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Warren Montag includes a critique of mine and @SteveMaher18's Jacobin piece in this interview. Since he raises important points, this is worth clarifying and responding to in some detail. https://www.leftvoice.org/the-far-right-has-never-been-so-powerful-interview-with-warren-montag?fbclid=IwAR1udzR1CbH29CmaFFijhbDb2JoTGO0Awb3tJyIcx-EZ91H0amHBWoHKyl8
For Montag, the piece is an economistic, "base/superstructure"-type argument in DSA circles that ultimately minimizes the threat of fascism.
We actually state in a number of places that fascist politics will persist after Trump, both in the GOP and in the repressive institutions. Instead, Montag focuses on the paragraphs *around* these while not mentioning this crucial claim.
PS: neither one of us self-identifies with economism, an unmediated understanding of class interests, an epiphenomenal understanding of "identity politics," or the necessity of a "single, simple contradiction"!
Montag also suggests that our "economism" misses the class struggle dynamics involved in the rise of European fascisms. Our account is broadly informed by our reading of Poulantzas' Fascism & Dictatorship, which distinguishes...
between fascism as a movement and fascism in power. A longer analysis of Trump, esp. in light of the former, would absolutely have to take into account the class struggles. In the specific conjuncture of the 1/6 events, however, we focused on the response of capitalist elites.
This leaves out an important part of the argument. The claim is not that there is no danger of fascism. It is that the Republican Party is now facing a major crisis that we on the left should focus on exploiting, as part of the state/streets dynamic.
The overlap and reinforcement between neoliberalism and the far right is crucial for the above point as well, both in terms of their current articulation and for left strategy. (In this piece from April, we discuss working class struggles in the pandemic)
https://newpol.org/global-capitalism-global-pandemic-and-the-struggle-for-socialism/
https://newpol.org/global-capitalism-global-pandemic-and-the-struggle-for-socialism/
Unless we can build a left with an independent base of power, we will remain trapped between an increasingly coercive "authoritarian neoliberal" state and a hyper-radicalized neofascist movement—one that is set to lose one foothold in the state but will persist in other places.
Ok, I've been working too long on this. That's it (for now?)
