Labor Now Needs to Be an Anti-Fascist Movement

Vice President Kamala Harris ran an amazing campaign considering it only started in August. She galvanized much of a base that had, by that time, become especially lethargic. She reached out to build a broad front to oppose former President Donald Trump. But she also made two crucial mistakes. 

The first was not permitting a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention and, further, not making greater efforts to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s nearly unequivocal support of Israel.

The second is that she failed to address, at least successfully, the anguish felt by so many because of inflation. (It would have helped to remind voters of the collapse of the economy during the Pandemic.)

Running for election during a period of inflation can be a nearly impossible hill to climb. The only way I imagine Harris could have handled these issues around inflation better are by speaking directly to voters’ pain, and by explaining how the economy collapsed when the pandemic hit in 2020 and the disasters surrounding the supply chain. It was a lost opportunity to address what polls — prior to and after the election — indicated was upper most on voters’ minds.

But Left and progressive forces need to address much more than the economy, in particular that so many people across the country have internalized revanchism, racism and misogyny. 

Revanchism, a term more often used in Europe than in the United States, is the politics of revenge, resentment and the desire to regain what someone believes has been taken from them. Trump played to this and stoked it.

Related to revanchism has been the rabid and open racism and sexism that was articulated by Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. Take the allegations that Haitian immigrants and refugees were eating cats and dogs in Ohio. Not only was there a failure of such false allegations to split the campaign, but even when Trump and Vance admitted they were lying, this meant nothing to the base.

The Trump — Vance victory is a victory of MAGA Republicanism. It is the victory of a fascist ticket that seeks to undermine constitutional democracy and introduce a different sort of state, something that the late French — Greek Marxist theorist Nicos Poulantzas would identify as an exceptional state.

They wish to develop a state that is arbitrary and barbaric — that remains capitalist. One question now is whether Trump will turn on various members of the capitalist class who have stood against him.

This moment is equivalent to the aftermath of a massive invasion, and the Left needs to wrestle with which sorts of responses are necessary. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Begin thinking about building systems of protection for those who will be attacked, e.g., migrants and political dissenters. Build systems of self-defense.
2. Build broad fronts to oppose the far-Right. This means building formal and informal united fronts to oppose efforts by the far-Right to undermine constitutional democracy.
3. Build resistance to the war on women and queer folks. This includes defending the right of women to control their own bodies. It also means defending LGBTQ+ populations that are under continuous physical threats at the hands of the far Right.
4. Build a new voting rights struggle that includes challenging how elections are funded, improving the ease with which people can register and vote, and efforts to stop voter intimidation.
5. Build an internationalist framework for challenging right-wing authoritarianism including taking stands against Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians, supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, and opposing U.S. foreign policy that supports dictatorships, aggression and interference.
6. Move organized labor to the point that it becomes a conscious anti-fascist movement, including significant member education about right-wing populism and fascism and by building coalitions at the local, regional and national levels to oppose the far-Right.

There is much more to be done. We can take a couple of days to mourn, but then we have to rock and roll.

The election result was not what most of us expected or hoped for, but it is the result that we have received. While there appears to have been clear acts of voter suppression, both prior to and during the election, at this time there exists insufficient evidence to bring about a change in the results. 

Our challenge is to continue to assess the election and its results, and then develop a theory of the counteroffensive that must be undertaken against the harbingers of barbarism.

Complacency and defeat are not options!