Moms For Liberty and the Classical School

By Chris Richards

The Nazis want to control American education, and it's scary. What's scarier is that the Nazis don't advertise themselves as Nazis. They advertise themselves as teachers, educators, parents, pastors, and intellectuals striving to connect your kids with the truth and beauty of Western civilization. They give their groups catchy names like "Moms for Liberty." In the end, however, they still want to segregate your kids' schools by race, economics, and religion. They want to promise you that your kids will grow up to be straight Christians and good citizens, not poor gay people in prison. They want you to believe this promise is something real, that they can deliver on, so that you help them spread their message to more communities.

This morning, while surfing some Substack headlines, I noticed the excellent journalists of Popular Information were reporting that a Moms for Liberty chapter in South Carolina has announced that they are opening the "Ashley River Classical School." It was the combination of "Moms for Liberty" and "Classical School" that particularly caught my attention because this reminded me of some research I started because of some OpEds praising Ron DeSantis back in 2023. I started a major project and started sharing what I was learning. Then the project went on hold because I was distracted by other things, but little things keep pulling me back.

The OpEd that got everyone's attention and briefly made cable news before disappearing, was credited to the byline "Cornel West and Jeremy Wayne Tate" in the pages of the Wall Street Journal*. The title of the OpEd, "DeSantis' Revolutionary Defense of the Classics," was very much in line with its content. The Washington Post, MSNBC, and the Guardian all carried commentary or journalism about the OpEd or the DeSantis policy inspiring the OpEd before the end of the year! Dr. West's name on the byline around the same time he was announcing that he was running for President was quite a big deal. The attention that Ron DeSantis's education policy had been getting in the media helped inspire Glenn Youngkin to run for Governor of Virginia in 2021 and fueled DeSantis's own presidential aspirations.

So who is Jeremy Wayne Tate?

Jeremy Wayne Tate is the CEO of Classics Learning Test, a company that publishes an alternative standardized test adopted by the state university system in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis. The Guardian article references it directly and the company's public facing website includes a lot of information about who the organization is and what they want to achieve. He hosts the "Anchored" podcast, a show about education and culture that is strongly colored by Western chauvinism and conservative educational bias. He speaks at right wing educational conferences where keynote speakers are former Republican presidential candidates and religious zealots. In addition to Dr. West, the board of his organization includes  ultra-Catholic "American Solidarity Party" activist Patrick Deneen and professional queer-basher Christopher Rufo.

Most importantly for the purposes of the Popular Information news story, the board of CLT includes Moms for Liberty activist Erika Donalds. 

Mrs. Donalds is a former school board member from Naples, FL. She is the wife of Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, a vocal MAGA partisan openly aligned with Christian nationalists. She founded an organization for conservative school board members to provide an official sounding counterweight to the Florida School Boards Association. Most importantly, she is the CEO of the Optima Foundation... a non-profit that operates Christian charter schools as a franchise of pro-discrimination Christian institution Hillsdale College. Ron DeSantis appointed her to the board of trustees for Florida Gulf Coast University.

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So a prominent school choice activist affiliated with Moms for Liberty already owns a chain of schools in Florida. There are similar schools and organizations in other states. A friendly acquaintance who supported Dr. West when he was the only announced third party progressive in the race told me that I should take a closer look into the organization's president and that I might change my mind about the CLT being a right wing org.

It didn't. In fact, it scared me.

The board president, Dr. Angel Adams Parham, is the co-author of the sneakily titled "The Black American Intellectual Tradition." While the book does not use this language, instead using a lot of liberal language about Western culture and the education of great Black thinkers (who were grounded in "the classics") to essentially advance the argument that the Black American intellectual tradition is an outgrowth of the white American intellectual tradition. I can't accept that Black slaves in America learned the truth and beauty of Western civilization from their owners. While it is true that Black American thinkers were often very well educated in the classics, this was because the classics were the language of the white Academy. It is also true that it was necessary to refute classical arguments in defense of inequity and inequality with classical arguments for equality, equity, and democracy.

Yet I believe that it is wrong to accept the arguments of Dr. Adams Parham and her co-author (Dr. Anika Prather, who runs an online classical school herself) that Black and white intellectual traditions come from a shared culture. Black intellectuals were struggling against white academic culture to create an intellectual culture of their own. Is it accessible and understandable in a common language? Yes. However, the Black intellectual tradition in America is best understood (in my opinion) as an intellectual counter-culture in opposition to the white Academy. What we call "Western culture" was inherited from the Roman Empire by her bastard granddaughter, the Catholic Church, and grandma stole it from the Greeks in the first place. Yet the Greeks borrowed it from ancient Egypt and ancient Persia. So how "Western" is it?

Which brings us back to Erika Donalds. To her, "Western" means "Christian" in the sense of European Christendom. Which means it also means "white" because it is European. This is really just Enlightenment pan-Germanism (remember, the English and French are "German" too) cast in a new frame of reference for the 21st Century. It still leads to the same narrow set of liberal or reactionary conclusions. Unless one is willing to challenge it by studying its critics and rebels, the truth and beauty of Western civilization is where our crushing social and economic inequity come from.

The spirit of "Classical Education" is best exemplified by Plutarch's "Parallel Lives." Plutarch was writing short biographies of the "greatest" Greeks and Romans of history in which he included very pointed moral critiques.  He then had short passages comparing them to one another both morally and by terms of their accomplishments. Yet Plutarch's moral critique is very clearly biased on behalf of aristocratic republics as opposed to democracy, blaming democracy for tyranny and social disorder in an open manner. Plutarch would sympathize with Samuel Huntington's famous paper for the Tri-Lateral Commission, "The Crisis of Democracy," in which Huntington wrote that the Western crisis of democracy was that the West was too democratic to successfully compete with the Soviet "East."

Huntington was also a student of "the classics," after all.

The far right has a clear vision for an educational system they believe will unify us in happy obedience to the truth and beauty of capitalism and white supremacy. Moms for Liberty is selling that vision in a figurative sense, while Jeremy Wayne Tate is literally selling it. The problem is that too many stakeholders in our society are buying.

That's the problem with the marketplace of ideas. The market is regulated by the dictatorship of capital. It is not a "free market," just another liberal market.

* I apologize for the pay-walled link, it's WSJ content and I cannot currently find a free link to the full article. The WaPo op-ed by Karen Attiah is not pay-walled and its description of the article credited to West is accurate.

Germany Has a Historic Debt to the Palestinian People

By Marcel Cartier

The crimes of German fascism are of a magnitude so enormous that they are almost difficult to comprehend. Without question the most heinous in its breadth was the Holocaust, the systematic attempt by the Nazi regime to annihilate the Jewish people that ultimately led to the mass murder of around two-thirds of the European Jewish population. It is only correct that today’s German state would see itself as having a historic responsibility towards Jews, both at home and abroad. This point should be indisputable. However, there are divergent positions on what the nature of this responsibility should entail.

For the modern German state, being responsible means seeing the State of Israel as the primary representative of the Jewish people. It means muting any serious criticism towards Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Germany refuses to retrospectively assess how the country was established through ethnic cleansing, and certainly doesn’t actively challenge today’s status quo in which an system of occupation and apartheid prevails.

That solidarity with the self-professed Jewish state today goes beyond placing Israeli flags outside of official government buildings, where they have flown in the aftermath of October 7. It also explains why it was inevitable that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would end up in Tel Aviv just over a week later to express his condolences and offer an increase in military support, saying Germany’s place in hard times was “by Israel’s side”. The German state’s notion of “Never Again Ever” means ensuring Israel’s stability and security as a Jewish homeland. It sees expressions of anti-Zionism as inherently anti-Semitic.

Contrary to this view espoused by the German government is that Israel does not necessarily represent the Jewish people. This perspective either holds that Zionism as an ideology is inherently racist and rooted in settler-colonialism, or at the very least that the State of Israel today is an entity that engages in dispossession and brutal oppression of the Palestinian people. This view places a distinction between critique of the Israeli state and anti-Semitism.

This position allows Jews themselves a sense of agency in being able to choose to either support Israel’s actions, or to stand firmly against the crimes that are carried out in their name. For those who agree with the latter, it means “Never Again Ever” applies equally to all scenarios that take on genocidal proportions, not merely to those claiming to safeguard the Jewish people.

Tough Times Opposing War Crimes in Berlin

These are difficult times in Berlin if standing up for Palestinian liberation – or even simply international law – are on your agenda.

Just after the bombs began being rained down on Gaza, Bernie Sanders visited Berlin to great fanfare. However, not pleased with his presence was the Social Democratic Party’s co-leader Saskia Esken, who cancelled an appearance alongside him. Why? Because he had the nerve to make a simple, humanitarian statement: “The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it.” Apparently, Sanders – perhaps the most famous Jewish political figure in the western world - was displaying anti-Semitism by aligning with the Geneva Convention.

Demonstrations in support of Palestine, or those merely calling for a humanitarian pause or ceasefire, have been banned. In the German mainstream media, these protests have been billed as the work of “Hamas lovers” or “Jew haters.” In some cases, protests are literally banned minutes before they are set to begin, when hundreds have already assembled. When it comes to calling out war crimes, the German state has decided that the right to assembly that is enshrined in the country’s Basic Law can simply be ignored.

A cursory look at these illegal demonstrations over the last two weeks reveals that many Jewish organisations have also endorsed and actively participated in them, among them the Jewish Bund and Juedische Stimme. In fact, police have hauled off Jewish activists and arrested them, because Jews are not granted the agency to espouse their positions.

For those who are Palestinian, the ban on demonstrations by Berlin’s authorities means a complete targeting of their identity. When a German police officer arrests somebody for wearing a kuffiyeh, or schools in the capital ban the Palestinian scarf, they are saying the Palestinian identity is that of a terrorist.  

Palestinians are being threatened with deportation if they are proven to be supporters of Hamas, but also Samidoun - the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network associated with the Palestinian left (both organisations have now been banned). This means the possibility of Palestinians being uprooted not once (from their historic homeland), but twice (now from Germany).

The Other Germany and the Palestine Liberation Organisation

Although Germany’s post-war history has been shaped by attempts to deal with the crimes of the Nazi regime, this hasn’t always meant that German state entities have taken the view that the current state does towards Israel. The history of the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, offers a very different perspective.

First off, it’s necessary to understand that the GDR was created principally as an anti-fascist state, something that was considered even more important than the construction of socialism. Its top priority was indeed “Never Again Ever,” which is why a much more robust de-Nazification process happened there than it did in the western part of the country.  

The new Federal Republic of Germany set up by the U.S., Britain and France became a country where Nazi ideologues were not only allowed to join the government, but were actively sought out for participation in the Cold War. On the other side, much of East Germany’s leadership knew first-hand what is felt like to be hounded and targeted by the Nazis – we should remember that the first concentration camps, after all, were set up for communists, and that they were accused of being part of the global “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy”.

In 1948, the newly created Socialist Unity Party that was operating in the Soviet occupation zone that would become East Germany the next year, backed the creation of Israel, saying "We consider the foundation of a Jewish state an essential contribution enabling thousands of people who suffered greatly under Hitler’s fascism to build a new life".

Once it became clear that the new Israeli state was actually a reactionary entity that refused the right of return for the 700,000 refugees it had created, and enacted martial law against the Palestinians who remained, the SED leadership changed its tune. It reverted to the position long-held by the communist movement in regards to Zionism, which is that it was an expression of a reactionary, bourgeois nationalism that always sought the patronage of colonial and imperialism powers.

In 1973, the GDR set up official relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation of Yasser Arafar. That same year, it had supplied Syria with weaponry for use in the Yom Kippur War against Israel. In 1975, East Germany voted in favor of a UN resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.

It is not merely coincidental that the PLO was supported by East Germany at the same time that another crucial liberation movement against minority rule, that of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, was also being given support from East Germany. The battle against apartheid was inextricably linked by the East German leadership to that of opposing settler colonialism in Palestine. This was all happening at the same time that West Germany held deep relations with the racist South African government, branding those who rebelled against this rule as “terrorists” - just as the Palestinians are referred to today. Given the similarities in their struggles, it’s no small wonder why Nelson Mandela once proclaimed upon the end of apartheid that, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

This history of the rival German states that existed for 40 years shows that there was no consensus on the question of whether Zionism could be seen as representing the legitimate aspirations of Jews as a whole.

Germany’s Dual Responsibility

It should be evident that today’s Germany has in fact not learned the lessons of history. It’s selective application of “Never Again Ever” is symbolic, but ultimately meaningless. It is complicit in Israeli war crimes, and those who espouse anti-fascist politics have a responsibility to stand against it. To fight against anti-Semitism should also mean fighting against imperialism, colonialism, and all forms of racial discrimination.

As the creation of Israel was agreed to by world powers against the backdrop of Nazi Germany’s attempt at exterminating the Jewish people, this means that the consequences – including the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab masses from what became Israel – should also be laid at Germany’s feet. It means that not only does Germany have a responsibility to the Jewish people – it also has a responsibility towards the Palestinian people. Simply put, Palestinians should not have to suffer for the crimes of Hitlerite fascism, whether at home or here in Germany.

Examining the Role of Anti-Communist Rhetoric in the Growth of Reactionary Cult Movements

By Oskar Kaut

Amidst America’s increasingly polarized political climate, there has been growing concern regarding the emergence of reactionary groups that display cult-like behaviors and tactics, posing vital questions about the impact these groups have on individuals as well as mainstream political discourse. Cults can be broadly defined as groups or movements that share a set of philosophical, spiritual, or political beliefs that are by and large considered to be extremist or deviant by mainstream society. On the other hand, the label “reactionary” is typically given to individuals or organizations that oppose social change and desire a return to “traditional” values and practices. Such beliefs have been on the steady rise for several years, and the conception and popularization of affiliated organizations and movements have followed (Rodrik 162). Many fringe reactionary groups such as the Proud Boys and Patriot Front have come under scrutiny for some of their practices, which are often highly secretive and can involve physical and psychological manipulation (Ashland 37). In recent years, there has been a concerning rise of far-right movements worldwide, providing an opportunity for reactionary groups to amplify their message and reach a much larger audience. Many of these groups display clear cult-like behaviors, as demonstrated by their deference to authority and distorted sense of reality. These groups often use anti-communist rhetoric to infiltrate mainstream political discourse, which serves as a gateway to legitimizing and normalizing the extremist ideology of far-right cults. Resultantly, it is crucial to recognize and address the presence of these cults within right-wing movements and the impact their rhetoric can have on broader society. 

A cult is a group or movement centered around a given (typically extremist) belief system that uses coercive tactics to maintain its hold over followers. Sociological research has shown that cults utilize tactics of social influence in order to manipulate their followers into submission (Corvaglia 9). Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard divided the concept of social influence into two subcategories. Informational social influence refers to humans’ intrinsic desire to be “right”, whereas normative social influence refers to the desire to be liked by others. Both of these concepts can be aptly applied to cults. Cults use normative social influence (known colloquially as “peer pressure”) to recruit new members. In an increasingly isolated society, cults offer some individuals an opportunity to be a part of something that they see as larger than themselves. The propagation of this form of influence can lead to cult members partaking in practices that they would normally oppose in an attempt to gain favor with other members (Deutsch & Gerard 14). Similarly, in a world where misinformation is increasingly rampant and it can be difficult to know which sources to trust, cults make use of informational social influence to develop genuine conformity to their beliefs and practices. Cults attempt to create a hegemony of “accurate information” for their followers, thus justifying even private conformity in which individuals truly believe that the group is right or justified in their struggle (Corvaglia 18).  

Many reactionary organizations and movements embody the aforementioned cult characteristics. Stanley Milgram’s classical experiments in conformity shed light on the willingness of individuals to obey those whom they view as authority figures and perform actions that go against their own conscience (Slater 32-63). The experiments found that test subjects were willing to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to another person (who they believed to be a fellow test subject) even to the degree where they believed the shocks to be lethal. Reactionary cults (like other cults) often exert substantial social influence over their members and rely on a hierarchical structure of authority that leaves them vulnerable to pressures similar to those exhibited in Milgram’s experiments. Oftentimes–as can be seen in the cults of personality surrounding Gavin McInnes within the Proud Boys or Nazi-collaborator Stepan Bandera in Ukrainian nationalist organizations–members of far-right movements are subject to pressures to conform to the extreme beliefs and practices of groups under the direction of authoritative leaders (Rabotyazhev 525). In many ways, this demonstrates the presence of normative influence within reactionary groups and movements. Moreover, members of fringe right-wing movements are also frequently subject to constant messaging from the group’s ideological leaders and even cut off from external sources of information (Jurg & Tuters). This can be clearly seen as an application of informational social influence, in which far-right organizations appeal to their members’ intrinsic desire to be right by bombarding them with their subjective version of reality accompanied by statements such as “facts don’t care about your feelings”. The intent of this process is to present their extreme viewpoints as objective truths that cannot be challenged, thereby working to shift members’ worldviews over time. The existence of such cult-like behavior in reactionary groups and movements presents real issues for mainstream society as the prevalence of these cults continues to grow. 

In recent years, the presence of reactionary groups has risen sharply both in the United States and globally (Rodrik 162). The attention given to these cults has also increased in the wake of sustained political polarization and social unrest. Large rallies such as the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march and the January 6th, 2021 attack on the United States capitol demonstrate the power that these fringe movements now hold as well as their capacity for violence and contribution to the erosion of democratic norms and social stability. The prevalence of right-wing cults can also be seen through the drastically increased proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories. Now more than perhaps ever in modern history, mainstream American politics are characterized by a general rejection of the notion of objective reality (Bleakley 1). One of the main causes of this rejection can be attributed to the prominence of echo chambers among political extremists on social media, in which aligning beliefs are reinforced and dissenting viewpoints are actively suppressed (Bleakley 12). This phenomenon hints at a bleak reality: the influence of reactionary cults and movements is not limited to their own movements. Rather, their extremist views and tactics can be observed slipping into mainstream political discourse. 

The growth of reactionary cults within far-right politics has drastically influenced mainstream political discourse. These cults both directly participate in mainstream political campaigns and employ a number of more indirect methods to influence political dialogue. As previously mentioned, the rise of fringe, right-wing cults has coincided with a sharp increase in the prevalence of disinformation and harmful conspiracy theories (Bleakley 2). Reactionary groups have used their growing platforms to disseminate propaganda promoting their fringe ideology and undermining that of their political opponents. Much of this is centered around tactics of fear-mongering in an attempt to create a feeling of urgency for action. Additionally, fringe-right cults are able to methodically slip into mainstream political discourse through media coverage of contentious issues as well as through the actions of individual politicians. Over the past several years, a large number of far-right politicians have adopted language that echoes the beliefs held by reactionary cults in attempts to appeal to certain voters. For example, both Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert are former followers of the QAnon cult and continue to espouse much of the same rhetoric supported by the group today, even as they hold some of the highest elected offices in the country. Powerful politicians and media figures’ adoption of framing similar to that propagated by reactionary cults has led to a dramatic shift in the “Overton Window”—the frame of what beliefs are considered socially acceptable within mainstream society. 

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The Overton Window is a concept designed to describe the range of ideas that are considered largely acceptable within conventional society at a given time. Joseph Overton (for whom the term is named) conceptualized that ideas outside the window (i.e., politically unacceptable) may later fit within the realm of acceptable ideas because the “window” can “either move or be transformed in size” (Oleksandr 52). It is through this process that reactionary cults are able to slip their ideas into conventional political discussions. Even over relatively short periods of time, one can observe how views that were previously unthinkable become widely adopted within the mainstream. Similar to the concept of the Overton Window is that of deviance, which refers to the idea of departing from generally accepted standards present in society. According to Hewitt, “Deviance…represents a real or imagined threat to social order, and the deviant is accorded a special and discredited position in relation to it,” (214). Thus, views outside of the Overton Window at a given point in time typically also fall under the umbrella of deviant views. The concepts of the Overton Window and deviance (and the relationship therewithin) are crucial to understanding the strategic importance of falling within the views accepted by mainstream society for far-right organizations. As Zuckerman puts it, “Stray outside the sphere of legitimate debate into the sphere of deviance, and your position becomes invisible to mainstream media dialog,” (16). Essentially, in order to reach a larger audience, reactionary cults have to struggle to fit within the established norms of society at any given point in time. Because of the tactical need to infiltrate mainstream political discourse, many right-wing, reactionary cults seek to normalize their own viewpoints by falsely equivocating their views with those held on the left. 

Reactionary groups often use anti-communist rhetoric to slip into mainstream political discourse by framing their opposition to communism as a defense of democracy, individual liberties, and freedom. One of the simplest means by which fascists can achieve their ultimate goal of consolidating power is by utilizing anti-communism as a tool to create a common enemy. By depicting socialism as a threat to national security, reactionaries can silence opposition, suppress meaningful dissent, and legitimize their authoritarian system. Another means by which reactionary groups seek to utilize anti-communist rhetoric is to equivocate fascism (and oftentimes Nazism) and communism. This is of course, on its face, absurd: while communism promotes the seizure of the means of production by the workers (Marx & Engels 38), Nazism is characterized by its emphasis on racial purity and antisemitism. The false equivalence of communism and Nazism is often propagated by far-right cults and media figures alike as a means to both discredit left-wing ideas and shift the Overton Window in favor of their own ideology. Making the comparison between communism and Nazism serves to downplay the severity of the crimes of one of the worst atrocities in human history and silence legitimate criticisms of capitalism and neoliberalism. The conjoined propaganda tools of finding a common enemy around which to unite and equating communism to the atrocities of Nazism allow reactionary cults to both delegitimize leftist movements and slip their own beliefs into conventional political discourse, ultimately serving their own end goal of consolidating power within mainstream institutions. 

  Fictitious tropes equating communism to Nazism have been widely disseminated and adopted within transnational mainstream political discourse, perpetuating misinformation, reinforcing negative stereotypes about leftist political movements, and legitimizing the views of reactionary cults. While the degree to which such attempts varies, in some parts of the world (especially in former Soviet states), reactionary cults have been able to “...[capitalize] on decades of anti-communism mainstream discourse built-up to develop a full-blown populist radical right narrative and politics,” (Popescu & Vesalon 5). In practice, this means that fascist sects such as the AUR in Romania and the OUN/UPA cult in Ukraine have been able to normalize their own beliefs and have massive impacts on public opinion and public policy (Crstocea). As previously discussed, cults have a tendency to rely on (among other things), informational social influence. In many instances, this can include followers accepting blatantly false information and shaping their perceptions of reality around lies (Corvaglia 9). Naturally, it’s not difficult why it would be undesirable for distorted worldviews to slip into mainstream politics, but in many instances, it already has. One such example can be seen in The Black Book of Communism (Courtois et al, 1999), which coined the “100 million deaths by communism” myth that has since been thoroughly debunked (Francois et al 4). Despite being categorically disproven, this myth is still perpetuated within mainstream conservative (and even many liberal) circles. As the views of reactionary cults with distorted worldviews gain traction within mainstream political discourse, they are enabled to both expand their influence and increase their numbers. 

The presence of anti-communist rhetoric in mainstream political discourse has led to the growth of reactionary cults characterized by informational isolation and a deference to authority. The use of anti-communist rhetoric fosters an atmosphere of apprehension and widespread suspicion toward leftist ideologies, which renders individuals more vulnerable to the perspectives of reactionary groups. The fear-mongering and demonization of communism that has pervaded Western political discourse for decades has created a fertile breeding ground for reactionary cults and movements that espouse radical anti-communist ideologies. These groups oftentimes promise protection against a supposed communist threat and frame themselves as protectors of freedom and traditional values. By stoking fears of a communist takeover of institutions, these cults and cult-like movements are able to tap into the anxieties of ordinary people who are disillusioned with mainstream neoliberal politics and searching for a sense of belonging and purpose. Further, the adoption of fictitious anti-communist tropes by mainstream political leaders and media figures can also serve as a means of legitimizing the views of these movements, leading to a further increase in their membership and influence. As reactionary cults continue to gain traction in mainstream political discourse, the consequences of anti-communist rhetoric are becoming increasingly evident. The aforementioned groups are given steadily more and more massive platforms to promote fringe ideologies and often resort to violence, as seen in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, and the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Additionally, the dissemination of anti-communist disinformation and conspiracy theories among these cults creates a pipeline toward radicalization and a complete rejection of objective, factual information, facilitating the exacerbation of societal divides. The normalization of radical, anti-communist rhetoric also perpetuates narrow-minded perspective ideologies, discouraging both critical thought and nuanced discussions about complex societal issues. In conclusion, the prevalence of anti-communist rhetoric in mainstream political discourse has led to a sharp rise in reactionary cults, posing a threat to the very institutions that underpin Western so-called “liberal democracy”. Acknowledging and rectifying the adverse consequences of the normalization of anti-communist rhetoric is vital in averting the proliferation of reactionary cults and the further degradation of the material conditions of everyday Americans.

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How Ordinary People Become Nazis: A Review of Robert Gellately's 'Hitler's True Believers'

By Charles Wofford

Imagine a political speech so venomous, so hate filled, so threatening, that at times it is impossible to understand the speaker. He rages against enemies foreign and domestic, against capitalism, against communism, against ethnic and political minorities, against disabled people, and insists on the superiority of his own nation. Thousands of torch-bearing zealots respond with orgasmic delirium. Is it not obvious who this image is supposed to evoke?

The image of German fascism as an overwhelming, cult-like madness is common and is re enforced by the Hollywoodization of the Nazis. In popular media Nazis might as well be demons who merely appear as human. As a result the protagonist may kill them without any guilty conscience. Ironically, this same mechanism of spectacle-induced failure of conscience found extensive use in German fascism. The radical Othering of the Nazis is comforting; it ensures us that it couldn’t happen here, it couldn’t happen to us, because the Nazis are not us, they are the radical Other.

In Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis, Robert Gellately shows that the German fascists were far more rational and normal than we often imagine. This is not his endorsement, of course. Gellately’s real accomplishment is in showing how normal the Nazis were without “normalizing” them, showing how rational they were without “rationalizing” their atrocities. The Nazis were not the radical Other; most of them were not very different from us. They went to work, followed the law, and loved their families. The lesson is how easily it all happened to the German people, how every step along the way made sense at the time, and by implication how easily the same thing could happen to us. Perhaps it already has.

The German people were aware of the regime’s crimes; indeed, they were in many cases active participants. If it were not for mass grassroots initiative the Nazis would not have been as successful as they were. Gellately writes of racial persecution, “It was all so public and impossible to overlook. […] The public did more than stand idly by, because numerous individuals cooperated in the enforcement of racial policy, before and after the milestone reached with the Nuremburg Laws in 1935” (263).

The most difficult lesson for those of us on the Left is recognizing that the “socialism” in “National Socialism” is not just a moniker but had real content. German fascism was a broth of nationalism, socialism, and antisemitism. The nationalist angle put it in opposition to the international socialism of Marxism, and the socialism positioned it as a foe to the bourgeois democracies of France, Britain, and the United States. Though the Nazis were hostile to the idea of abolishing all private property, they did seriously attempt to abolish finance capital (which, of course, they linked with Jewish influence), and they did attempt to nationalize several industries to wield them in the name of the German people. The antisemitic conspiracy mongering enabled the fusion, as the German fascists cast their capitalist foes and their Marxist foes as two sides of the same Jewish-led effort at world domination. The negative manifestation of this worldview culminated in the Holocaust. The positive vision was the Volksgemeinschaft.

Volksgemeinschaft is the National Socialist utopia; a futuristic vision of a society living in harmony with nature. “Nature” here is conceptualized in terms of a bogus blood-and-soil theory, but that was not an invention of the Nazis. Similar forms of racism were widely entertained throughout the global scientific community. “Volk” literally means “people,” but refers to a racialized concept of it as in the Völkisch Movement of late 19th century Germany. “Gemeinschaft” may be translated as “community,” but refers more to tight-knit communities of people who know each other personally (contrast Gesellschaft, a more rationalist conception of society as defined through social contracts, rational self-interest, etc.) Volksgemeinschaft is what emerged from the blending of nationalism and socialism. Its racism makes it repugnant to an internationalist or humanist perspective championed by the Left, while its community-oriented nature is repellant to today’s neoliberal individualism. The point here is that the Nazis were anti-humanist and reactionary, but they were also futurist and modern. They were not conservative.

But that recognition puts us in a difficult spot. Today’s popular left discourse has committed itself to an outright denial of any authentically socialist character to German fascism. So acknowledging that National Socialism is one of the infinite conceivable varieties of socialism leaves the Left rhetorically exposed. One of the foundational premises of socialism is that society is what we make it. We can therefore arrange society however we wish. But our time and place is so hyper capitalistic, and its ideology so individualist, that any and all socialisms are seen as equivalent. Yet the figures who became major Nazi leaders had, in Gellately’s words, “an obsession about socialism. Indeed, thanks to the creation of a welfare state from 1881 onward, reinforced by the social impact of the war, a degree of socialism engrained itself in German society and was enshrined in the Weimar Republic’s constitution” (41).

The place of socialism in the Nazi vision was not unambiguous, and there were internal debates. Gellately relates a debate between the Nazi Left represented by Gregor Strasser and the Nazi Right represented by Alfred Rosenberg.

If Gregor Strasser bowed to Hitler’s authority or at least his political abilities, he still advocated a more socialistic line. As might be expected, Alfred Rosenberg, as one of the party’s self-styled ideological experts and a die-hard anti-Bolshevist, pushed back in a newspaper article in early 1927. Nationalism in its purest form, he said, united with socialism and, if stripped of any internationalism, represented the nation’s spirit of liberation. Hence, emphasizing the socialism in the Party’s name (as Strasser and his comrades wanted) was wrong, because the main point of their activity was to rescue the nation. Strasser replied quickly that socialism meant more than merely using the state to protect the people from capitalist greed, as Rosenberg would have it. Instead, it aimed to create another form of economic life and implied the participation of workers in ownership, profit, and management. This socialism accepted that private property was the basis of all culture and because capitalism was an immoral system that stole the nation’s goods, the state had to step in to restore fairness (77).

These debates abated as the Right wing of the party took greater control. Eventually the Strassers were marginalized, and the working class elements of the party leadership liquidated in a series of purges. But their socialist contributions were still a part of Nazi doctrine, and if they did not represent a powerful wing of the party there would have been no need to purge them in the first place.

Another difficult lesson: many devoted Nazis in the 1930s had been equally devoted communists and socialists in the 1920s. The Nazis did not come to power primarily through violence; they persuaded the vast majority of Germans (and Austrians, and many others across Europe) that they really were the way forward. A big part of that was refuting of the Treaty of Versailles. The humiliations it imposed on Germany were despised by the entire population, so that anything done to escape its terms was met with enormous praise, and even foreigners were in admiration of Germany’s unwillingness to stay down.

Hitler’s True Believers belongs to a genre of “How the Nazis Came to Power.” It is not a strictly historical genre, and it includes such varied titles as Max Horkheimer’s The Eclipse of Reason and William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. No matter the angle, the point is generally the same: this movement of German National Socialism, which culminated in mass murder on an industrial scale and the self-immolation of European civilization, emerged from beliefs and social structures that had been present in Europe for centuries, and every step of its development made sense at the time. National Socialism was not an aberration or explosion of barbarism in the midst of an otherwise civilized world. It was the culmination of particular processes of civilization which contained these murderous possibilities from early on. The hideous racism of the Nazis was well-supported by the scientific establishments of the time. Hitler’s survival-of-the-fittest mentality was derived from theories in the natural sciences (particularly Darwin) applied to the social realm. The Nazis saw Bolshevism as the death of civilization and the Western democracies as its decay. Thus they were (in their own minds) the sentinels of civilization, driven by science, united in their desire for progress toward a newly unified society, the Volksgemeinschaft.

One clear parallel to our own predicament is in the rhetoric employed to defend American military presence around the world. Neuroscientist and public commentator Sam Harris, for instance, is known for arguing that American-committed atrocities just aren’t as morally bad as those committed by official enemies, since we are “well-intentioned,” while they are not. But that merely brings us back to the issue of a failure of conscience. For the Nazis it was that they were Das Herrenrasse (the master race) while their victims were Die Untermenschen (sub-humans). For the French it was the cultural appeal: they were “civilized” and on a “civilizing mission” (Mission Civilisatrice), while the colonized were primitive. Whether we appeal to the Nazi blood theory, the French cultural theory, or Harris’s intention theory, the end is to facilitate that same failure of recognition, that same failure of conscience, which we also inflict on ourselves through our representations of the Nazis in popular media.

Hitler’s True Believers will remind leftists of the importance of internationalism. Yet even this concept is too limiting. In an era of mass anthropogenic environmental destruction and mass extinction, not even humanism is sufficiently broad. After National Socialism there is no excuse for blindly trusting humanism, enlightenment, science, rationality, technology, “the People,” “the Proletariat,” or any other idealized construct to save us from ourselves. These ideas must be engaged critically, their limits registered, and their employment must be razor-sharp. If we fail this challenge, then we may already have one foot in the jackboot.

My copy of Hitler’s True Believers shows on its cover a crowd of bright-eyed Germans giving the Roman salute, presumably to their Führer off camera. The focus of the photo is a young woman, flanked by several soldiers and many children. The exuberance on their faces is beautiful. It is hard to see anything political inspiring such admiration in 21st century America. Consider how defeated, how humiliated, how despairing many Germans were after World War I; is it so hard to understand why they would want to believe in something that could inspire that sort of joy? Our contemporary situation is also marked by widespread depression, anxiety, and despair about the future. How easy would it be for a Hitleresque figure to bring us all, by dint of our own reason, to the brink?

Charles Wofford is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology and critical theory at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Fascism and the Politics of the Past

By Yanis Iqbal

Fascist groupings are in the ascendant throughout the world. While some are emerging from the political peripheries - slowly but steadily gaining traction on the terrain of ideological hegemony - some have already taken the reins of state power. This new wave of fascism poses an important question: why did the intensifying crisis of neoliberalism strengthen the Right instead of revitalizing the Left? The post-1990s trajectory of austerity and immiseration should have bolstered the appeal of progressive forces among the masses. However, what we have been witnessing is the growing hold of extremely conservative ideas on the proletariat.

Non-synchronicity

Ernst Bloch, a German Marxist philosopher, witnessed a similar situation as the left-wing camp in his country was trounced by Nazism. His response to this contradictory development resonates with the current conjuncture. Bloch deployed the concept of “non-synchronicity” to understand fascism, writing, “Not all people exist in the same Now. They do so only externally, by virtue of the fact that they may all be seen today. But that does not mean that they are living at the same time with others”. There are social strata that have been left behind in the process of modernization. These layers express their dissatisfaction with the present by looking back, towards a better past.

In other words, fascism draws from the future in the past, calling up mythologized forces, responding to modern disenchantment, joining a romantic anti-capitalism - roots, soil, homeland - among rural strata with fears of decline and genuine impoverishment among middling urban strata and a youth out of step with the capitalist drive toward abstraction and immateriality. Fascism, therefore, expresses an authentic longing for something different. It creates new figures, synthesizing various elements into hybrid structures, using materials from elsewhere - fairytales, myth, kitsch, Romanticism, occultism and magic, masculine qualities (strength, openness, decency, purity), as well as vitalist philosophy (will, life, creation, instinctive knowledge).

The palingenetic ideals of fascism serve transhistorically as a medium for processing every historical present. The subjects of fascism are called upon to leave a shameful normal life and to enter a proud life of bravery. It is important to note that pride and shame are fundamentally related. Feeling pride involves a realization of the ideals that define the faults and errors that cause us to feel ashamed. Shame collapses the “I” with the “we” in the failure to transform the social ideal into action, a failure which, when witnessed, confirms the ideal, and makes possible a return to pride. In the fascist case, the return to pride depends on the positioning of the subject as someone who confesses to being part of the imminent chaos and decline. Thus, the enactment of shame functions as a means of returning to pride. This return involves correcting wrongdoings by defending the survival of the nation, the people and the race.

Destroying Public Discourse

Fascism’s nostalgic idealizations are always empty. And yet, we know that the emptiness of the mythically constructed past that the Right holds out as a lost version of a better life as well as the emptiness of its promises with regard to the contradictions of capitalism are precisely the point of the underlying strategy. Empty times and spaces are effective spaces for the creation of the fears, fantasies, and hopes that the Right seeks to cultivate. Vague references to a better past ask the audience to fill in the gaps in content and logic with their own nonsynchronous projections; a rhetorical model of broad strokes, vague slogans, provocations, and propositions clearly replaced articulated programs. The point is not precision or the communication of actual information but the establishment of spaces in which anomy and anxiety can play themselves out and which can amplify discontent rather than finding answers to it.

The invocation of historically indeterminate imageries has real consequences for electoral battles and discursive struggles. Eberhard Knödler-Bunte argues that the entanglement of fascist ideology in the past turns it into a “depoliticized mass movement.” The “fascist public sphere,” Knödler-Bunte contends, is ultimately nothing other than “a politicized public sphere aimed at real depoliticization.” Hence, fascism operates on an innately contradictory ground - establishing a public sphere that encourages politicization while simultaneously reducing political dialogue and thought to impoverished versions of public deliberation.

Knödler-Bunte’s arguments help us understand the strategy of contemporary right-wing governments that lower the bar of public and political discourse in order to replace political dialogue with emotionally charged slogans. Paired with the mere semblance of rebelliousness, these tactics obfuscate structural problems and promote a depoliticized discourse, including pseudo-political branding efforts, disinformation campaigns, and conspiracy narratives, in place of political analysis, debate, and programmatic thinking. The extreme Right has traditionally relied on this co-optation of revolutionary energy and its displacement from a critique of capitalism to a vehement yearning for a hazy past.

Liberatory History

Fascism has a constitutive contradiction: the rising tensions between the ironclad rhythms of the working day and the promise of a magical rupture with these empty homogenous routines. Demagogic talks about national-cultural regeneration are always in dissonance with the brute system of surplus value extraction. In order to use these weaknesses of fascism to its own benefit, the Left needs to adopt a liberatory conception of history. Instead of turning to the past to restore lost forms of order, we may understand the past as a rich collection of unheard appeals, unfulfilled hopes, of silenced demands for freedom - and such a relation to the past in turn shows us what is missing in the present and what cries out for completion.

Understood in this manner, the past denotes for us not mythical unity and purity but the history of systemic injustice, oppression, and exploitation, which in turn means that the past contains the energy that leads the way into the future. The past is not just what was. It is that which was never allowed to be, that which never could be, and it therefore points towards that which may yet be. A truly utopian and revolutionary imagination examines the past as an archive of emancipatory struggles that were repressed or abandoned but that reach into our present and herald a future through their continuous demand for realization.

COVID-19 Discussions Over The U.S. Healthcare System

Pictured: Volunteers from the International Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse set up an Emergency Field Hospital for patients suffering from the coronavirus in Central Park across Fifth Avenue from Mt. Sinai Hospital on March 30, 2020 in New York. (Bryan R. Smith / AFP)

By Ekim Kılıç

Since the beginning of January 2020, COVID-19, aka Coronavirus, has continued to devastate peoples’ lives, specifically working classes across the world. Internationally, a prominent aspect of the pandemic is that all working people feel a similar level of fear and anxiety, even to some extent petty-bourgeois classes despite their considerable economic privileges. It has created an unprecedented platform in which more working people and intellectuals tend to see and discuss the inability of capitalist political economic system to address itself to a health crisis and its understanding of public health system.

One of the most affected countries is the United States, which has almost one-third of the international cases, with 815,491 as an outcome of 4,162,922 tests by April 21. On this date, the number of death reached 45,097. The total number of recovered patients is 82,620. This means that there are 2,464 cases and 136 deaths per 1M people.[1] One-third of the national cases are from the State of New York.[2] In the U.S., the primary reason that the epidemic spread like a wildfire is the weak healthcare system along with several other political and social problems here. Especially, the pandemic shook the base, revealed lack of organized working class, fetishism over individualism combined with puritan work ethic, a healthcare system abandoned at the mercy of banks and companies, widespread and dire mental health problems, homelessness, structural racism, a violent prison-industrial complex, a divided American political system over extremely libertarian federal system, and the discourses of nationalist functionalism and blind petty bourgeois ethicism.

The pandemic came as if a “god’s gift” in a time when economic measures have been taken by and for capital to prevent the deepening consequences of the 2008 financial crisis and the present galvanizing crisis. The extortion of abortion rights in several states and the elimination of union elections by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), escalating interventionist moves against Venezuela, cutting financial support to World Health Organization (WHO), and expectation for the presidential executive order to suspend immigration reveals for whose benefit the pandemic process was used.[3][4][5][6][7] Even American exceptionalists face stark contradictions, as countries such as China, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cuba have effective attitudes towards the epidemic, Russia’s military aircraft to aid the US with medical equipment, then from Vietnam, and the US’s seizure of medical equipment to Barbados, called modern piracy.[8][9][10][11][12]Also, President Trump’s attempts to blame the pandemic on Chinese conspiracy remark their unpreparedness and desperation to get away with their responsibilities, later framed COVID-19 as “Chinese Virus.”[13]

Although unions, which have a strong bureaucracy, cannot lead the workers, and the government disregards urgent measures for “essential workers,” they, especially healthcare and logistics workers, feel compelled to struggle for vital, urgent demands.[14] In that sense, the working class politics’ wave of the last years definitely shows its effect. Coinciding with the Bernie Sanders campaign in a country where even the limited healthcare demand of “Medicare for All” was almost a joke, universal healthcare became a major part of public agenda. However, in a country where nurses have to make protective uniforms out of big garbage bags due to lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), it turned out that the lives of workers and laborers, who are called “essentials,” hypocritically, are worthless. One has to remember that political elites have always been shamelessly outspoken with their disdain for workers.[15][16][17]

Even after the $2 trillion stimulus package is distributed, details reveal the gap between what was promised and what the reality is. For example, $1,200 aid for individuals and $2,400 for couples is much more meaningful in the Southern states, where the taxes are lower than the states like New York and California. It has to be said that these checks will almost certainly go for student loans, and rent, besides given the fact that almost 1/3 of the country didn’t pay rent for the last month and has that rent due.[18] Students that were graduated last summer or winter, are not be able to get checks. In this regard, and in these new and challenging times, it is a calamity that will trigger millennials and generation Z to question “meaning, morality and mortality in ways they never did before.” This generation has experienced life-altering disruptions, such as 9/11, the Great Recession, the decline of American prestige to a housing affordability crisis, global warming to crushing student debt according to academics at the University of Southern California.[19]

An Overview of the U.S. Healthcare System

The U.S. has always been named as the most developed capitalist country with a liberal democracy that has been perceived alongside western European liberal democracies.[20] Relying on individual liberty in a libertarian sense, the U.S. understanding and structure of organizing daily affairs leave everything to the individual, including healthcare services. Healthcare is a responsibility of the individual, not the state and society. Because of this individualistic conception, it can be said that the U.S. is the most developed country with the worst skewed and insufficient healthcare system.

Becoming an emergent discussion in the wake of former Democratic 2020 presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign, healthcare has been a privilege in the U.S. for a long time except for some reforms called Obamacare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which became law on March 23, 2010. Nevertheless, the main requirement of having health insurance with sufficient coverage is to have a full-time employment.

After emerging from the 1929 Great Depression, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) government and state institutions utilized the conditions of World War II to provide opportunities for the social democratic expansion of capital. In 1942, the Stabilization Act “limited the amount of wage increases employers could grant, but at the same time permitted the adoption of employee insurance plans.”[21] By 1949, employers benefits programs became common in collective bargaining agreements.[22] In the meantime, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) decided that, “employer contributions to health insurance premiums were tax free, which meant workers paid less out of their pocket.”[23] After FDR, President Harry Truman signed the National Mental Health Act, which called for the establishment of a National Institute of Mental Health.[24] Under the Johnson presidency, Medicare and Medicaid programs were set up in 1965. By accepting the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, the Nixon government unleashed healthcare as a profitable industry.[25]

The Obama presidency evoked hope among the US people over the crumbling healthcare system. However, insurance companies were the one which benefited from a developing market, although his reforms alleviated the situation a little by extending children on their parents coverage and mandating mental health coverage one very plan, those without insurance were burdened with the tax penalties and forced into high deductible plans.[26] Since 2016, the Trump government began to repeal Obamacare by redoing the enabling acts.[27] While it is claimed that it lessens the tax burden coming from healthcare payments, it is also constricting the accessibility to healthcare.[28]

Recently, there were around 800,000 people with “freelance contracts” working in New York. According to the contract, the employer does not have to make a person’s health insurance because the character of their job is temporary and in a limited time. If the person works at or above the 32-33 hour limit, it is considered full-time. Therefore, bosses are able to force flexible employment without any reservations, being aware of the fear of unemployment or underemployment that dominates the US job market. This exemplifies how the messy system has worsened the crisis substantially.

federal As another example, unemployment climbed by another 5 million people this week, increasing the total number of people who have applied for unemployment to 22 million in the last month. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “approximately 9.2 million workers have likely lost their employer-provided health care coverage in the past four weeks.”[29]

Neo-liberal policies in the healthcare system have left the working class and laborers vulnerable to the epidemic. However, the Trump administration focused on the economy to function as smoothly as possible, rather than taking measures that could be taken more or less against approaching epidemic. They refrained from taking the necessary precautions. Even then, for example, the statements of Trump continue to insist for reopening country on May 1, despite major obstacles from authorities.[30] His persistence on reopening the country was also a matter on April 12.[31] Several expressions of political and economic elites are supportive of this: “I’d rather die’ from coronavirus ‘than kill the country.”[32][33][34] As one of the countries that experienced the 2008 crisis deeply, the sensitivity of the USA to the capitalist capital accumulation in the face of the epidemic caused more people to die.

 An article from the American prospect addresses, for example, the share in the stimulus package for businesses. Out of $2 Trillion package, $500 billion will be used for companies. $75 billion goes to the airline industry and the mysteriously named “businesses critical to national security.” The rest $425 will be used to capitalize a $4.25 trillion, leveraged lending facility at the Federal Reserve.[35] Additionally, seven other industries are lobbying for more stimulus, such as tourism, restaurants, mortgage servicers, hotels, airlines, franchises, and distillers.[36]

Other Aspects of the Crisis

Although we have listed the other problems that have accelerated the severity of the crisis, once again, those have to be elaborated to make sense in their context. To begin with, fetish over individualism elicits an “I don’t care, no-one can decides for me” mentality, which disregards social well-being and solidarity. This fundamental bourgeois idea frustrated many people at the beginning due to its ignorance of the crisis, and refusal to heed the advice of healthcare workers. Different aspects of this same idea might be felt over the larger, individual based healthcare system: “It is every (hu)man for himself.”

Similar to this “I don’t care” individualism, even the excessive mental health problems have been treated “as an individual’s incapacity to function normally within a given setting” by serious academic researches. These problems can be found mostly among poor whites and blacks who are more prone to mental disorders than richer classes.[37] Combining with homelessness, and other problems stemming from unemployment, the mental health question requires urgent social attention, especially during the crisis. People, who are relying on social circles, families, and solidarity, are isolated, trapped, and helpless. On the other hand, homelessness, specifically student one, made states hesitate to cancel schools at the beginning. Many college students were also thrown out of their dorm, with nowhere else to go.

Over all these, as another aspect of “American” values, nowadays, right-wing demonstrators have called to end quarantine by blocking roads with caravans, carrying Confederation and Nazi flags, utilizing the 18th century American revolutionary slogan of “Give me liberty, or give me death!” The other, “liberal” side of American nationalism is not innocent in weaponizing the crisis and its human costs, framing healthcare workers as “heroes,” food and workers from other vital industries as “essentials,” “frontliners,” “soldiers,” who are, fundamentally, expendable. Even the liberal call for “stay home” and “practice social distancing” is full of lack of consideration and clarity, solely blind ethicism, a performative virtue.

Workers’ and the lives of the poor are at the stake, which involves racial and gender issues, too.[38] In the center of epidemic in the country, New York City, most of cases and deaths are coming from poor working class neighborhoods.[39] According to formal data, those who have died have been 34% Hispanic, 28% blacks, 27% white and 7% Asian.[40] Economically and racially segregated neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable in this crisis. These groups’ share in the population are 29%, 22%, 32%, and 14%, respectively. The prison-industrial complex also has figured prominently in the crisis. According to activist and journalist Shaun King, the U.S. is the only nation in the world with 250% more prison cells than hospital beds.[41] That complex is another example of structural racism: “These racial disparities are particularly stark for Black Americans, who make up 40% of the incarcerated population despite representing only 13% of U.S residents.”[42] In other words, it is not surprising that places where COVID-19 has been most devastating, are generally black neighborhoods and towns.[43] Beyond racial lines, the rate of incarceration for women incarceration follows that of the black population: “The same is true for women, whose incarceration rates have for decades risen faster than men’s, and who are often behind bars because of financial obstacles such as an inability to pay bail.”[44] During the pandemic, the issue of rising domestic abuse of women trapped at their home receive almost no public or media attention. Additionally, the LGBTQ population is not independent from same abusive behavior. They are also vulnerable to discrimination, homelessness and other economic problems that increase the likelihood of contracting COVID-19.[45]

There are a considerable amount of cases and deaths especially among transportation, food and market workers.[46] Lack of protective equipment and the government’s token appreciation to workers has pushed many workers to take several actions, from warehouses to hospitals. Until now, over 100 workers’ actions are recorded since the beginning of the pandemic.[47] The most unique one is that General Electric workers’ struggle for their company to shift to produce ventilators.[48] Beyond all, the common quality of workers actions are mostly led by millennial generations. In that sense, it can be counted as a sign which generation of the working class might lead advanced struggles post-pandemic. However, in terms of youth struggle, it is hard to say what might happen, because online education may continue in fall 2020, and beyond.

All in all, other aspects of the crisis are complex and entangled, and reflect all the emergent demands of the US people and working class. However, the struggle against pandemic has been shaped by the political struggle between democrats and republicans towards the 2020 Presidential Elections. The governors of Illinois, New York and several other state governors’ have critiqued president Trump for not utilizing the Defense Production Act exemplifies the tension between democrats and republicans along with federal and state fault lines.[49] For instance, while some smaller states have made commitments to end quarantine on May 1, New York and California are against that, and the federal government doesn’t necessarily intend for imposing an extension to quarantine.

Conclusion

It has been discussed that the working class as we know it is gone, especially by the liberal intellectuals of all spectrum in defense of cold war theories. There was also an illusive reality, in which public spaces has been dominated by petty bourgeoisie and some upper sections of working class. It should be noted that another reason to this for the USA and Western Europe is the surplus value they transfer from the dependent countries through the imperialist exploitation mechanism. While this post-cold war argument has lost credibility for a long time now, it is shattered with the COVID-19 crisis.

The U.S. is experiencing a moment of “the king is naked,” where petty bourgeois classes retreated from streets, and left working class people to fulfill busses, train cars, factories, warehouses, workplaces, and unemployment lines. On the one hand, framing some sections of working class as “essentials,” primarily “hero” healthcare workers, and on the other, failing to provide essential protective equipment to these “essentials,” shows one certain aspect in the contradictions of classes: “Workers’ lives do not matter.”

Due to the same reason, it can be said that president Donald Trump is backing up right-wing demonstrators, who wants to lift the quarantine. Concurrent with deepening polarization of the U.S. political system through several impasses between the Democrats and Republicans, the presidency plays with the libertarian positioned citizen-against-the-government to take advantage of the crisis to gather and energize its avid supporter base for the upcoming elections. However, the statements of the government to end quarantine aim to make people reconcile the situation, while continuing to infuriate workers and saturate the air with fear and resentment.

Ekim Kilic is a Kurdish journalist from Turkey, and regularly reporting to the daily working-class newspaper of Turkey, Evrensel Daily. He also takes an active role as a member of the NY steering committee at the National Writers' Union UAW Local 1981. He is an MA graduate from International Affairs and Global Justice major at CUNY Brooklyn College / New York. He wrote a master thesis on a comparative analysis of working class support for right-wing nationalism in the U.S. and Turkey.

Notes

[1]  United States. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Smith, K. (2020, March 25). Abortion-rights groups sue Texas over abortion ban amid coronavirus outbreak. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-rights-planned-parenthood-lawsuit-texas-non-essential-ban/?fbclid=IwAR2biSYvfz_dejWzV5P1bzlwQBCm24yeV5zmrmt9klpVFcoE8-tpUynR8hI

[4] In Midst of a Pandemic, Trump’s NLRB Makes it Nearly Impossible for Workers to Organize a Union. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://portside.org/2020-04-02/midst-pandemic-trumps-nlrb-makes-it-nearly-impossible-workers-organize-union?fbclid=IwAR24Xbuzw2sHuLdM155e96xVuX6RntvpQgsDLOMIxbMhLM57Z2H570q8M7I

[5] Borger, J. (2020, March 31). US ignores calls to suspend Venezuela and Iran sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/us-ignores-global-appeals-suspend-sanctions-coronavirus-pandemic-iran-venezuela

[6] Sullivan, P. (2020, April 15). Trump WHO cuts meet with furious blowback. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/492997-trump-who-cuts-meet-with-furious-blowback

[7] Stelloh, T., Welker, K., Pettypiece, S., & Bennett, G. (2020, April 21). Trump says he is suspending immigration over coronavirus, need to protect jobs. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-he-suspending-immigration-over-coronavirus-need-protect-jobs-n1188416?fbclid=IwAR1GpqyKHb9TJHPDs4f5yQSq8jAu9ui4N-S2CByFRp9mdVE_qGy9sADrYwM

[8] Lisnoff, H. (2020, April 6). American Exceptionalism in the Face of Covid-19. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/09/american-exceptionalism-in-the-face-of-covid-19/

[9] Kuttner, R. (2020, March 24). The End of American Exceptionalism. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://prospect.org/coronavirus/the-end-of-american-exceptionalism/

[10] (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/putin-sends-military-plane-with-coronavirus-aid-to-help-u-s

[11] Sweeney, S. (2020, April 16). Vietnam ships 450,000 protective suits for U.S. health care workers. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/vietnam-ships-450000-protective-suits-for-u-s-health-care-workers/?fbclid=IwAR3cV9CBQMWO-TS1ehCi_rXl5jhmqXDO31gv35qz9P9oSYupMg6Ki6a49Lg

[12] Steve SweeneyMonday, A. 6. (2020, April 6). US accused of ‘modern piracy’ after seizing ventilators bound for Barbados. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/us-accused-modern-piracy-after-seizing-ventilators-bound-barbados

[13] Tisdall, S. (2020, April 19). Trump is playing a deadly game in deflecting Covid-19 blame to China. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2020/apr/19/trump-is-playing-a-deadly-game-in-deflecting-covid-19-blame-to-china

[14] Chediac, J. (2020, April 20). Essential worker strike wave: ‘We fight COVID-19 for ourselves &… Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.liberationnews.org/essential-worker-strike-wave-we-fight-for-ourselves-and-for-the-public/?fbclid=IwAR3aVocvBL2JZCLrY04peKRVpMR3UyHc2fbgqfw6OATRFp7IYc0JVWONzz4

[15] Montanaro, D. (2016, September 10). Hillary Clinton’s ‘Basket Of Deplorables,’ In Full Context Of This Ugly Campaign. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2016/09/10/493427601/hillary-clintons-basket-of-deplorables-in-full-context-of-this-ugly-campaign

[16] Gruenberg, M. (2019, April 25). GOP lawmaker’s idiotic remark about nurses goes viral and backfires. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/gop-lawmakers-idiotic-remark-about-nurses-goes-viral-and-backfires/

[17] Alternet. (2019, April 9). When the GOP uses the word “bartender” to mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it shows its ugly classism. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.salon.com/2019/04/09/when-the-gop-uses-the-word-bartender-to-mock-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-it-shows-its-ugly-classism_partner/

[18] Bahney, A. (2020, April 11). New data shows more Americans are having trouble paying their rent. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/business/americans-rent-payment-trnd/index.html

[19] Polakovic, G. (2020, April 3). How does coronavirus affect young people’s psyches? Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://news.usc.edu/167275/how-does-coronavirus-affect-young-people-psyches/

[20] The Economist Intelligence Unit. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index

[21] Scofea, L. A. (1994). The development and growth of employer-provided health insurance. Monthly Labor Review, 3–10. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1994/03/art1full.pdf

[22] Ibid.

[23] How did we end up with health insurance being tied to our jobs? (2019, April 29). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.marketplace.org/2017/06/28/how-did-we-end-health-insurance-being-tied-our-jobs/

[24] National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2017, February 17). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/national-institute-mental-health-nimh

[25] Gruber, L. R., Maureen, S., & Polich, C. L. (n.d.). From Movement To Industry: The Growth Of HMOs. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.7.3.197

[26] Amadeo, K. (n.d.). Pros and Cons of Obamacare. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.thebalance.com/obamacare-pros-and-cons-3306059

[27] Simmons-Duffin, S. (2019, October 14). Trump Is Trying Hard To Thwart Obamacare. How’s That Going? Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/768731628/trump-is-trying-hard-to-thwart-obamacare-hows-that-going

[28] Gonzales, R. (2019, October 5). Trump Bars Immigrants Who Cannot Pay For Health Care. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767453276/trump-bars-immigrants-who-cannot-pay-for-health-care

[29] 9.2 million workers likely lost their employer-provided health insurance in the past four weeks. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.epi.org/blog/9-2-million-workers-likely-lost-their-employer-provided-health-insurance-in-the-past-four-weeks/

[30] Trump’s plans to reopen the country face major obstacles. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/18/trump-reopen-country-coronavirus-193182

[31] Harris, J. F. (n.d.). ‘I’d love to have it open by Easter’: Trump says he wants to restart economy by mid-April. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/trump-wants-to-restart-economy-by-mid-april-146398

[32] Samuels, A. (2020, April 21). Dan Patrick says “there are more important things than living and that’s saving this country”. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-economy-coronavirus/

[33] Fredericks, B. (2020, April 15). Congressman says US should reopen economy – even if more would die. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/lawmaker-says-us-should-reopen-economy-even-if-more-will-die/

[34] Concha, J. (2020, March 25). Glenn Beck: ‘I’d rather die’ from coronavirus ‘than kill the country’ from economic shutdown. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://thehill.com/homenews/media/489472-glenn-beck-id-rather-die-from-coronavirus-than-kill-the-country-from-economic

[35] Dayen, D. (2020, March 25). Unsanitized: Bailouts, A Tradition Unlike Any Other. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://prospect.org/api/amp/coronavirus/unsanitized-bailouts-tradition-unlike-any-other/

[36] Gangitano, A. (2020, April 2). 7 industries lobbying for more stimulus. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/490736-7-industries-lobbying-for-more-stimulus

[37] Baran, P. A. & Sweezy P. M. (2020, March). The Quality of Monopoly Capitalist Society: Mental Health. Monthly Review. Volume 71. Pg. 41-43.

[38] Conn, M., Kelly, J., & Heimpel, D. (2020, April 3). Lack of Shelter Beds in New York for LGBTQ Youth During Pandemic. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/coronavirus/lgbtq-youth-struggle-for-shelter-from-coronavirus/41999?fbclid=IwAR0Rko479SG4K9eBvZZTWNXVZxo0Xa4HYpxoyUSNYc-xhWUD2Ri0GO35B80

[39] Virus Hits NYC Hardest in a Few Working-Class Neighborhoods. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-04-02/coronavirus-hits-harder-in-poorer-nyc-neighborhoods

[40] Workbook: NYS-COVID19-Tracker. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-Fatalities?:embed=yes&:toolbar=no&:tabs=n

[41] SHAUN KING: The United States is the Only Nation in the World with 250% More Prison Cells Than Hospital Beds. (2020, March 30). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.thenorthstar.com/shaun-king-the-united-states-is-the-only-nation-in-the-world-with-250-more-prison-cells-than-hospital-beds/

[42] Sawyer, W., & Wagner, P. (n.d.). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

[43] Johnson, A., & Buford, T. (n.d.). Early Data Shows African Americans Have Contracted and Died of… Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate

[44] Ibid.

[45] Conn, M., Kelly, J., & Heimpel, D. (2020, April 3). Lack of Shelter Beds in New York for LGBTQ Youth During Pandemic. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/coronavirus/lgbtq-youth-struggle-for-shelter-from-coronavirus/41999?fbclid=IwAR0Rko479SG4K9eBvZZTWNXVZxo0Xa4HYpxoyUSNYc-xhWUD2Ri0GO35B80

[46] Chediac, J. (2020, April 20). Essential worker strike wave: ‘We fight COVID-19 for ourselves &… Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.liberationnews.org/essential-worker-strike-wave-we-fight-for-ourselves-and-for-the-public/?fbclid=IwAR3aVocvBL2JZCLrY04peKRVpMR3UyHc2fbgqfw6OATRFp7IYc0JVWONzz4

[47] Elk, M. (2020, April 23). COVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://paydayreport.com/covid-19-strike-wave-interactive-map/?fbclid=IwAR0hqgq8wEeYT-Y8VRFcaJocbzRNd4vb_13bd32_3fZFxqYv3OO7gf6uynQ

[48] GE Workers Protest, Demand to Make Ventilators. (2020, April 16). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/04/ge-workers-protest-demand-make-ventilators?fbclid=IwAR2_qnmATx97jmyVzESlZ_B7KGce1YtQV4uH86rHXxHEOs3s1G0r-ygXF1w

[49] Trump, Facing Criticism, Says He Will Increase Swab Production. (2020, April 19). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-updates.html

Fascism in the USA: An Interview with Shane Burley

By Braden Riley

The following is an interview with Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press) , regarding the modern fascist movement in the United States.

Braden Riley: Alt Right outlets like AltRight.com, the National Policy Institute, American Renaissance, and others have been putting out a lot of statements about their plans for 2018. What are their plans for 2018, and how successful do you think they are going to be?

Shane Burley: This is really hard to say because their success and failures are less because of their choices and more because of the social tides. They got a massive boost in 2015, a score that many attributed to Trump, yet came before Trump's real entry into the cultural landscape. Their biggest boost came actually by their own work and tapped into the same mood that Trump tapped into as well. That victory was the hashtag #Cuckservative, which ended up trending on Twitter and brought the popular white nationalist podcast The Daily Shoah onto the public stage. The were calling out beltway conservatives who worked against their own racial "interests" on immigration issues. This became popular long before the term Alt Right did, and that only became a trending hashtag after Cuckserative and other Alt Right memes had set the stage for it. The term Alt Right was actually a throwback, major Alt Right figures like Richard Spencer had actually traded it in for Identitarian, a word used by cultural fascist movements in Europe like the Nordic Resistance movement. He thought that the Alt Right phase of their development was over by this point, but a circle developing online, and without the direct control of Spencer, began using it again to describe their views.

All this is to say that there was a cultural force happening that was not completely in their control, but they certainly influenced discourse and rode the nativist insurgency into the public spotlight. 2015 and 2016 were huge for them. They were able to ally with the "Alt Light," the slightly more moderate nativist Civic Nationalists like Breitbart and Rebel Media, allowing a more mainstream channel to popularize their message without committing fully to their open fascism. They were able to get multiple more memes into the culture, gain huge media attention for their major figures, and kept their ideas relevant to the larger conservative culture with the Trumpian populist movement.

2017, on the other hand, got away from them. At this point they wanted to move into the world of IRL (In Real Life) activism and politics. Their movement, unlike most of the radical left, was not built on struggle and organizing, but instead on message boards, conferences, and streaming media. They had not had the impetus to put their politics into action, but as their organizations coalesced, groups like Identity Europa began to step out into the political scene. Alt Right organizations like the Tradtionalist Workers Party had been doing this for a few years, but they were more than just Alt Right, they also pulled from the more conventional militia, neo-Nazi, and KKK groups , all of which had a history of "activism." The Alt Right , the new Middle Class and pseudo-intellectual white nationalist branding, did not have that history, so it was trying to build it. Unfortunately for them, they began doing it very poorly since they did not have a good concept of movement building.

At the same time, enough antifascist momentum had built up that they were seeing massive opposition anywhere they appeared. This had grown throughout 2015 and 2016, and was being effectively organized in those years, but the less political general public had caught on heavily by 2017 with Trump's victory, the Women's March, and the Alt Right violence starting in 2016 . So any appearance is a major battle in urban centers, with the Alt Right effectively becoming persona non grata for every previous ally.

Charlottesville on August 12th of 2017 was the most apparent of these, and they lost every final bit of crossover appeal they had. Their Alt Light allies have all but completely abandoned them, and their public appearances are flashpoints for antifascist confederations to descend. The organizations that have formed in response are numerous, growing, and their nationwide networks have swelled. Antifascism is at a scale that we have no precedent for in recent U.S. memory.

Within that frame, they have seen their publishing platforms eradicated. Social media, web hosting, podcast hosting, and just about every other outreach tool has been pulled from them. They had grown thought their access to easy hosting and social media, but now almost every Alt Right institutions has been pulled from their online and financial infastructures. Their tools have been deleted, their venues pulled, and their public turned hostile. It isn't looking good.

What they are planning to do also has not been clear. Richard Spencer has been pushing for massive fundraising, something made even more difficult as platforms like Patreon and PayPal pull away from them. Bitcoin has still be useful for them, but as it enters the unstable Wall Street market it is better as a high cost investment than a crypto-currency. The Right Stuff and AltRight.com are hoping that they will be able to pull in enough income through pay-walls to keep a few figures on a living wage, but this is unlikely and it is simply shrinking their reach. Spencer will keep pushing his way onto public universities , but, honestly, this is creating more enemies for him on campus than friends. Organizations like Identity Europa are in turmoil as their leadership resigns, and the Traditionalist Workers Party seems more likely to try and appeal to neo-Nazis than to recruit from normal folks.

There is also a great bit of dissention in the ranks. There are disagreements of which way to go. Richard Spencer was a leader in building what he referred to as "meta-politics": a cultural movement that came before politics. Building off of the "Gramcscians of the Right" philosophy of fascist academics in the European New Right , he wanted to build an Identitarian culture that changed conscousness in the hope that it would alter practical politics down the line. In doing so, he tried to resurrect fascist ideas by giving them an academic and artistic veneer, something he did for years at AlternativeRight.com and theRadix Journal. But with his new friends and the publication AltRight.com, he has turned his sights towards vulgar white supremacy, snarky Internet jargon, and publicity stunts. White nationalist venues like Counter-Currents and Arktos Media have maintained their focus on meta-politics, and decry Spencer for his buffoonish behavior. There are also splits on what to do with queer members, how central the " Jewish Question " is to racial issues, and whether or not they should support Trump.

All of this is to say that their ship has a hole in it, but that only means that there are opportunities for antifascists. This shouldn't be interpreted as a prediction of their failure because even their own incompetence could be overcome by reactionary movements inside the white working class. This is why organizing, in the long-term sense, is key at all stages, especially when moments of decline in fascist fronts provide windows of opportunity.

BR: We have seen dissension in the ranks from women that were a part of the Alt Right movement now feeling denigrated by their fellow nationalists. Do you think that they will eventually split from the larger movement, or reject this entirely? What is the role for women, or femme people, in the Alt Right?

SB: This is complicated, and it has changed dramatically over time. In the earlier days of the Alt Right, there seemed to be a larger opening to female contributors, though it was never a very large contingent. The Alt Right is defined by its inequality and essentialism, so women who were willing to offer a perspective that essentialized femininity to their "femaleness" were generally welcomed. In the earlier days of AlternativeRight.com there were some women contributing, and in the first print edition of the Radix Journal they even had a women of color contribute a chapter.

This definitely changed as we entered the Second Wave Alt Right, which was defined more by the subcultural trolling behavior on message boards and social media. The ideas never really changed, but the attitude and behavior did. Women were always ascribed a traditionalist role, but as we headed into 2015 they were seen increasingly as suspect. Again, this suspicion about women was always an integral part of the Alt Right. People like male tribalist Jack Donovan wrote about deeply felt mysogeny, his mysogeny, towards women. It wasn't until the Manosphere and Gamergate scenes merged, to a degree, with the open fascists in the Alt Right that the virulent anger towards women took center stage.

Now we are seeing the Alt Right essentially openly declare that women need to take a back-seat in the movement , a concept that stems from their belief that only men have the mental and spiritual capacity to lead revolutions. They have, for years, argued that women have lower IQs than men, citing the same pseudoscience that they use to denegrate people of African descent and to single out Jews. They go further and, in trying to ascribe personality types to broad groups of people, say that women lack the "faustian spirit" necessary for revolutions. They believe that women cannot be leaders in the movement because they are bio-spiritually unable, it must necessarily be run by men.

This perspective was even reflected by some women in the movement. Wife With a Purpose, for example, was a white nationalist pagan-turned-Mormon known for her videos, blogs, and Twitter feed. She would often say that her primary role was having babies, but still created a community around herself. Lana Lokeff, the co-host of Red Ice Media and the owner of the conspiracy-laden clothing company Lana's Lamas, also towed this line, while expecting that the Alt Right would respect her in a leadership role. As Alt Right 2.0 continues forward, and the mysogeny becomes more and more pronounced, they continue to be sidelined. As the #MeToo campaign came forward many leaders in the Alt Right, especially Richard Spencer, have turned on their female counterparts even more. This has created an unviable situation between them, and Alt Light figures like Lauren Southern are standing up against their inter-group treatment. This will likely not lead to internal reforms, their mysogeny is foundational and runs deep into their ideology. They believe that femininity is implicitly liberal and in the preservation of the status quo, and therefore they cannot be trusted unless they put extreme limits on female sexuality and self-expression. They believe that women lack key aspects of morality and critical thinking, basically ascribing them whatever negative qualities they can identify at any point and time with silly psuedo-science. The Alt Right's line is then to re-establish orthodox patriarchy rather than the vulgar woman hatred of the Manosphere, that way they can create systematic controls on women. Quite literally putting them in their place.

Their reaction to women in their movement and women across the board is with anger, and the Alt-Right Politics Podcast at AltRight.com even named women, broadly, as one of the "turncoats of the year." They seem to be doubling down on this hatred of women, and we can expect them to further marginalize themselves as they cut down their ability to create alliances.

Their treatment of trans people goes a step even further where they refuse to even accept their existence as legitimate. They repeatedly try to make the claim that trans people are the invention of a modern society in decadence, that it is the material excesses of the contemporary world that "invents" them. This actually draws on very traditional transphobia, where special hate is given to men that they feel gave up their "maleness" by becoming gender non-conforming.

BR: With that in mind, you also had a mistake in the book you wanted to mention.

SB: Yes. I have made a big error of my own, and it is one that I want to openly take responsibility for. At two points in the book I use the phrase "transgendered people" rather than the correct "transgender people." The first phrasing turns transgender into a verb, this is an incorrect way to phrase this and is both antiquated and offensive. It is my responsibility to ensure that I am not erasing trans experiences when discussing these issues, and I should have checked the work to make sure that the phrasing was correct and did not perpetuate harmful language. The instances will be corrected in the next printing of the book.

BR: We have seen the first year of the Trump's presidency pass and it has largely been a set of blunders. While he seems to have trouble getting legislation passed, he is still towing the line on racial issues. How will the Alt Right relate to him in 2018 and forward?

SB: They will be relating to him one day at a time. There were many instances in 2017 where they declared complete abandonment of Trump and where they were having deep disagreements. Trump's bombing campaign in Syria was a key moment in this, and they especially have an affinity for Bashar Al-Assad and reject "compassionate conversative" interventionist foreign policy. Trump's antagonism with Kim Jong-Un was another one of these, and people like the Traditionalist Worker's Party's Matthew Heimbach find this especially offensive since he maintains that North Korea is a national socialist state . More recently, they had a huge problem with Trump's tacit support of the protest movements in Iran, and they instead want to see a "hands off" approach that does not try to port Western liberalism to foreign countries.

There is also a certain amount of ambivalence about what Trump has spent a great deal of time on. The tax bill, which is a massive transfer of wealth from working people to the rich, did not make many of them happy, especially the more down-the-line Third Positionists who dislike empowerment of banks. The focus on healthcare also felt like a distraction to most of them, and people like Richard Spencer really would prefer a completely socialized "post-office style" healthcare system.

At the same time, Trump's ongoing racial antagonisms do make them happy. This travel ban is a watered-down version of what they want, and the increased deportations, the attack on DACA, and the continued promise to "build the wall" keeps them tied. They, of course, loved his "shithole" comment. The most important of these moves by Trump in 2017 was likely his comments in support of Charlottesville white nationalist protesters, saying there were "good people on both sides." This was a subtle statement of support, and when mixed with the rest of his comments creates a cultural sphere of normalization for white supremacy.

All that being said, Trump is bizarrely incompetent and will likely not leave a good stain on the country in the name of right populism. It is difficult for many of them to maintain a purist support for Trump as he continues on and rejects his previous promise to "drain the swamp." His idiocy will spell his downfall, and the Alt Right will instead want to regain their key revolutionary aims. This will likely come from modeling themselves on European groups like France's Generation Identity rather than party politics like the British National Party or Front National , so they may simply de-emphasize Trump rather than reject him fully. At the same time, they are continuing to focus on analyzing and re-analyzing politics, so their singular focus could come at their own downfall.

BR: It seems like we are dealing with a situation that is entirely new in some ways, and entirely familiar in others. As Trump heads into his second year in office, what should organizers keep in mind when confronting this insurgent white supremacist movement?

SB: One of the first things is to see a distinction between Trump and white nationalists, that is one that is often difficult given the open white supremacy Trump displays. Trump has been a massive boon to white nationalists, more than they ever could have dreamed, but he is not the same as them. He has different motivations, different practical politics, and his allegiances and strategies are just going to be fundamentally different than what we find in the Alt Right. The far-right has used Trump as a way into the culture since Trump changed the conversation and pushed the overton window on race, but he is little more than a tool for them to accomplish things. So resistance to the Trump agenda and organized antifascism confronting these movements on the streets are not always one in the same.

That being said, both fields of struggle need to be considered. The consequences of Trump's agenda need to be confronted on their own terms. Increased deportations, persecution of immigrants, attacks on trans people in government venues, targeting of women's healthcare, dismantling of labor unions, and foreign policy blunders. The landscape is also different as we saw with the Draconian charges against J20 protesters for things as mild as broken windows and hurt feelings. These charges are not just happening in a single instance in the boundaries of Washington D.C., but have been seen across the country as cities prepare for four years of massive protests and confrontations between the left and the far-right. Out in Portland, there was massive criminal overcharging, where kids ended up with felonies and prison time for little more than some broken glass. This can have a chilling effect on mass movements, but it also means that there is a material crackdown happening on the left. This is the standard set by Jeff Sessions and judicial appointments, and that can really destroy movements at a base level. This needs to be considered when doing mass organizing.

The realities of the far-right needs to also be seen through sober eyes. Certain Alt Right groups are rising, some are waning, and some are irrelevant. For a long time the Alt Right was seen as a sort of fascism-lite rather than what it is, a fully formed fascist movement. Like all far-right actors, they foster a culture of violence. This is leading to organized violence against the left, but also to more seemingly random acts of "lonewolf" violence like street attacks and spontaneous murders. There is no reason to believe that is on the decline, and so community preparedness, close organization, and self-defense are all important.

It is also critical to avoid simply abandoning the struggles that were taking place before we entered this nationalist revival. We are still teetering on the edge of disaster with climate change, massive wealth inequality is destroying the lives of working people, and housing is become scarcer and scarcer for those of limited means. All of this intersects, all components of a hierarchical society that peaks in moments of crisis. So the same tools we use to fight back the Alt Right can be used to re-establish a strong community that is able to reframe our tactical position, to strengthen workplace, housing, and environmental organizing. So doing antifascist and anti-oppression work should not be seen as a side-note, but as part of a larger matrix of struggle.

Shane Burley is an author and filmmaker based in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press) His work has appeared at Alternet, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, Raw Story, In These Times, Waging Nonviolence, Salvage Quarterly, ThinkProgress, Upping the Anti, Gods & Radicals, and Make/Shift, among others. He can be found at ShaneBurley.net or on Twitter @Shane_Burley1

Braden Riley is an antiracist organizer from the Northeastern U.S., and has published work in a number of radical publications.

Reflections on Charlottesville, Political Violence, and False Equivalencies

By Zack Ford

The violence in Charlottesville Virginia at a "unite the right" rally that resulted in one death is being condemned across the political spectrum. Very few are willing to do anything but denounce violence that results in death. Perhaps this is our "default" moral position. It is easy to say that such violence is stupid and has no place in America today. It is much more difficult to understand why people put their lives on the line for such "stupid" things in the first place.

An outright denunciation of violence implies that all violence is preventable. The common belief is that if we understand what the "cause" of the violence was, we can prevent it from occurring in the future. Regarding Charlottesville, the cause was a "unite the right" rally, which, at least in theory, attempted to unite different right-wing factions and preserve the monuments that constantly remind us of the history of subjugation of black and brown people upon which this country is built and of their continuing second-class citizenship. In practice, this was carried out by flying Neo-nazi flags and propaganda and obsessively performing the "Heil Hitler" salute, all while provoking physical violence. Violence erupted when students and residents decided this type of behavior was not welcome in their community. So, if the racist rally never was allowed to occur, the violence would have never erupted and the loss of life could have potentially been prevented. Anyone who wishes to prevent this type of violence from unfolding in the future must recognize that the racist slurs and hateful sentiments which are inextricably linked with such groups are the catalyst of the violence that occurred, and that such forms of expression must be silenced to prevent future violence.

Of course, the counter point is that if alt-right, neo-nazi groups are to be silenced then groups such as Black Lives Matter must also be silenced. Unfortunately, it is difficult for many so-called defenders of equality to recognize the conflict between this position and the notion of equality itself. It is somehow controversial to many defenders of human life to argue that Black Lives Matter should be allowed to march, protest, and rally, while groups such as the KKK should be silenced and suppressed. While the equivocation of Black Lives Matter and the alt-right is proven false by historical and social conditions, the fact that it continues to surface among large parts of the white population when events like this occur, it is worth returning to -- even if it requires beating a dead horse.

White people struggle to see beyond the notion that both Black lives Matter and the Klan are "violent" because they commit acts of violence. While this might be true according to a very narrow and particular standard of the term "violence" itself, we must consider the different types of violence each group commits. First off, is it worth pointing out that it is perfectly legitimate for members of the Klan to march as they did today in Charlottesville with loaded assault rifles without being hassled by police, or should I say, while the police allowed them to march with such weapons? It is unquestionable what would happen if the movement for Black Lives showed up with guns. Furthermore, after the civil war, the Klan was declared a terrorist organization and the state governments called out the militia when the Klan surfaced. Klan speech was not permitted as "free speech" since the limitations of free speech prevent direct threats of violence, which the Klan has always issued. Beyond the unequal power dynamic is the fact that the Klan aims to commit violence towards any non-European or non-white "other" while Black lives matter aims to correct the injustices of the structures and institutions that perpetuate oppression -- towards the police that target them for looking like "thugs" as if thugs look a certain way, towards the economy that deprives them of living a decent life, towards the laws and regulations that do not grant them the same rights, and towards the entire system under which they find no representation. Considering the history of America, can such actions be considered violence? Is breaking a window or burning a car the same as public hangings and slavery? If violence is the intention to harm someone, then these actions are not "violent" but are merely attempts to correct prior injustices. Insofar as they do not cause physical harm, but instead bring more freedom and equality, they cannot be considered violent.

The so-called "violence" of the movement for Black Lives is nothing more than a rejection of the willful ignorance towards the ways in which the mechanisms of the state function to perpetuate white supremacy. It is an attempt to correct the ignorant beliefs that do not simply remain beliefs, but are rather transformed into policies which have real material consequences for marginalized people. In other words, it is directed not towards people who do not look like them, but to people who hold these beliefs without recognizing their material impact. Of course, to white consciousness it will feel as though the movement for Black Lives is perpetuating violence against them for being white. The point is that America is a country built on the enslavement and oppression of black people, and this bloody history conditions the way we experience the world. The feeling of exclusion that pervades white consciousness when facing movements such as Black Lives Matter is also a product of that same history. For white people, it might feel as though Black Lives Matter is perpetuating violence towards them as individuals, but the point is that it is impossible to make a judgment about violence without taking the history of conquest and enslavement into account. Such a judgment would presuppose that experience is "neutral" and untainted by historical conditions. We know, however, that individuals experience the world in fundamentally different ways and to project some external standpoint is not only intellectually dishonest, but shows the unwillingness of white people in certain circles to think outside of themselves in attempt to absolve them of any culpability. When history is taken into account, the label of "violence" pasted to the actions taken by the movement for Black Lives simply disintegrates.

Many are comfortable condemning violence outright, but this position is in contradiction with equality. To condemn violence outright, one must either deny that structural racism exists or equivocate Black Lives Matter with the alt-right on the basis that both are groups attempting to secure racial supremacy. The implication is that the existing society is equal, and that any attempt to disrupt this equality from either group should be condemned outright. Along with historical injustice, the social scientific consensus is that deep structural inequalities - along racial lines - pervade contemporary society. It is therefore clear that Black Lives Matter and the alt-right are not operating in a "neutral" dynamic. The existing power relations are conditioned by history and the alt-right is clearly starting from a historically advantaged position. Thus, to advocate equality, the rational solution is to denounce the alt-right and support the movement for black lives.

Roy Brooks describes this situation as a poker game. Two players at the table, one white and one black, have been playing a single poker for four hundred years. The entire time the white player has been cheating and has acquired a substantial amount of chips that allows him to push the black player around, despite having poor cards. One day the white player admits that he has been cheating and decides that he is no longer going to do so. From here on out he wants the game to be fair. Astonished, the black player asks, "Well, what are you doing to do with all those chips?" The white player responds, "Keep them for the next generation, of course!" Although the white player claims he wants the game to be played fairly from here on out, he is unwilling to distribute his chips equally to the other player and thus is unwilling to relinquish the power dynamic that plays in his favor. While the white player seems to be advocating for a fair and equal poker game, his unwillingness to split the chips shows that he is merely paying lip service to the notion of fairness. For the game to be played fairly, both players have to start from a neutral position which is undermined by the white player maintaining possession of his chips (Roy Brooks, Atonement and Forgiveness p. 36).

Many white people would consider redistributing the chips an act of violence. After all, they are not responsible for their ancestors cheating, so they should be able to keep the chips that have been acquired throughout history. They should not pay the price if they themselves did not commit the action. To hold them responsible for something they didn't do is perceived as an act of violence in itself. Of course, the redistribution of power (through reparations) will appear as an act of violence only because the power structures do not affect white people in the same way as it does minorities. White people are ignorant of the empirical fact that the existing power structure disproportionally impacts minorities not merely in terms of beliefs, but in terms of material consequences. Furthermore, this position is fundamentally incompatible with fairness and equality and glaringly ahistorical.

That the existing power structures function to maintain white supremacy is not a belief or an idea, but is rather an empirical fact about our social and political reality. It is the duty of white people to not only grasp this reality but to fight against it in the name of equality, or to accept being labeled a fascist. Part of this struggle is suppressing the very hate groups and their rhetoric that led to this un-level playing field in the first place. It is simply impossible to refrain from denouncing white supremacist groups while defending equality. If one truly hopes to achieve a social reality where all people are equal, then it is our duty not to allow such hate in our communities and to actively fight against it. If this results in broken windows and burning cars, it is the responsibility of the defenders of equality to understand that such actions are not "violent" insofar as they are not directed at sentient beings, but the power structures that suppress the freedom of sentient beings who have historically been marginalized. These structures are the original purveyors of violence and continuously impede the advance toward equality.

Institutionalizing Lone-Wolf Terrorism: How Fascist Organizations Inspire Mass Violence

By Shane Burley

As Mulugeta Seraw and a friend hopped out of their ride's car, they didn't notice the pack of three skinheads wearing tight Levi's tucked into leather boots, laces tied from toe to ankle. The gang were members of East Side White Pride, affiliated with the larger White Aryan Resistance. Seraw was a student who had come to Portland, Oregon from Ethiopia, likely expecting Portland's long reputation of diversity and liberal values. It has another history, one that is caked in the KKK revival in the Northern USA and would later be marked by white expansion and gentrification. When the three men saw him on the corner of SE 31st and Pine street, a flurry of racial slurs were thrown before they took a baseball bat and caved in his head. This was just one of the many violent attacks that marked the war on the streets of Portland in the 1980s and 90s, where Antifa and anti-racist skinheads went literally up in arms with Volksfront, Hammerskin Nation, and other white pride gangs. The blood was visible on the corner of that street for weeks, and some swear you can still see it at night.(1)

This story resonates as we are inundated with recent horrors like the Dylan Roof massacre of nine church-goers after reading the Council of Conservative Citizens website, or the two men who beat an older hispanic man in south Boston after listening to Donald Trump's speech of racial arson.

The radical right can fundamentally be dropped into two camps. There are the above ground operations that focus on propagating "ideas" or political programs. These would be things like the "HBD" scientific racist organizations like American Renaissance, Mankind Quarterly, and the Pioneer Fund. There are the neo-fascist cultural and "radical traditionalist" organizations like Traditionalist Youth Network, Occidental Observer, and The National Policy Institute. There are vague political parties and organizations like the American Freedom Party and Council of Conservative Citizens, but the time that formations like these had any mainstream power has shortly passed. There are many other subdivisions of these, but in most of them you are likely not to hear the N-word or see many iron crosses or swastikas.

The second type of organization you can likely call insurrectionary, vanguardist, revolutionary, or simply angrily racist. These are organizations whose prime mission is a right-wing racialist revolution of some sorts, or the use of direct action in the re-establishment of formal white supremacy. There have been versions of this type of organization that has formed often over the years. The uniquely American flavor of this type of confrontational white supremacist organizing has its deep history in the Ku Klux Klan. Formed first in 1866, the clan used a fraternal structure that places former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest as its Grand Wizard. From 1867 forward the KKK founded its purpose to challenge the entry of freed slaves into public life during Reconstruction. In this way they acted as a sort of guerilla army attempting to, if not reverse the course of the Civil War, re-establish the kind of white hegemony that they had during the time of slave patrols. Northern politicians would essentially go to war with the Klan as they murdered seven of the first black legislators during the 1867-68 congressional convention. The real resurgence of the Klan came in the 1920s when they brought back an extensive leadership using the Greek fraternal system, and rose to the ranks of about four million people. This meant that they were a real political force, leading in Senators and Governors, as well as many that had to seek Klan endorsement if they were to be elected. This political clout certainly influenced policy of the time, but the real power was to terrorize communities of color with mass lynching and tortures of black people all across the south. This violence became institutional as the Klan infiltrated all areas of law enforcement, and lynching were so wide spread and accepted that people literally sold photos of dead black men hanging from trees as popular postcards. The political power it had in the 1920s was never again replicated, though it came out again as a powerful force for violence during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. This helped to push forward the White Citizen's Councils that would evolve into the Council of Conservative Citizens that we have today. (2)

While the Klan is all but gone in the 21st century, the other element of white resistance was the neo-Nazi skinhead movement. This was much more inspired from their British punk-rock dissidents of the Rock Against Communism flair. This created an essentially "working class" urban racialist movement that was drawn from the organizing traditions of anti-racist Trojan Skinheads. The skinhead culture, with networks like Volksfront and Hammerskin Nation dominating the U.S. scene, operate like street gangs with initiations and requirements of members to engage in racist violence. Their connections to other essentially "white gangs," most notably different motorcycle gangs, has cemented their association with distributing drugs like Crystal Meth and Oxycontin, though on the more militant side there is also a straight edge tradition.

The main threat of organizations like this was never successful political organizing, though semi-skinhead organizations like the National Socialist Movement maintain delusions that they will someday have political influence through bridge topics like immigration and affirmative action. The real threat here was violence on an interpersonal level, often times resulting in random violence against targeted groups on the streets. This can appear as "random" violence, but is only random in as much as there is not an overarching political goal that can be seen with any coherence. Beyond the skinhead gangs and shrinking KKK locals, these will also include groups that do have an ideological framework and some sense of revolutionary organizing in the long-term, yet do not work with the more moderate kinds of above ground organizations. This includes many of the racialist Christian Identity churches that are tied to survivalist militias. The Church of Jesus Christ - Christian, otherwise known as Aryan Nations, was one of the largest and best known of these, residing in Hayden Lake, Idaho. There they had a large compound where they held sermons about how Jews were biologically descended from Satan, how people of color were literally the "Beasts of the field" and were animals that did not have souls, and that all white people are the people called Israelites in the Bible. They tied racial revolution to Biblical eschatology for a conspiracy-laden mix of Nazism and American conservative Christianity. After several members attacked a family driving by the compound, the church and its leader, Reverend Richard Butler, were sued and the land confiscated. Today Christian Identity still plays a major role in underground militia oriented circles, though Kinism, a slightly more mainstream appearing racist Christian interpretation, is stealing many converts.

The National Socialist Movement, National Alliance, and many other militant Nazi organizations have straddled the line between organizing and revolutionary violence for most of their life. While their stated goals are often just well organized propaganda, education, and political programs, their revolutionary rhetoric has seen more results with inspiring single individuals to commit homicidal acts than having any kind of political program of any value.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of individual strands that all attempt to claim some serious legitimacy on political or ideological grounds, but they broadly can fall into the two categories and hold much of the same potential for inspiring singular acts of extreme violence. The violence that is exhibited is markedly different between groups based principally on the location and specific revolutionary vision of the organizations, but all the violence takes the form of singular acts of terrorism. What this means is that the kind of violent incidents that is seen from militia groups like The Order and Posse Comitatus is much different than the street skinheads of Vinland.

When it comes to the kind of racist violence that Anti-Fascist Action has staked much of its history on was confronting the random violence of the urban skinhead gangs. Much of the focus on these groups is that they tended to be one of the few groups that engaged in public acts of violent direct action into the 1990s, while the Ku Klux Klan and other groups had really receded or were attempting to moderate their politics. Skinheads, on the other hand, were mirroring other punk rock subcultures and creating a counter culture that engaged in gang violence in large cities. They were also coming into direct contact with left-oriented organizations by having some subcultural crossover in music venues, as well as having a high presence in drug running and prison gang culture. These were not heavily ideological groups, and those that had a stronger sense of white nationalism evolved into the more moderate path that many of the Klan splinter groups did in the 1980s.

Instead of being a more overarching political program, the myth about skinheads was based in their seemingly random targeting of minorities in public locations for incidental acts of incredibly cruelty. This has led to a consistent set of attacks since the mid 1970s, where people of color are often targeted in otherwise white areas, or young queer folks are "hunted" in areas where they might frequent. This has the effect of generalized fear since the attacks seem to be randomly selected, do not have a distinct pattern, and can essentially happen "anytime and anywhere."

People have always tried to see these gangs as part of a larger fascist movement or political vision, but this is difficult since there is not a lot of connection between them and the more mainstream intellectual movements and the violence itself would be hard to systematize. What occurs internally is to create a culture where violence is foundational to the community, and where prestige within the group is based on the history of engaging in violence. Since there is no outlet for this growing violent culture in anyway that can be a part of a larger political movement, as there would have been with the KKK in the 1920s, they instead wait in the wings for chances to let rage explode at random targets. Violence is the impetus for these groups, and recruiting often targets people who may have a history of violence and disaffection already, taking on an almost "cult like" structure of taking over a new recruit's world. This violence is stoked so effectively internally that it doesn't even require some type of antagonism from the left, as would happen at some kind of political protest clash. Instead, right from the start recruits are being emotionally prepared to engage in some type of violence as a way of securing a place in the social order that has chosen them.

As said earlier, the image that AFA and ARA organizers have of racist violence often comes from northern skinhead gangs because those are the street clashes that are common, the risk of larger incidents of violence are actually coming out of the woods instead of the alleys. The militia movement, though often associated with the far right, is not always considered a racialized group. While much of the rhetoric is made up of racial "dog whistle" language and vague discussions of "socialism" or "the federal government,", a large contingent of racial revolutionaries mix with these groups and have their own agenda. Over the course of the 1980s we have seen massive trends towards violence, some of it on an almost unbelievable scale. The Order, active through 1983 and 1984, took credit for the murder of Jewish radio talk show host Alan Berg as well as bank robberies totaling over $3.6 million. They were berthed out of groups like the Aryan Nations and National Alliance, which they kept in close contact with. The most famous of these men was David Lane, who went on to coin the Wotanist religion, which is essentially a hyper-racist version of folkish Asatru. He is best known for coining what white nationalists refer to at the "14 Words," which says, "We must secure the existence of our people and the future for White Children." The Order maintained a close relationship with Frazier Glenn Miller of the White Patriot Party. He went on to shoot several congregants at the Jewish Community Center and the Village Shalom retirement center. He killed several here in a moment of mass murder, several of which turned out not to be Jewish. Similarly, Aryan Nations member Buford O. Furrow, Jr. shot and killed several children at the Jewish Community Center in L.A., as well as murdering a Filipino postal worker. All of these different members discussed the need to engage in revolution against the Zionist Occupation Government, in which subversive Jews use "mud races" to destroy the purity of the white race.

The most dramatic example of these is obviously the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people while injuring an additional 680 others. A huge number of these were children since the Federal Building that was attacked had a childcare center in it. This was carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols driven by anti-Federal ideas that were heavily racialized. McVeigh was even found to have pages from the Turner Diaries in his car. The book, which is something of a Bible from the racist militia movement, is a novel written by National Alliance founder William Pierce that describes an incredibly violent race war where blacks and Jews are exterminated at will. Their connections to the fringes of these movements were clear, yet what they actually intended to result from their actions were not. In many of these cases, the idea is for the violence to trigger the subliminal racism of middle America to rise up against their "subversive Jewish masters."

These kinds of gun-based attacks have largely come out of the more militant groups dealing both with racialized ideologies and also having connections to broader militia groups, conspiracy theory organizations, and the new Sovereign Citizens movement. On the west coast the Posse Comitatus had been on the vanguard of this racist militia milieu for years, and more recently groups like the Northwest Front may be taking up that mantle. It would be nice to write these attacks up to a few disturbed people, and, in a lot of ways, you can. The organizations that do still exist that pushed these people into their moments of extreme violence often times denounce the actions, or passively support them. What we do see is that organizations like these use people with questionable social standing and emotional stability to commit the most violent acts against people of color, queer folks, Muslims, immigrants, and anyone else they have decided to hate that week.

What is important to also consider when thinking about these types of groups is that their lip service, and even attacks, against the government are not what is really at issue. The state is only a subject of attack because of its relationship to communities of color, Jews, and others. The real violence here is against random minority community members and, in the case of bomb attacks, low-level government workers. Their threat is still, no matter what they say they target, against individuals in our communities and not lofty government or corporate actors.

The acts of mass murder themselves have often taken on the "blaze of glory" format where the act itself is not always hidden very well, and the actor tends to see this as the culminating act of their life. This again has led many in the media and state agencies to list these people as just being emotionally disturbed, and this is a narrative that many of the larger revolutionary racist organizations have supported. Instead, it actually comes at the direct result of much of the organizing rhetoric that happens internal to these organizations.

Two primary organizing documents have led to help create the space for these acts of mass killings. The first is "leaderless resistance," which is the name of an essay written by white nationalist Col. Ulius Louis Amoss in 1962. The notion came from the idea that the top-down "pyramid structure" used by white vanguard organizations were easy to be infiltrated and instead advocated a "phantom cell" model that lacks any kind of centralized control. Many would actually see that this is similar to many "affinity group" models used in insurrectionary left-anarchist organizing, but while there are connections in the use of anti-organizational modes, the goals are radically different. As Simson Garfinkel writes in the journal First Monday, the goals of leaderless resistance in this context is in interpersonal violence.

Under many circumstances, the "resistance" advocated by Beam could easily devolve into random acts of anarchistic violence without any formal political objective. Indeed, the effects of Leaderless Resistance can easily be dismissed as the work of "wannabe terrorists", petty criminals engaging in copycat crimes, and angry loners participating in "sympathy attacks." That is, it could easily devolve into traditional forms of "resistance" or "cultural resistance" employed by the poor or powerless to impede or subvert a more powerful foe. The violence of Leaderless Resistance is different from what sociologists often refer to as "cultural resistance." While it is uncoordinated, Leaderless Resistance supports a common political goal: it is violence with an agenda. Typically, this agenda is set by political tracts or other documents that set forth objectives, demands, and classes of particular targets. Agenda-setting is also performed by specific individuals who take part in terrorist activities: when one Earth Liberation Front member attacks a dealership for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) that opens another "front" in the "battle", and gives others the idea and motivation of attacking SUV dealerships as well. (3)

He goes on to note that there actually is a kind of de facto leadership in this format in that there tends to be public figures who advocate these methodologies. These end up existing as leadership, and the constant media feedback loop creates a sense of validation in the actions.

The second concept that was important to this is that of the "lone wolf" type action. This concept was heavily popularized by people like Tom Metzger, whose group White Aryan Resistance was a major driving force in supporting neo-Nazi skinhead formations in the U.S. He saw the potential of these groups as the KKK went into decline, seeing them as vanguardist "brown shirts." Metzger's concept of the lonewolf is again a form of leaderless resistance, except specifically focused on assassination-ready targets. As he says in his famous essay "Laws for the Lone Wolf," "anyone is capable of being a Lone Wolf."

Always start off small. Many small victories are better than one huge blunder (which may be the end of your career as a Lone Wolf). Every little bit counts in a resistance. Knowledge is power. Learn from your mistakes as well as the mistakes of others. Never rush into anything, time and planning are keys to success. Never attempt anything beyond your own abilities, failure could lead to disaster. The less any outsider knows, the safer and more successful you will be. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Never truly admit to anything…I have never said their will never be a time when all small cells and lonewolves may evolve into a highly structure but ruthlessly militant organization with steel hard leaders. That time is not now and will not be for the foreseeable future. No present leader including myself will be leading that phase. We are only to prepare the way. Hopefully what we say and do now will make future victory possible. Remember, those who have come before you are counting on you, those who will come after you are depending on you. Think white, act White, be White! (4)

While Metzger tries to be vague, he is discussing the murder of high-level targets. This could be politicians that he sees as being a part of ZOG, or this could just be people in interracial relationships, anti-fascist and left-wing organizers, and people organizing the protections of LGBTQ people. This methodology has been a popular idea taken up in various KKK and neo-Nazi factions, the militia movement, and in some of the more violent racialist ideology, like the vile Creativity Movement. You can see this resulting in incidents like the recent targeting of the Sikh Temple members, the killing of the security guard at the Smithsonian Holocaust Museum, and the various Jewish Temple shootings.

Metzger's ideas often come under a free-speech caveat, and it would be unwise to head into a liberal "anti-hate speech" line of organizing as this would end up being counter-productive. But his words do have meaning.

After all three skinheads indicted for Mulugeta Seraw's murder, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center thought that the case needed to go further than just those with literal blood on their hands. The SPLC is known for doing its research, education, and trainings around hate groups, as well as having different court cases and lawsuits targeting these organizations and individuals. Dees wanted to target one of the overarching organizations and individuals that had been pushing these neo-Nazi skinheads into acts of individual violence. Tom Metzger and WAR became the obvious culprits, and after Dees found a letter that John Metzger, Tom's son, had told the skinhead who committed to murder to show his town how this "Aryan Youth Movement worked." Dees won a $7 million lawsuit against Tom Metzger, functionally bankrupting him and his organization. Metzger's ideas have been central to the functioning of these bouts of skinhead violence, and this court case put him up for it. But he is still out there, legally allowed to keep publishing and the skinheads who continue to read his diatribes continue to stay inspired.

The question as to why violence seems inevitable from these organizations brings up a lot of complicated answers. The vanguard and revolutionary fascists groups do not have the political clout to ever engage in an actual military insurrection against the government. The fear of this type of action is much more theoretical and more based around the more organized above-ground groups since they have the potential to create a radical undercurrent that could be militant come periods of mass collapse and crisis. The current militia and skinhead groups, however, will not have enough pull in the contemporary world to actually mobilize against the state in any meaningful way. Even on their small scale, antifascist organizations, both liberal and radical, successfully shut down their growth and any resources they get their mitts on the second they do. At the same time, their rhetoric, often tied to movements so roundly reviled at this point, such as Nazi Germany, does not have enough palatability to ever be a dangerous political movement.

While they do not have the ability to put a person in congress, or even put enough people successfully in fatigues, they do tend to maintain the most radical elements in the insurrectionary racist ranks. These organizations attract and groom those prone to violence. While the people often engaging in the violence may be walking into the actions themselves with a mix both of ideology and interpersonal issues, there is still a political impetus that drives these organizations to groom people towards violence. It is actually this dynamic that reminds us of many debates on the left circles of insurrectionary anarchism, where by militant actions that may or may not be considered violent are often used to "break the spell" of the current order and inspire further action. This is the classic "propaganda of the deed" mentality that led to the assassinations of presidents and bombings of law enforcement strongholds. It is essentially this notion that actually drives many of these violent acts, the idea being that this will break the "spell of multiculturalism" and drive people to engage in RaHoWa (Racial Holy War).

The very nature of these organizations are in their dissent from the largest fascist milieu, and that point is usually on the basis of the necessity of violence. The larger organizations have differing opinions on whether or not to engage in the political system. Many still advocate running candidates in local elections, both inside open racialist parties like the American Freedom Party or through closely aligned political formations like the Tea Party or the Constitution Party. Others instead want to create a cultural and social milieu in challenge to the system, but is not advocating open insurrection. We see this in the Radix, Alternative Right, H.L. Menken Club crowd, where many actually do advocate revolutionary politics but would never openly associate with violent direct action. Groups like Aryan Nations exists, to a large part, because they are willing to acknowledge the need for violence in the here and now. It is what gives these organizations a modicum of individuality and a purpose to exist.

Because violence is at the heart of their reason to exist, it is inevitable that these formations will lead to violence. As mentioned before, since there is no chance at revolutionary militarism, this takes the form of random acts of violence towards target communities.

Outside of the existing organizations, there is one area where vanguardist fascists have made their way into that has seen a notable rise in violence. The movement against racist police violence has been given a steroid injection with Black Lives Matter rising out of Ferguson, Brooklyn, and Baltimore. It is here that the institutionalized biases lead police to use their positions as defenders of capital to lord over communities of color, engaging in lethal violence at inordinate rates against people of color. This is implicit to a racist society where capitalism and the state rely on racial inequality, and this is baked into the social order that gives police their queues as to who they see as being threatening.

In the now widely publicized FBI report of 2006 titled "White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement" gives us a sense of where much of the effort for state subversion could be for organized racists. Even the state itself acknowledges that its role as the monopolistic holder over the right to violence could allow fascists to use it to further wield violence.

White supremacist presence among law enforcement personnel is a concern due to the access they may possess to restricted areas vulnerable to sabotage and to elected officials or protected persons, whom they could see as potential targets for violence. (5)

The limitations of this report are obvious in the fact that the main threat they see is that those who would like to engage in the sort of "apocalyptic violence" may have access to otherwise "restricted" government officials. What they fail to address is the actual threat that racists who see people of color as subhuman will have access to them as subjects of lethal force.

Much of this draws from the obvious rise in racial extremism between 2008 and 2014, which also marked the increase for the more mainstream versions of these groups like the Tea Party. The reasons for this are obvious as Barack Obama is a bridge-too-far for many of them, but in general the changing demographics of the country is baiting those that simply cannot take the idea of a multi-ethnic society. Many of these organizations target law enforcement because they would like to personally aid in shifting towards a militarized pro-white avenue within policing, where they really do see people of color as violent threats to white society. Policing adds a lethal dimension to the existing inequality of a society, and as the vanguards of white privilege these organizations want to help further make the police force a violent protector of white hegemony. On the more interpersonal level, the petty power that many low-level police get mirrors the kind of white privilege that white nationalists and reactionaries desperately want to hold onto at the cost of the working class unity that could afford them a better position in the world. The same situation has proven true in many of the anti-Islamic threads in the military or, more appropriately, in the private military complex with companies like Blackwater. Here a racist ideological thread helps to aid in the career choice, where protecting the U.S. from "dangerous Muslims and foreigners" may seem like a morally positive choice.

The reality of this situation can only be heightened by its seeming impossibility. With the beauracratic state that essentially weeds out dissenting opinions through Human Resource apparatus, you would think that these kind of racial revolutionaries would be barred from employment. Then we see the high number of organized racists heading into the police force, or radicalizing within the police force due to the type of racialized policing methods that can warp their perception of the communities of color they engage with. We see in countries like Greece where Golden Dawn may only get a small percentage of votes from the general electorate, but have over fifty percent support from the Police. And we need to remember what kind of threat this actually holds even beyond the fact that we can expect for more racist violence from the police. In periods of revolutionary upheaval, the police can easily align themselves with reactionary direct action parties and embody the brown-shirt role they already socially hold.

One of the primary elements that anti-fascists have always confronted is that the dissemination of racist ideas will continue to increase racist violence, even if much racist violence on a daily basis are happening outside of the organized racist movement. This increase is not only due to the production of material from the revolutionary groups, but the intellectual organizing-focused fascist organizations play just as much into producing the material that eventually pushes "lone wolves" over the edge. As pointed out in Why We Fight I, the primary threat in terms of organizing is over the fate of radicalism, but there is also an intensification effect that these groups have over the violent wing of their movement. They continue to stoke racial hatred, the need for "revolution," and other ideas that lead to conscious acts of protecting white supremacy.

Notes

1. Denson, Bryan. "Legacy of a hate crime: Mulugeta Seraw's death a decade ago avenged." Oregonlive.com. 1998: Republished November 12, 2014. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/11/1998_story_legacy_of_a_hate_cr.html.

2. "Ku Klux Klan." History.com. Last accessed September 11th, 2015. http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan.

3. Garfinkel, Simson L. "Leaderless resistance today." First Monday, Volume 8, Number 3. 3 March 2003. http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1040/961.

4. Metzger, Tom. "Laws for the Lone Wolf." Resist. http://www.resist.com/Articles/literature/LawsForTheLoneWolfByTomMetzger.htm.

5. FBI Counterterrorism Division. "(U) White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement." Federal Bureau of Investigation Intelligence Assessment. 17 October 2006. http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf.

Dylann Roof and the Right: Domestic Terrorism and the Mainstreaming of Extremism

By Sean Posey

In April 2009, a Department of Homeland Security report leaked to the public entitled "Right Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." Released within months of President Obama's inauguration, it bravely sketched the broad strokes of a nascent white nationalist backlash. Yet the report was pilloried by a variety of pundits on the right. However, the recent mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina-and a rising tide of extremist attacks before it-confirm many of the worst predictions in the report. And as the media dithers, the rhetoric of white nationalism and far-right extremism is once again finding expression in the form of mainstream pundits and even presidential candidates.

The DHS report focused on several key themes. Officials correctly theorized that the election Of Barack Obama could drive "efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda…."[1] The number of far-right organizations increased from 139 in 2008 to 1,360 in 20102.[2]

The DHS report also frequently highlights the importance of economic recessions, free trade agreements, and a "perceived" loss of jobs in both manufacturing and construction.[3] Unfortunately, this was one of the least commented on passages from the report. The U.S. lost more than five million jobs in manufacturing between the beginning of the Great Recession and 2014, and many of those losses can be blamed on free trade agreements.[4] Wages are flat; many of the jobs gained since the recession actually pay less overall. Far from being a "perceived" issue, the government could have fully examined the very real connections between widespread economic pain and the growth of far-right "patriot" and hate group movements.

Conservative commentators attacked the report immediately, but not because it lacked a nuanced discussion of economics. Peter Roff (among many others) commented in U.S. News and World Report that the DHS report represented "little more than a nine page screed against phantoms." [5] Roff pointed to a report issued by the Bush Administration on left wing extremism as being substantively different and less political than that of the Obama Administration's. He also criticized the DHS for indicting "people who hold certain political beliefs that are well within the mainstream of American political thought…." In this he proved to be far more correct than he might have imagined.

The massacre of nine African Americans by Dylann Roof, a self-described white nationalist, at the Emanuel AME Church is now fully revealing the connections between far-right organizations and mainstream conservative figures. It also validates the 2009 DHS report. Days after the brutal shooting, Roof's political manifesto emerged online. In some sense it is a standard white nationalist screed. Yet Roof directly points to organizations that influenced his thinking-including the Council of Conservative Citizens, a lesser-known but influential group on the right.

The Council of Conservative Citizens emerged in 1985 as a modern day descendant of the White Citizens' Councils of the Old South. Several prominent businessmen and politicians formed the backbone of the early organization. Today Jared Taylor, a prominent "racial realist," serves as the spokesman for the group. Opposition to interracial marriage is a key part of the organization's platform, as is the promotion of supposedly conservative Christian values. The groups members have vociferously spoken out against the civil rights movement, denounced the legacy of Martin Luther King, and engaged in the crudest possible racial characterizations of African Americans.

The CCC has also long been tied to conservative politicians, even after the Republican Party's connection to the group became known in the late 1990s. Leonard Wilson, a former committeeman for Alabama, is on the organization's board. Former Majority Senate Leader Trent Lott was a member while serving as a representative. Jess Helms had close ties to the organization while serving in the North Carolina State Senate and as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Dozens of conservatives have spoken at CCC events over the years or have connections to the group, including Congressman Roger Wicker of Mississippi; Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi and chairman of the Republican National Committee; Senator Gary Jackson of Mississippi; Representative Bob McKee of Tennessee; and Mike Huckabee during his time as Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas. Bob Barr, a former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate in 2008, spoke before gatherings of the CCC on several occasions. Other conservative scions have connections to the groups as well, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

In 1997, the CCC presented a Confederate Flag from the South Carolina Statehouse (a flag similar to the one later taken down from the same location by activist Bree Newsome in the aftermath of the Charleston shootings) to Jean-Marie La Pen of the National Front, a French white nationalist party. Three years before, Congress passed a measure condemning the Nation of Islam as an extremist group in the aftermath of a racially charged speech given by spokesman Khalid Abdul Muhammad, but it has failed to issue a similar condemnation of the Council of Conservative Citizens in the aftermath of Charleston. Indeed, there has been little official effort to recognize the attack as an act of domestic terrorism at all.

A recent report by the New America Foundation analyzed domestic terrorist attacks by jihadists and far-right wing groups and lone attackers since September 11, 2001. They found that far-right extremists have killed nearly twice as many people as Islamist radicals. [6] These findings not only help repudiate the singular focus on the Islamist threat within America-they also call for a popular recognition of the domestic terror threat posed by the extremist-right. The media is largely ignoring the issue, however, save for the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and a few other publications. A recent Syracuse University study found wide discrepancies in the tenor of the coverage given to domestic terror attacks by extremists not affiliated with Islam or the political left. According to the report,"…It indicates that news organizations experience a degree of cognitive dissonance when non-Muslims (or individuals affiliated with the dominant hegemonic culture) commit terrorism-like violence."[7] Despite the media's blind spot, the attacks (and attempted attacks) that have taken place since the DHS report in 2009 reveal a stark picture. They echo the warning that " right-wing extremism is likely to grow in strength" if trends continue.[8]

In April 2009, Richard Poplawski, a white supremacist, killed three police officers in Pittsburgh in the second-worst assault on law enforcement since the World Trade Center attacks. In 2012, neo-Nazi Wade Michael Page shot six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. That same year Jerad and Amanda Miller killed two police officers in an ambush in Las Vegas; they left a swastika and a Gadsden flag on the bodies before moving on to murder a shopper at a nearby Walmart. There has also been a string of failed or interrupted attacks by a variety of individuals on the extreme right as well, including the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington. Authorities also uncovered an effort by white supremacists to assassinate Barack Obama and carry out a campaign of mass murder against anonymous African Americans. The number of assaults against law enforcement officials is a notable element of many of the attacks. A recent survey of domestic law enforcement agencies recorded that 74 percent of jurisdictions found "anti-government extremists" to be a more serious threat than Islamic militants.[9]

The rhetoric and vitriol that is commonplace in white nationalist and far-right circles is also making its way into the mouths of public figures on the right. Anne Coulter has long made a living writing inflammatory books likeHow to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter, If Democrats Had Any brains They'd be Republicans, and Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. She has managed to carve out a place in the mainstream media while also essentially providing many of the talking points of white nationalists.

In her latest book, Adios America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole, she ups the ante. A bevy of white nationalists are cited or directly mentioned in the book. In chapter ten, she cites the work of white nationalist, Peder Jensen, better known as Fordjman, who Norwegian mass-murderer, Anders Breivik, cited over a hundred times in his manifesto. She also cites Robert Spencer, co-founder of "Stop Islamization of America." He appears numerous times in Breivik's manifesto as well and is banned from entering the United Kingdom. Peter Brimelow's work also appears. Brimelow, who once spoke at the mainstream Conservative Political Action Council, has called for Texas to secede, the organization of a campaign to protect "white rights," and the abolition of Martin Luther King Day - which Brimelow contends has turned into a day of "anti-white indoctrination." [10] Additionally, he has close connections to Jared Taylor of the Council of Conservative Citizens.

If Anne Coulter is the pundit channeling white nationalists, then Donald Trump is the candidate giving voice to many of their views. Trump is currently polling second among prospective presidential candidates, even as he unleashes a tirade of invective at immigrants. His candidacy is also garnering the support of groups on the far right, including the Council of Conservative Citizens. Fellow Republican candidates are trying distance themselves from Trump, but it is more difficult for them to distance their party from the tenor of his remarks.

While still clearly a minority, the far right-not Islamic terrorists-now present the greatest clear and present danger inside of America. The 2009 DHS report has proven prescient in many respects, and it should be revived and revisited in the wake of the Charleston massacre and the attacks and plots of others on the right. The problem is exacerbated by the inability of the mainstream media and the Republic Party to confront violent acts committed by non-Muslim assailants as actual terrorism. While Republicans have called government reports about far-right groups "propaganda," events and the statistics are proving the DHS largely correct. And all the while the rhetoric of extremists continues to seep into the mainstream.

Notes

[1] U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, April 2009.

[2] Southern Poverty Law Center, "Hate and Extremism," http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/hate-and-extremism (Accessed July 5, 2015).

[3] UDHS, "Rightwing Extremism"

[4] The Economic Policy Institute, "Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages," Working Economics Blog, Robert E. Scott. http://www.epi.org/blog/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-and-lower-wages/ Accessed July 4, 2015.

[5] Peter Roff, "DHS Report on Leftists Not Like Napolitano Report on Right-Wing Extremism," U.S. News and World Report, April 16, 2009. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2009/04/16/dhs-report-on-leftists-not-like-napolitano-report-on-right-wing-extremism (Accessed July 5, 2015).

[6] New America Foundation, "Deadly Attacks Since 9/11," http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html (Accessed July 7, 2015).

[7] Adam Yehia Elrashidi, "A Matter of Faith: U.S. Cable News Coverage and Definitions of Terrorism," S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, May 2013.

[8] UDHS, "Rightwing Extremism"

[9] Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer, "Law Enforcement Assessment of the Violent Extremism Threat," Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, http://sites.duke.edu/tcths/files/2013/06/Kurzman_Schanzer_Law_Enforcement_Assessment_of_the_Violent_Extremist_Threat_final.pdf (Accessed July 6, 2015), 3.

[10] RWW News. "Brimelow: States Like Texas Should Secede" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqkliyiaIas (Accessed July 7, 2015); RWW News. "White Nationalists Victims of Lynch Mob" http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/peter-brimelow-states-texas-must-consider-secession-protect-white-rights (Accessed July 7, 2015).