Not even Engels
There are usually more than two possibilities. Lots more. Sometimes it’s just on or off, up or down, in or out, red or blue, but most of the time it’s more or less rather than yes or no.
Like, reasons for objecting to Trump, for instance. This is a subtle point but I think it’s fair to say it’s not just communists who consider Trump a regrettable head of state.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday doubled down on his criticisms of millions of protesters who joined Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies across the nation, decrying the widely peaceful demonstrations as evidence of “a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.”
Mmmno. Really. No Marxism is required to perceive that Trump is a wretched human being and a disastrous head of state. I could cite some reasons but you know them already.
Demonstrators gathered across the country in an estimated 2,700 separate “No Kings” rallies Saturday to protest what they call President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. It was the third mass mobilization against the Trump administration since he returned to the White House in January.
Reports of the protests show demonstrators dressed in costumes of inflatable animals, dancing in the streets and holding signs criticizing Trump and his administration. Organizers estimated that almost 7 million people took part.
Ok when exactly did Marx say people should wear inflatable animal costumes on demonstrations?
I wish I could remember the name of that elderly US abolitionist who remarked in 1920 “Had the Russian revolution happened a century earlier, the slave-owners would have called us Bolsheviks too”.
According to Google no one said those exact words on the record. (Google of course can’t find unrecorded live conversations.)
Are you perhaps thinking of Cyril Briggs?
I was actually misremembering the quote and its originator.
It was made by John F. Bray, a former British Chartist who was living in Pontiac, in the 1870s. The quote Bray made was in the context of US conservatives’ alarm over the appearance of the Paris Commune.
The actual quote was:
It’s cited in the M. J. Heale book “American anticommunism : combating the enemy within, 1830-1970”, published in 1990.
In one of those instances of Canada mimicking US progressive movements, even though the causes don’t quite fit the same here — see Black Lives Matter (the Black Canadian experience is vastly different than the American one), Defund the Police (Canadian police aren’t plagued with the same level of corruption) — there were No Kings protests in our major cities, too. Except, well, we had to call them “No Tyrants” protests instead, because, er, well… this is awkward…
That wee royal proclamation from January 8, 2024:
lol No Kings apart from just the one.
Mind you. Choss of course looks like a monument of compassion and generosity plus an Einstein of intellect in comparison to our heap of festering ordure.
By the way, Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself pouring some sort of brown substance onto No Kings protesters. On Truth Social. Because it’s totally true, and it’s not antisocial at all.
Some of the other countries who had No Kings rallies:
• Spain
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Sweden
• Belgium
• Denmark
• United Kingdom
• Japan
To be fair, a lot of the protestors who showed up might want to rid their own countries of monarchs (I know that’s the case in Spain). But also, those monarchs are relatively powerless, and while some of them are corrupt and expensive to maintain, I’d gladly trade Trump for, say, Harald V.
I have seen people in recent days quite seriously holding up the example of the UK as to why the US should in fact have a king.
I have also seen people pointing to the current dysfunctional state of the UK Parliament as a reason to do away with parliament and political parties and instead just elect an all powerful President.
I believe this is why we can’t have nice things. People can’t actually hold multiple ideas in their heads at one time and carefully think through issues. They also mistake opinion for knowledge. I’m feeling my inner curmudgeon today.
Philip Bump had an amusing chart in his recent newsletter showing what parts of the world had kings. Most of the map was unmarked. The marked portions were coded: “Non-king monarch”; “King”, and “King Charles III, specifically”.
Would those people also like a Prince Andrew?
Well, they’ve got a Prince Andrew in Trump already. But perhaps Trump would be willing to proclaim Andrew his successor and pass on his gilded ballroom, gold toilets, ruined Oval Office, etc to him.