The Myth Of Implosion
Waiting for the other side to self-destruct has always been ridiculous and dangerous.
One of the most distinctive and unfortunate aspects of the American style of politics is the misplaced faith in inaction. Specifically, what I mean is, the belief that the best strategy is to do nothing and wait for the other side to implode. Often, the addle-witted proponents of this approach mouth Napoleon’s famous quote, “Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.“ You can almost see the smirk and raised eyebrow, hear the self-congratulatory tone for their cleverness.
Of course, none of that smugness is justified, because the “strategy” never works. In fact, it’s not even a strategy.
We’ve heard people in the Democratic Party especially make this argument for at least the last 30 years. I know, because I’ve been able to date it back to when I became infuriated with the relentless requests for money that continue through today, from various campaign committees and the Party itself. If all you’re doing is asking me for money, so that you can sit back and do nothing, then don’t bother. In fact, please stop relentlessly calling, texting, and emailing, because all you’re doing is making me increasingly angry with an obviously failed approach.
Remember Senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig? Or Congressman Mark Foley? Back in the 2000s, the received wisdom among many Democratic “strategists” was that the expected implosion had happened. Sex scandals had disgusted enough of the voting public that the Republicans took a drubbing in the polls. Combined with the alienation of Hispanic voters, which was supposed to inspire an agonizing reappraisal among Republicans, the electoral losses were supposed to have “chastened” the Republicans, forcing them to change their ways, tacking in a more moderate direction, and paying more attention to the crimes and misdemeanors committed by people in their ranks.
Except that’s not what happened. In fact, the opposite occurred. As a collective, Republican politicians and voters became more radical, more brazen, more hateful.
The reasons why were blazingly obvious at the time. It was one of the biggest and most destructive moments of political denial in American history, as we can see from the chaos and ruin that has been the inevitable result.
- Christian Nationalists are not “chastened” by bad election results.
- Anti-abortion advocates are not “chastened” by bad election results.
- Dedicated misogynists (now occupants of the repulsive “manosphere”) are not “chastened” by bad election results.
- Racists and anti-Semites are not “chastened” by bad election results.
- People who hate LGBTQ+ people are not “chastened” by bad election results.
- Members of a cult of personality are not “chastened” by bad electoral results.
- People who want to burn it all down, putting an end to democracy and the rule of law, are not “chastened” by bad electoral results.
- Enthusiastic fascists are not “chastened” by bad electoral results.
- Conspiracy theorists are not “chastened” by bad electoral results.
- Robber barons and wannabe oligarchs are not “chastened” by bad electoral results.
- Paramilitary groups are not “chastened’ by electoral results.
And the list goes on. I wrote the preceding lines in the fashion that I did because those statements should have been a litany among people who could have done more to put a stop to the obscenities that we now must endure. Instead, that list of obvious political truths were exactly what the people advocating some brainless version of Fabian tactics refused to acknowledge.
By using the term “Fabian tactics,” I’m giving the various Democratic consultants, politicians, and other notable actors more credit than they deserve. The typically American reflex to do nothing and fantasize about the results of inaction isn’t a strategy. In fact, I imagine if Napoleon were alive today, and heard his quote misused the way it was, he might slap someone in the face. A defensive military strategy takes a huge amount of effort, planning, thinking, preparation, and stockpiling, not just for a vigorous defense, but also for the later counterattack. Just look at how Napoleon’s enemies did exactly that, as the Grande Armée overran Europe. In contrast, not only did Democrats not execute much of a defense, there was never a plan for a counterattack. We saw that plainly in every election where Democrats seemed inept at any kind of political action beyond messaging, fund-raising, and voter registration, either as part of a lively defense or offense.
Of course, the Democrats are not the only people afflicted with this destructive form of denial. The supposed moderate Republicans, the hoped-for opposition within Republican, has been waiting for a decade for the MAGA movement to implode. Maybe this vile social media posting will finally sink Trump. Or this attack on a popular program. Or this personally disgusting behavior. Or something, somewhere, sometime. (And maybe that will be my moment to leap into the public spotlight…) But again, the opposite happened. MAGA became more mobilized, more militant, more cruel, more impatient to destroy institutions, more fevered in their imagined conspiracies. We have just as much reason to be angry with their laziness and ridiculousness as we are about the Democratic inactionists.
Aside from planning, organizing, and everything else that goes into a real strategy, effective opposition requires inspiration. You need to motivate people, provide them with something to do, and ensure the actions will have likely outcomes (something that purely symbolic efforts lack). While the worst have been full of passionate intensity, the inactionists have provided no reason to be passionate. Again, the opposite has occurred. Many American citizens were led to ask the question, “If these leaders aren’t willing to fight for themselves, why should I believe they will fight for me?” For a prime example, see this part of an interview with Michael Fanone, one of the most famous among the police who battled the January 6 insurrectionists. No lover of Trump or Trumpist, and no shrinking violet unwilling to take a stand, he has also been disgusted with the inaction of Democratic “leaders.”
The other obvious fallacy of inactionism is that there is no time left for the implosion to happen. In a few short weeks, the incumbent regime has elevated the incompetent and malign to high positions, wrecked the federal government, alienated our allies, dragged us into a de facto alliance with Russia, taken actions like tariffs that will have major economic repercussions, moved to favor white heterosexual males over anyone else, sent repurposed law enforcement agents to incarcerate and expel immigrants, enabled corruption on a mass scale, and even crowed about turning ethnic cleansing into a business opportunity for the current occupant of the Oval Office. Action is needed, now, not continued feckless waiting for voter backlash, internal contradictions, or whatever one imagines the mechanisms of delivering just deserts to operate.
Even when we had normal politics, the “sitting on the sidelines eating popcorn” method wasn’t working. It’s orders of magnitude more dangerous now, that politics is anything but normal.
This is not the article in which I suggest a new strategy, which is clearly beyond a single blog post. (To be honest, I don’t have a detailed grand strategy.) Instead, I simply want to sweep further inactionism off the table during our collective discussion of what to do next.
Fabius was against an unstoppable enemy, Hannibal, who’d been attacked every other way possible without success. His tactics worked best compared to all the others.
Back on topic, I stopped waiting for the felon to implode or turn against his base, at least in a way that would turn his base off their support, shortly after the first impeachment. after that, the rapist showed no leadership and provided little help, or plain did little, on the face of the worst pandemic since 1918-1920, and led to the demise of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens during his term (and over a million afterwards). And still came rather close to winning reelection.
No one is coming to save us. The courts are not going to stop him. Elections might not accomplish anything (that is, even winning in the midterms in 2026 or the general election in 2028 won’t stop the American fascist dictatorship). it took the USSR over 70 years to implode. it took nazi Germany a disaster of a global war.
I’d make the natural suggestion about what to do next, but such things are not well received here.
A follow-up thought: the nasty thing about authoritarianism is that it limits hugely what you can do. One political scientist defined the range of political choices simply as exit, voice, and loyalty. “Voice” in authoritarian regimes is, by definition, a very hard thing to do. I don’t begrudge anyone the license, if they think there’s nothing that they personally can do, to keep their heads down for the time being. Instead, my main point is the long-expected, cost-free implosion resulting from simple inaction is not just around the corner.
It never is. Faith doesn’t work that way. What we believe is pretty immutable and most of us never have the sort of crisis of circumstance in our political beliefs that causes us to “lose” our religious faith.
To my mind, the issue is that Democrats/liberals have not adapted to the new media reality. That reality is that many voters are going to be swayed by something they saw on TikTok, which might not even be from the campaign.
There is big money at work here, supporting and encouraging these influencers, so that it all seems “organic”.
Most money spent by politicians is spent in the context of a specific campaign. But the right-wing interests we are addressing are messaging 24/7 all year, every year.
This is also an environment where it easy to spread lies and rumors, because it is so diffuse.
We need to come up with a counter for this, or give it all up.
Thank you, Kingdaddy. I like Fabian Tactics. Much more polite than Pussy Tactics.
BTW, add in the premature, ‘plummeting polls’ stories. Two weak polls do not a plummet make. Show me Trump under 40 in a couple consecutive polls, and I’ll start thinking we have movement.
I love it when a kingdaddy post pops up in my RSS reader and I think I’m reading something posted at a more liberal blog.
Anyway, yes to everything in this post.
Mushy “fiscal conservative voters” are chastened when they go to a park and have to wait in long lines, or when grandma doesn’t get her Social Security check. (Likely in that order)
I don’t think we can sit on our hands and expect everything to turn out well, but I also do think that the folks who have been waiting for Reaganomics to implode for the past 45 years have never been closer to seeing all their patience paying off.
That said, I have no idea what I can meaningfully do, and if it comes down to mediocre ineffective virtue signaling or just not bothering, not bothering wins out, unless the virtue signaling is fun at the moment. And I think that our Democratic Party leaders are squandering an opportunity.
AOC recently put out a video telling people to stop doom scrolling (something about protecting your ability to do shit, but nothing about what shit you should be conserving your ability to do) — and it’s been silence from the rest.
Schumer would like to set up a bipartisan commission on increased partisanship or something.** Hakeem Jeffries feels our pain.*** At least Bernie Sanders bit someone.***
I’m a follower, not a leader.
All I’m doing is pondering how to get a gift certificate for a carton of eggs for my brother when he loses his job in air quality monitoring for asbestos removal once the new Trump EPA says that mesothelioma is “good, actually.”
I guess I could just head back to Rochester and egg his house, but that seems like a lot of work.
——
*: just trying to find the common theme of the list
**: I just made this up
***: this too
****: and this
The Ds are making a lot of comments. I don’t know what is is exactly you and Fanone want them to do. The US public elected a game-show host who openly called for the powers of a dictator as POTUS and gave him a majority in both houses to enable that. Bitching is all the Ds can do.
Getting shrill now would be like conducting the 1/6 investigations years before the next election… oh wait…never mind.
@Kathy:
I don’t think what you’re not suggesting would make any difference. It might well be a Reichstag fire for President Vance. If Trump died of a heart attack tomorrow I don’t think much would change.
@Jay L Gischer:
I completely agree. You’d think that the Democrats, liberal activists, and allies would be better at the new media. But not so much.
IT’S A F”ING CULT!!!
Cults don’t implode because the Leader can do no wrong.
(And, yes, the Democrats are impotent.)
Cults end ugly. But only with an external force. Especially one with this fervor. The right wing apparatus has spent decades programming this cult. How are we to now de-program it?
I don’t have any fantasies about resistance. Democrats spent the last four years whining and having nervous breakdowns regarding serious questions about the power of greed and fear in this country. Trump and the police will have free reign to do moderate things if there are huge protests. The Democrats will be vocal about the police being extremely violent and the protestors fighting back and not being civil, and in the end will come down more on the protestors than the cops.
The Democrats are just not made for this moment. FFS, they were running ads with that lover of freedom Dick Cheney for months. I totally expect the party to hew to the implosion, with half of Congress vocally supporting Trump if he cracks down on the mention of there being Palestinians in the world, all while pointing to vague polls showing the wisdom of bigotry as trans people are purged from the government.
@Kingdaddy:
No it is not around the corner. In fact the malignancy is growing. I address this in a series of exchanges with Scott F. near the end of “Leader of The Free World” thread. We have to make the effort to know why.
Similar vein:
From Will Obama really ‘break the fever’?
In fact, the whole article makes similar arguments. I would make a more historical argument. What is happening today is similar to the political/social environment of the 20s/30s and it took a catastrophic World War to change the trajectory.