To be clear, I’m not an accelerationist.
Accelerationism, as you may know, is the ideology which argues that our present political system is corrupt and broken beyond redemption. According to this theory, which has advocates on both the left and the right, small improvements are like band-aids on an infected wound – they cover up the problem without curing the underlying rot. Accelerationists oppose all half-measures and compromises because, to their minds, at best they do nothing, and at worst they allow rotten institutions to stagger on just a little longer, prolonging their evil.
Instead, accelerationists believe we should root for things to get worse. They want people’s lives to be unbearable, so that they hit their breaking point and rise up in revolution. That way, we hasten the time when the whole rotten system collapses so something better can rise from the wreckage. (That “something better” might be a socialist utopia or a fascist ethnostate, depending on who’s espousing this idea.)
Like I said, I’m not an accelerationist. I don’t want people to suffer. More often than not, misery doesn’t lead to glorious revolution; it only leads to more misery. Even when revolutions happen, they create more chaos, pain and death. They can collapse into perpetual war, or harden into a junta seizing power and turning into a dictatorship that’s worse than what came before. I believe that incremental progress, as slow as it is, is a greatly preferable way to create a better world. Democracy is always superior to violence, if we have the choice.
However, it’s not my personal views that are relevant. The question arises: What happens when people choose acceleration for themselves?
We don’t know for sure what’s coming in the next few years, but we can make some educated guesses.
If Trump keeps his promises – which is never a sure bet – of slapping high tariffs on imports and engaging in mass deportations, the consequence will be sudden, dramatic inflation. There will be supply shocks, shortages and skyrocketing prices, especially food (because American agribusiness absolutely depends on undocumented workers to harvest crops and process meat, no matter how politicians try to ignore this reality). Consumer goods we take for granted will become scarce or impossible to find. The empty shelves of COVID days may make a return.
American businesses that depend on exports will go bankrupt as other countries impose retaliatory tariffs. Immigrant and minority communities who voted for Trump, believing they would be spared because they’re the good ones, are going to be unpleasantly surprised when they’re swept up in racist dragnets.
With control of Congress, Republicans will be free to pass their agenda of tax cuts, union-busting and deregulation, which will result in a massive upward transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. Corporate profits will soar and the rich will get much richer, while people who work for a living are exploited more, treated worse, and paid less.
If they repeal or weaken Obamacare, it’s their own voters who will suffer the worst, as doctors flee red states and underfunded rural hospitals shrivel up and die. If they take a chainsaw to the safety net, older voters and rust-belt communities (both of whom depend on these programs for most of their income) will regress to Dickensian poverty and squalor.
If they pass national restrictions on abortion, women everywhere will find their access to health care drastically curtailed. Their freedom of movement may be restricted. They may lose the ability to get a divorce and to escape abusive spouses. Even if those laws don’t get passed, it’s certain that violent, misogynist men will feel free to be their worst, most hateful and nastiest selves.
Whatever Republican voters thought they were voting for, this is what they’re going to get. And, in a black irony, the best hope for America’s future may be that all these things happen as soon as possible.
All the policies I’ve described are deeply unpopular, for good reason. Our best chance is that, given unfettered power, conservatives so immediately and thoroughly wreck the country that the public rises up in revolt. That doesn’t have to mean violence – it could equally well be a massive popular movement to throw the bums out in the next election.
There’s precedent for this. California used to be a swing state, until the hardline anti-immigrant Proposition 187 sparked an uprising from immigrant communities and turned the state solid blue. I could imagine a scenario where America follows a similar path.
Granted, this would be a form of political shock therapy. There will be violence, chaos and pain. Millions of innocent people are sure to suffer, no matter how it turns out. It’s not the path to change that anyone should rationally prefer. But this is what America has chosen, whatever I might think about it, and Americans will have to live with the consequences of that choice.
I also hope that there might be a middle way that doesn’t result in violence or extreme suffering. I can imagine implementing just one or two things like the tarrifs that have an immediate effect that hurts folks’ pocketbooks in some small but obvious way in time for the midterms. I don’t really expect it; but I can hope for it.
I my view, it’s more likely there will be a lot of performative cruelty aimed at migrants, but very limited deportations, as mass deportation would hurt the corporations that employ undocumented workers at low wages. And as for tariffs, I think they will be imposed – but there will be “exemptions” – for businesses that support Trump – sufficient to reduce the economic damage.
The top priority for Trump and those around him will be to make anything like a free election in 2026 or 2028 impossible, by gerrymandering, vote suppression, intimidation, shifting control of elections to whichever branch of state government is in Republican hands, further packing the judiciary, ballot stuffing and other forms of outright electoral fraud…
Does accelerationism even work all that well?
Karl Marx had it in his theory that capitalism would make the workers miserable. And more miserable yet. And even more miserable than that in a downhill slide.
This was supposed to happen in the industrialized countries of the West.
And then at the end the impoverished Proletariat would rise up and overthrow the capitalist system and go communist.
That never happened.
What happened is that the system reformed over time and the Proletariat’s condition improved by a lot under regulated capitalism.
Communism got its start in a mostly agricultural society just coming out of feudalism, that is Russia.
When societies end up in cycles that result in downhill slides, they just seem to keep going downhill and eventually plateau at some low level.
That is what happened in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
What ended the Khmer Rouge was outside intervention by the Vietnamese.
The population suffered and 10% died and they never did rise up.
Or more. Some estimates are much higher.
“The death toll in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was most likely between 1.2 million and 2.8 million — or between 13 percent and 30 percent of the country’s population at the time — according to a forthcoming article by a UCLA demographer.”
But since they thought they were voting for something else, they won’t connect the results with their own behavior.
Best case, they’ll blame Trump for cheating them and then proceed to elect someone else just like him. Worst case, they’ll blame all the same people they always have; immigrants, liberals, the gays, the poor, etc.
Had a dream this week: I was putting on a tee shirt patterned with American flags. Donald Trump appeared, grabbed the shirt, and put it on. I grabbed it back, pulled it off over his head. I was going to put it on again, but now it was oily and stinky and would need to be washed first.
I hope that means we will get through this too.
I have spent the past few years writing and photographing everything I can for posterity; may I use this anecdote, and if so would you like your name mentioned or just to be anonymous?
yes, anonymous – or attribute to Baubosez
Thank you; I will keep your caveats in mind.
The Problem with accelerationism is it lacks ambition, and going too fast is a matter of perspective, Obamacare was a step forward, but I would like a more dedicated push for full on Universal healthcare.
They had control of the house already, and basically squandered years with pointless infighting. I’m not sure as to why that would change; the right wingnuts are basically performing for social media likes.
And even the senate republicans will make sure that Trump doesn’t step on their prerogatives.