“Sex is the rocket fuel of the political psyche.”
Lordy, I’ve heard it all. The silly call-out culture of
postmodernity that can say in a cyberblink all the sins left unaddressed by
this or that . . . guilty of it myself at times, I expect . . . “Taking this
action will not address questions (a), (b), or (c).” On the question of
elections, this can get even sillier with an array of guilt by association arguments
and scarecrows to ritually denounce and tear up.
There are some things that elections are, and there are some
things elections are not. That is true ontologically, but it is also true
personally, and the last time I checked, the actual act of voting in an
election—while certainly a strange and highly complex public ritual—is accomplished
by actual persons. The claim or implication that participation (for those
persons) is (include declarative statement here . . . like, “an endorsement of
an evil process,” e.g.) is false on
its face, unless someone can convince me that the perennial curmudgeons who
market this stuff have learned to read minds.
Ever so often, however, history conspires to make a thing—like an election—drift into a
unique position where it ramifies through whole societies. It is still all the
things elections are and aren’t, but it suddenly connects in such a way that it
pivots history a bit, throws it onto a different azimuth. I think 2018 is that
way, just as 2016 was in a different way.
One of those interactive phenomena are social movements, and
even in naming this, we open up some controversies about what social movements
are and aren’t. Not here. The re-ignition of sex as the subject of feminist
grievance and analysis defines 2018 in much the same way that the re-ignition
of a nascent political left marked the 2016 bifurcation. In many ways, this is
far deeper, because sex is the rocket fuel of the political psyche. We observe
Donald’s agitated, defensive displays of hypermasculinity again and again, only
occasionally noting how driven they are by gender norms that associate women
with weakness and taint and men with hard-heartedness and violence.
Donald Trump was arguably elected by perceived threats to (white)
masculinity. If someone takes the time, I bet s/he could prove that. Seems
pretty glaringly obvious from here. White male victimhood is the central
narrative, the opening scene of which is male victimization; the concluding fantasy scene is the teleological
restoration of order through the restoration of the national masculinity. It
was the heartbeat of the campaign. People don’t get that because they keep
listening to what these people say—which is a dim and distorted reflection of
the terror-stunned insecurity that writhes in them like gutworms of the soul. Sexual
identity expressed as masculinity is deeper in many men than their dimmest
memory, more sacred than any spiritual practice or confession of faith.
These flashes of authoritarian white male rage that have
saturated the media in the past few days have seriously triggered a lot of
women I know, most of whom have had one or more brush with Man-the Sexual
Predator. And that is where I’m looking right now: at the reactions of women.
Believe me, this is more than about Republicans, even if at
this conjuncture—this trick of history—defeating Republicans has become more
than defeating Republicans and coincidentally—for the next few weeks—the most
important thing in the world we can do together.
The Democratic establishment—housing
more than its share of Man-the Sexual Predator—is milking it now for the same
elections, as is to be expected. Fly’s gonna fly. Wolf’s gonna wolf. Tree’s
gonna tree. I was more active in the antiwar movement (younger, for one thing),
and I remember the oceans of Democrats, led by their civil society entrepreneurial
class, joining us in demanding an end to Bush’s war. We needed them, but when
Obama was sworn in, the war continued, and we became radioactive to them. Be
warned.
But an election is not about “I vote Dem, therefore I
endorse the institution (and all that is in it).” An election is an event with
consequences over which we do still exercise an element of control . . . though
we are approaching a period where failure to use that limited power might result
in losing it all. Moreover, an election has the power to mobilize and aggrandize
social movements, just as it did in 2016 with the Sanders challenge.
Elections are tactical. I know plenty of people who knew how
utterly awful Hillary Clinton was, based on her fundamentally neoconservative
world view, and who voted for her nonetheless, because they were afraid of
Trump. They’ve been vindicated, but there we are. Now we have Trump . . . and
Kavanaugh . . . and the double whammy of the powerful consciousness-raising and
solidarity-building #metoo and #whyididntreport suddenly energizing women and women’s
allies to use that energy as a test, perhaps a display, of the newfound power
of that movement, in a tangible, even quantifiable, way.
What is at stake is not just a chance to rebuke the power of
Trump by demolishing his party in the elections, it is—as these old white men
have been pretty clear—patriarchy that is under threat when the subject becomes
sexual harassment, sexual humiliation, sexual domination, sexual assault, and
rape.
If women continue to mobilize and deliver a decisive blow to
the Republican Party, they can turn 2018 into a referendum on patriarchy. That
kind of power cannot be ignored, and it will not only slash at the psychic
foundations of the Right, it will serve as a reminder to all others . . . get your
houses in order. You could be next.
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