I read an astonishing headline today. Russia’s going to build nuclear weapons that previous disarmament treaties banned — and will no longer hold talk with the US on “any matters related to arms control.”

Wait, what?

I was as worried as you probably are right about now, my friend. It’s time to talk turkey and stop mincing words. Buying the Presidency for a few mil was the best investment Russia ever made. In fact, it’s probably the best investment that has ever been made — since the Indians were swindled into selling Manhattan for a few pennies. In modern history, there’s nothing that comes remotely close to…buying an American presidency.

I want to tell you a story that you might find incredible — and might even make you a little angry. Very well. Treat it as light entertainment, if you like. I wonder, though, by the end, if you still will. Let me begin here.

If you don’t believe that Russia did buy the Presidency by now, nothing’s probably going to convince you. The ghost of Leonid Brezhnev could follow the Prez around grinning, for everyone to see, and you’d probably deny it. Still, let’s add up a few lines of evidence.

This administration has given Russia not just everything it wanted — but everything that anyone might imagine there was to give Russia. What American has given goes so far beyond “what Russia wanted” it’s another galaxy. What Russia wanted — at least explicitly — was not a lot, really. It wanted power to wage wars on its borders and not be held accountable, to have a great say in international relations, and so forth.

And here’s what Russia got. America dumping all its allies — Europe, Britain, Canada. Insulting and mocking and demeaning them. Pushing old treaties and alliance to breaking point. Fracturing NATO — over a few pennies. It got sanctions lifted. It got various privileges granted to its oligarchs. It got more or less total control of American domestic policy — which became a mirror image of Russia’s, a kind of chest-beating white supremacy, crossed with ethnic tribalism. Violence and stupidity became regular features of American life (more so than they were already). American institutions got hollowed out, to the point that the government barely functions at all, bereft of people, money, resources. It’s cold comfort that all the advisors and managers stand indicted — the damage is done.

Who won the Cold War, in the end? So far, my friends, it’s looking like Russia won it — without firing so much as a bullet. Nobody in their right mind a decade or two ago would have said that America would have happily given Russia not just all of this, but any of this. And yet here we are. But where is “here” exactly?

Russia turned America into a mirror image of Russia. Or at least it’s turning it into one. Or at least it’s trying to. Replete with tyrant, oligarchs, bigotry, prejudice, hate, ignorance — all held together with the poverty of a caste society. When people are kept poor, my friends, they are easy to turn against their neighbours and friends. When societies are kept poor, institutions are starved — and all the easier for oligarchs to loot them. A society quickly becomes an embittered, barbarous place, run by mafias and gangs, who’s job it is to enforce the moral law of violence that the tyrant demands. Does that sound a little bit like what America became? It’s also what Russia became, too.

In other words, Russia colonized America — through a kind of soft coup, a hidden takeover, which its institutions, already impoverished, broken, weak, from media to government, didn’t really see, and therefore couldn’t really prevent. Remember when Hillary tried to warn us — and was then savaged in the press — “but her emails” — and now we know that’s all connected back to Russia? LOL — you see my point. America is becoming a Russian vassal state, a colony — and like all colonies, reflects the attitudes, priorities and values of its overlord state. That is why American life is going from bad to worse. After all, the average Russian only lives for 60 years, stays poor, and has his money, happiness, and life extracted away by mafias and gangs, at whose head sit oligarchs. In America, we call them “billionaires” and “capitalists” — but the principle, and the degeneration, remains the same. The United States of America today is something more like the First Protectorate of the New Russian Empire.

How did all this happen? It’s true that technology and propaganda and so on played a role. But I want you to step back with me for a moment and see the big picture. What made all this feel so inevitable — like a bomb waiting to go off? How did it proceed so easily, naturally, and meet with so little resistance?

We are a capitalist society. In a capitalist society, everything is for sale. We are a white supremacist society — and in a white supremacist society, democracy is something that is only for the pure and true. (Yes, really — see how many poor black kids get shot by cops? How black wealth is barely a fraction of white wealth, even today?) We are a patriarchal society. In a patriarchal society, resources are controlled by men. (Yes, really. Did you know America has about the same level of female politicians in office as Pakistan?)

What the blazes does all this have to do with becoming Russia’s newest colony? Everything. Capitalism, supremacy, and patriarchy made it more or less inevitable that American democracy would corrode to the point it was sold off to the lowest bidder — by the most shameless, predatory con artist. Don’t believe me? Let’s think about it together.

(Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying “all white dudes are bad!” or “capitalism is evil!” and so forth. Not at all. I am saying something a little more nuanced, that I think you should really try to understand at this grim juncture in history news.)

In a capitalist society, everything’s for sale. Unfortunately for us, that included the Presidency, too. But who was going to sell it? We’re a white supremacist society, so it was going to be a white person. We’re a patriarchal society, so it was going to be a white man, hewing to the ideals of patriarchy — the most shameless, selfish, violent, and abusive one of all.

We started selling off democracy a long time ago, didn’t we? Democracy became a thing that you couldn’t even participate in without huge war chests and lobbying dollars and so forth. Do you see what I mean? So because democracy was for sale — wasn’t it inevitable that someone with truly malicious intentions would come along and buy it?

There are many things in a society that should never be for sale. Life, belonging, meaning, inherent worth — right down to national security and the Presidency, whose job it is to safeguard those things, essentially. But a kind of fetishization of capitalism made us foolish, and folly is a kind of weakness. We didn’t remember, as a society, that not everything should be for sale.

But who was going to sell it? One of the untold truths about American society is that the ones with the power to sell things, especially things that belong to other people, like labour, bodies, time, and feelings, are white men, thanks to patriarchy and white supremacy. They are the ones who “set the prices” and “allocate the resources” in econo-speak. They decide who gets paid what and so forth. Do you think Jeff Bezos would have ended up a billionaire — which is to say, had the power to sell things like other people’s labour, time, and feelings — if he’d been born a black kid in the Philly projects? Unlikely — that’s why most of America’s super rich are white men. So because supremacy intersect to give white men the power to sell our bodies, time, feelings, and so on, it was going to be a white man of a certain kind — a deal-maker, a capitalist — who sold democracy.

But what kind of white man? Well, patriarchy demands a certain kind of man — one who’s primary job in life it is to climb to the top of hierarchies. By abusing and demeaning and belittlgin others. You know how frat-dudes bond by violating women, even in name, if not in body — and the first one to step over the line, and say “slut” becomes the leader? That’s the dynamic patriarchy seeks — it selects for the most shameless, violent, abusive, and hurtful one — who is also the most needy, desperate, and fearful one, too, the one who needs to be at the head of the pack, at the center of attention, at the top of the ladder, or else he feels he is no one at all. The predators among use, in other words.

Wait just a minute. Doesn’t all that sound exactly like our dear leader? Down to a T? His life, his psychology, his attitude, his manner of speaking? The way he craves attention and lashes out, the way he basks in the grotesque, the way he seems to think abuse itself is civilization? Doesn’t all that sound eerily like precisely what happened to American democracy?

Perhaps, then, I have a point. Because if you understood what capitalism, supremacy, and patriarchy were really doing to America, you might have thought: capitalism’s putting democracy up for sale, to the lowest bidder, supremacy’s letting powerful white people sell it to others like them, and patriarchy means it’s being pimped by the most predatory, to the most insatiable and greedy. Bang! you might well have concluded: things don’t look good for this country, do they? After all, a predator who wants the best deal for selling a democracy is also the one who’s going to sell democracy out to the lowest bidder, fastest — no matter if that bidder is an enemy, an adversary, or a tyrant, or a mafia boss.

Capitalism, supremacy, and patriarchy are not compatible with freedom, equality, and decency, my friends — and in that way, the selling out of American democracy was inevitable. Our President didn’t start it — he only finished the job, in spectacular, disgusting fashion.

If it feels like all that’s what happened to America — maybe it’s worth reflecting on the above, as fantastical and impossible as it all might sound to you.

Umair

February 2019