A Peek At 2024

It's going to be a rough year, but scary times require spines.

Hello, friends,

For the last two weeks, we’ve talked about Substack’s problem with Nazis, and the problems with their response.  Lemme add on that the great Margaret Atwood weighed in on this, as did my editor, John Adamus - As did, lastly, you, my readers.

As evidenced by the fact that I’m posting an article here, we decided it’s best to fight these fuckers head-on.

With that out of the way, discussions with friends and family have indicated that we should really set out some expectations for 2024.  It is, in my humble opinion, without a doubt going to be the most frightening year since 2016.  The prospect of another Trump-Biden contest is terrifying enough, but with the Supreme Court set to make major rulings with regards to Presidential eligibility, immunity, and the like?

Hooo boy is this going to be rough.

Let’s dig in.

First Up, A Presidential Election Preview?  Impossible!

The coming election is a tremendous mass of gears and levers, all of which have fuzzy and indistinct interactions with one another.  The changing of any of these gears will inevitably change the outcome, and while each of these devices is independently examinable and quantifiable, the mass of the machinery is a Kafkaesque dose of nightmare fuel that can be lit aflame by the actions of one schmuck or a massive institution, alike.

So let’s start with a statement:  I’m not a huge fan of Nate Silver and Five-Thirty-Eight, but they’ve probably got the best Presidential approval poll tracker I’ve seen.  Pretty much all of his recent polling has him hovering at just below 40% approval.

That’s bad.  These are, according to Lauren Irwin writing for The Hill, the worst approval ratings of any modern President seeking re-election at this point in their Presidency.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has endured at-least-temporary bans from the ballot in two states, Colorado and Maine.  We’re going to talk about SCOTUS’ role in these shenanigans later, but for now let’s just say that Trump’s in his own hot water.  In fact, although she’s recently made a major ‘gaffe,’ Nikki Haley is threatening Donald Trump’s primacy in the Republican Primaries.

In short, unlike in 2020 where there was a clear wave of disapproval towards Trump and a willingness to accept any other candidate, well…That willingness to coalesce behind an “Anti-Trump” isn’t present, and wouldn’t be if Trump doesn’t make it on the ballot for one reason or another.

What’s more is that the world is simply far more chaotic now than it was in 2020.  Ukraine and Russia are in a real, live shooting war that doesn’t look particularly spectacular for the side of freedom and Democracy.  The Israel/Palestine conflict is a particularly bad shit-show, with the Houthis in Yemen using their geographical position to essentially blockade the Red Sea and shut down commerce through the Suez Canal.  Then there are other flashpoints, like the Sudanese Civil War, which threaten global stability.

All it takes is one ill-timed, gruesomely-successful attack on international shipping and the U.S. Navy that’s defending it to make Biden look weak and incapable of leadership.  If that happens during October, well, his approval ratings might get even lower, and Trump might waltz into office.

And I haven’t even talked about - say - Robert F. Kennedy’s bullshit independent run.

But let me be clear:  Unless someone else wins the Democratic primary - and I really hope-against-hope that happens (I’ll probably be writing a Marianne Williamson endorsement article before the first primary) - Joe Biden is our best shot at preserving what little shadow of a Democracy we have.

Remember ‘way back’ in mid-September when we talked about Project 2025?

Yeah, we can’t pretend that doesn’t exist.  As bad as “Genocide Joe” might be (and is),  if we turn the country over to any Republican, we will see the end of Democracy as we know it.  And, remember, Accelerationism is a bad thing.  The principle of “We have to lose to Trump to foment the revolution” assumes the revolution only gets brought about by immense suffering, and not - say - the validation of revolutionary ideas through how much they benefit people in less extreme times.

Once more, the coming election is a cacophonous mess of interconnected cogs and wheels.  One lone nut with a gun can disrupt the outcome as easily as Vladimir Putin telling Iran to give the Houthis better weapons to attack U.S. shipping could, which would be just as easy as the Supreme Court voting to allow or disallow someone on the ballot.

Speaking of the Supreme Court…

SCOTUS Is A Major 2024 Player.

First off, let’s consider Trump’s pleas for “Presidential Immunity.”

Bearing in mind I am not a legal scholar, let’s try our best to sum this situation up.  Trump is, across his myriad of lawsuits, attempting to claim that he is immune from the consequences of his actions as President.  Even today, an appeals court in one of the many cases said “no,” but that doesn’t mean he won’t try until he finds a friendlier judge.

Of course, three SCOTUS judges are friendly to him simply because he appointed them, and then there’s Clarence “Harlan Crow’s Friend” Thomas.  Yeah, that ain’t great, but maybe some of them have enough integrity to rule against him?

Most recently, SCOTUS declined an expedited request from Federal Special Proescutor Jack Smith to examine this issue, essentially dictating that the appeals process (successively going from lower courts to higher courts) must be followed normally before they’ll even consider hearing it. While this is ultimately a disappointment that extends the timetable for Trump’s ability to get away with crimes, lower courts are still acting against him.

Here’s what we know:

Two states (so far) have at varying points ruled that he is ineligible for the ballot due to his participation in the January 6th insurrection.

Here’s what that means:

First, The Third Section of the Fourteenth Amendment is explicitly clear that anyone who engages in an insurrection is ineligible for future Presidential (or other) office.

Second, Trump stood in front of, ginned up, and unleashed a crowd of insurrectionists, at least one of whom (Stewart Rhodes) was convicted of “Seditious conspiracy.”  According to Google, a “Sedition” is defined as ”Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a State or Monarch,” while an “Insurrection” is defined as “A violent uprising against the authority of a government.”

Kind of the same thing, no?

The bottom line is that Trump absolutely participated in an insurrection on January Sixth.

Third, and this is the part I hate the most, as painstakingly, nakedly clear as it is that Trump participated in an insurrection?  The conventional mechanic by which we enforce the stripping of a citizens’ rights is conviction by a jury of one’s peers.

In other words:  Trump has not been convicted of the crime of Insurrection (or even Sedition/Seditious Conspiracy).

This is why people like me screamed that Merrick Garland was a lukewarm choice for Attorney General, and why it might have been a fatal mistake to wait two years to actually pursue criminal accountability for Trump.  Without a conviction, how can a court rule that he did, indeed, participate in an insurrection?

Trust me, we all fucking know he did, but until it’s proven in court?  Maybe, with me not being a lawyer, it’s plausible that a court can try the fact of an insurrection and disqualify him as easily as someone who is under-age is automatically disqualified?  I don’t honestly know.

But even if they can, with a number of Fascists like Thomas on SCOTUS?  Just getting to 5-4 is practically begging for defections from Trump’s appointees.  Maybe they don’t feel like they owe him anything.  Maybe they even believe he’s a hazard to the nation.  But do they vote to judicially punt him from ballots?

That seems even less likely than them voting against his immunity.

Then there’s the consequentialist aspect to it all:  The whole, “What happens if/when Trump is punished?”  And I don’t even know what to hypothesize other than that there might be retaliations.  Republican states might try to pull Biden off the ballot because of fabricated reasons.  Lone-wolf terrorists may attack.  We may see major protests, street combat, or the like.  Who the fuck knows?

Scary Times Require Spines

In short, it’s pretty terrifying.  But America is a country known for being able to overcome fears and defeat whatever threatens it.  Hell, there’s a whole meme about how the bad guy du jure is “about to find out why we don’t have healthcare.”  We’re pretty combative, but we’re also pretty determined to win.

Nothing is automatic.  The moral arc of the universe might bend towards good things, but only because we the people have been struggling to make that happen.

There are no idyllic choices, or at least there are very few and even then they are typically imperfect.  I think Captain Picard said something along the lines of it being possible to do everything right and still lose - and Divinity knows we haven’t done everything right.

Finally - and maybe this one is the most important, looking into 2024 - is that just because we might disagree strongly with the system we’re contained within doesn’t mean that our participation in that system is an indictment of us.

Much like how Substack is profiteering off Nazis, our participation here does not indict us as Nazi supporters - especially not when we’re calling them out and pressing Substack to do the right thing.  If anything fleeting the battlefield and leaving it to the Nazis just…Leaves it to the Nazis.

And fuck them, we don’t want them to win, so let’s fight ‘em.

In Other News…

It’s been kind of a slow news week, and a lot of the big “goings on” have been incorporated into the above story.  Enjoy the new year!

Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe.  If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list.  This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.