Centrism can't defeat fascism
This is the conundrum of our times.
This morning, I watched The Majority Report’s post-debate analysis from last night, where they watched the reactions of various panels on cable news.
Even though I had planned to skip this debate as it seemed so much more entertainment, a way for both candidates to divert the voters’ attention away from their various troubles, I’m watching the debate right now so as to be on the same page and to be able to put these commentators’ responses in context.
There seems to be a broad consensus that President Biden did abysmally.
Aside from Biden’s performance, one of the things that the crew at The Majority Report was talking about was how the Democrats have claimed that this race is an existential one, that our very democracy is on the line. Sam Seder clearly said that Biden as a candidate is not living up to that standard.
Emma Vigeland, Sam’s co-host, made the point that, as far as the argument is concerned, this is a trend that we see worldwide, where the far right and fascists are making huge gains and real inroads. Vigeland didn’t use the word ‘zeitgeist’ but it would have fit her overall point perfectly.
“We’re seeing it not just in the United States. This is a global phenomenon. We’re seeing it in Europe, where these fascist parties and far-right figures are gaining ground, and centrists are not able to hold the line in the way that they have in the past because they’ve hollowed out the entire party infrastructure wherever the case is. And it’s been more about, ‘Do you want a status quo situation, or do you want somebody that’s going to mess crap up?’ And I have deep concerns about the future of a party in which the candidate here has decided that he doesn’t need the left.”1
Centrists can’t beat fascism.
It doesn’t have the tools. It doesn’t have the fire. The left does.
This has been the danger all along of decapitating the left, going back at least eight decades, if not longer. As I noted in a comment this month:
The left was decapitated, as it were, throughout the 20th century, starting at least as far back as the Palmer raids in the '20s, then the Red Scare and subsequent blacklisting of leftists in the '50s. The latter in particular resulted in a dearth of left voices in nearly all of the arts as well as other avenues of reproducible culture for at least a generation. From the '50s to the '80s, basically there was no left, especially not a radical one. The leftists that remained were actually moderates, and their viewpoints were "allowed" to be produced on television and in film because they were milquetoast. (Radio featured more radical "leftist" sound, but this was co-opted by the '80s with the rise of corporate FM stations and the like.)
In the '60s and '70s as well, the left was decimated. The Vietnam War protesters experienced a huge backlash; and the activist Black community was devastated in the wake of a decade of assassinations. The one vibrant spot in the "radical" left as it existed in the United States was the women's movement, and even that was beginning to ossify as it went from the grassroots into academia (see Catherine MacKinnon et al.).
From the '80s onward, it was Reagan and the right all the time.
There has not been a viable left in this country since WWI.
Due to this evisceration of the left over the last fifty to one hundred years, we as a society are unable to respond nimbly and vigorously to the fascist threat.
In the game of political rock-paper-scissors, fascism is the paper, and centrism is the rock. Rocks seem great for many occasions. This worldwide moment is not one of them.
Centrism just doesn’t have the tools to respond. It doesn’t have the ideological tools. It doesn’t have the rhetorical tools. It doesn’t have the ability to reach into the grassroots and activate persons on the ground to raise awareness and form a bulwark against a rising tide. Centrists don’t mobilize. So they’re at a decided disadvantage — and this is the election season that Biden has decided to jettison his left-leaning flank to go pursue centrist conservatives. Exactly the wrong strategy for this moment.
Centrism isn’t going to save us. Biden and the Democrats are losing because they’re not meeting the moment. Republicans say they want to stone people to death execute women who get abortions — this is not the time to be in the middle. This is the time to be on the firm left flank to clearly contrast one’s stance on this very real ideological issue.
The correct counterweight to an advancing far right is located on the farther left. If you just imagine a spectrum or a scale, the idea is clear. You can’t counterbalance a lever tilting far-right by placing a weight at the middle of the fulcrum. Basic physics bears this out. The metaphor extends into the political space.
And it’s going to be painful and counterintuitive for the Democrats, because they have spent at least the last three decades purging liberals and leftists, especially the latter, from their fold. Centrists have embraced trends in globalization in the tech sector and in other avenues of maintaining often a corporate status quo, trends that since at least the ’70s have eroded the undercarriage of our society and our socioeconomic life.
What is needed now, to salvage this campaign and to combat the spectre of a resurrected fascism, will not be a natural move for today’s Democrats. They will have to go against their first instincts. I’m not sure they have the time or the human infrastructure to make that maneuver.
“Debate Reaction w/ Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland.” The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder, YouTube, June 27, 2024, ~ 15:30.
It’s worth noting that Brezhnev was a mere lad of seventy five when he left this mortal coil. His successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were 69 and 73, respectively when they died. Based on this, the Soviet leadership was mocked as a gerontocracy. Frankly, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, et al seem like a Boy Scout troop when compared with the hospice patients we have leading our country.
Even if Biden somehow wins and the Democrats end up having to “Weekend at Bernie’s” him around for four years like they did for Feinstein, we’ll still be in the same situation in 2028. When Democrats are nominally in charge, all they do is tread water and find an excuse not to do anything. There’s always an excuse. They can’t do anything because of Russia or the filibuster or Mitch McConnell, or Newt Gingrich, or Joe Lieberman, or Joe Manchin, or Kristin Synema, or, or, or…There’s always an excuse for the Democrats to tread water, whereas Republicans seem to get what they want, regardless of having a majority. If you (using universal “you” here) genuinely believe that Trump is an existential threat who wants to install a fascist dictatorship, why would you choose some uninspiring right-wing dementia patient to “save democracy”? This suggests that Democratic leaders either don’t think Trump is a threat or they agree with him. Much of our current problem is due to the lingering influence of the Cold War that elevated every right wing kook imaginable to prevent the rise of even mild socialism. The OG 9/11 of the assassination of Salvador Allende led to 9/11/2001, and our overlords in the Blob haven’t learned a thing. What we’re seeing now across the world with the rise of the far right is the bitter harvest of the US “winning” in the Cold War, and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel for us.
I agree that we need a strong left to take on the far right. Thanks for posting.