Voters are epically dissatisfied as we enter into the midterms. But our political economy and social world are not changing in response to that dissatisfaction.
Despite the best efforts of one party to suppress the vote, and both parties to gerrymander the vote, the electorate refuses to be bowed or cowed by the state. All the traditional mechanisms of voter suppression, while unconstitutional and thus to be resisted at every step, and effective around the edges, don’t seem able to dislodge the electorate itself.
We have then a puzzle. On the one hand, an electorate that is more mobilized than it’s been in a century, and not just episodically mobilized but permanently mobilized. On the other hand, we have (…) “the stuckness” of contemporary politics, in which “the particles of academic and political life have slowed to a halt” and “all that was air has become solid.” That’s where we are — permanently mobilized and unable to move —
That would be “immobilized”.
The title is intentional. Explanation: