Very good thread, I actually mostly agree with what is said here. Still, I will outline my own perspective on it:
First, it is of crucial importance to understand that the "popular uprising", generally speaking, is not a category of politics. It is a category of *theology* 🧵
We often see the debates on whether this or that upheaval constituts an "uprising" or a "coup". But the truth is that a successful uprising usually has at least an element of a military coup in it. If the military/paramilitary stands united for the regime, the regime will stand
In the popular perception a revolution is a miracle, a magic, when the impossible happens: the people defeat the regime. Hence, its theological significance. Credo quia absurdum
The element of absurdity is very important. If it is not absurd, it won't make a miracle
Consequently, criticising a revolt, usually a successful revolt as a "coup" is basically pointing out that it is not a true miracle. True miracle should be absurd and what happened there is not absurd, so it is not a revolution. It does not meet our strict theological standards
That is why differentiating *successful* revolts as either a popular uprising or a coup makes little sense outside of the field of political theology. If it was successful, it had both elements in it.
It wouldn't work with just one
Like having an angry mob in Paris is nice. But to actually take the Bastille you may need the French Guard. Having an angry mob in St Petersburg is nice, too. But you probably won't overthrow the regime without the St Petersburg garrison and the nearly based Baltic Navy
Popular will is not a category of political science, but of political theology. The former deals with mechanics, the latter - with miracles. These two are inherently contradictory. So, if you pay too much attention to the mechanics, the miracle may look less miraculous
I personally very much like Ivan Vladimirov's caricatures on the 1917 revolution and the Civil war. They visualise what you can read in so many diaries and memories of the era. Not so much the popular upheaval as the people in grey coats running amok
An idea that civilians in any numbers can defeat the organised military force if this force stands united behind the regime is purely delusional. If we don't see it, that is because we are used to think in categories of theology and ignore the mechanics
So let's talk about the mechanics
There is another theological category that only seems to be political. It is the "democracy vs autocracy" distinction. When framed in binary terms, it has little usage except to distinguish the saved from the damned, the lambs from the goats
If we presume that:
Autocrat = damned
Democrat = saved
discussions like this start making sense. Putin, Erdogan, Duda (Kaczynski?) are all autocrats -> will burn in hell
There's nothing wrong with this kind of thinking. It's just that it is theology
If we are theologists, then what we should care about is probably about drawing a correct line between the lambs and the goats. Hence, the heavy focus on the normative over the positive
And that is exactly how much of the media and often the academic discourse looks like
So let's forget about the normative for a while and focus on the positive. Under normal circumstances, the transfer of power comes as a result of the civil war.
Democracy is supposed to provide an alternative to the civil war - a mechanism of peaceful transition of power
So the key test for democracy is: does this mechanism work? And, as we cannot answer it otherwise than based on the past, what we should be asking is - did it ever work? In other words:
"Did the supreme executive power in this country ever change as a result of elections?"
"Did the supreme executive power ever change as a result of elections?"
Poland - Yes
Turkey - Yes
Russia - No
The prospect of the supreme executive power in Russia changing as a result of elections is purely hypothetical (not to say made up). It never materialised in reality
Russia does not have elections and never had. Elections have a least a chance of the supreme executive power changing = the sitting President losing. As the sitting President in Moscow never loses, then it is not elections at all, but rather the acclammations. A ritual
The foreign analysts' autistic obsession with "approval" is just laughable. Approval matters when you have to be elected. But when you only need to be acclaimed it does not matter much. Yeltsin was successfully acclaimed with about 6% rate of approval
"Approval" does not matter
The undervalued fact:
In 1999, Putin was a nobody elevated from nothing. Totally unknown, having little reputation or credibility even in the security apparatus. Not to say in the masses who just did not know who he was. With the supreme power backing him, it did not matter
The Putin's rule is not an aberration from normality. It is the normality. Because the normality is:
1. The acting ruler never failed to be elected 2. Therefore, Russia never had elections, only acclamations 3. Consequently, it has no working alternative to the civil war
When the Russian oppositionaries discuss the prospect of the "fair elections", keep in mind that they discuss something purely hypothetical that has never materialised in reality
An alternative to the civil war in form of "elections" does not exist here and never did
"Did the supreme executive power ever change as a result of elections?"
So in other words: "Have you ever had any elections at all?"
Is not a bad litmus test for the democratic institutions of a country. If the answer is no, they probably do not exist and never did
If the democratic institutions never existed in the first place, then building such institutions will require a fundamental change, rather than replacing a bad ruler with a good one. Those who advocate for the latter solution are hardly aiming to change the system
They are most probably aiming to keep it intact.
The end of thread 🧵
PS As @elonmusk or the managerial hivemind in general are suppressing my outreach here, I will be gradually increasing my presence on other platforms. If you want to read my content, add yourself to the email list in the description of the profile
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What I am saying is that "capitalist reforms" are a buzzword devoid of any actual meaning, and a buzzword that obfuscated rather than explains. Specifically, it is fusing radically different policies taken under the radically different circumstances (and timing!) into one - purely for ideological purposes
It can be argued, for example, that starting from the 1980s, China has undertaken massive socialist reforms, specifically in infrastructure, and in basic (mother) industries, such as steel, petrochemical and chemical and, of course, power
The primary weakness of this argument is that being true, historically speaking, it is just false in the context of American politics where the “communism” label has been so over-used (and misapplied) that it lost all of its former power:
“We want X”
“No, that is communism”
“We want communism”
Basically, when you use a label like “communism” as a deus ex machina winning you every argument, you simultaneously re-define its meaning. And when you use it to beat off every popular socio economic demand (e.g. universal healthcare), you re-define communism as a synthesis of all the popular socio economic demands
Historical communism = forced industrial development in a poor, predominantly agrarian country, funded through expropriation of the peasantry
(With the most disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences)
Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.