Ali S. Harfouch

We really don't learn. We get drawn into the same antics with these political figures. We still pay more attention to the image; to how things look as opposed to for what they really are. Identity politics are nothing but a scam and pure performativity. In this neoliberal age of marketability, cultural markers and aesthetics trump all else; especially when it comes to ethnic background. Obama, AOC, Zohran and now AES. They know what sells. They know what slang to drop and when; what to refer to; what to wear; and how and when precisely. None of it is by happenchance. Everything is planned out based on hours of deliberation and analysis; curated, perfected and then executed. Everything they do or say is processed and packaged for you as the audience to consume. These politicans are products; characters manufactured to serve a far larger narrative than what necessarily meets the eye. They understand that the aesthetics they deploy, whatever they may be, are the most valuable currency they can exploit as part of the spectacle they create in an image-based society where optics outweigh everything of substance including material conditions or policies. What makes the liberal/ democratic establishment so exceptionally dangerous is how it persistently shows it will consume all dissent and resistance against this system— undermining it, co-opting it, repackaging it— then selling it back to us as radical, when in fact all it does is maintain that same hierarchical structure of dominance. I fear AES is another tool like many before him, to not in fact shake things up (as he will lead you to believe), but for you to buy back into a system and culture so many are yet again losing faith and trust in. The system cannot dismantle the very harm that it itself produces. So it blunts that which does threaten to undo it. Sure, the Republicans are just as dangerous, but they tell you where they stand and you know what you're up against. But these guys are operating on a different level of deception and trickery. They know how to play a part and how to convince you. About how they really care about you or how they're really on your side. But the liberal establishment does the same thing everytime. They will watch as their inaction and deception angers their supporters. They will watch the frustration boil over until that rage churns out a figure who channels that frustration for the disillusioned populace. They understand the threat that individual poses; so they attempt to first discredit them; before intimidating and coercing them into abandoning their position. When this does not work, they embrace them. Not their policies/ ideas, just the individual figure. They hallow out that radical substance in policy that they are threatened by, and repackage it to present you the mere aesthetic. That is all they care about. The empty veneer. The spectre. The carcass. Not what's inside. They only care about the optics and the image; the potential of what can be sold. Not actual dignity or liberation for Palestinians, but the keffiyeh design displayed on some Air Max on a podcast recording stage to rapturous applause. They make you think that that is the achievement. Nothing of actual material gain or progress. Just an aesthetic. Everything is pure theatrics and marketing. The hope. A dream. A vision. Nothing substantive. Nothing real. No actual road map or concrete plan to address the issue at hand; never confronting or willing to address the problem at the root level. Just the potential to make you think that that person or that plan will mean something; that that political figure or their ideas will do something. They just have to make you believe in that person so much so as you go and vote for him. That's their bottom line. To get you to the ballot box. That's what they're looking at AES as— a new vehicle to carry them forward. Just as Zohran was coopted, compromised and now is utilized to serve a particular agenda whilst feeding a particular narrative. Allowing the party to tap into and gain the support of those who voted for him. The campaign/ platform they ran on given the mass popularity, offers a blueprint to what will gauge disillusioned voters back towards the party. That they say all the right things. That they go just far enough. That is all useful for the establishment to feed off of to consolidate their own positions. For now. It's all useful ammo for the Dems to load up in their arsenal until they can take back the White House; just as they did with taking Congress- channeling the very real disillusionment by banking on people's hopes that they will change things. Taking that frustration, that rage and that hope and turning it into votes. Gaining a victory. Before going back to not doing anything. Obama didn't call Zohran last summer because he loved his agenda so much; he called him out of fear. When Obama endorsed AES and campaigned with him, it wasn't because he loves and supports his message. No. It's because the Democratic establisment become fearful of the potential these figures attain and the people power they come to carry which may threaten the top brass' and actually force them to shift their policies towards meaningful alternatives/ change. They send an Obama to coopt and redirect those campaigns; offering credibility and legitimacy with the party in exchange for concessions. Either they've already succeeded in compromising AES or eventually will turn him into yet another establishment stooge by offering him more power/ influence/ resources etc. Let's see.