Whose Government?

 The Not So Secret

Media pundits and the Democratic Party rarely bring up one of the political charges used by the Republican Party, by Trump, by the Alt-Right, by neo-fascists.  The Democrats and media criticize the former for authoritarianism or racism or sexism or anti-Semitism or religious nuttery or hypocrisy or lack of professionalism or corruption.  All true of course, though that cannon can be aimed back at them on most of these claims. Hypocrisy is a bi-partisan value.

Trumpers at Trump's Rally in Valdosta, Georgia

What the media and Democratic leaders rarely discuss is the strident and endless anti-socialism of Rightist and Libertarian politics because they themselves are anti-socialist.  Antagonism to socialism or anarchism has been going on since the Civil War in the U.S., so it is built into the woodwork.  The most cursory investigation of Rightism reveals that at its heart it thinks the Democratic Party, liberals, neo-liberals, the U.S. government and nearly all government programs are ‘socialist.’  

The Republican ads in the Georgia Senatorial contest accuse the Democrat Ossof of being a dangerous socialist, allied with Bernie Sanders.  Raphael Warnock, the other Democratic Senate candidate, is a 'hate America' radical liberal, socialist and even communist.  Of course this is fiction but that doesn't stop the rhetoric.  However they lead in an unpleasant direction for orthodox market-only capitalist ideologues and the Dems too.  More on that later. 

Unscientific and impressionistic neo-liberals, liberals and left-liberals have their own hysteria about Donald Trump's all out ‘fascism.'  You'll see endless ahistorical and anti-materialist analyses looking at Trump's politics. This is sort of a funhouse mirror reflection of the Republican’s idea of them, as the Reps can't tell a communist from a neo-liberal.  

As historical experience and Marxist analysis show, real fascists rarely get voted out of office.  The triumph of fascism means the end of bourgeois democracy, to be replaced by an open bourgeois dictatorship.  Trump’s legalistic ‘coup’ was always somewhat of a Hail Mary pass to a bunch of receivers who probably didn’t want to catch the ball – to use the stupid sports analogy method common in the U.S.   It is all over but the shooting.

The shooting!  Capitalists and even the FBI and CIA use thugs when they have to.  Strike-breakers are nothing new, the Klan is nothing new, right-wing terrorism is nothing new, cops shooting civilians is nothing new, nor is a capitalist threatening another with violence to get a leg up.  Nor would the reliance on a bunch of neo-fascists or alt-right thugs like the Proud Boys or others by a President or the Republican Party be out of order.  By the way, Proud Boy's leader Enrique Tarrio is the son of Florida Cuban immigrants, marinated in anti-communism.  Declarations of “civil war” and ‘secession’ for the neo-Confederacy headquartered in Texas is second nature, as we have seen.   It is all typically ‘American.'  You could say that the South under the KKK and Jim Crow was the closest the U.S. has gotten to fascism in recent times.

Are the thugs posing with AR-15s, bullet proof vests and combat gear all doing cosplay?  Performance art?  Will they back up their macho death strut with action in a concerted way?  We will see if the thugs go beyond scattered but aggressive street fighting with BLM or Antifa, as happened in D.C. for a second time.  By the way, the 4 rightists recently stabbed in D.C. (either Patriot Prayer or Proud Boys) happened because they attacked a random black civilian who had wandered into 'their' bar, Harrys, according to the NYT.  Another anti-fascist was shot in Olympia, Washington a few days ago and a second BLM activist has been killed in Louisville, so they are edging in that direction, with help from some local police. It is doubtful that anything they do will change the election result however.  Nevertheless the Left – and even the Democratic Party - has to be ready to use self-defense now.

But the basic politico/economic issue remains.  Joe Biden and the multi-millionaire leadership of the Democratic Party hate ‘socialism.’  Witness the treatment they dole out to the mild social-democrats of the Squad, to Sanders or to BLM and Antifa who aren’t even socialist - to anyone who doesn’t buy into neo-liberalism.  Not to mention their attitude towards actual Marxists.  You vote for us, we spit on you.  “Defund the police” has replaced Ralph Nader or Jill Stein or ‘the Russians’ as the excuse de jour for their crappy centrist, do-nothing candidates losing more elections.     

The tactical difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats know they have to pretend to dole out a few concessions to keep people voting for them.  That ain’t socialism - it just reflects pressure from people's movements.  Gay rights, $15 Now and weed legalization are recent examples of the population dragging the Democratic politicians behind them like dead weights.  Even the ACA reflects the pressure of single payer and Medicare for All.  

This ‘appeasement’ process lessened as the Democrats moved to the right for 44 years, even since LBJ.  They have failed to provide almost any substantive relief or progressive change on a host of issues since then.  This is where we stand now. Is government intervention in the economy to keep the banking system afloat ‘socialist’?  In an imperial capitalist system with an unlimited ability to loan or print money, no it is not.  Is providing expensive capitalist healthy care to more consumers 'socialist'?  No, that is just expanding the market.  That is normal functioning for a capitalist government.

Fed's Jerome Powell announcing $1T Loans a day to Big Banks 

‘Government’ does not equal socialism, but it does hint that the capitalist market system and profit motive is unable to survive without a sympathetic government that props it up.  This is the dirty truth the Republican market fundamentalists cannot swallow.  Capital and their government are actually twins, as no libertarian capitalist system could survive very long without a fully functional government, not one just limited to repressive institutions.  This is what scares the small business Republicans, Libertarians, self-employed peddlers and alt-right clowns – the market is not infallible and capitalists are not gods.  Big Republican capitalists know this but play along with their voting cattle. This accounts for the red-baiting of the Democrats – the simple-minded idea that most government is somehow socialist and can slightly limit the profits of capital.  Which it certainly does sometimes, but for the greater good of the survival of the whole capitalist system itself.  The specter of social revolution still haunts the ruling classes, as the conditions for it are developing world-wide.

Actual socialism would require taking over the property of the big capitalists.  It would involve the institution of a mass assembly democracy in neighborhoods and work places and the strengthening of labor organizations.  It would lead to the slow socialization of major production, banking, housing, schools, agriculture and land for the good of the majority working classes, all part of an eco-socialist economy.  Fascism would be suppressed and hopefully eliminated.  At bottom the battle between socialism or a ‘cooperative commonwealth’ and capital is the basic battle of all politics, reflecting the two main classes in present society.  This is the subdural secret the Republicans obsess over.

Yes, it involves a concept of society far more communal and collective than now, ultimately without classes, poverty and war.  Republicans think if you are against war, poverty or inequality, you are a ‘commie.’  Democratic leaders pretend to be against all three, but lie about that.  They just joined with Republicans for another massive military gift! This is why Democrats are blind and surprised about the accusations of ‘socialism’ hurled against them.  Not us!? They can’t broadly admit, except in passing as Pelosi or Warren did, that they are on the same side as the Republicans on this most basic of all issues.  They too love the dollar, profits, classes and color castes, war, “Amurica,” labor exploitation and the good old property and slavers Constitution. 

P.S. - "Warming up the mob on 6 January, Donald Trump Jr referred to the new senators from Georgia – a Jewish investigative journalist and a black pastor with a doctorate in theology – as “commie bastards”; Ashli Babbitt, who got herself killed while battering the doors of the House of Representatives, had previously tweeted that coronavirus curfews were “commie bullshit.” (Michael Pembroke, Guardian 1/18)

Red Frog

December 15, 2020