Near the end of Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, Battle of Algiers, an older leader of the liberation movement advises a younger fighter after their apparent victory over the French colonizers. The battle is not over, he says, the hard part is just beginning. Now they will have to govern a society torn apart by revolution and counter-revolution.
Democrats might be nearing that moment, according to some polls and widespread commentary. If so, and whether the Democratic prize is a narrow perch atop some offices and institutions or a Blue Tsunami that sweeps away right-wing extremism, the Democrats will have to govern. What they get to govern is a society torn apart down to the level of families, neighborhoods and communities. What they get to govern with are remnants, fashioned over two hundred and fifty years of conflict, negotiation and compromise; but, the broken remnants left after constant assault from Nixon and Reagan through Bush and Trump.
It will not be easy, but the wishlists of what to do next have begun to emerge anyway. Since they are widely available and discussed, they will not all be listed here. Instead, first take a moment to consider the nature of lists. Many of us make To Do lists. How else can we keep track of what it is we have to do? What better way to make yourself feel better after crossing an item off the list?
There are problems. The list doesn’t go away, The list gets longer. Some items fade away, onto the subconscious Undone list maybe to get recalled later. Lists multiply. “Action Items” become lists of Action Item lists. What then? After beating yourself up for never completing your list, you resort to the classic solution. You set “Priorities.”
So one version of the Democratic Party’s “closing narrative” for this year’s affordability campaign is “Tariffs and the War.” Again, according to polls and punditry and social and antisocial media, it seems to be working.
Take a closer look. By now, most of us have understood that tariffs are a sales tax, which U.S. importers will, if they can, pass on to U.S. consumers. So there is obvious cause and effect between tariffs and inflation. There are some tariffs, however, that were around before Trump because some Americans used their democratic political rights to get favorable treatment for domestic products like cheese and automobile metal. And Trump will still be in office for two years and unlikely to raise the white flag on his tariffs.
Is inflation itself an easily understood phenomenon? Years ago an Economics 101 text might have told you about the two kinds of inflation: demand pull and cost push. But then it turned out to be not so simple. During and after Covid we learned about supply chains and how, if one link got hung up the whole chain stalled. Now, we are beginning to recall what was obvious to Americans, even Texans, in the 1890s. Capitalism, due in part to the very same intensely competitive pressures free-market worshippers rave about, generates intense pressures to consolidate assets and centralize decision-making. Back then we called those decision- makers captains or giants of industry and finance if we liked them and robber barons if we didn’t. Now we call them oligarchs and techbros. Back then and now, we call those consolidated assets “monopolies” and even our free-market friendly textbooks tell us the rational, profit-seeking monopolist will raise prices, limit production and cut costs by cutting quality.
(And our Government 101 texts will tell you that, according to our Supreme Court, those monopolists are legally entitled to spend unlimited sums from their profits in order to control our politics,) Years ago, that text might also have told you that we can control inflation by imposing a “central bank” on the finance industry, and giving that bank power to set interest rates, that is, the cost of borrowing money. Today’s text might tell you that what it is that we call the “money supply” is unclear. Now we have to deal with a poorly understood “financialized” economy, in which assets chase assets and the people who work in finance (including insurance, real estate, private equity and many others) are called “producers,” as if they were making cheese or automobiles.
As Todd Snider put it, “We’re making money out of paper, paper out of trees, making so much money we can hardly see.”
With respect to Iran, Democrats should remember that just as there is no such thing as a “Good War,” there is no good way to end a war. Biden failed to recall the scenes of helicopters hovering over the Saigon embassy and helicopters being shoved off the stern of carriers in the South China Sea. So when he had to pick up the pieces left by Trump in Afghanistan, he made it onto what was left of the Six O’Clock News.
Leaving the dilemmas of affordability and Iran aside, Democrats better check their list twice. If the Gaza genocide and the ICE rampage continue, 2028 will not look so rosy.
If November 3, 2026 is the beginning of the end for the MAGA interregnum, praise your personal deity. If not, you will learn what Robert Johnson meant, standing alone at a Mississippi crossroads as the sun sank low, moaning about hellhounds on his trail.
Tom Denyer resides in Bandera County.
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