This new form of accumulation is associated with a series of novel mechanisms of ‘politically constituted rip-off’. Under political capitalism, raw political power, rather than productive investment, is the key determinant of the rate of return. This new electoral structure is related to the rise of a new regime of accumulation: let us call it political capitalism. Winning an election no longer involves appealing to a vast shifting centre but hinges on turnout and mobilization of a deeply but closely divided electorate. Beginning in the 1990s, and definitively since 2000, Republican and Democrat rule alternates on the narrowest of margins. That political landscape has now disappeared. In the us, this produced significant electoral swings, and big congressional majorities for the winning side: Eisenhower in 1956, Johnson in 1964, Nixon in 1972. This was the ‘material basis of consent’ that determined party success at the polls: a local version of the politics that shaped most capitalist democracies during the long post-war boom. To that end, we begin with a brief sketch of the current conjuncture and a clarification of terms.įor most of the twentieth century, us political parties represented different coalitions of capitalists, who appealed to working-class voters on the basis that they would promote economic development, expand job opportunities and generate revenues to invest in public goods. What we offer here is not a finished argument but a set of seven telegraphic theses, flanked by empirical evidence, intended to provoke further discussion of these critical questions. These transformations have not been adequately sketched and theorized as yet the unforeseen midterm results are a good occasion to begin to do so. American politics has undergone a tectonic shift over the past twenty years, linked to deep structural transformations in the regime of accumulation. All these points have some plausibility, but they miss the larger issue. Among the leading hypotheses is the poor ‘candidate quality’ of many Trump endorsees the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion with the Dobbs v Jackson ruling this summer and-at 27 per cent-the relatively high turnout among young voters. Various explanations have been offered for the weaker than expected Republican performance, in the context of a deeply unpopular President and high inflation. Reproductive rights had a fairly good night, but Democrats continued to fare very poorly with non-college-educated whites––according to one poll, Republicans won over 70 per cent of white men without a college degree. The Republicans swept Florida and flipped a handful of districts in New York. The Republicans took the House with a narrow majority, while Democrats retained their slim hold on the Senate. In reality the results were decidedly mixed. Dire warnings of a ‘red wave’ delivering large congressional majorities to the Republicans gave way to jubilation at the salvation of democracy. I n the weeks following the 2022 us midterms, the mood in the intellectual penumbra of the Democratic Party swung wildly from impassioned handwringing to euphoric self-congratulation.
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