It is hard to fault anyone for wanting to completely disconnect from the political in an environment of overwhelming pressure by a massive fascist police state. But, note this, Trump did not start this on his own, and it will not end with his administration. The Left needs a clear and well-tested framework for defining, separating, and responding to these attacks on public life.
That is why, on April 18th, the YDSA at Kansas State invited political philosopher, scholar, and professor Dr. Gabriel Rockhill to speak at our campus. He is dedicated to archiving the fascist past and present to explain how fascism arises and what the progressive left can do about it. We hosted him at the Student Union and managed to get more than 60 attendees for our first-ever speaking event. We met comrades of all ages and kinds, which made the event that much more exciting. Detailed here is an adapted summary of what was discussed during his presentation.
Get Comfortable Calling Out Fascism
Professor and political philosopher, Michael Parenti, defines Fascism as securing the power of capitalist elites against the interests of popular democratic control[1]. In most contexts, this means using the powerful state captured by corporate interests to suppress the democratic expression of marginalized and working peoples through means of violence, cultural suppression, and genocidal tactics.
There is a long history of left-wing infighting regarding what is actually fascist. Major media sources today spend similar energy avoiding the f-word by reclassifying Trump’s actions as unique or special. Some would even call it an elitist ruse to consider Trump a fascist or have the debate at all. “Shock doctrine”, “abandoning the rule of law”, and “no due process” are all terms that obscure fascism for one president’s actions. While the discourse on these symptoms of fascism is important, for a left movement to succeed against Trump, it must be ready to call fascists what they are.
Dr. Rockhill explained that progressives should not shy away from thinking about fascism as existing, real, and present in contemporary politics. Just because modern fascists may not possess all the same signs as German or Italian fascism, they may still be “real” fascists. For example, they point to N*zi salutes at Trump rallies and claim Biden/Harris supporters cannot be fascists because you do not find those symbols at similar rallies. As if doing the bare minimum of avoiding explicit fascist symbols is sufficient to avoid the debate entirely.
Americans were convinced that the United States ultimately defeated fascism at the end of World War II. It makes it easier for activists to become complacent when we believe our life is comfortable enough to avoid engagement in revolutionary progressive action. Leftists also curtail criticism of our politics because we refuse to engage with whether the character of them follows that fascist process. Fascism is a process, not an event. Until we recognize that, we are condemned to repeat it.
Trump is a fascist. The Republican and Democratic parties are full of fascists. Workers get no closer to liberation by waiting for our chance to pick between two evils at the ballot box. So, progressive advocates must be more comfortable with criticizing and debating who can be identified and treated as fascist. If we are distracted by preserving the status quo “rule of law”, for example, then we will miss the forest for the trees and be found hacking at a redwood with a pocket knife. For a coordinated left strategy to emerge while the capitalist police state is weaponized against our comrades, we must know who our enemy is and what they look like. They are fascists, and they are right here, right now.
Liberalism is the “Good Cop” of Capitalism
Rockhill makes it extremely clear in his talks and essays that fascist movements do not arise on their own. It requires two things: a motivated capitalist elite who train and fund fascist movements, and a similar set of capitalist sympathizers who are complacent at best with fascism. In the United States, this is the fascist MAGA movement, largely created and funded by wealthy tech billionaires, then assisted by the Democrats, who vote in the interests of big tech and oil, while making “compromises” that restrict people's freedom abroad.
“Wait, I thought the Democrats do less harm than Republicans?” Yes, they do less direct harm in some contexts. Rockhill often points out that Democrats will reserve their weaponization of the militarized police state for the most forgotten and otherized. Americans can feel comfortable sending bombs abroad, but quake when we consider what they could do at home. The rule of law is also routinely broken by police in black, brown, and poor neighborhoods but we attribute this to an attitude of individual officers, not symptoms of a diseased system.
All that Trumpian fascists do differently is expand the categories of who can be targeted by the same genocidal police state. Americans specifically benefit when Obama, Biden, and Harris all stand behind the US military-industrial complex, enacting imperial ambitions abroad. Harris would bomb Palestinians but claim they are necessary sacrifices for Israeli self-defense, while telling Black folks in the United States they are being elevated economically. Harris was clear that she would bend over backwards to help oil companies in Pennsylvania and reject climate efforts because it would get her votes. Obama had a full House and Senate full of Democrats and did next to nothing for progressives during that time. Biden weaponized the unemployment benefits he created to blame poor people for unemployment issues.
“Wait, but I thought Biden was working for peace in Palestine and established red lines for containment in Ukraine. Wouldn’t that be an example of less conservative military positions?” First, it is not enough to do less than the bare minimum. Just because Biden or Harris are not as brazen as Trump does not mean the left must accept the realist position when that position justifies genocide. Second, there will always be a new reason why living under Biden’s economy felt better than Trump’s tariffs, but that’s what capitalism thrives on. We continue to think the status quo must be maintained without considering real alternatives.
Rockhill uses the metaphor of the “good cop, bad cop” negotiation tactic to demonstrate why fascism relies on liberal elites to maintain the violence of capitalism. When you are in a police interrogation, the point of this strategy is that you will be interrogated by the bad cop to the point where you will not want to talk to them. Then, a “good” cop comes in and offers you coffee and apologizes. The point is to trust that this new cop is on your side, so you answer their questions more readily. But why are the cops necessary in the first place? Only to incriminate the detainee.
The same is true for liberalism and fascism. The fascist decimates democratic rights and shows traditionally unaffected populations how violent the state can be. This is why Trump wants to expand the targeted groups to those who are naturalized or born citizens who happen to be political opponents. Americans see the bad cop and vote them out. When a Democrat is elected who eases those policies (but does not necessarily remove them, hence Biden’s maintenance of Trump’s border policies), we feel good about electing them and do not have enough energy to question why we are in this system causing that misery in the first place. Americans are just happy not to face the threat of disappearing to El Salvador.
While it is objectively easier to live life for many people under a liberal government, those same liberals do nothing with their power to prevent fascism. They just threaten us in 4 years with “you do not want that to happen again”. Sometimes the good cop does the same, they will threaten the detainee with bringing the “bad” cop back into the room because they are not giving satisfactory answers. If we are always bouncing between two violent options, the left will be incapable of building better worlds. Progressives must then imagine and construct an alternative to move past this system.
Conclusion
With an omnipresent police state jailing its citizens and increasing the danger of everyday organizing work, progressive political movements need a clear framework for unity in building power against it. While it is easier for Americans to live their lives under a liberal regime, that does not mean progressive organizers should label people desiring better alternatives as “spoilers” and “extremists”.
Left activists must study how our reality reflects history and what we can learn from past movements to resist. By understanding fascism as a contemporary process of repression against our democratic interests by a capitalist elite, the left will be more able to identify and respond to the most present threats. If we fail to do so, we will be stuck swinging swords at the air, or fighting each other, rather than the oligarchs orchestrating the misery in our lives.
Actualizing a better world requires that we both imagine something radically different from the status quo and put the work in to make it happen. That work will not come by waiting for our ballots. It will not arrive in reading circles or even on the drum beat of protest in the streets. The better world is made, constantly, by the labor of the masses, and we must be ready to take on the task. Left unity and struggle require a clear mind about our fascist enemies of the present and a clear strategy for persisting past liberal melancholy. By recognizing where and when fascism appears and acknowledging the faults in liberal chauvinism, the progressive left stands a much better chance of ending the violence of a genocidal capitalist police state.
If you want to learn more about fascism, liberalism, and contemporary politics, please check out Dr. Gabriel Rockhill’s work all over the world, in tens of publications. Most of which can be found at his website: https://gabrielrockhill.com/.
References
[1] Parenti, M. (1997). Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism.
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