Thank you, Joshua! Were it not for your words: “The proper channels have failed us; they were never meant for us in the first place. All we have left is ourselves, and it’s time for us to build the power to save one another from a system that is throwing us to the wolves. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”, I would be completely catatonic right now! But, I can’t, and won’t, allow myself to give up!
Your words, again, are so helpful and motivating. Where I live now, we are attempting to build more tenant unions and push back against the corporate take over of basic housing. Recently, we may have lost some of the battle to the out of state megacorp that is evicting, flipping and raising rents all over the northeast coast, but in the process of this fight, at least two new tenants unions were formed. It feels like a bit of hope (that will never again, for me at least, come from politicians)
"At the same time we need to realize that we are involved in an ideological war whether we realize it or not. When we are unaware of these relentless battles, we become victims. When we know that the ruling class is constantly propagandizing and attempting to brainwash the masses we can begin to fight back. Most importantly, we need to realize that the organizing and the struggle over our collective consciousness, attitudes, and political outlook are not at all separate. To put it plainly, we change our minds through action."
As a person raised in an evangelical household, I have been saying for years that the religious right has a level of subversiveness that non-religious people - or even people with non-Christian religious backgrounds and beliefs - just would not understand. In their minds, they answer to God, and that's it. Laws mean nothing. They are a set of metaphors to be twisted and used as a means to accomplish what they want to accomplish. This really is about ideology in a way a lot of people can't yet grasp (& so have hesitated to fight it).
Democrats are the controlled opposition, in the coming theatre of a MAGA Trump-Musk dictatorship, with nominal elections and a tame Congress. They left the tracks when Clinton pivoted to Neoliberal Globalist economics. They ended up representing the very poor, and the liberal wealthy, which left the middle class especially those struggling to hold their position economically, to a far-right ethno-nationalist con man aka Trump.
There’s a passage from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway:
“So if you’re waiting for the grand moment when the scales tip and we are no longer a functioning democracy, you needn’t bother. It’ll be much more subtle than that. It’ll be more of the president ignoring laws passed by congress. It’ll be more demonizing of the press.”
For me, this passage invokes things like the bipartisan cooperation in cracking down on progressive non-profits; student protests and pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist sentiment; regressive immigration and economic policy that dates directly back to the Clinton Administration; and the chronic tendency to position the donor class as the primary constituency over the material needs of the American people.
This is the foundational bedrock that fascism is built on. To me, the passage is pertinent in that elements of dictatorship, authoritarianism, and fascism don’t necessarily reveal themselves in some grand-opening fashion; the process is more granular. Fascism doesn’t occur inside a vacuum: it’s a cyst that grows and metastasizes specifically on liberal democracy and at historical chokepoints when capital is in crisis. As Ishay Landa notes in The Apprentice’s Sorcerer, “the debt of fascism to liberalism is indeed a considerable one.”
Trump is less a historical anomaly and more the logical end-result of how this country has paradoxically operated based on its lofty but inherently anti-democratic institutions.
To quote someone else, posted online: “You don't beat fascism by naming it. You beat it by offering a genuine political alternative that operates at the same plane of mass energy, discontent, and anger while offering a means of turning that force towards constructive projects for the common good rather than hatred.”
It's for this reason that perhaps the most effective campaign against Trump possibly would’ve never used the word fascism at all. Rather than doing anything constructive to address and neutralize its threat head-on, the overuse/misuse of the term has weakened its significance, completely overlooked historical context, and undermined its actual threat.
Thank you for this newsletter. You are right, everything conveniently all happened at once for Trump to take credit. This has given me some hope and motivation. We are stronger together.
This is an excellent post Josh.I’ve re-stacked it. The centre is always dangerous, and invariably moves to the right. Centrist politicians are spineless, not believing in anything, but they are very good at hand-wringing and, as we say here in the UK, clutching their pearls in horror when things inevitably go wrong. You are absolutely right that we have to organise ourselves, from the grassroots up, to stop what the elite are doing to us, world-wide.
Good summary Joshua as usual. I’ve long been calling the Democratic Party (my ex-party) the US Vichy government. They will roll over for fascism. We need a new movement calling for a new party, governed by a lot of your philosophical treatises.
And, given that Tik Tok is essentially controlled by the Chinese government, squelches threads critical of China, has been shown to have nasty effects on brain functioning (China has banned it for kids), I’m not sure what your argument is here.
Not gonna lie, Joshua, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t link to the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We’re organizing the working class to fight back against the billionaire agenda. PSL Even ran candidates for President and Vice President in the last election, gaining the most socialist votes in 88 years. https://pslweb.org/
Thank you, Joshua! Were it not for your words: “The proper channels have failed us; they were never meant for us in the first place. All we have left is ourselves, and it’s time for us to build the power to save one another from a system that is throwing us to the wolves. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”, I would be completely catatonic right now! But, I can’t, and won’t, allow myself to give up!
It’s so, so good to hear this. Keep up the good fight!
Trying! 😔
Your words, again, are so helpful and motivating. Where I live now, we are attempting to build more tenant unions and push back against the corporate take over of basic housing. Recently, we may have lost some of the battle to the out of state megacorp that is evicting, flipping and raising rents all over the northeast coast, but in the process of this fight, at least two new tenants unions were formed. It feels like a bit of hope (that will never again, for me at least, come from politicians)
"At the same time we need to realize that we are involved in an ideological war whether we realize it or not. When we are unaware of these relentless battles, we become victims. When we know that the ruling class is constantly propagandizing and attempting to brainwash the masses we can begin to fight back. Most importantly, we need to realize that the organizing and the struggle over our collective consciousness, attitudes, and political outlook are not at all separate. To put it plainly, we change our minds through action."
As a person raised in an evangelical household, I have been saying for years that the religious right has a level of subversiveness that non-religious people - or even people with non-Christian religious backgrounds and beliefs - just would not understand. In their minds, they answer to God, and that's it. Laws mean nothing. They are a set of metaphors to be twisted and used as a means to accomplish what they want to accomplish. This really is about ideology in a way a lot of people can't yet grasp (& so have hesitated to fight it).
Democrats are the controlled opposition, in the coming theatre of a MAGA Trump-Musk dictatorship, with nominal elections and a tame Congress. They left the tracks when Clinton pivoted to Neoliberal Globalist economics. They ended up representing the very poor, and the liberal wealthy, which left the middle class especially those struggling to hold their position economically, to a far-right ethno-nationalist con man aka Trump.
There’s a passage from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway:
“So if you’re waiting for the grand moment when the scales tip and we are no longer a functioning democracy, you needn’t bother. It’ll be much more subtle than that. It’ll be more of the president ignoring laws passed by congress. It’ll be more demonizing of the press.”
For me, this passage invokes things like the bipartisan cooperation in cracking down on progressive non-profits; student protests and pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist sentiment; regressive immigration and economic policy that dates directly back to the Clinton Administration; and the chronic tendency to position the donor class as the primary constituency over the material needs of the American people.
This is the foundational bedrock that fascism is built on. To me, the passage is pertinent in that elements of dictatorship, authoritarianism, and fascism don’t necessarily reveal themselves in some grand-opening fashion; the process is more granular. Fascism doesn’t occur inside a vacuum: it’s a cyst that grows and metastasizes specifically on liberal democracy and at historical chokepoints when capital is in crisis. As Ishay Landa notes in The Apprentice’s Sorcerer, “the debt of fascism to liberalism is indeed a considerable one.”
Trump is less a historical anomaly and more the logical end-result of how this country has paradoxically operated based on its lofty but inherently anti-democratic institutions.
To quote someone else, posted online: “You don't beat fascism by naming it. You beat it by offering a genuine political alternative that operates at the same plane of mass energy, discontent, and anger while offering a means of turning that force towards constructive projects for the common good rather than hatred.”
It's for this reason that perhaps the most effective campaign against Trump possibly would’ve never used the word fascism at all. Rather than doing anything constructive to address and neutralize its threat head-on, the overuse/misuse of the term has weakened its significance, completely overlooked historical context, and undermined its actual threat.
Excellent and a call to action. Too bad it will be ignored.
I would like to know who got to those Democratic legislators.
GVIR’s COUP MAY NOT HOLD ~ Likud could replace him
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/avi-dichter-leading-candidate-to-replace-ben-gvir-as-police
“WELCOME TO HELL” Torture Site Report
https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell_eng.pdf
Thank you for this newsletter. You are right, everything conveniently all happened at once for Trump to take credit. This has given me some hope and motivation. We are stronger together.
This is an excellent post Josh.I’ve re-stacked it. The centre is always dangerous, and invariably moves to the right. Centrist politicians are spineless, not believing in anything, but they are very good at hand-wringing and, as we say here in the UK, clutching their pearls in horror when things inevitably go wrong. You are absolutely right that we have to organise ourselves, from the grassroots up, to stop what the elite are doing to us, world-wide.
Good summary Joshua as usual. I’ve long been calling the Democratic Party (my ex-party) the US Vichy government. They will roll over for fascism. We need a new movement calling for a new party, governed by a lot of your philosophical treatises.
Thank you.
And, given that Tik Tok is essentially controlled by the Chinese government, squelches threads critical of China, has been shown to have nasty effects on brain functioning (China has banned it for kids), I’m not sure what your argument is here.
Not gonna lie, Joshua, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t link to the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We’re organizing the working class to fight back against the billionaire agenda. PSL Even ran candidates for President and Vice President in the last election, gaining the most socialist votes in 88 years. https://pslweb.org/
Great article JP. Thanks for this
Just gonna leave this here in case anyone is looking for inspiration.
https://explore.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/monkeywrenching