How to Combat the Fascist Steam Roller
As long as Republicans remain in power the fascist steam roller will roll on, crushing all that is decent and humane. Until Democrats dramatically change course, Republicans’ iron grip will hold fast. Unless a unified anti-fascist movement rises to influence elections there is no hope for effective resistance.
As reported, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," justifiably damns the President's inner circle in particular and Democrats in general for Trump’s election wins. However, the media focus on Biden's age, frailty, and the clueless Democratic supported choice to run him for President misses more far-reaching, deeper explanations.
Over decades, as community disruption, and insecurity became more and more pervasive Democrats lost the trust of far too many Americans. The Democrats lost elections, and voters became more cynical and disaffected, more subject to racist blame, and more inured to the suffering of others. The domination of conservative narratives, Trump's victories, and GOP triumphs in local, state, and federal elections followed.
Much has been written about the contributors, but with insufficient attention to three:
1) Democrats ceded the narrative about meeting human needs to a regressive conservative ideology. What should have been powerfully framed as inalienable, universally met human rights, applicable to everyone, was instead accepted as financially contingent on “affordability”. Meeting human needs became a national debt drag rather a must do first principle. This Democratic failure enabled the empowered wealthy few and their Republican enablers to connect the availability of high-quality healthcare, education, housing, and a safe, sustainable environment as a function of their willingness to pay their fair share of taxes. With Democrats’ dependence on campaign contributions from the wealthy, this Democratic concession devolved into the widespread perception of only defending the most vulnerable and ignoring everyone else.
With the advances of the civil, women's, and disability rights movements, Democrats became associated in the public mind with defending so-called interest groups rather than rights that applied to everyone. As a result, any efforts to meet one group’s needs came to be viewed as coming at the expense of others. Democrats did little to combat this perception.
With the advances of the civil, women's, and disability rights movements, Democrats became associated in the public mind with defending so-called interest groups rather than rights that applied to everyone. As a result, any efforts to meet one group’s needs came to be viewed as coming at the expense of others. Democrats did little to combat this perception.
2) Democrats'–and many progressives'–deplorable acceptance of the Palestinian exception to the sanctity of all human life and concomitant U.S. funding of and diplomatic alliance with a fascistic genocidal Israeli regime has green lighted devaluation of human rights in the United States, persecution of immigrants, and suppression of dissent. Any exception violates the principle. Mainstream Democrats are well aware of the implications of the glaring stain on their credibility. Wising away its airing, they refused to even listen to Palestinian speakers at their national convention last summer.
In their attempts to win elections, Democrats made separate appeals to so-called interest groups rather than making the case for international, multi-racial unity and solidarity. Devastatingly, Democrats supported the conflation of antisemitism with condemnation of Israel. Political disaffection, divisiveness, resentment, stay-at-home voters, and election losses prevailed. Gazans continue to be murdered and starved every hour of every day. The struggle to fight fascism at home and in Palestine are inextricably interdependent.
3) Progressives–who must lead the antifascist struggle–have largely failed to give sufficient attention to resolving the tension between fighting for particular human rights and the desperate need for "big tent" solidarity. While some have long argued for intersectionality, the overall result has been diffusion of effort. Facing a bold fascist threat, that may be changing. A new mantra is emerging: “Come for one of us, face us all.” Unity and common cause must be an overriding priority to achieve the base-building and power needed to stand against the fascist tide and project an alternative vision.
As Stephanie Fox, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace declared at a recent National Member Meeting, the current context we face means that, "Solidarity and survival are synonymous."