I DON'T READ DIGBY'S HULLABALLOO nearly as often as I use to so it wasn't until after I listened to Keith Olbermann this morning, listening to his disquiet about the assassination of the insurance gangster in NYC near where he lives. Listening to him on the possibility that it was a murder committed in revenge for the many deaths that that filthy, gangster industry commits every day and get away with it, I made the comment:
Maybe when the legal system won't imprison the insurance mass murderers ad hoc justice will come into play. With all the dangers of that our legal system is as dangerous.
After that I read Tom Sullivan at Hullaballoo and his horror at the hooded jacket the presumed shooter wore becoming a viral sales item online and his disquiet at the assassin being considered a hero to those victimized and exploited by the stinking, criminal health-insurance racket even under the ACA - which I wouldn't bet on surviving. This passage is getting sort of close to something I've been thinking of writing on the subject of populism as an extremely dangerous sword to yield.
The celebration of a health insurance company CEO’s murder, even if a fringe phenomenon, lifts the lid on a submerged mood in the country that Hanauer saw ten years ago. It’s not unrelated to the racial and xenophobic animus that peeked out from under the sheets with the T-party after the election of Barack Obama. Donald Trump identified that mood and exploited it to get himself elected in 2016. Then after losing reelection in 2020 he threw accelerant onto it and loosed a MAGA mob against the seat of government in Washington, D.C. I’m still traumatized by that.
I’m as big a critic of the modern corporation as anyone. We make Douglas Adams-inspired jokes about corporate bozos being “the first against the wall when the revolution comes.” But calling forth a real revolution with guns or guillotines and targeted murder against elites is a path this country should try to avoid.
It is as chilling as pitifully ironic to see blood lust for corporate moguls bubbling up on the website of Macy’s.
Being a member of a minority group that has been the victim of informal gang violence, I get that entirely. I look at the history of populism in the United States and for every instance of positive, idealistic and responsible populism, there is the populism of white supremacists - what today's college-credentialed hand-ringers about Democrats losing the election by less than 2% is encouraging us to placate and make common cause with. And I doubt there has been anyone on the left who has been more encouraging of the snob-"left" getting off its high horse and not insulting the plebs but I draw the line at making common cause with white supremacy.
I remember when the great, really great not 2024 style great, Shirley Chisholm was slammed for going to the racist, white-supremacist George Wallace to get him to support her bill to get domestic workers covered by minimum wage laws, I wrote a letter to the editor defending her when some white college-credentialed scribbler slammed her for that in some lefty publication or other. I don't think they published the letter. That was the brilliant Shirley Chisholm practicing politics, which is necessary, it was to get equal justice for specific members of the underclass of all races. It's not what has been being said for the past month. I would go so far as to say that George Wallace was nowhere near as immoral, amoral, really, as every Republican-fascist who remains in that party, today. Even Wallace had some humanity to him that today's populists don't have. And I have no particular regard for Wallace.
Populism will be made of what the pople are and you can't avoid the fact that a lot of it is white supremacist. That's the reason that majoritiarian government without an iron-clad gurantee of equality will devolve into fascism. There's nothing about anger at being screwed to death by insurance companies that will cure racism and misogyny (why Harris really lost) and other widespread bigotries. Being romantic about that based on what some eminent and eloquent late 19th century rural politician said is stupid. Our scribbling class is that stupid.
In so far as the many Americans murdered last week go, I'm not especially disturbed about the insurance gangster but I'm not going to be romantic about any murder.
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