Has Anything Fundamentally Changed?

Joe Biden as a political contradiction?

French philosopher, Alain Baidou, 2012 — Creative Commons License

New Fascism

When Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016, many observers stated it was because she did not present a stark contrast to Donald Trump. One of those observers was Alain Badiou, the French philosopher.

Here’s Baidou just a few days after the election:

“…the suc­cess of Trump is pos­sible only because the true con­tra­dic­tion of the world can­not be expressed, can­not be sym­bol­ized, by the oppos­i­tion between Hil­lary Clin­ton and Trump, because Hil­lary Clin­ton and Trump are in the same world — very dif­fer­ent, but very dif­fer­ent in the same world. And so, in fact, dur­ing all the pre­par­a­tion of the elec­tion, dur­ing the primar­ies, the true con­tra­dic­tion, in my opin­ion, has been between Trump and Bernie Sanders.”

Badiou called Sanders’ political and economic program “a true contradiction.” He also asserted that Clinton was the proper choice but that he understood why she lost.

“Hil­lary Clin­ton and Don­ald Trump are very dif­fer­ent,” he stressed. Trump, according to Badiou is a “new fascism” while Clinton was the “old political oligarchy.” We should prefer Clinton but America didn’t and it is because they are different “inside the same world,” Badiou said.

Badiou and many others concluded that Clinton was too busy straddling the middle when real change for more Americans was not in the middle road but with a far more different political and economic vision. America is a country of intense inequality that is currently structurally imposed on most of the population. Most Americans wanted that to end in 2016 which is why Bernie Sanders got traction amongst the electorate.

Trump was for ending the system as it was but he was mostly for Trump. He also exuded certain racist fascist ideals that were troubling.

However, Hillary Clinton gave no indication she would replace the existing system really. Her campaign coffers were full of money from those kinds of supporters. She would leave the political oligarchy in place. That was a non-starter to far too many people.

So she lost.