“Remember, Remember the Fifth of November…”
V for Vendetta
Tuesday’s mid-term elections will not be a turning point for the United States. That happened when we elected Donald Trump in 2016.
The roots of Trump’s win were seeded back in 2008 with Ron Paul.
And today the words I wrote then I think hold the key to understanding what is happening around the world today.
Paul has offered himself as the figure-head for a revolution that was mature enough, finally, to find him. His campaign is a spontaneous and self-organizing uprising of human frustration; acknowledging that it’s truly time for a change in direction for this society and the responsibility that comes with that knowledge.
Substitute Trump, Orban, Putin, Farage, Le Pen, Salvini or Kurz for Paul and that sentence is just as valid.
Ron Paul was our Guy Fawkes. But unlike Fawkes Paul eschewed all forms of violence to achieve his goals. And if you look at the film version of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta which inspired my 2008 article that is exactly what the people of England do.
Again, from that article.
By converging on Parliament to sanction the destruction of the old social order and complete the work that Fawkes could not, the people of England in the film state that they are rejecting violence as the means of change; that this event is their catharsis even if they aren’t quite sure what it all will mean tomorrow.
V’s vendetta transcended what happened to him personally, the wrongs done to him. V was the Destroyer.
Evey was to be his replacement, the Rebuilder.
And by the time 2016 rolled around we reached that point of saying that’s enough. What’s happening is a bridge too far.
It took eight years to percolate, for the V memes to become commonplace and a critical mass of people to see through the illusions and the lies. For social media to spread ideas beyond the control of the gatekeepers.
Their rule had become so corrupt, so intolerable we latched onto the guy who took up even a portion of Ron Paul’s message of ending the empire, cutting the corruption.
In short, draining the swamp.
That’s why we rolled the dice with Trump. We knew Clinton was everything we didn’t want. It was time to draw a line in the sand.
That created a complete meltdown by the other side of the political spectrum, the one that reveres state power.
And that tantrum has lasted two whole years. It will continue long after Tuesday’s votes are counted.
Because power is a drug that cannot be quit cold turkey. The systems that erect the powerful don’t fail overnight. The perception of their invincibility does, but the breakdown afterwards, the chaos, has to be worked through.
And that means anger, hate, intolerance and violence. It means a major part of the country will embrace insanity as a coping mechanism. Many already have.
Tuesday’s election will be a turning point in this sense.
The big question we all have is, “Do the people who voted for Trump in 2016 have the fortitude to see this revolution through to its conclusion?”
Will they sanction continuing down this path because the Democrats and their powerful backers will define for us what the price of that resistance will be.
That price will be high.
It may even be unpayable. Because when the Democrats and the Marxists realize they are truly beaten, then they will get really violent to wrest control.
That’s where we are today.
A recent Harris poll saw a huge bifurcation between people who associate themselves with Trump versus that of the Republicans. I’m certainly one of those people.
This is the inherent distrust of the entrenched. People want this current political order torn down.
And they elected Trump to do just that. Run a train full of dynamite into the Capitol and blow it to smithereens.
Trump is a third-party candidate running a revolution within the GOP.
If the Republicans are vulnerable this week it is on that fact alone. That there are still too many of the rank and file, people barely better than the Democrats voters know they don’t want, on the ballot. And there may be some weird moments of voting cross-party simply to sow even more dissent, more chaos.
But I suspect that effect will be low.
What I expect is early voting numbers to reflect what will happen on election day.
But, regardless of what happens there will not be any less violence. Any more civility. The political discourse has been destroyed.
Even people like Lindsay Graham are disgusted with it.
So, Tuesday marks the choice between the further destruction of the old political order or two more years of gridlock and infighting.
A Republican hold of the House will see the stock markets jump as fears of the Democrats undoing everything Trump has accomplished recede. The dollar will rally and the focus will shift to Europe.
But at the same time the outcome of election day will be messy. There will be lawsuits, hanging chads, evil Russians and a showdown on the Texas border. The news media will be full of reports of violence stoking further enmity and division because their job is the enforcement of control.
As Mr. Dascombe said in V for Vendetta, “We’re the BTN, we don’t make the news, that’s the government’s job.” If the last month of stupidity hasn’t taught you this fundamental truth then unfortunately, I feel, nothing ever will.
Everything has a price and on Tuesday we will know just how high a price Americans are willing to pay to set things on a different path. Trump is no savior, he’s a vessel, an imperfect one for sure, but he’s what we have right now.
He’s our V. Our Destroyer.
Movies are unlike real life. They end after telling us the lesson. Life continues.
And the lesson of V for Vendetta is that we have to be the Rebuilders.
The people in Britain had to wake up the next morning and start. We’re two years in and have barely begun.
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