Revolutionary Theory
Revolution: when the people rise up against an oppressive government to change its structure. A “coup d’etat”,is when an individual leader is overthrown. But a Revolution is a popular movement (of the people) overthrowing a “system”, not just a tyrant. Look at revolutions of the past: the American, French and Russian revolts. They didn’t occur when oppression was “at its worst”. Revolution isn’t a matter of how bad things can get. Historically it was a matter of “hope”: of people knowing that things were getting better, than having that hope dashed.
Revolution is about frustration just as much as it is about oppression. It’s about taking away hard-won gains, improvements that were won “within” the system. When those are stripped away, the frustration that results causes “the people” to “rise up”.
America Today
In today’s America, there are two different cases that suggest we are a nation on the verge of revolution. The first is the “frustration” of the fading white majority, slowly losing power along with its majority status. Within two decades, white people will no longer be the majority of Americans. The race that had the majority power since the founding of the Republic; since it could own some minorities and sweep others from their lands, will no longer be able to depend on sheer numbers to dominate elections.
One perspective on the success of “Trumpism” is to see it as a last great struggle of that majority group to maintain control. In blunt terms: the Obama Presidency was a “wake-up call” to a new, multi-cultural America. For those who didn’t appreciate that change, it was the alarm that drove them to the polls in massive numbers, first to elect Trump in 2016, and then to defend him last November. Their America is dominated by a strict partisan divide. At every level it is near even: the 2020 Presidential election (81 million for Biden, 74 million for Trump), the Senate (50 Dems, 50 Reps), Governorships (27 Reps, 23 Dems), and in the House (Dems 222, Rep 212).
Past Majority
The four years of the Trump Administration gave that fading majority group “hope”. Mike Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State and an obvious future Presidential candidate summed it up in a tweet last week: “Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker…”
In a more esoteric way, that conflict is demonstrated by the New York Times’ 1619 Project versus the Trump Administration’s The 1776 Report. 1619 places slavery at the foundation of much of American prosperity. It posits that the original sin of America was slavery, one that has neither been acknowledged nor atoned for. 1776 was written by a commission of conservative Christian historians for the Trump Administration to directly repudiate 1619. It denigrates the impact of slavery both on American social and economic advancement, taking the more traditional, “great individuals, primarily white, made a great American” stand.
And now, by a relatively slim margin, Trumpian “hopes” have been frustrated. And their leaders, with Trump at the head, stoked that frustration with the “false hope” that the election was stolen. It should be no surprise that they were willing to storm the Capitol, hang the Vice President, and overthrow the Constitution. Ironic that they were protesting the one Constitutional provision, the Electoral College, that gave their minority view political power four years before.
Future Majority
Concurrently, the “future” majority is now feeling empowered. The symbol of “white majoritarianism” is the former President, the first to be impeached twice. They view the 2020 election as a repudiation of Trumpism. And the changing politics of the South, with Georgia and Arizona going for Biden, and North Carolina and even Texas becoming “bluer”, are a positive signs of the future.
But states like Georgia, Arizona, Texas and Pennsylvania are also trying to enact voting restrictions, with the clear desire to reduce minority voter participation. And should they be successful in minority voter suppression, that will serve to frustrate them, perhaps leading to a disenchantment with the current electoral processes. Nothing “calls” the revolution more than gaining power legally, then having that power ripped away.
Insurrection
We are learning that the “Insurrection” was not just a spontaneous uprising of a “mob” of Trump supporters. There was planning involved, planning by the extremists who wanted to use the mob as cover, and by the organizers to use mob action to pressure Cgress. In short, the mob was intentionally created, and intentionally used. Whether their ultimate violence was “intended” by the Trump Administration, is still an open question.
But Insurrection is not a Revolution. Revolution is much deeper than a riot in the Capitol, or in the streets of American cities. Revolution comes when a vast number of Americans come to believe that their government no longer can represent their interests. In fact, it comes when the Revolutionaries have lost all hope of “political” change.
Changes in our Nation are inevitable. America is America: we are becoming more “multi-cultural” in spite of Mike Pompeo’s wishes. And the “inalienable rights” are more than just those that the Founding Fathers’ envisioned, in spite of the authors of the 1776 Project. The predominantly white, Christian, European nation those Founders led is old news. Luckily, they left us Founding documents that allow our changing nation to expand our structures and our beliefs.
Without that expansion, Revolution would be inevitable. The frustration will make people Rise Up.
