A reader described my last column on a possible bleak future for the territory as “nonsense.” He may be right, since it was a description of a future that is largely unforeseeable. Our immediate future is only slightly more foreseeable. But right now, it doesn’t look so hot either.
The United States has two major political parties. One of them will win the presidency this November, barring the extreme unlikelihood of a third party victory. Despite its vehement denials, the Republican Party is now the party of reaction, of white nationalism, of corporate power, of theocracy and of hostility to the “others.” These others include racial minorities, immigrants, gay people and “liberals.”
Contrary to popular belief, once elected most politicians actually do try to keep their promises. There is a solid chance that next January, the United States will have a Republican president, Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, and at least two Supreme Court appointments. The last will cement a far-right majority on the Court for as far as the eye can see.
This outcome will represent the triumph of reactionary forces that began their rise with “white backlash” in the mid-1960s and rapidly accelerated with the election of Ronald Reagan three decades ago. Racial resentment has now been blended with economic decline, right wing Christianity (contraceptives bad; torture and capital punishment good), entrenched corporate and Wall Street economic and political power, xenophobia and the impact of Fox News, conservative “think tanks,” and right-wing talk radio and web sites. Together, they represent the most powerful reactionary movement in American history.
Not content to put black people and other “others” back in “their place,” the reactionary right seeks to shred the social safety net that goes back to the Great Depression and the New Deal. Instead of walking back from policies that have hollowed out the productive economy, produced a financial and economic disaster, and created the worst inequality in the industrial world, the Republicans have bet all of their chips on continuing and expanding them.
In describing reactionary movements like this one and their efforts to roll back or prevent social progress, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “It is the beginning of sociological wisdom to understand that social advances all but wreck the societies in which they occur.” A lot is being wrecked.
There is an assumption that the Republicans will “move to the center” to govern. But based on experience, there is little reason to believe that this will happen. Middle of the road Democratic administrations (Clinton and Obama) move to the right. Far right Republican administrations (Reagan and George W. Bush/Cheney) stay put. As the Republican Party has become more extreme and reactionary, the danger to the country’s future continues to increase. The positions of all the current Republican presidential candidates are the most powerful evidence of this danger.
So what might this mean for the Virgin Islands? The good news may be that the territory is so small and so far off the radar screen that, once in power, they wouldn’t notice. That would be good news relatively speaking. In the current economic crisis, the territory needs – and deserves – help that can only come from the federal government.
In the event of a Republican sweep, any such forthcoming help would be very unlikely. These people have no time – and certainly no money – for losers. Like “the 99 percent,” the Virgin Islands would be left to fend for itself. But being left to fend for itself may be the best – or least bad – outcome given the alternatives.
What may be worse would be if one of them did notice. Years ago, there was a local judge in my hometown. He was a Tea Party guy before there was a Tea Party. Typically, when a white defendant appeared before him for sentencing, he would say, “I’m going to give you one more chance, but blah, blah, blah.” And the white guy would walk. When the defendant was black, and for even the smallest of infractions, the judge would thunder, “I’m going to make an example of you.” And he did.
Given the facts that the Virgin Islands has a largely black and Latino population and a very large government sector, if a voice on the reactionary right takes notice, the temptation to “make an example” of the territory may be too strong to resist. The Republican right has developed a great expertise at finding a small issue (or a small place), turning it into a wedge and linking it (falsely) to some big moral or constitutional principle. In this way, they gain political advantage or raise money. What they damage or wreck in the process is of no concern. Examples abound: ACORN, the Terry Schiavo case, Willie Horton, and today, Planned Parenthood and contraceptives, along with the supposedly vital pipeline that will bring gasoline prices down to 1956 levels.
There would be a number of attractive targets in the Virgin Islands, some of them legitimate. The most obvious one would be the government sector, “bloated” and unproductive by almost any reasonable measure. Then there would be the public schools, tragic and expensive underperformers. An investigation by a Congressional committee of the practices of the Virgin Islands Senate might be entertaining and illuminating. Or, “they” can’t manage their finances, so let’s have a federal takeover and let the Interior Department run the place again. Think that is farfetched? Look at what is happening to municipalities, which just happen to be heavily black, in the State of Michigan.
The reactionary right’s skill at creating temporary mountains out of permanent molehills should not be underestimated. And the scary word in the paragraph above is “legitimate.” How can you defend the territory’s public schools? It would not be a big stretch for someone to simply say: nothing could be worse. Let’s get rid of the union, get rid of the bureaucrats and turn the whole thing into a bunch of charter schools. All in the name of “reform,” of course. Given pupil performance, the intransigence of the union and the inertia of the school bureaucracy, what would the defense be? It is hard to come up with one.
There is something quite striking about these possible scenarios. First of all, none of it may ever come to pass. As the reader said, it may all be “nonsense.” But like mainland Americans, Virgin Islanders often suffer from a lack of imagination, the result of having spent most of our lives in good times.
So here is what is so striking about this situation. If there is a Virgin Islands antidote to dealing with the potential threat of the reactionary right and its destructiveness, it is getting free of the clutches of the reactionary left and its destructiveness. It means rejecting all of the following: the implacable commitment to the status quo, the defense of the lowest common denominator as an acceptable standard, the norm that “I’ve got mine,” and the concept of “born here” as a kind of value added coupon.
It also means being able to say, “Yes, we have a problem, and here is what we are doing to solve it.” And having facts to back up the statement. If there is a logical starting point, it is imagining two futures: a better one, in which Virgin Islanders control their own destiny and make difficult but positive choices, or one that is imposed by groups and interests that have demonstrated time and again a willingness to inflict real damage on those they view as their enemies and their inferiors. Not a tough choice.
