A Real Horror Show
Hundred millionaire Stephen King sides with the ruling class in his enthusiasm for Kamala Harris's silencing of anti-war protestors. Great writers used to serve as the moral conscience of the people.
Stephen King has long been giving us nightmares in print and as a detached neoliberal, part of the ruling class distanced from the struggles and suffering of the working class, marginalized communities and those the Democratic Party massacres overseas. While I am a devout horror fan and am particularly fond of several of his early works, nothing in his genre legacy will be more horrifying than this photo of him proudly sporting a Kamala Harris “I’m speaking” t-shirt. It is doubtful that King is oblivious to the fact that Harris was scolding members of the Palestinian community whose loved ones had been killed by US bombs, so it speaks volumes that he would wear it giving a vigorous “thumbs up.” But it’s hardly a surprise as the one thing the ruling class fears most is dissent, particularly when they know they are guilty of crimes that need to be covered up. It is this type of dissent that has the potential to expose them for the hypocrites that they are, stoking fear about the nefarious plans of the other side like Project 2025 while they actually do things that are as morally reprehensible as anything in a plan that at this point is hypothetical.
The mocking of protest, and particularly what pro-Palestinian activism represents, is another nail in the coffin of the democracy that Democrats are so desperate to save. But that democracy is only the freedom to align with the ruling forces of their political party. If the manufactured consent of imperialist media like The New York Times heralding that “Democrats are smiling again, and so is a vice president who once weighed the political risks of cheerfulness” has its desired effect, you will get in line with the corporate interests that run media and their political parties to support an unelected candidate anointed by the special interests. Or democracy can take a cue from MSNBC analyst Anand Giridharada, who in turn took a cue from the new “four letter word” Harris/Walz campaign strategy, in purporting that the “positivity” (scolding protestors and swearing must be a part of that) of the Harris campaign “Fascism’s a f--king bore…We have to show what it would feel like to be alive.” Giridhara needs to tell that to the estimated 167,000 dead in Gaza. Like ruling class member Stephen King, all of these insiders will convince those petrified of Trump of the “joy” to be found in a presidential candidate who nobody elected and who has repeatedly shown to have absolutely no independent ability to articulate public policy. Apart from her improvised ridiculing of prioritizing “school over prison,” a personal ideology that aligns with her open disdain for protest.
Those who are members of the Harris/Walz fan club, or those afflicted with Trumpaphobia, excuse Harris’s callous behavior by speculating as to what she was supposed to do when interrupted during a speech. That of course depends upon one’s authentic sense of justice and empathy. If I were in that situation, I would tell the demonstrators that I agree the situation is intolerable, and that I want to stop Israel’s genocide by telling Netanyahu that we are going to immediately stop sending munitions, monetary aid and offering cover for their crimes in the UN and the International Criminal Court. But Harris is a prosecutor whose sense of justice is mass incarceration and denying exculpatory evidence to prisoners on death row. She is a cutthroat whose frame of reference on history and world affairs is extremely narrow. The ideal candidate for a political party capitalizing on social issues that it utilizes for fundraising and the mobilization of its base, but one driven purely by cancer capitalism and imperialist aspirations, its candidates the most platitudinous cardboard cutouts who can and will be molded like playdough to the whims of the donors who are throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the Harris/Walz ticket. As Bernie Sanders puts it bluntly "Why would many, many billionaires be contributing to candidates if they didn't think they were getting something out of it? They're not doing it through the goodness of their hearts."
Democrats and their media have propagandized their base to the point that they believe the Harris campaign is a grassroots effort. But grassroots support is that generated by policies that connect with the masses, not the Pavlovian response generated by fear and the manufactured consent of the ruling class. This powerful one-two punch is devastating to empathy for anyone outside of the religious sect of Trumpaphobes who are convinced they are “saving democracy.” The predominant concern is no longer what these oligarchal autocrats do. They can remain silent about genocide (although Harris and the Democrats will take full credit when the inevitable cease-fire is called) while supporting it, exhibit an inability to answer questions about basic policy, have a history of poor judgment and cruelty and offer no policy propositions yet “Democrats’ joy is unconfined as Harris and Walz take upbeat message on tour” is the headline from The Guardian. Something rather unflattering to the Democratic Party indicated by such propaganda is that the party’s concealing of Biden’s Parkinson’s Disease was not working as well Biden supporters let on. The only thing that has changed in regards to this newfound joy is that he is no longer on the ticket. That and the performative Harris/Walz “Joy to the World” tour with all their prancing and dancing and smiling and pointing.
The most devastating consequence of oligarchal rule and the power of their fearmongering propaganda is the response to Stephen King’s Tweet. I have heard from friends that they are concerned that the DNC protests will damage Harris’s campaign. That it will make it look like the Democratic Party is in disarray. Which would be a shame apart from the fact that the party is in disarray, as any political party that is not serving in the public interest and has to hide it would be. That it will reflect poorly on their ability to maintain law and order. Only the party and its military and domestic paramilitary and intelligence agencies violate the law on a regular basis. The overwhelming concern has become the welfare of the party and not the people. Suddenly the public at large will whisper along with the politicians and their media to cover up for the most heinous of crimes against humanity, the people now working to protect their representatives instead of the opposite being true. Our job used to be being informed and working in the interest of people like us or those who don’t have a voice. Now it’s ignoring information in the interest of working for those with the most power and the loudest megaphone. Conscience is making excuses for the violations of trust and transgressions of those in power, not standing up to call out those violations of trust or reverse those transgressions. The silence is deafening, the collective lack of conscience more chilling than any of the obvious threats posed by Republicans and Trump.
Stephen King is likely aware of an episode of the 1980s horror television show called Tales from the Darkside. Produced by horror film auteur George Romero, there is a prophetic episode entitled “If the Shoe Fits…” about a bombastic gubernatorial candidate. He recounts the secret of running for political office to a hotel employee, confiding in him that “politics is just a game” and that “voters don’t care about the issues. All they want is someone who can put on a good show and make them laugh.” His campaign poster reads “Vote for Gumbs…The Happy Candidate.” The gist of the show is that politicians are clowns, and their supporters gullible targets easily swayed by free barbeque and cotton candy. It is almost impossible not to see the comparison to the Harris campaign, with propaganda about “joy” and “laughter” plastered across every headline and cable news chiron. Tim Walz serves as the nice clown, warming up rally audiences with one-liners and good ol’ boy “common sense” zingers, with Harris dancing onto the stage and pointing at Walz and laughing while he points at her and guffaws. The day after Biden dropped out, social media was flooded with exhuberant posts about Kamala Harris and within two days she was the presidential nominee. Without so much as a single issue posted on her website, without a single public interview, without any vetting whatsoever by the media or the public, she was anointed as the savior of democracy. Gumbs was right. Nobody cares about the issues. All they want is a good laugh and to win the game. They will let elites like Stephen King reinforce the demonization of protest practiced by both political parties, while they wring their hands about anti-war protests serving as a reminder of the issues they so long to sweep under the rug because “Trump is worse.”
So you’ll excuse me if I find the spectacle of Stephen King, who is part of the liberal power elite, endorsing the first black women presidential candidate’s silencing of black women speaking out to protect a massacre of black women that as vice-president she could have spoken out against to be nothing to laugh about. The jokes aren’t funny. The joy is manufactured by the same consultants who brought you Bidenomics, then marketed by Democratic Party donors who advertise on CNN, MSNBC or who own major news outlets. You can ask Stephen King how and why so many Americans would be so elated over a president-elect who was ordained by the party, has zero policy positions and was not at all favored by many in the media or the Democratic establishment. Maybe it’s because like Gumbs they’re just so doggone happy, and we need some new jesters to Make America Laugh Again. But what’s so less than joyous about it is that Harris will do just what Obama and Biden and Bill Clinton did—nothing for the working class, precious little for organized labor, chip away at social programs and then cry austerity because we have too many genocides and proxy wars to fund. If Trump is an outgrowth of increasingly right-leaning Democratic Party neoliberalism, what type of right-wing dictator would rise after four years of a Harris administration?
Ultimately the reason I am so horrified about Stephen King’s thumbs up for authoritarianism and genocide is that it was the great genre authors that taught me the dangers of suppressing the truth, the perils of slipping into authoritarianism by scapegoating “the other,” the moral imperative of free speech and the dystopian consequence of perpetual war. Writers like Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Gene Rodenberry and Kurt Vonnegut to name a few spoke volumes on the dangers of fear ushering in an insidious fascism, one that gaslights its citizens into believing those lying are telling the truth and those telling the truth are to be silenced. Imaginative writers should be the watchdogs not the lapdogs, yet that is what $500 million has done to Stephen King. Modeling the behavior of compliance with the powers that be to his loyal followers. As the aforementioned science-fiction authors predicted, those decades of compliance from a propagandized base have led us to a complete subversion of democratic process embraced by a petrified base walking on eggshells to the point of absolute moral compromise. So it is a shock to see one of the most popular contemporary authors, someone who I assumed was imaginative and perceptive, doing the exact opposite of the authors I had always found solace in. Of course, Stephen King’s work is not necessarily visionary and doesn’t adopt any particular ideology, much like the presidential candidate on his shirt. But when it comes to horror, I wish he would stick to fiction.
I do not, necessarily, agree with all of Mr. Kaufman's opinions, but I do agree with most of his assessments. He IS intellectually honest and he presents intellectually honest arguments. IF one has dissent from his opinions they should argue facts, not emotion. THAT is the problem, and the impending doom, of "American" society. I do not require agreement, concurrence or an echo chamber from anyone no matter what their position, what I care about is intelligent dialogue. That is how societies advance and, thusly, that is why this one has not...and, seemingly, will not.
Steel sharpens steel.
This M.F.'s is what is called a "Mic Drop."
"it’s hardly a surprise as the one thing the ruling class fears most is dissent, particularly when they know they are guilty of crimes that need to be covered up. It is this type of dissent that has the potential to expose them for the hypocrites."
Sublime, indeed.