CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Identification: Virulent Pathogen

“Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.” – Louis Althusser

“Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.”

Although Americans are divided over how good or how bad President Donald J. Trump is, people elsewhere ask one question: “How did Americans elect this man twice?”

Regardless of the day-to-day estimates of how many Americans are adamant hard-core Trump MAGA class, and how rallying cries of power with the People and not Trump grow each day, neither side has landed a knockout punch. It’s an even bet whether Trump’s head will go on Mt. Rushmore or he’ll be wearing orange in the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

If we apply Althusser’s definition of ideology, what we have in the U.S. are widely different imaginary relationships to the real conditions of existence, that is, verifiable conditions on the ground. As a Marxist, Althusser views capitalism as the creator of those imaginary conditions. In other words, a profit nexus (Carlyle) to the world masters and overwhelms other views, subscribing to an imaginary in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” That’s The Communist Manifesto, 1848. That relationship with the real never caught on in the U.S, whether because it ignored real conditions, or because another imaginary, ROI (return on investment) better suited these “real” conditions.  My own postmodernist view questions our capacity to reach and represent outside imaginative frameworks these real conditions that all materialist views capitalist and anti-capitalist hold. There is a competitive battle here to persuade that one narrative (before postmod called an argument) is closer to reality and truth than another.

Let’s now say there was such contention before Trump’s regime. But not now. He has........

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