The Liberal/Radical split in Post-Election Organizing

This’ll be a hard post to make short, or sweet.

I’ve been struggling since the election’s results to reconcile feelings I have as an “antidogmatist” interested in a strong and broad anti-systemic social movement to remake our political-economic system.

My struggle is mainly between two issues: my longstanding positioning as a “radical”—meaning someone interested in addressing the root of political issues (namely, capitalism) and not merely reforming oppressive systems to make them “less bad”; and my commitment to keeping an open mind with folks who don’t have radical analyses, take radical positions, or participate in radical action—that which I truly believe is necessary to make any substantial transformation in society.

These ideas are coming into conflict because throughout this election and since the election of Trump, U.S. liberals (i.e. non-radicals) around me and in cyberspace have remained stubbornly committed to their existing politics—politics that not only have proven unable to make progressive change, but are also (at least in part) responsible for the horrible situation we find ourselves in, and are now even endangering an effective response to Trump and his ilk.

For those who might identify with the term liberal, and are confused how it might be getting thrown around as a pejorative, please understand that I am using the term in a specific way. I’m not referring to those who believe in the right to maintain and uplift social diversity (e.g. gender, sexual, racial, age, etc). I’m not really referring either to those who abide by the conventional (i.e. British-origin) definition of liberal: those concerned with individual liberties, and a politics based on the notion of individuals converging and hashing out differences in the public/governmental sphere (although that version of liberal definitely overlaps with the one I’m talking about).

Courtesy Flikr account djandywdotcom
Courtesy Flikr account djandywdotcom

What I’m talking about is the liberal who essentially is invested in the political-economic system we have. Liberals believe this system perhaps requires some tweaking in order to achieve more robust outcomes of justice, but ultimately is “the best of all possible worlds”—largely because revolutionary change is dismissed as impossible. Liberals rejecting revolution often also downplay criticism of capitalism and oppose (or at least fail to participate in) action that moves beyond established channels of social choice-making (such as voting, government, or consumer choice).

The liberal I describe is someone who (in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., a go-to for liberals in many an argument, even if many don’t bother to read him directly or understand his history or analysis):

is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro [read: any activist] to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

It is high time that liberals start trying to deepen their understanding of radicalism. In this time of Trump and reactions from below—when violent state suppression is likely to increase and responses from the frontlines likely to radicalize—to hold on as a liberal to liberal thinking is to take sides with the status quo.

I’m over trying to act as a peacemaker between liberals and radicals: this is a time to choose sides and fight, not to have an endless and useless discussion where liberal assumptions are made the baseline (e.g. elections are democratic) upon which radicals have to defend our vision, perspective, and approach. This is the bulk of what I see on “Leftbook”—liberals who don’t actually listen, don’t actually question their own assumptions, don’t seem to read (critical) histories, and don’t seek to look themselves in the mirror.

And please consider: I’m not arguing these are character flaws. I certainly like many of the people who are posting entreaties to convince the Electoral College to change to Clinton, or to demand a recount, or what have you. I’m not saying these people suck—I’m saying their politics are wrong and ill informed, and quite possibly their efforts move counter to their stated values.

As many smarties have said: don’t do the same thing over and over and expect different outcomes.

For those who might think of themselves as liberals but interested in or inching towards radical, I’m offering up below some resources I’ve recently found. The biggest push back I’ve gotten from liberals is the argument that there are not alternative, effective ways of action beyond their suggestions. This is not true, if you’re willing to do the research.

There’s more of this out there than these two links, of course, and I am not vouching for everything within (I’ve barely been able to read much in either link), but these two lists of resources are good starts for those who want to understand radical historical analysis, radical tactics and strategy, and the radical rejection of liberalism.

#TrumpTheRegime: Resources and Ongoing Resistance to Trump and the Far-Right

http://thenewinquiry.com/features/a-time-for-treason/

An excerpt from the latter:

“WE studied and pursued methods for revolutionary social change before Trump came to power, and our core focus remains the same: abolishing the ever-enlarging systems of hierarchy, control, and environmental destruction necessary to sustain the growth of capital. With the ascendance of White nationalist ambition to the upper echelons of empire, we have given special attention to struggles waged and endured by marginalized people for whom the fight against capital has always been a concurrent fight against Anglo-Saxon supremacy.

Although there are bleak times ahead, we must remember that for most of us America was never paradise. Democrats and liberals will use this time to revise history. They will present themselves as the reasonable solution to Trump’s reign and advocate a return to “normalcy.” But their normal is a country where Black people are routinely killed by police and more people are imprisoned than any other place in the world. Their normal is a country where millions are exploited while a handful eat lavishly. Their normal is the opposite of a solution; it’s a threat to our lives.”

I want to believe that liberals can become radicalized. At least, I’d like to see a more concerted “inside-outside” strategy that aligns more radical movements with more liberal ones. But I’ve been seeing that even in this historical moment—with the apparent non-functionality of “democratic” politics, the continued rule of a political-economic elite class, a climate crisis that capitalist states refuse to confront, and the resurgence of populist ideas—liberals don’t seem to be changing much, and are instead largely clamping down on bad ideas (like voting for lesserevilism and continual investment in Democratic Party politics).

More disappointingly, many liberals are into gaslighting radicals as “unrealistic”, “naïve”, “foolish” and “unsophisticated” whenever they present alternative views or critiques. This belittling position, coming often but not always from people of relative privilege in society, is what compels me need to write this blog. In opposing violence (i.e. resistance from underclasses) “on principle” such liberals allow state-sanctioned (e.g. anti-black) violence to go on unimpeded. In redirecting righteous anger back towards reformist avenues that do little to nothing to change the structure of society, liberals prevent the change they supposedly desire. In blaming the victim (often the poorest, the black and indigenous, the most marginal in society) for the outcomes of failed electoral efforts, liberals consolidate the rightward drift of U.S. politics.

In particular, now that Trump has won, emboldening the radical right of white supremacists, xenophobes, and other reactionary social forces, we need more unity to push back from “the Left”. But if “the Left” remains dominated by liberals who oppose street actions, direct actions, protests that interfere with business as usual, property destruction, strikes, occupations, and so on, this push back will fail.

We anti-capitalists and radicals can count on the government to suppress uprisings and dissent, but with liberals as agents of the state, “peace policing” such dissent and insisting on a “more reasonable” return to business as usual, we need even more than ever to assert radicalism and deny the “poverty of liberalism“.

I sincerely hope that some ex-liberal friends join in this effort.

Courtesy Wikipedia
Courtesy Wikipedia

Beyond Bernie

I am surprised that so many people I know are “feeling the Bern”. I’m especially surprised that I am.

I’ve never supported lesser-evil corporate Democratic Party candidacies, so it took me some time to warm up to the idea of actually voting for someone who is a Democratic Party candidate. But I voted for Bernie in the Move-On endorsement poll, and I’m even planning to change from my Green Party voter registration in order to be eligible to vote for him in the Californian primary. I still won’t donate money to or volunteer for the campaign—there are limits to how much I can allow myself to buy in to federal electoral politics in the US.

Blind Black PresidentSo maybe it’s a mild 1st degree “bern”, but I’m definitely feeling it. Sometimes I even get excited about Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. Why?

Because I find it hope-inspiring that as this avowed socialist [1]—who doesn’t take dirty money for his campaign and has a pretty consistent record on many progressive and pro-working class issues—campaigns, the more people hear about him and his positions, the more they seem to support him. I see Sanders as soaring upwards on an upwelling of bottom-up energy for major social change, and that energy excites me. And some argue that he could actually win in the general election.

As Nivedita Majumdar says in Jacobin,

Sanders doesn’t offer anything close to a comprehensive solution for the myriad problems facing the poor and oppressed, and some parts of his political agenda are genuinely backward. But when we place his candidacy in the context of the challenges the Left faces, the orientation of his political rivals, and the incredible enthusiasm he has generated in a climate of general defeat, the attacks on him from the Left become harder to justify.

I was already interested and thinking about the potential outcomes of the nominating conventions this coming summer, when I read this article, stating it is “Time to Transform Bernie’s Campaign Into a Permanent Organization”.

An interesting idea, I thought—depending on what the author (Miles Mogulescu, “an entertainment attorney/business affairs executive”) means by “organization”, and how they conceive of this organization and its potential political effect. But right away, I knew the article would fail, when Miles proclaims that the choices for the campaign are either to create a “permanent organization that can carry his political revolution forward in the long-term; or whether, like Occupy Wall Street, it will quickly disappear.”

This statement shows a classic liberal position that does not take seriously the lessons of histories of social change. Social change at the level of nation-state behavior—major social change—has always been the result of disruptive and mass action “from below”. Piven and Cloward make this argument forcefully (about the United States in particular) in their book “Poor Peoples’ Movements”, and in Piven’s more recent book “Challenging Authority”.

I won’t rehash their arguments here, but the lesson is that Occupy Wall Street, the Ferguson-related uprisings, the anti-fossil fuels/climate change direct actions happening around fracking, pipelines, and fuel transport infrastructure, the “Fight for $15”, and many other movements from below are what made Sanders and his message viable in the first place. Without these movements, which the article author would dismiss as having “quickly disappeared”, there would BE no Sanders movement to build an organization off of.

Pushes from outside of power centers (like the federal government) are absolutely required to gain concessions from elites—no matter who is in office. If you add to this the lack of real power in the presidency—with regards to the formal and informal nodes of power in federal government; that is, the corrupt election finance and lobbying networks, the entrenchment of the military industrial complex, and the structural (and mostly ignored) conservatism of the Supreme Court—you’d see that angling for the presidency is perhaps the LAST thing that “progressives” should be spending their time and energy on.

Building social movements that create disruptions, change the public discourse and “common sense”, gain allies from existing elites in positions of power, build their own forms of non-state power, and yes, at times work to put new “better” elites into power through electoral campaigns, is the key task for the Left.

This is decidedly NOT the same logic as Mr. Mogulescu prefers: “If Hillary is the nominee, the initial task will be to critically support her and prevent Trump or a Republican from taking the White House.”

I’m sorry but I will not support Hillary, and existing polls indicate neither will about 1/3rd of Bernie’s supporters. I like to think this is because these people are wise to the game of corrupted, dynastic politics like those represented by Clintons and Bushes—and we want no part of it.

I agree that we need to think “beyond Bernie”, but not in the way outlined by this article.

We need to radicalize the analyses being offered in public (e.g. to offer solid racial and class analyses of the issues working class people face), while combining sustained strategies of institution building with disruption and service to the most marginalized. We need to think of creating new—and sustaining the existing—broad-based movements that will continue to disrupt, while creating alternatives that work on the ground.

This might be a “network”, sure. But it certainly should not be one that saps movements’ energies towards running for office (much less federal office), and that orients towards creating a professionalized cadre of “organizers”. Those organizers—if we follow the schema described by the white, middle (upper?) class author of the article—will very likely be white, middle class, and end up simply recreating the structures of political organization that haven’t actually changed, and won’t actually change, society.

The fact that Miles is willing to lay out an entire program for how this organization should be rolled out is emblematic of the fact that people like him refuse to let “the people” organize themselves; liberals believe in the state and the power of strong leaders to make movements and states “successful”. Radicals, in contrast, believe in the power of people themselves, to lead and to struggle.

The energy created by Bernie’s campaign should go back to the people themselves, and the movements that are already doing “the work” of the (non-electoral) Left. Certainly someone will take advantage of the political interest generated by the campaign: the small donation based fundraising efforts that have worked for Bernie could (theoretically, but probably not easily) be channeled into the many forms of movement organizing work. But not if they are simply channeled into an organization that essentially mirrors and replicates the Democratic Party.

So back to predictions, what might happen, and how might an expanded organizing effort look beyond the nomination and election?

If Bernie loses the nomination and throws support to HRC, I hope to see riots in the streets. But more likely, there’ll be a lot of fighting and moral castigation between lesser-of-two-evil’ers and rejectionist voters, and it’s possible that few enough will hold their nose and vote for Hillary such that the Republicans might win. Not a happy thought, but then again, the thought of Hillary winning is absolutely no comfort to many in the US and outside it. (For sure, Hillary’s fandom of fracking is indication that climate change will continue unabated if she were elected.)

If Bernie loses the nomination, but runs as an independent, he could win, and even is even more likely to if Trump also decides to run independently after failing to win the nomination (some argue that there is no way the Republicans will nominate him). If this were the scenario, Trump would draw many voters from the Republican Party, while Independents who don’t like Trump would likely go with Sanders. Independent-identifying voters especially prefer Bernie to Hillary. Hillary is the most disliked of the bunch, followed by Trump. Bernie is generally liked (and like I mentioned, the more people hear his platform and speeches the more they like him). This scenario would be total chaos, and I’d like to think it would shake up the political imaginary a bit, since it might be the first time both entrenched parties have substantial competition beyond themselves.

Say Bernie wins the nomination. Yay! Celebrate and then organize? Join the electoral revolution?

As Majumdar argues:

We need to understand that it’s ultimately not about Sanders. It’s about the political moment the campaign has created and its possibilities. Sanders’s anti-corporate, pro-working-class electoral campaign, has against all odds electrified millions. Whether the Left rejects or chooses to take advantage of this opening may well define its trajectory for a long time to come.

Perhaps we should be more cautious about a Bernie victory. Aside from the problems he’d face inside the political system, think about what has happened to other recent Left electoral victories: Evo Morales in Bolivia, selling out the country’s natural resources and indigenous people as he champions himself a “socialist”; Greece’s Syriza, who turned on the population that elected them to oppose austerity, when forced into an uncomfortable position by the EU and creditor elites. The fact is, creating substantive change at the nation-state level is exceedingly difficult against structural constraints—no matter who is leading the party.

So prepare to be disappointed by Bernie, if he is elected. Or better, know the limitations that will be placed on him, and organize for change as though it didn’t matter who was president. As I’ve tried to emphasize, movements are what cause change. Elections channel change energy, not very effectively. Yes, let’s think “Beyond Bernie”, but not towards an election-focused movement, but towards a transformative one.

[1] Even though he’s not really, he’s a social democratic capitalist statist, albeit one who strongly favors redistributive welfare measures.