policing as we know it exists for the defense of property relations, for the protection of retail and touristic spaces of consumption and processes of metropolitan real estate valuation and development, and for the regulation of relative surplus populations who are deemed threats to this accumulation regime.

Instead of making the nation great again and ending “American carnage,” as his campaign had promised, Trump’s presidency brought Americans to the brink of chaos with vicious police repression of peaceful demonstrations, armed militia patrolling city streets, looting of marquee commercial districts, masses in open rebellion, and 200,000 deaths due

the protests over Floyd’s death brought the return of the social. The mass gatherings across the nation were simultaneously memorials, reunions and fêtes—moments where public life was reclaimed.

Hence, classes are not without their own internal social, political, sectoral and other divisions, and the situated-classexperiences of various historical protagonists—the urban poor, politicians, middle-class gentrifiers, beat cops, union bureaucrats, assembly-line workers, activists, real estate developers, combat veterans, etc.—are foregrounded

Policing continues to exist for the advancement of the interests of capital,

Even as it inspires popular mobilizations, racial justice discourse obscures the broader national dynamics of policing and imprisonment, which are widely experienced by the most submerged elements of the working class of all colors.

Trump doubled down on the New Right strategy, but the political, economic and demographic ground has shifted in the half century since the reactionary “silent majority” was first conjured into being.

Or, in the absence of effective counterpower, will we witness more reactionary changes that legitimate the daily violence of capital, or at least remove the most offensive aspects from plain sight?

For many blacks, the racism towards Obama was symptomatic of the unresolved problem of the color line.