if this isn’t our takeaway from the election of Mr. Trump, if we buy into the COM’s (corporate-owned media) interpretation, internalize blame, subscribe to the idea that it’s a mistake to double down on promoting social and humanistic enlightenment, and try to work with rather than struggle against bigoted mentalities; in short, if we “pragmatically” forsake our values to win elections, shame on us and heaven help our society, for a society without an authentic left fighting the good fight for truth, justice, and the abolition of capitalism, is headed straight for the dustbin of history.

 

In before the closure. There is no link and no O.P. commentary on that wall of text. So . . . fail. That aside, the Left lost. The Left with their mania for Cultural Marxism in the form of fascist style Political Correctness and the Left with their nearly pandemic control of the nation's media outlets. The Left . . . lost anyway. The nation finally woke up in time and as a consequence, the Left . . . lost.

 

Please clarify.

 

And why would the thread be closed? Merely because it's critical of Trump voters? Are you implying that the moderators are biased?

 

Awesome. Sounds like something from a Southpark script, but it's even beyond their level. I shall nominate you to the Guinness book of world records for dumping the largest load of steaming bovine excrement ever contained in one post.

 

Did somebody say revolution?...

"Revolution"
by the Beatles

 

Trump won the presidency against a full bore both barrels attack from the media, the DNC party and his own party. It was a historical election that proves that it is not the Trump voters that need to be "conscientized" its the non trump voters.

 

The Opinion section does not have to have a link or an additional opinion section because it us in the Opinion Section.

The piece posted by Charles the lib is an intellectual piece which we can disagree with and I have many areas of disagreement especially with it's small s "socialist" position.

You either chose not to respond intellectually or your mental wiring has a dirge of desire of intellectual capacity to respond in like I don't know so you responded with knee jerk phrases which can best be describes as babbling blurbs of bumper sticker banter.

if course that is my opinion of your opinion which fits into the spirit of the Opinion section.

 

The media created Trump right from the moment of the first inch of downward motion of that escalator. There was no attack by the media against the Trumpeizda. What the media did was to atemptvtp finally report the truth about the Frankenstein monster they created but it was too little too late.


The POS Trump turned out to be the ultimate politician in that he lied better , faster, and more convincingly than those he attacked as politicians. The naive and ignorant fools who supported him marched to the voting booths like lambs to slaughter in a deafening silence of constipated stupidity.

 

Translation = You are all Deplorable, and unredeemable! Whaaah!

 

Hillary wont he popular vote. In other words, everything you just said is wrong. Voters embraced Hillary's ideals, but the electoral college worked against her.

 

So the lesson here is that the white working man should be conscientized and not demonized.

So when Obama called them "bitter clingers" and Hillary called them "deplorables" and "irredeemable" that was a tactical mistake.

How are you going to undo the damage that has been done by this mistaken tactic so that they pay attention to you and your brilliant light?

 

Put simply, You want to brainwash the masses to believe in your marxist ideology.

The reason your ideology is losing is it does not align with human nature. When people wake up to what marxism means to them personally it will lose every time.

 

Certainly the average citizen of Venezuela now bitterly regrets ever having taken their devastated nation far, hard Left.

 

Thanks for the lovely compliment.

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In short, you subscribe to the conventional narrative being promoted by the corporate-owned media. Oh well.

 

Excellent points.

 

Yet another condescending post from a liberal pseudo-intellectual.

 

In my view no one is irredeemable, however being insufficiently endowed with conscientization and critical thinking skills, and somewhat hispanophobic, Islamophobic, sexism-tolerant, and all-around bigoted and consequently able to see one's way clear to voting for the likes of Mr. Trump is indeed deeply deplorable.

 

Unable to discuss actual facts? Personal judgements and opinions all ya gots?

 

I stopped at there was no attack against trump. I dont have time for foolish posts or liars.

 

Your right wing capitalist viewpoint is mere failing wishes and BS. The future belongs to Marxism and the people. Your private corporations and rich 1% will one day be relegated to the dustbin of history.

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I see you know zero about the actual history of the Venezuelan struggle for socialism. Your opinions show it. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

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IOW you aren't up to the challenge of reading and discussing/refuting it. We knew that.

 

Characterizing criticism of Trump voters as "condescending" is precisely the new political correctness that we're being programmed with. At any rate, it's the stock dismissive response of conservatives and other Trump supporters, and indicates their disinclination to engage in critical thinking about the attitudes and mentality underlying their politics. Also, the disparaging characterization of me as a "pseudointellectual" is quite telling, it highlights the fact that the typical conservative is at least a bit of an anti-intellectual, i.e. is defensive about his/her lack of intellectual prowess and consequently prone to going on the offensive with reverse snobbery. Yes, the reverse snobbery of Joe Sixpack was indeed a significant element of the "Trump phenomenon", and precisely the sort of foible that the new political correctness would have us refrain from focusing critical attention on. Well, pardon me for being politically incorrect.

 

In short...no one cares what leftists think anymore.

 

Well, (for nonreaders here it is in a single paragraph) one lesson of Mr. Trump’s victory is quite elementary, and it’s not that the left is too far left and needs to tone it down, but rather that when there’s no authentic and formidable left to oppose the conservative movement matters don’t go at all well for our society. And, again quite simply, when there’s no authentic pro-working class left then bogus populist demagogues who dishonestly advertise themselves as champions of the working class opportunistically step in to fill the void, with disastrous consequences, which we’ll soon enough be living through. One can only hope that we’ll finally learn from our mistakes, before they cause our undoing.