The USA has taken a turn to the far right; anyone who can’t see this or denies it is either politically naive or intellectually dishonest.
But there are a lot of people, including in the American Left, who have high hopes that Trump will deliver on his promise to deal with the globalists. As long as he does that, the Left will be happy.
Many are asking to give Trump a chance to try to deliver on the promises. And that’s the problem, that the Left has faith in him, because, apart from dealing with the globalists, Trump also promised to deal with everybody else whom he blames for the suffering of the (white) working class, those he identifies as the ‘others’, the non-whites and the non-Americans, homosexuals, bitchy feminist women, the disabled… That’s how Hitler started, didn’t he?
Identity-Politics: No need to be concerned about it.
Today, the main issue for the Democratic party, the GOP and the oligarchs is how to pacify the white voters who voted for Trump; it is not even all the voters, the focus is on the suffering white working class.There’s you first clue that you, a member of “the others” club will not get a number to wait on line for your ration of progress.
One of the oft-repeated criticisms against Hillary Clinton is that she focused on identity politics at the expense of white GOP voters. Her crime, one of the myriad she has been accused of, is that she focused too much on women’s issues, and then on the other identity issues: ethnicity, race, immigration, religion…but her focus on women was ‘devastating’. What right did she have to raise the issue of violence against women to the same level as male workers problems?
The GOP never addresses the problems of the voters in the Democratic party (I have never received a call from the GOP on elections time), but, somehow, maybe because she is a woman, she was supposed to include the GOP’s white supremacists interests in her daily outreach to voters.
Let’s move on.
Before discussing how identity politics have been used as a tool of fascism, I will describe how Bernie Sanders, the American Left (AL) and Hillary Clinton handled identity politics in the primaries.
Identity Politics Deniers
A superficial take on our daily politics would tell us that the USA is going through a painful ‘class struggle’ over the economy for ‘more’ economic ‘equality’. That’s what Bernie Sanders, the ‘elite intellectual’ American Left, and the oligarchs’ media want you to believe.
(By AL I mean socialists and ‘Marxists’, and their online ‘think-tank’ magazines like Black Agenda Report, Counter Punch, Socialist World…I exclude from this list the people at The Nation, the only Leftist group that understood what was at stake and wrote an article few days before the elections titled “HC is not the enemy”. They got a lot of flak for that.)
Bernie Sanders and the Left unsuccessfully tried to sell to the voters during the primaries the idea that the only thing that should matter to the working class is the class struggle for economic progress, and the environment in second place. He lost the primaries by over 2 million votes because the American working class, the middle class, women, Blacks, Muslims, legal and illegal immigrants, the disabled…people who identify themselves as more than just ‘working class’, rejected this idea that only the economy should matter to them.
In that sense, Hillary Clinton (HC) made clear her position about identity politics. She openly responded to Sanders by saying that the economy alone doesn’t explain racism against the Black upper middle class, or the culture of violence against women, homosexuals and Latinos. That’s why there was more support for her than for Sanders, because she was more inclusive than he was. The rest, the accusations of her ‘stealing’ the primaries from Sanders, that was just part of the arsenal of character assassination and misogyny dumped on her. But I’m digressing.
“Identity politics” is anathema for the American Left, that’s why they hated Hillary’s focus on ‘identity issues’; and they hated the most among all those issues her focus on women. That’s the one that really cooked their noodles.
The Left’s Conscious Decision To Ignore Racism
On the other hand, they loved Trump because they believed (and still do) that he talked about ‘the economy’, ‘class identity’ issues and anti-globalism, and that he means it. The AL made a conscious decision to ignore his view on the other identity issues, that he blamed immigrants for the suffering of the white working class, that he is anti-Muslims, that he is a racist.
“In my opinion, it turns bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme, mobilizing force in national life.” Peter Lee ‘Trump: We Wish the Problem Was Fascism‘ at Counter Punch
That actually explains why Sanders refused to denounce Trump’s controversial statement (true, all his statements were controversial) that women who have abortions should be sent to prison.
Sanders totally dismissed Trump’s comments as “stupid remarks” that do not deserve media attention. He even got visibly annoyed when Rachel questioned him about his dismissal of the comments as less important compared with ‘real problems’, i.e., the economy, workers salaries, the environment.
Women’s issues are ‘identity’ issues, and Sanders and the AL and the oligarchs can’t care less for women’s issues, can they?
Sanders couldn’t accuse Trump’s fascist identity politics because he himself agreed with Trump’s accusation that Latinos, legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from the white workers. Sanders even supported the Minute Men Militia, a point he didn’t denied. Sanders and Trump pit one group against the other just as white racist pitted white workers against blacks in the factories up to the Civil Rights Movement. Sanders was not too active with the Civil Rights Movement, maybe it was because he didn’t care about that identity problem either.
Sanders focus during the whole primaries was on attacking Hillary Clinton. He refused to attack Trump when he had ample opportunity to denounce him as fascist. But he didn’t do it. Why didn’t he?
The Left States It’s Anti-Identity Politics Stance
“In my opinion, it turns bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme, mobilizing force in national life.” Peter Lee ‘Trump: We Wish the Problem Was Fascism‘ at Counter Punch
First, notice that the majority of those who are against ‘identity politics’ are men, especially of all races and ethnicity when it relates to women’s identity issues, but mostly white. Of course, identity politics was fine with men in the 1900-1930s, the ‘proletarian movement’ had the interests of women and oppressed Blacks and ethnic minorities in their International Workers agenda. But not today.
Second, The assumption by the Left is that when Trump talks about the economy, he is doing it from a conscious understanding of the supreme “class identity” issue. That is what I call being a Trump Apologist: the pseudo-intellectual living-dead Left explains to the ‘ignorant’ working class what Trump means, when he actually doesn’t mean it, and invites them to vote for him because he is “less dangerous than that woman”.
‘Identity Politics’ and Fascism
This is what those who rail against ‘identity politics’ forget: That Hitler’s triumph, as Donald’s, was based on “identity politics”. It was Hitler’s hatred of every human group that was not white that united the beloved white working class around him. The rest is history, isn’t it?
Hitler blamed the real suffering of white German workers (they were actually starving, as opposed to today’s Trump’s workers who are not poor) on everybody that was not white and Aryan. But his identity politics extended beyond class issues: cultural identities – he hated non-Catholics, homosexuals; race based hatred Blacks and all non Aryans; ethnicity – all non-Germans…
And the reason Hitler raised to power was the divisions in the Left about who had the correct interpretation of Marxism. They left a political vacuum that Hitler filled with hatred. When the Left was united, they took down the German empire and installed the Republic. But they couldn’t hold to that power because of their divisions. When the Left is strong, the 99% is strong, when they are weak…Hitler and Trump happens.
You can use identity politics for good or for bad. Hillary Clinton was using it for good. She understood that economy is part of the problem, but we also live with race and gender issues that determine who gets the biggest slice of the economic pie. For example, White workers don’t have the same economic problems as women, especially Black women. That’s why we talk about equal pay…an economical issue dismissed by the Left because, well, it is a an ‘identity issue’ for women and they don’t care about ‘identity issues’, do they?
Many, not all, white American people don’t care about ‘identity politics’. They have the luxury to ‘postpone’ issues of race and gender and ethnicity because they don’t suffer them. They don’t see the connections between ‘class’ issues and identity issues. But rest assured, Hitler and Trump care about them.
While many white people are truly progressives, they need to be watchful for these subtle fascist ideas that can easily be assimilated when the economy is made to be the only issue that matters. You may not be afraid of Trump’s racism, but I am. You may not get deported or physically attacked, but I could be.
We have just taken the right turn. To correct this we need clear understanding of politics, of identity politics. We must be able to recognize who our enemies are, with whom we can work in coalitions and temporarily. There can be no space today for purity of ideas, for saintly leadership. You, who voted for Trump or indirectly for him by voting for Jill or Johnson because you hated that woman and thought that you couldn’t establish links with her, you have some soul-searching to do. Did your commitment to purity of ideas really pay? Was there no other bigger danger than Hillary Clinton?
This much I can tell you: If you listen to the American Left, who has lost its ideological bearings, we will all end up in a horrible place. Susan Sarandon can take an airplane and leave the nation, but must of us will have to stay and take it to the chin.
Anarchic movements like OWS and BLM are good for the oligarchy because these are headless, leaderless, spontaneous movements. We need to organize and do it OUTSIDE of the Democratic party. Sanders is, at most, a progressive who will work to grab power for himself. Sanders has no affiliation other than to himself. Today democrat, tomorrow ‘independent’. He responds to no one. That would be OK if YOU understand it and can keep him on track. But don’t count on it.
The American Left has become an unnatural living-dead creature that puts its hope on an elitist, racist and fascist capitalist who has done NOTHING at all for any one but for himself and his family. From where do these people get the idea that he represents the interests of the 99%?
The oligarchs will help Sanders and the Left to disseminate this anti-identity politics idea because it will give them the ideological base to round-up dissenters and all “the others”.
It’s in your face people.
crazy USA presidential elections: Trump is NOT the People's president (Est. 2015) 