Is the Caudillo limping? There is a current in the punditry – all the stronger, the further away from the empire the opining takes place – that President Trump is losing grip on his flock, but in our homegrown circle of Trumpists no fissures are apparent. Criticism of the Fuhrer is psychologized away as “Trump derangement syndrome,” and the promises of a halving of gas prices after the intronization were never taken at face value anyway. When it comes to energy, the issue there is extraction – unimpeded extraction of oil and gas and lenience of the authorities about extracting the emissions filtering from one’s Diesel engines. Arguments against America’s riding shotgun at the destruction of Gaza are wished away as “antisemitism,” and folks who harp on the absence of wisdom in the war against Iran are wimpy whiners who cannot tough it out when the going gets tough. One new nuance emerged on Ukraine: Russia is not to lose that war, because the main enemy is China, and a weakened Russia will be driven into China’s arms, while a strong Russia will be a counterweight to China…
***
We were not drinking when we conducted such conversations.
So, camp Trump is frozen in its attitudes. Remains the question whether there might be movement on the opposite side. On that score, two events were to be observed last weekend in New York City. On the “No Kings” march on Saturday from Columbus Circle over Times Square to 34th street, the other a rally with Senator Bernie Sanders in the Bronx, organized by the “Democratic Socialists of America” (yup, that exists, and they may soon be as strong as the waning German Sozialdemokraten, if things continue the way they do). “No Kings” was part of over three thousand nationwide protests against Trump’s expansion of presidential powers, the Sanders event was to mobilize the left for higher taxation of high incomes (“tax the rich”) in end phase of budget deliberations in the State of New York.
No Kings
Saturday, 1400 hrs., corner of Broadway/57th Street. It reeks of reefer, rather more than usual. The temperatures are a bit nippy, but the sun is out. A huge stream of people starts marching, a checkered mix of old and young, the skin coloring covering the whole range of browns from “white” to “black.” Regulars note a difference to past “No Kings” marches which attracted mostly whites.
A brass band intones “John Brown’s body,” the hymn of abolitionists in the Civil War. Some unions and political organizations march behind large banners, pre-printed posters in their fists. The large majority of marchers, however, are small groups or individuals, holding up a forest of self-made signs. “No Kings” in multiple variations, many quoting the marvelous fist words of the American constitution, “We the People,” often referring to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this year. A lot of references to the woes of sexual minorities, even more to the ongoing hunt on immigrants. The modus operandi of the immigration police ICE – widely publicized deaths in the streets, less publicized deaths in detention – is by far the single issue most frequently put forward: “Keep the immigrants, deport the racists,” “ICE is ISIS.” Well visible also the protest against the war of aggression against Iran, always in the context of domestic deficits: Better to use the war billions for education of health. Remarkable: The destruction of Gaza und the continuing small-scale warfare there is hardly mentioned. One single sign is espied, same as one single reference that up to now America did not use to act alone in the world: “Respect our allies.”
No violence is felt, not a lot of police visible. A whiff of carnival is in the air, a touch of lightness with the marchers. One group, tails and top hats, acts as “trillionaires” who are happy with what happens: “One, two, three, four, we don’t care about the war.” A Clown with Donald-Trump-hairdo mimes the complacent one who negates reality around him: “Great that you came for me today, thank you very much,” he says to the folks around him. On his back it says, “Make America gay again.” Many marchers show humor on their signs: “I like my ICE crushed.” “Even introverts are here.” “IKEA has smarter cabinets.” One sign mocks the MAGA motto: “Are we great yet”?
The newspaper writes that the marchers stretched over a mile, 100 000 strong. Throughout the US up to eight million are reported to have assembled.
“Tax the Rich”
Sunday, 1300 hrs., Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, Bronx. Poor man’s New York. Not a place where the Manhattanite would venture out voluntarily. The Gulf station on the corner has gas at 3,77 dollars a gallon. We are lining up to be let into the auditorium, 2000 seats, progress is slow, the police are meticulous. Behind the entrance doors volunteers hand out sign, red on white ones say “tax the rich,” yellow on black ones “Hochul stand up to Trump.” Kathy Hochul is the governor of New York State, Democrat, but not much inclined to raise taxes, including for the rich upper class. Behind the podium in large letters “Tax the Rich Fight Oligarchy.” Those are the issues of Senator Bernie Sanders, born 1941. Sanders is the lonely socialist in the US-Senate, twice standing for the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency, still the figure with the clearest political antithesis to Trumpism in the country. The people are here because of him.
Before he speaks a warm-up program is to be endured. A representative of the city’s CUNY higher education system (Lehman College is part of it). The leader of the nursing union, an immigrant from Haiti, who just saw a strike to a successful end. Representatives of the parliaments of city and state in tightly choreographed appearances, the microphone deftly wandering from one speaker to the next. The “message” is clear: There is a dearth of wherewithal for schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and it must be acquired where it is, on top, from the rich. A reasoning akin to famous robber Willie Sutton. Asked why he robbed bank, he allegedly replies: “Because that’s where the money is.”
Now Senator Sanders steps on stage. One year older than doddery Joe Biden, five years older than eternally meandering Trump, Sanders cuts quite a dash, slender, white shirt, black suit, brown, white-soled sneakers, the white hair a bit thinning. The crowd yells “Bernie, Bernie,” and Sanders says, “It’s not Bernie, Bernie, it’s you.” He speaks clearly, freely, whole sentences, intelligible ones at that. He begins by contextualizing: “Yesterday more people have protested than ever before in this country. The said no to authoritarianism, no to oligarchy and no to the continuing attacks on the working class.” Also, the surprising election of socialist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City “is reverberating all over the world.” It showed what can be done against the big money in politics: “You gave America hope.”
In a seat in the audience a man starts to yell some pro-Israel paroles, hardly audible (Sanders is Jewish, but critical of Israel’s war in Gaza). The senator continues to speak, the yeller continues to yell, an usher approaches, then a policeman, then a woman, and finally the protester gets up from his seat and is escorted out of the room. In the meantime, “Bernie” embarked on a little lesson in statistics. Numbers “you won’t see in the media too often.” The top 1 percent of the US-population owns more wealth than the lowest 93 percent. Elon Musk owns more than the lowest 53 percent of US households. His effective tax rate is 3,3 percent, that of the average truck driver 8,4 percent, the effective rate of Jeff Bezos less than 1 percent, that of the average fire fighter 8,7 percent. And some large corporations don’t pay federal taxes at all. The upshot: “The richest never had it so good.” And “the working class is under attack for years.” He didn’t like to speak of himself, says Sanders, but he came from a lower-class household in Brooklyn, the father a paint salesman, the mother a homemaker. They got by on the father’s one income. “How many working-class families can do this now?” This despite a never-seen increase in productivity: “What the hell has happened?”
After the statistical spiel Sanders goes for the kill: “Are you ready for this very radical statement? It is high time that corporations and the richest pay their fair share of taxes.” Gigantic applause, “Bernie Bernie” shouts. Sanders continues by supporting Mayor Mamdani’s project of a surtax on millionaire incomes. This concerns 0.7 percent of New Yorkers, says the Senator. “99,3 percent won’t pay a nickel more”. Polls show that the “radical statement” is popular: “I ask Governor Hochul to listen.” Sanders finishes with a blurb for his own proposal in the US-Senate: 5 percent surtax on the 938 American billionaires which would fund a long list of left-wing demands, from low-income housing to “universal” childcare, better health care up to a guaranteed income of at least 60 000 for every schoolteacher. New York “showed that 90 000 volunteers knocking on doors can elect a Mayor who stands for the working population – “brothers and sisters, let’s go forward”.
The event in the Bronx proceeds in a most disciplined way, no delays, no twists and twirls, no digressions. Nothing about ICE, nothing about “No Kings,” none of the de rigueur reverences to the discrimination of women or LGBTQI+. One is about to question whether the wilting Euro-Socialists could be able to produce such clear, simple and easily understood “message”, but then one observation gets in the way: Brother Mamdani, the Mayor of New York, a socialist he too and heavily supported by “Bernie” Sanders in his campaign, is not here. Not even with a video message or a stand-in delivering a few verbal crumbs. He is totally absent, and not because of any of the usual excuses, a scheduling conflict or a daughter’s first ballet performance. The reason Mamdani gave is a practical-political one. He would not want to create additional problems for governor Hochul, the Mayor said in an interview.
In America too, to be a socialist is to be a pragmatist. At the exit, volunteers ask “to give back the signs if you don’t need them anymore.”
On the way out I overhear a conversation of two young men.
– No Kings yesterday was a highlight of my year.
– It means a lot that so many attended. The masses now have to show their opposition. Stand up and be counted.
– Silent Majority -was it not Nixon who invented that? The silent majority against the protests of 1968?
– Today the silent majority is against what Trumps is doing. Against the government.
– Weren’t the Republicans the ones who preached resistance against government, more freedom. Libertarianism. That’s totally gone with the Republicans now.
– With Trump we got more controls, more snooping around, ICE, the masks.
– I don’t get it. I come from a family of moonshiners.
