Be Careful What You Wish For
By YDS • Nov 18th, 2008 • Category: Lead StoryBy David Duhalde
Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Elders teach this saying to generations of children. My father taught me a story from his political activism to ingrain this concept into my mind. During Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity (UP) government in Chile, my dad told a fellow UP supporter that he would rather see a military government than the Christian Democrats in power. The older radical reminded my papa that he had never experienced a military dictatorship and may regret those words; and he did as a political prisoner and exile.
I fear Peter Frase’s piece “Should We Welcome the Republican Party’s Descent Into Insanity?” treads along the flawed logic of my sire in his youth. Frase is not wrong to hope for a creation of a new progressive political formation. We may be in trouble, however, if this new left-wing party is caused by an exodus of the liberal-left from the Democratic Party if moderate Republicans enter the party. The last thing we want is a major right-wing populist party to exist in the United States. Even if it regional at first, it could easily become a major national political force. I also believe that if the Republicans lost their moderates and libertarians, then their populist wing could morph into a bi-racial reactionary movement.
The foundation of my fears has two facets. The first are the dangers of right-wing populism and the Republican Party leaders who feed into it. The second fear is that the Left still solely associates the ultra-right in this country with racist white Americans and fascists. I don’t think the right-wing populism of the 21st century will fall into the old molds of segregationist Storm Thurmond and American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell that the Left historically battled.
On the first point, the defeat of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for GOP VP was just as important as the victory of Illinois Senator Barack Obama for president. Palin’s campaign rhetoric reached out to the worst elements of American jingoism, racism, and cultural conservatism. Her presence rallied a base that viewed the election of black man as unacceptable and who saw Obama as unpatriotic and dangerous for America. Georgian congressional representative and civil rights leader John Lewis should never have had to apologize for drawing a comparison to the anti-integrationist presidential candidate George Wallace and the McCain-Palin ticket. As one-time DSA member Rick Perlstein reminded his readers in the book Nixonland that Wallace staff had to deal with voters who were unsure of voting for Wallace because he wasn’t for shooting blacks. I try to remind my left-wing friends who are wary about a centrist Obama is that the candidate can be less important than the more radical elements they empower with a victory.
Secondly, I am worried that people underestimate the ability of the Right to change to meet new social and political conditions. There has been a lot of talk that the GOP is living in the past as a party for (or at least dominated by) white males. Moreover, progressives happily point to the coming demographic shifts that will make America less white and will favor the Democrats. These two facts ignore efforts in places such as the anti-immigrant movement to become multiracial (or at least comprised of both white and black Americans).
Nationalist politics always needs an “other.” In the U.S. politics that role has historically been filled by blacks, Jews, and immigrants (especially Catholics). One of the few good things about McCain was that his moderate mainstream stance on immigration reform pitted him against the more right-wing populist Republicans. But just because we did not see heavy anti-immigrant attacks during the Presidential campaign does not mean the fault lines are not real. In addition, groups like the vigilante border patrol groups such as the Minute Men have made outreaches to African-Americans. African-Americans and immigrants have long been social adversaries in the job market in capitalism’s race to the bottom. Exploiting racial divisions to divide the working-class to lower wages is a tried and true tactic of employers. Often, undocumented workers will labor for lower wages than citizens. This directly puts blacks at a disadvantage against both more privileged whites and desperate immigrants. Anti-immigrant feelings and a faltering economy could lead a good portion of the black community under a well-pitched right-wing populist fold.
My concern grew after taking a bus through Harlem in New York City. I saw a young African-American male praise an older black woman for the victories of the civil rights movement and then turn around to viciously attack two South Asian immigrants for not speaking English. His self-serving view of social justice increased my fear that some African-Americans might find a space in reinvented right-wing nationalism. Remember, quasi-fascist French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen called upon Frenchmen of all religions to battle “immigration” (a not-so-subtle code word for Muslims). This was seen as move to push French Jews – not your typical base for fascism – to feel safe in voting for Le Pen. Don’t think the American Right wont’ use similar rhetoric to win over African-Americans as well. Even Lincoln Rockwell made overtures to Malcolm X to have a discussion on racial separation.
The American Left should be very worried about and vigilant against growing right-wing populism. We must push for a progressive and smart dialogue which shows that “divide-and-conquer” tactics have not ended and are self-defeating for workers of all colors. I hope that the immigrant rights movement and liberal leaders of the black community can work to heal old wounds. But what we must not do is wish for the death of moderate Republicanism. The only time my maternal grandfather ever voted for a Republican was for pro-Civil Rights and pro-Medicare Kenneth Keating against Bobby Kennedy for U.S. Senate. When my mother asked why, my grandfather replied that we did not want to see the end of Nelson Rockefeller (i.e. liberal) Republicans.
Today, for all intents and purposes, liberal Republicans are no more. Their demise has not created a more progressive Democratic Party on economic issues. Thirty years later, do we really want moderate Republicans to become extinct? I doubt it, but only time will tell.
I suggest people read Bill Fletcher Jr.’s “Right-Wing Populism and the Economic Crisis” for more insight.
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YDS is YDS@DSAUSA.org
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David,I think your trepidation - if we can refer to it as such - is warranted. You are, furthermore, correct in stating that the rise of conservative/Republican/right-wing populism is something that should be taken a potentially serious threat, especially in, as Dr. Cornel West and others have eloquently stated, “The Age of Obama.” I would agree with Dr. West, however, when he says, and I will make some modifications to his statement, for I feel it is necessary to do so, the Age of Reaganism, the Age of Conservativism, is, at this particular juncture, over. This does not mean, and we must be careful with this, that an Obama administration cannot be invidious. During my interview with Bill Fletcher, he understood, as many of us on the rational, pragmatic and democratic Left (emphasis on the rational, pragmatic, and democratic) have always understood, that the Clinton administration, despite leaving the country with a surplus, brought forth the Crime Bill, Welfare Reform (this can be argued although Clinton discussed welfare reform since 1992 with the concept of “work over welfare,” whatever that is, right?), particular foreign policy platforms, etc. There has been, consequently, a misconstrued, a misconstructed - if you will - and a mystified narrative of the Clinton administration disseminated, especially in the Black community.
I do not feel that right-wing populism is imminent, and I do not believe that immigration will be the issue that attracts Blacks to it. While immigration, as you have so eloquently articulated, is, if it is indeed correct to refer to it as such, a wedge issue among Black Americans, I do not think it is the issue that will galvanize Black Americans around a conservative/right wing populist message. What will do so, if anything, is same sex marriage. 70% or over of Blacks in California, primarily led by Black churches, voted in favor of Prop. 8.
The question is this: Will there be enough political capital invested in this movement to oppose same-sex marriage in order to attract Black Americans to a right wing populist movement? I do not this this will happen, but it is up to us, and others, to make sure it does not come to fruition. The only way I see a populist movement happening by the Right is through a 1980 paradigm of attracting Blacks directly through the economy (that is, attracting former Leftist Black leaders such as Charles Hamilton, former Black nationalist, Tony Brown, Jesse Jackson at one point, Ralph Abernathy attending conservative conventions, etc.). I truly believe that if McCain would have picked Romney, a person who could have articulated a much stronger position for free market despotism than both McCain and Palin combined, we would either discuss how the McCain-Romney ticket barely lost, or we would be discussing the immediacy of fundamental, urgent change in the context of a McCain-Romney administration. We would have to, essentially, recalibrate our movement in a way that would call for drastic action (and I use the term “drastic” loosely). In other words, there are a number, I am not sure of the demographics on this, of Blacks who are socially conservative but economically progressive. We must change the social so that the social does not translate into reactionary, conservative economic taxation and spending in terms of social programs.
Good points; there are couple of things to say in response.
First, I think you rather misconstrue what I was trying to do in that piece when you compare me to your dad saying he “would rather see a military government than the Christian Democrats in power” and then warn against right-wing domination if a “new left-wing party is caused by an exodus of the liberal-left from the Democratic Party if moderate Republicans enter the party” My point was that splitting the Democratic party only makes sense if they become a totally hegemonic party. That is, in a situation where the Republican party is so marginalized that it never wins election, and we have de-facto one party rule by the Democrats, then a left-right split in the Dems would be a good idea (and an inevitability, I’d argue).
So the two things I am most certainly not arguing are either a) that a right-wing government is good for the left (”the worse the better”) or b) that the left should split with the Democratic party even if it means giving power to the Republicans (Naderism). The whole point of my piece was to try to imagine a scenario where the left could break with the Democrats without putting the right into power. And my claim was that the Palinization of the Republican party was the way to reach such a scenario, so we should welcome it.
The question therefore, as you and Emahunn point out, is whether it is possible to build a majority conservative political coalition in the U.S. without moderate Republicans. That is, can a Sarah Palin/Rush Limbaugh based party take power? And as you both observe, the only way to build such a coalition is to reach out beyond white people. So it seems to me that your argument against my position comes down to this: can the far right appeal to people of color, especially African-Americans?
I wouldn’t rule it out, but color me pretty skeptical. The two possible bridge issues you bring up are immigration and gay marriage. And it’s true that there are many people of color who hold anti-immigrant and anti-gay views. But is that really enough to override a) the well-grounded historical perception that the GOP is the party of racism, and b) the fact that Republicans still support an economic agenda that is deeply unpopular with people of color (in part because it’s often a cover for defending white privilege, see (a))? It’s not inconceivable, but I don’t think it’s very likely. I’m especially not worried about the anti-gay stuff, because this is a shrinking constituency: every generation is less anti-gay than the one before, and that’s true across racial groups.
Ultimately, I completely agree with the need to be vigiliant and militant in combating right-wing populism. A non-majority mass movement is still dangerous. As I noted in my post, I genuinely think that Tim McVeigh-style domestic terrorism is going to come back in a big way, and we need to be ready. But I remain convinced to that it is a fool’s errand to concern ourselves with the health of moderate Republicanism, or to see it as our job to somehow make the Republican party more sane.
Aaargh, this comments system ate all my paragraph breaks! Sorry the above is totally unreadable.Anyway, a final aside to Emahunn. I agree that McCain would probably have had a better chance if he’d picked Romney (although I think that the Republicans had little chance of winning no matter who their candidate *or* the Democratic candidate was.) But that’s precisely because Romney is a business candidate who appeals to people who aren’t right wing yahoos (even if he pretended to be a yahoo during the primaries). I want to kill off the moderate Republicans because they’re the ones who make the party viable.
Peter,I absolutely agree with you. From my perspective, and you are right on with this, the McCain camp did not have to appeal to the base. Obama (or Clinton) was enough for the base to rally around McCain. More than likely, we would have seen right-wing activism pushing McCain to stay true to the base.
Very well stated Peter, I’ll respond in length to this on a night that isn’t a Friday night, but I’m basically in agreement with you.
Peter, You are correct when you mention the historical perception most Blacks have when it comes to Republicanism vis-a-vis same-sex marriage. But it would be a mistake to rule out the tremendous influence of the Black church and Black mosque. While many argue over the separation of church and state, until we are able grapple with the fundamental fact that Christians (I being one of them) make up a significant electorate, it will be, in my prediction, extremely difficult to push this forward. And while it is true to most, if not all, of us that each generation is becoming less anti-gay, I feel there is a particular urgency concerning this issue. The Black church is always going to have a major influence in the Black community. For me, therefore, the task is to have a major, progressive, theological discussion about this issue. Until progressive church leaders of all colors are willing to step up to the plate without the reasonable yet inexcusable fear of losing the support of their congregation, I do not see major changes occurring for generations. I do not think anyone is willing to wait that long.
I first I want to say that it is always great to read well thought-out and deep responses to posts on The Activist.
To clarify on two of Peter’s points: 1) the intention was not to equate your hope of the “Palainization” of the GOP with the rise of a military government. My opening paragraph was only meant to give a political example of a wish now regretted, and 2) Emahunn brought up same-sex marriage, not me. I really can’t imagine that will have an effect on dividing progressive voters outside of ballot measures. If Democrats lose black votes en masse it will be for other reasons, not gay marriage.
I do believe, ultimately, that you all are selling the Republican Party short on their ability to rebound. In 1964, Barry Goldwater got little over one-third of the national vote, but the next election we had Richard Nixon in the White House. If we are talking about one-in-hundred year alignment like the formation of new parties then it makes sense that a new biracial “America-first” populist party could emerge. But “could” is only a possibility.
Time will tell. Let’s revisit this after Obama is sworn in.
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