Some Notes On Our Present Moment---Part Two Of Three

A statement from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) reinforces what gets called “liberal identity politics” when they say, “This was scripted white supremacist violence instigated by Trump.” We agree with DSA that Representative Ilhan Omar’s impeachment attempt and Representative Cori Bush’s effort to expel Republicans who tried to block the election deserve full support, but DSA is misstating what fascism is and they aren’t talking about building or consolidating an anti-fascist united front. A statement from Howie Hawkins of the Green Party (remember them?) on January 1 took the Left to task for supposedly retreating to the right. Hawkins prescribed less unity for the Left as his cure and put forward no ideas on how to fight and win in the present moment. The “We knew this was coming!” crowd didn’t know this was coming, or wasn’t prepared even if they did. The people who scoff and say that this insurrection or attempted coup was poorly prepared forget that the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 was also a sloppy job. Coups and insurrections often do not succeed on their first or second or third attempts---think of Turkey----but they are staging grounds and they consolidate power. The liberals must be pushed and pulled to follow through on impeachment and prosecutions of Trump and his allies; this a moment to open political options and build unity, not to further confine ourselves.

We do not defend science and logic, or reason, only because they are under attack by our enemies, but because science and logic are political questions. Each class---workers, the middle-class, the bosses---has a science and logic that meets its interests and needs, whether they fully realize this or not. The workers have dialectical materialism. That is a political matter. But for reason of any kind to hold sway, reasonable people must hold power---and the question of power is also a political question. The broad question of this moment is one of who will hold power, who will be excluded from holding power, and under what conditions this will take place.

Our radical friends who return from the future with prognostications of “all will be well” or “we are all doomed” should at least have the good graces to bring the winning Lotto numbers back with them if they really wish to be helpful.

It is now a true saying that if Georgia shows then way, then D.C. shows the stakes. But there is something else: it is not our liberal friends, or even many of our revolutionary comrades, who form the directly opposite and absolutely necessary opposing force to what happened in D.C. The necessary effective counter-push against the right-wing is coming from the Solid and Black Belt South and from workers in industries and professions most directly affected by the pandemic and people of color in communities where the police killings have happened and where there are existing traditions of fighting back. But these people cannot fight alone and win. The concept that solidarity is a two-way street built from necessity has been sacrificed and must be repurposed.

We should share with the liberals an absolute abhorrence of seeing the Confederate flag carried in the Capitol, or anywhere, and react with the same abhorrence and anger to the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts. We should hold up the union statements condemning the fascists and use them to organize fellow union members into the movement. We should look soberly at the election numbers and stay with the base, the grassroots, and figure out how to win people over during the pandemic.

The media and certain politicians have been building narratives that will allow some Republicans to survive this moment politically and go on to win future elections by giving space to the Republicans who suddenly oppose Trump and street violence. That sets a low bar, but it feeds bipartisanship and may be used by Democrats to justify compromises. “We finally found some moderate Republicans!” The media and certain politicians have also been working for quite a while to find the roots of our crises in Russia, and not here at home. A liberal friend even sent along a meme of the Republican leadership under a hammer and sickle yesterday. Much is being done by the Centrists to salvage part of the right-wing and strengthen the Democratic party's Centrists, once more excluding the Left. It is not that the Democratic Party’s Centrism should not be reconstructed or saved, but that a Left-Center alliance would be of greater help, and would be more viable, than an alliance between the media and the center of the Democratic party or an alliance between centrist Democrats and the Right.

Our liberal friends walk into the media trap with their glasses off. Some of our radical friends either insist that the Left should have no ties to the center and that we should not consult the liberal media, or their criticisms are formulated in ways that prevent building unity. It’s as if the hard-fought election that we just went through didn’t teach us anything and that we didn’t win and lose ground in the elections in the same moment. The most capable voices on the Left analyzed the election results and argued that a Biden/Harris win would give us a new terrain to struggle on, and that waging that political struggle is all-important, but many of us remain mired in ultra-leftism and instinctively reject an organizing strategy and tactics that take us beyond Left circles and to the masses.