Memes

Second part first, agree totally. I don't mean to suggest Trump truly represents some sea change against neoloberalism... but his rhetoric was very much a rejection of a lot of it. He's absolutely a liar in terms of actually representing change from the status quo... he's a pure kleptocrat, plain and simple. But the point is that facade is what resonated with people because even those without the knowledge base or words to form why they're over neoliberalism, are very much over neoliberalism. Regular people, not, not just political nerds.

First part, hard disagree because it informs strategy on how to move past it. If you believe both sides are colluding to keep the masses down and there's no real electoral path to improvement... well, we're at the stage of violent revolution and there's no point faffing about further. Neither of us are out there with rifles yet, so I'd argue neither of us really, truly thinks that's the case yet. Because that actually does happen in places like Gaza, and for good reason - they literally have no other recourse. We've got the table tilted against us, but ultimately we can and do upset the institutional power still. Trump, while he didn't represent real change, was absolutely totally rejected by institutional power in his initial run and managed to win by establishing a faux-populist cult of personality... that literally could not have worked if electoralism was truly totally dead.