Josh Marshall has been exploring the idea that today’s centibillionaires are 21st century Nabobs, by which he means they are monsters who have made massive amounts of money by breaking or simply disregarding all the rules and norms of our societies and who have thereby become some powerful that even world governments have little control over them anymore. It’s a very interesting analogy and gives a lot of insight into what is happening, but also how we must respond. Following up, Marshall writes:
A few months ago, I said that the greatest proof case for Trump’s claims about the corruption of the American elite was the ease with which he plowed through it. This isn’t just a bit of clever inversion or word play. It’s foundational to understanding everything.
It’s a simple observation, but profound because it gets to what is arguably the most important point of all of this, which is that “The old system, whatever its merits, is clearly and unequivocally broken and something new has to be built in its place. Something stronger, something more ready to use and comfortable using political power.”
And this is why the politics of the Left in the U.S. since 2016 have been so disappointing. The people who are thinking big (progressives and socialists) have been shut out of power and told to keep their mouths shut so the mealy-mouthed small-thinker establishmentarians can win. Or, as Marshall puts it:
Nothing is more enervating, demoralizing or hopeless than being the upholders of the proprieties of a vanquished order. Simple rule-following or, even worse, norms-following is simply too thin a reed for any political movement or political party. We have laws not simply to have laws but because the law is the only possible brake on the strong trampling over and exploiting the weak. And if some people become too strong, it becomes impossible for any of us, individually or collectively, to be truly free. This could scarcely be more relevant to an era in which the rest of us appear to live more or less at the sufferance of a few handfuls of centi-billionaires who have graduated beyond the obstacles of consequences or law.
Enervating, demoralizing, and hopeless pretty much describes the Democratic party recently except for the stand they managed to take in October over the budget. But even that showed how small they were thinking and how they don’t seem to understand that the system in which they’ve operated their whole lives is gone and we need an entirely new, much more aggressive, much bigger plan to put the U.S. on a solid footing for a free, Democratic, equitable, diverse, and sustainable future. The problem is even bigger when you consider that our politics going forward must also address establishing not just a new U.S. order but a new world order since Trump has basically destroyed or is currently destroying the order that has prevailed and kept us safe and mostly at peace for the last 80 years. When are they going to get it?
It’s hard for any of us to imagine what needs to be done, let alone do it. When everything you’ve always known and put your faith in and built your life and even your identity on and around is being blown to bits like a tiny boat in the ocean (call it what it is: murder!), it’s hard enough to even understand what is happening, let alone formulate a plan to stop it and put that plan into action. That’s why we need more of what Marshall is doing, beating the drum of supreme court and filibuster reform, for example. This kind of thing gives us targets to aim for, even if we aren’t sure how to reach them yet.
Another example of thinking big to fit this truly existential time came recently from Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark (which, sadly, I can’t read bc it’s a Substack and Substack is just another silo for information and the enshittification of the web), when he appeared on Slate’s What Next Podcast. It’s a short podcast and worth your time, but the gist is that Last was frustrated that the Democrats were only asking to restore insurance premium subsidies during the funding showdown that shut down the government. Why, he asked, weren’t they demanding D.C. statehood? And six more justices on the supreme court? And more? Why are they thinking so small? And even though there’s no chance any of those things will happen with MAGA control of every part of government, the point is that the conversation about major, revolutionary change has already begun. The MAGAts started it and they have obviously started making those major changes, too. That’s what broke the system. Now, Democrats, and every other party or group that can oppose what’s happening, need to think bigger, act bigger, be more aggressive, or the new world that we will inhabit all too soon will be the MAGAt world.
So… We need to reform the Supreme Court, end the fillibuster, make D.C. and Peurto Rico states, and…. what else?