Christian Parenti should be familiar to anyone with a serious interest in Hamiltonianism within the last several years. Early on in this Blog’s existence, I happened to have read his book, Radical Hamilton, where Parenti outlined how aspects of Hamiltonianism could lay the foundations for a more ecologically responsible industrialization. The book went to the heart of the contradictions between Nature and Technology with regard to the American Essence. I still recommend reading it if anyone has the time to do so.

More recently, on Compact Magazine, Parenti penned an article about Trump’s criminal convictions from the perspective of the American Left. He argued that the recent felonies issued in New York are the latest in a series of attempts by the Jeffersonians in the Democratic-Republican Party to derail another Trump Presidency. This is not to say that Parenti looks highly of Trump. Far from being apologist for Trump or his Presidency, especially given his father’s Marxist background, Parenti raised an important implication that a constitutional precedent is being introduced here. In essence, there is going to be a time where the Jeffersonians may resort to legal intimidation to stifle political dissent, the intimidation facilitated by means of the reputational and financial costs imposed on the defendants.

That said, Trump’s conviction on document tampering in the interest of election manipulation is by no means good news for him. As the poll results indicate, many people on the fence won’t like this. It remains to be seen how undecided independents and swing voters will respond to the first candidate who is a convicted felon.

Such a conclusion can only be considered unorthodox in an America where more Americans live isolated from each other, obtaining their information from sources that frame everything in a single manner. Rather than from a plethora of Ideologies and Worldviews, including those opposed to each other, the information is being colored in shades of Neoliberalism. Small fragments of events scattered like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

If an American or the upstanding citizen of any respectable nation for that matter believes that political figures and government officials are not above the Rule of Law, that they should be punished for crimes or corruption, then this belief must be applied to everyone. Whether the figure or official is popular among the Totality, affiliated with the ruling Party or reflects the prevailing Ideology and Worldview, there should be no exceptions. Parenti asserted as much by insisting that because the Jeffersonians are willing to hold Trump accountable, why not any Democrat or Republican President?

Part of what drives Trump Derangement Inflation are distinct partisan news bubbles. I have been shocked by the number of liberal and left-wing people who think the cases against Trump are in no way politically motivated—and, in at least one case, coordinated. One very intelligent democratic socialist, seeming embarrassed by the unsportsmanlike quality of the lawfare against Trump, assured me that this was all the result of uncoordinated headline-hunting egomaniac prosecutors. Like most leftists I have spoken with, this person knew nothing about how members of a DOJ team met with Biden administration staffers ahead of the raid on Mar-a-Lago over Trump’s classified-documents case, as White House visitor logs show.

Nor do most on the left know the details of Hunter Biden’s $83,000-a-month gig for Burisma, the shady Ukrainian energy firm, which he held even as his father, then the vice president and the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine, pressured the government in Kiev to fire a prosecutor who was going after Burisma for corruption. Joe Biden later bragged on video about getting that prosecutor fired.

Similarly, most liberals and leftists I speak with have learned to memory-hole the suppression of the New York Post’s exposé on the Hunter Biden laptop, which included evidence of Hunter arranging a meeting between Burisma executives and his father (who, again, was the Obama point man on Ukraine at the time). When the story was published, Facebook reduced its circulation pending “fact-checking,” though it did no such thing in the case of countless anti-Trump stories that proved to be false. 

Furthermore, Parenti went on to maintain that, regardless of what someone’s positions are on Trump or his Presidency, one should be suspicious of the precedent that the Jeffersonians had created. One should also be critical of anyone who thinks that the supporters of any political figure are going to do anything more drastic than empty rhetoric or even basic civil disobedience. A repeat of the events of January 6, 2021 is unlikely, not unless the Federal Bureaucracy gets complacent and incompetent, something that is not going to happen anyway. And because the Federal Bureaucracy are beholden to the Democratic-Republican Party (for obvious reasons that date back to the New Deal and the Reagan Revolution), Parenti suspected that they will do anything to prevent anything meaningful coming out of a second Trump Presidency. The bulk of the resistance, he felt, may emanate from the American Military-Industrial Complex, which still has a lot to gain from allowing the Jeffersonians and their Empire of Liberty to continue arming the Ukrainians:

As everyone was gawking at the courtroom spectacle, the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to use American weapons systems to hit certain targets inside Russia. This marks a significant shift in US policy and quite possibly a new phase in the war. Vladimir Putin will likely seek some corresponding way to escalate. Meanwhile, people who pay attention to what Trump actually says hear him promising to end the war in Ukraine.

Many Trump supporters I have spoken with predict rebellion. They think that no matter who wins the presidential race, the other side will rebel. That strikes me as fantasy. Or as a wish masquerading as a fear. The federal prosecutions of Jan. 6 protesters have taught hard-core MAGA supporters that there are very serious consequences for anything resembling a rebellion. 

If Trump wins, there will be very powerful people in the defense establishment and broader deep-state milieu who are very unhappy. They will throw sand in the gears as they did during Trump’s first four years. But I have a hard time seeing NPR listeners erecting barricades and burning tires. Indeed, there is something impotent about this moment. Like one of those bad dreams when one is throwing punches only to find that one’s arms are numb, tingling, and asleep.

For anyone who has nothing to gain from siding either the Democrats or the Republicans of the Democratic-Republican Party, there is an historical lesson to be learned here. It is not at all outside the realm of extreme possibility for the Jeffersonians to gather dirt on the sexual proclivities of their dissenters. What better way to tarnish somebody’s reputation than to accuse them of being anything but straightlaced in their sexuality?

There is no doubt that other countries have relied on similar methods. I am aware of a few countries, except when they do it, it is in order to blackmail them into silence due to their less than savory associations. The Jeffersonians have proven themselves more than capable of doing the same, even if they do try to portray as “oppositional research” done by other political scientists. When they do it, they rely on intelligence sources that found themselves working in the Private Sector at various consulting firms, security firms, research groups and so forth. Parenti himself made this fact quite clear in his discussions about the various accusations that the Jeffersonians levied at Trump back in 2016 and 2017.

Where the Jeffersonians ultimately differ is their willingness to defer to the Judiciary to diminish the Quantity of Kapital possessed by any dissenters, real or imaginary. I say “real or imaginary” because American Law does have plenty of means to engage in such questionable legalisms. After all, an impoverished dissenter forced to pay court and legal fees is incapable of becoming a political prisoner or a political martyr.

Categories: Politics