United States: The Offended Party’s Turn
It would be a mistake and an injustice to see the results of last Tuesday’s U.S. elections as merely a shift toward the Democratic Party or yet another swing of the pendulum in the time-honored two-party system that controls public power in that country. Moreover, the traditional Democratic leadership — the Clinton and Obama clans, Kamala Harris, and congressional leaders Charles Ellis Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries — went into the election after a series of defeats at the hands of emerging movements inspired by Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders, among others. These movements challenge the very nature of a political sphere that serves not the people but big capital and that, in the most recent phase of Trumpism, declared war on the world at large and on the American people in particular.
It is, as the title of Roque Dalton’s poetry collection* suggests, the turn of the offended — and, in this case, of the many offended by a corrupt, criminal, deranged presidency devoid of even the slightest trace of empathy. It was, first and foremost, the turn of the vast impoverished masses on whom Donald Trump’s absurd economic strategies imposed the added burdens of hardship, unemployment, the loss or deterioration of essential services and widespread despair. In the neighboring country, hundreds of thousands of working people can no longer afford their rent and spend their nights in cars or motel rooms meant to house entire families. Millions lack the income to cope with a medical emergency, and the middle, lower-middle and lower classes simply cannot afford a college education for their children. While the reckless president justified squandering tens of billions of dollars on the war he started and lost against Iran, the U.S. government had no money to guarantee its people’s basic rights.
And it was the turn of communities that have faced discrimination for centuries, been stripped of their lands and rights, and, in recent years, suffered police persecution so brutal that it has even led to murder. The distinctions between “Native Americans,” “Latinas,” “Hispanics,” “Mexicans” and “indigenous peoples” matter little because, ultimately, all have been victims of land theft, oppression aimed at suppressing their culture, and Anglo-Saxon segregationism. This is illustrated by the fact that quite a few Native Americans have been mistaken for Mexicans and abducted in public during ICE’s paramilitary raids.
And now it is the turn of women, African Americans, religious minorities and the LGBTQ+ community — in short, all those who have suffered the abuses of an intolerant, reactionary, moralizing and clearly phallocentric presidency. It is no coincidence that women, people of Mexican descent, members of the Black community, Muslims, and openly gay individuals stand out among the new crop of governors, senators and progressive representatives. This election has demonstrated, among many other things, just how much edge and effectiveness the rhetoric of McCarthyism, machismo, xenophobia, chauvinism, Islamophobia and paranoia about “anti-American threats” has lost.
In his eagerness to preserve the MAGA moment of 2024, Trump ended up destroying it and, in the process, sowing the seeds of destruction of the oligarchic and plutocratic two-party system that has dominated American political life for centuries. The possibility remains open for a “storming of heaven” through electoral rebellions against the billionaires who, just a few months ago, believed themselves to be the unassailable masters of the planet. Last Tuesday, ordinary people — those who generate wealth and suffer the insatiable corruption and misguided decisions of those in power — turned out en masse at the polls to claim their place in the world.
A glimmer of hope has thus emerged for the United States. Perhaps, just perhaps that nation, founded 250 years ago on an extreme paradox — a slave-owning republic that championed the motto of liberty — is still capable of redemption and regeneration. Perhaps, as Dalton wrote, “The rose blinds the sharpshooting champions.” Let’s hope it’s not too late.
*Editor's Note: Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist and revolutionary. He died in 1975.
It is, as the title of Roque Dalton’s poetry collection* suggests, the turn of the offended — and, in this case, of the many offended by a corrupt, criminal, deranged presidency devoid of even the slightest trace of empathy. It was, first and foremost, the turn of the vast impoverished masses on whom Donald Trump’s absurd economic strategies imposed the added burdens of hardship, unemployment, the loss or deterioration of essential services and widespread despair. In the neighboring country, hundreds of thousands of working people can no longer afford their rent and spend their nights in cars or motel rooms meant to house entire families. Millions lack the income to cope with a medical emergency, and the middle, lower-middle and lower classes simply cannot afford a college education for their children. While the reckless president justified squandering tens of billions of dollars on the war he started and lost against Iran, the U.S. government had no money to guarantee its people’s basic rights.
And it was the turn of communities that have faced discrimination for centuries, been stripped of their lands and rights, and, in recent years, suffered police persecution so brutal that it has even led to murder. The distinctions between “Native Americans,” “Latinas,” “Hispanics,” “Mexicans” and “indigenous peoples” matter little because, ultimately, all have been victims of land theft, oppression aimed at suppressing their culture, and Anglo-Saxon segregationism. This is illustrated by the fact that quite a few Native Americans have been mistaken for Mexicans and abducted in public during ICE’s paramilitary raids.
And now it is the turn of women, African Americans, religious minorities and the LGBTQ+ community — in short, all those who have suffered the abuses of an intolerant, reactionary, moralizing and clearly phallocentric presidency. It is no coincidence that women, people of Mexican descent, members of the Black community, Muslims, and openly gay individuals stand out among the new crop of governors, senators and progressive representatives. This election has demonstrated, among many other things, just how much edge and effectiveness the rhetoric of McCarthyism, machismo, xenophobia, chauvinism, Islamophobia and paranoia about “anti-American threats” has lost.
In his eagerness to preserve the MAGA moment of 2024, Trump ended up destroying it and, in the process, sowing the seeds of destruction of the oligarchic and plutocratic two-party system that has dominated American political life for centuries. The possibility remains open for a “storming of heaven” through electoral rebellions against the billionaires who, just a few months ago, believed themselves to be the unassailable masters of the planet. Last Tuesday, ordinary people — those who generate wealth and suffer the insatiable corruption and misguided decisions of those in power — turned out en masse at the polls to claim their place in the world.
A glimmer of hope has thus emerged for the United States. Perhaps, just perhaps that nation, founded 250 years ago on an extreme paradox — a slave-owning republic that championed the motto of liberty — is still capable of redemption and regeneration. Perhaps, as Dalton wrote, “The rose blinds the sharpshooting champions.” Let’s hope it’s not too late.
*Editor's Note: Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist and revolutionary. He died in 1975.
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