I read the article, and I agree with Freddie deBoer. This is just liberal apologetics. This is just the same arguments of things are getting better, just wait, blah, blah, blah. I’m old. It’s tired. Give me healthcare and change my mind.
So say by some miracle the political will to have a General Strike builds in America in 2026. Do you want to find out if Donald Trump will bring back the proud tradition of using the US army as a strikebreaking force after he has replaced all the leadership across the military with cronies? (The president can do this at will)
Would you rather Joe Biden was president instead?
So until we get single payer healthcare, you won’t be happy with any other policy wins and you’d rather burn all your political capital fighting us instead of uniting against the literal fascists?
The left, the real socialist left doesn’t have political capital. So there’s nothing to burn. Incremental policy is great to alleviate suffering, but ultimately is masturbatory. Fascism will eventually overcome America. This explains why. Waiting for real, substantial policy changes with climate change happening is denialism. We’re waiting for enough people to realize this so we can organize and fight for the future.
I found that argument very unconvincing.
I think the author’s definition of fascism is nonsensical and ahistorical.
I agree that capitalism has the tendency to concentrate power (like every other social or political system ever in the history of humans), but the idea that we should just abandon the levers of power to the kind of people who want Donald Trump to be president is so insane to me.
The author even concedes that Donald Trump is uniquely bad but then bends over backwards trying to get back to his comfortable “both sides” narrative
So … all capitalism is fascism; therefore “both sides are the same”; therefore reject incremental progress as illegitimate?
