I'm a strong believer in social movements as the necessary component to the political constitution of any democracy. Parties themselves are para-constitutional - the founders were all extremely allergic to factions (those readers of Machiavelli and Locke!) - and had a small polis view of an elected leadership (saving the Senate). However, the small polis was a terrible model for the United States.
As well as parties, the ante-bellum states were rife with social movements, sometimes religious, sometimes ethical, sometimes economic, and all of them a case of a content in search of a form.
This is why I think anyone who cast a real look at the No Kings movement, the much disparaged No Kings movement (which drew less than stellar coverage from the NYT, who devoted more ink to the fascinating insights of blue collar white racists in typical diners in Youngstown OH, marvelling over the permanent vibe change brought about by Trump) and that prefigured the general media inability to envision what came about on November 4. The key thing about No Kings, in comparison to, say, the Occupy movement was that it was very dispersed. And that was key.
A social movement operates on the collective psychology by disinhibiting popular opinion. After 2024, there was a palpable fear out there of MAGA and Trump. Especially in Red Areas of the country, those who were repulsed by MAGA also felt they were fighting against an irresistable force. Hence, when a number of mostly middle aged and older people came trickling out in costume on No Kings days and waved flags and funny signs, the effect was to poke a hole in the idea that MAGA had a death grip on the countryside. It was much more important that No Kings had demonstrations in Gulfport Mississippi than in NYC. If you compare a map of where No Kings demonstratins took place and you look at the changes at the state legislative level, as well as the national level, to a map of the Blue Wave, you will see a lot of correspondences.
Although the mass media reported on it as a flash in the pan, I think the signal was picked up by Trump. At least, his most psychoanalytically interestinng AI vid came out of it.
Freud, in his analysis of the so called "wolf boy", understood, through a dream recounted by his patient, a whole interlocking system of phenomena that were at work in that patient's life. In a strong sense, Trump's video, showing Trump in a plane, wearing a gold crown, dumping shit on the protestors, sez a shitload about Trump's mental condition.
This is a man whose flatulence during his trial in New York could not be concealed. He was 78 then, and he is 80 at the moment, and surely the anal death drive elements in his psycho-sexual makeup are surfacing as he feels, daily, the shit mounting up.
An incontinent Don Juan (as he feels himself to be), or elderly rapist, is in a peculiar position. The wound that his lack of control over his defecation deals to his narcissism is evident - there is a reason behind that bizarre fixation on male asses that he went on about during his rallies. The muscular ass would surely allow him control, once more, over his own digestion! The golden crown and the clean jet dumping his shit over his enemies turns that shit - his enemy - into a weapon. A little boy's toilet training dream, from which the media deflected its gaze, calling the dropping of shit "sewage". The gentility complex that refuses to name the object r - racism - or the object s - shit is connected to Trump's pscyoscatological state.
That this was stirred up by the No Kings movement is an indicator that, contrary to the poobahs of public opinion, the collective unconscious won't be mocked.
So: congrats No Kings People! Keep it up.
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