One of my favorite analogies I’ve heard is that human history doesn’t happen in a circle, but it does happen in a corkscrew. We don’t keep coming back to the same exact point we’ve been before, but we come back to very similar flavors of the same problems. While we don’t have the same sort of kings and queens (at least in the west) as we did just a few hundred years ago, there are plenty of people whose primary aim is to amass incredible wealth and power at the expense of the larger population. Empires and countries rise and fall through cycles of stability and unrest.

At this point I’m not sure it can ever be changed or stopped, and it’s interesting to look at politics through such a wide lens. After all, while in the USA the “left” incumbent was voted out and the “right” upstart was voted in, incumbents of all flavors across the world were voted out while the new shakers and breakers were voted in. Many things have led to this, I think. The pandemic is a big one, but also as weather has become more extreme due to change in climate and populations get displaced due to wars and conflicts across the globe, and regimes have to deal with the consequences of their own actions (looking at you, China, and your birth restrictions), people are afraid. And there is much money to be made off of that fear.

In essence, in the midst of instability, people want to break our institutions no matter what those institutions are or stand for. Those who don’t suffer those fears (being powerful and rich) then wield it for their own benefits.

A hundred years seems just enough for us to forget history, and start repeating it. Even in a country like Germany, where people are taught in detail about the atrocities of the Hitler regime, the far-right appeal of fascism is growing. I also wonder how much of social media and television has affected our perceptions of reality, and I also wonder if that’s just moot – humans will also have some sort of disconnect from their own perceptions of themselves, and their perceptions of the world and others. After all, in the USA when white people talk about deporting immigrants, you don’t see them complaining of the Italians and the French in tech, but only the South Americans working construction or picking fruits. At the same time, all of my gay friends of color say the most racist spaces they encounter are within the white LGBTQ+ communities they frequent – you’d think they, of all people, would understand and avoid words and acts of oppression. It seems the only real consistency is anti-brown (anti-other) sentiment.

And even here, on an anonymous blog, I am trying to both sides something that I really don’t think is “both sides”. The most egregious mistake of the Democratic Party in recent history was their suppression of Bernie Sanders in order to guarantee the nomination of their party (and not people) picked candidate, Hilary Clinton. The recent Democratic Party is choosing candidates for its voters, but at least its candidates do some good for the masses. This, I believe, is born from the Democratic Party and the left’s fears of its own voters.

On the Republican Party side, ever since Obama, they have decided that obstinacy and propaganda was the play – to the point that many of their voters are now living in a completely separate reality where they believe Biden, the most pro-union and pro-worker president in history, is anti-working class. Every sniveling pundit on the left says the main problem of the left is a messaging issue – and I agree. The messaging issue is that as long as you’re not willing to use the tools of cults and fascists while the other side is, the evidence of history is that you will probably lose in the short run – and just have to hope everyone survives the consequences in the long run.

My biggest hope was that Kamala Harris would win, and that the Democratic Party becomes the new right as they court politicians such as the Cheneys (because, whatever way you cut it, they ARE the establishment). Then a true people’s party could emerge, one that wholly fights for the working class that is struggling, the middle class that is disappearing, and the small businesses that actually serve their communities. Then this will carry on until stable institutions can be rebuilt, and people come to a place of stability again. But let’s be honest, humans love their kings and figureheads – it was just a matter of was our king going to be Bernie Sanders, or Donald Trump.