New Stuff from an Old Guy - Part 1

By Don Hamerquist

Editor's Introduction

Don Hamerquist is a longtime contributor to Three Way Fight and co-author of Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement (first published 2002) [cite], which helped to inspire creation of Three Way Fight in the first place.

In this essay, Hamerquist addresses the conflict between transnational capitalism and populist nationalist movements, conceptions of fascism, and some pitfalls facing the radical left. The essay is divided into three parts.

Part 1 argues that the transnational section of the capitalist ruling class is looking for a new basis of stability. Transnational capitalism is still recovering from the 2008 economic crisis and faces widespread populist oppositional movements (left-wing and right-wing), which are fueled by neoliberalism’s massive increases in inequality and other problems. In this context, restabilization requires transnational capitalists to seek a “renewed foundation of mass legitimacy and popular acquiescence.”

Part 2 critiques various leftist responses to the current situation. In particular, Hamerquist criticizes a widespread leftist tendency to see fascism, right-wing populist movements, and capitalist interests as all aligned together. Often this implies a division of capital into “good” and “bad” sectors (or “authoritarian” versus “democratic”). He argues instead that transnational capitalists are “strategically hostile” to both left-wing and right-wing populisms, that all of capitalism (including its more liberal elements) tends toward repression, and that fascism is best understood as “an array of emerging reactionary anti-capitalisms” – a right-wing revolutionary tendency that is real but distinct from “reformist” right-wing populisms.

Part 3 argues that transnational capitalists are manipulating anti-fascism to help them build a new mass legitimacy. Hamerquist posits a new popular front that conflates right-wing nationalist populist movements with fascism, and that corrals leftists into supporting capitalism in the name of defending “democracy.” If leftists go along with this and fail to offer a radical anti-capitalist response to the real grievances that are fueling populism, they will help restabilize transnational capitalism and may help push right-wing populist movements into genuinely fascist politics.

Three Way Fight hopes that the essay will contribute to constructive discussion and debate about these important issues. Part 1 of the essay is below. Parts 2 and 3 are forthcoming.

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Part One

… Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the DiEM25 democratic movement, laments the triumph of a Nationalist International – at least stressing that they “sprang out of the cesspool of financialized capitalism.”

-- Pepe Escobar, “The West Against The Rest or The West Against Itself?” 9/18/18

Two things appear to be certain. First, at least in the so-called “West” – North America, the European Union and Australia – there is an emerging conflict between emerging populist nationalisms and the economic processes and political institutions that comprise the transnational capitalist system. Second, this transnational system is limping towards another tipping point after an incomplete and distorted recovery from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

The combination of these prospects leaves left/liberals and “progressives” stuck between nostalgic visions of a “New New Deal” and an implicit support for a tidied up global status quo. Radicals must do better.

I want to look a bit deeper into the contradictions between globalized capitalism and the populisms of the left and right that are both its effects and its flawed challenges. In the process I indicate a potential scenario for capitalist stabilization that, I’m afraid, is more probability than possibility. This will lead to criticisms of various “common sense” left strategic approaches and will include some aspects of an alternative approach.

*                   *                   *

Anti-austerity protesters facing riot police,
Brussels, 3/24/2011

The lack of a mass anti-capitalist response to the 2008 global financial crisis has reduced the obstacles to the gradual and distorted recovery of capitalist economic activity. Globally, “recovery” has meant neoliberalism – a more broadly generalized austerity and the increasing privatization of social resources and collective goods. It is a recovery defined by massive increases in economic and social inequality; a recovery that deliberately avoids the issues of capital’s “externalities”: the looming ecological crises and the genocidal implications of the marginalization and increasing precarity of major populations.

For the moment, U.S. capitalism works within a relatively benign economic context, despite its continuing dependence on Ponzi financial manipulations and an expanded militarization that has yet to be balanced out by the economic and political costs of a major war. This context is time-limited. Growing problems from frictions in capital and labor flows, from trade and investment imbalances, and from the gamut of corruptions that rot inside the complexities of rent-seeking financialization are on the horizon.

The transnational segment of the global ruling class is certainly more aware of the fragilities of global capitalism than less strategically placed sectors of the class – more aware of the need to put the capitalist house in order, limiting the potentials for new crises and widespread disruptions. This ruling elite recognizes the need for stronger transnational state and quasi-state formations with a global vision of ruling class interests and the capacity to discipline competitive elements of capital to a coherent strategic perspective. The point is made in this recent (7/18/18) report from the “International Panel on Social Progress”:

Interestingly, the Panel sensed that “globalization and the spiral of inequality and corporate political power have triggered a growing legitimacy crisis in old and new democracies, undermining the nation-state as the basis for democracy and welfare policy.” It sees transnational private actors and international financial institutions as new players in the global governance system.

It also doubts that the present international financial system based on “flexible exchange rates and footloose capital mobility, low barriers to trade and high barriers to low-skilled migration” can be sustained into the future.

-- Review comment on International Panel on Social Progress Report, Naked Capitalism Links (8/15/18)

However each tentative step towards stronger transnational governance encounters powerful and diverse segments of capital with material interests in thwarting the process. Beyond the direct resistance from the dynamics of the pursuit of private profit, capitalist nation states that see themselves as actually (or even potentially) losing in global competition typically oppose such transnational projects.

Perhaps more important, is the likely opposition from the more or less spontaneous, more or less popular, countervailing movements that are reacting to the current impacts of transnational capital. They include both struggles against austerity that are fueled by the increasingly obvious linkages and contrasts between austerity and corruption, and challenges to the lack of representative legitimacy and accountability. There will be no support here for efforts to streamline and strengthen transnational governance in the interests of elites that are already benefiting grotesquely from capitalist globalization.

Even if capital’s general ideological hegemony continues to be more or less unchallenged, this array of social forces against globalization ensures that technocratic adjustments and minor reforms won’t be enough to produce more effective structures of governance for transnational capital. To reach that objective, the institutional changes and new structures must be accompanied by a renewed foundation of mass legitimacy and popular acquiescence. This objective, if it is even possible, is certainly not easily attained – not even in the core territories of capital. However, without an expanded legitimacy, transnational capitalism will increasingly be forced to prioritize command over consent, and an extended period of “flailing and churning” in which no protracted social equilibrium will be possible is the likely outcome for the transnational capitalist system.

Is there any capitalist adaptive scenario that can address this dilemma for capital and improve the possibilities for an extended period of transnational capitalist stability? Unfortunately, I think there are such possibilities that can develop from the working out of nationalism/globalism’s contradictions. The revolutionary left should take care to avoid incorporation into such stabilizing scenarios.

The initial elements of one such scenario are apparent in this recent observation by a well-known neocon theorist, Robert Kagan (husband to Victoria Neuland of “fuck the E.U.” note).

The peaceful, democratic Europe we had come to take for granted in recent decades has been rocked to the core by populist nationalist movements responding to the massive flow of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. For the first time since World War II, a right-wing party holds a substantial share of seats in the German Bundestag. Authoritarianism has replaced democracy, or threatens to, in such major European states as Hungary and Poland, and democratic practices and liberal values are under attack in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. France remains one election away from a right-wing nationalist leadership, and Italy has already taken a big step in that direction.

-- Robert Kagan, Washington Post, 7/14/18

There are many such pessimistic statements from transnational capitalist elites of varying political hues. They may disagree about many other matters, but they agree that nationalist/populist responses to transnational capital are on the ascendency… that they are a real danger to global stability…and that the transnational ruling elites are poorly prepared to counter them.

William R. Rhodes, Senior Vice-Chairman, Citigroup,
speaks at World Economic Forum meeting,
Tianjin, China, 9/27/27/2008

These claims have some basis, but they are often overstated and this is the case here. The imminent and overwhelming lurch towards right wing populist nationalism is not so self-evident. There are important limitations on supposedly ascendant nativist populisms: visible ceilings on their accomplishments (Trump?); likely instances of setbacks or stalemates (Brexit, Trump?) and their substantial, if temporary, reverses (Macron vs. LePen?).

Political/economic reality dictates that no revival of mercantilism and tariff wars will negate global supply chains; the centrality of transnational financial capital won’t be reversed with MAGA rhetoric; nativist protectionist and anti-immigrant politics will ultimately lose any contest with the geo-political and market factors that determine labor and capital flows. All of this will hold in the absence of a serious rupture of the overall global capitalist framework, and such a rupture is currently beyond either the reach or the intent of nativist populisms – certainly of the right-wing variants. (I’ll raise some important complications on this question later.)

Here is an academic perspective on the problems that confront any populist nationalism, right or left…and the obstacles for left populisms will be greater since they are more dependent on their ability to secure substantial economic concessions for their constituencies than their right wing cousins:

In a globalized economy, it may be extremely difficult for any country to implement policies that protect the bargaining power of workers, that reverse income inequality, that raise minimum wages, that improve the social safety net, or that otherwise make households better off relative to businesses and governments. Implementing any of these policies causes a country’s international competitiveness to deteriorate. Consequently, rather than achieving the desired result, these policies cause the trade balance to go into deficit, and either unemployment will rise or debt must rise.

-- Michael Pettis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 7/10/18

Despite these limitations, recent right wing populist successes have blocked and perhaps even reversed the momentum towards stronger transnational capitalist institutions. This has happened even when these limited and ambiguous successes look very reversible.

The transnationalist sectors of the capitalist ruling class are able to understand and respond to an unfavorable alignment of forces. Their response is apparent in largely successful attempts to infiltrate and co-opt nativist oppositions and deflect the political trajectory of their populist elements. The grotesquely pro-capitalist policy content of Trump’s millionaire-stacked entourage is an obvious example here. However, the left should be alert for ruling class tactics that are less overt but possibly more important. Transnational capital may only mobilize a half-hearted and diluted resistance to some populist insurgencies, not so much from weakness or confusion, but because there are reasons to concede nativist populism some victories. It’s a way to shift political responsibility for the economic reversals, trade wars, environmental crises, and nasty military conflicts that continue to infect global capital – even at the apex of the current recovery. Similar tactics might also pass off responsibility for expanding authoritarianism – which will be an essential feature of all regimes of mature capital – by subcontracting it to local jurisdictions under circumstances that maximize illusions that repression is essentially accidental, contingent and easily reversible through popular pressure.

I believe that this tactic is currently in play in this country, as well as in the U.K. and Greece, and probably Italy and Spain. When successful, such gambits help expose the essential hollowness of the populist promises of material advantages and more responsive governance in situations where they have some measure of (parliamentary) success. The collapse of its promises exposes populism’s strategic weakness and exacerbates its internal contradictions. This increases cynicism and internal polarizations that demobilize and demoralize the actual and potential mass constituencies of populist movements and cripple potentials for future organizing initiatives.

Currently, with Greece as the possible exception, such tactical responses from transnational capital are directed towards populisms of the right wing nativist variant. However, the same political forces using much the same tactics will undoubtedly confront potentially “left” variations of populism (e.g., possibly Imran Khan in Pakistan?). (I will have to think a bit more about how to relate this argument to situations in this hemisphere – the reversals of the “Pink Tide” in Brazil and Ecuador [Venezuela? Bolivia?], and what to make of AMLO in Mexico.)

However, although they may be tactical successes, such maneuvers don’t confront transnational capital’s basic problems and can even exacerbate them. The tools and methods that effectively undermine and discredit populist governance will not create the base of legitimacy and popular acquiescence that transnational capital urgently needs for longer-term stability. No discrediting of populism gains an affirmative popular ‘consent’ to transnational capital.

If the conflicts between nativist populisms on the “right” and reformist social democratic populisms on the “left” develop without a clear liberatory internationalist anti-capitalist alternative to both, possibilities for a longer-term stabilization of global capitalism can emerge. This can happen, even in the absence of a comprehensive ruling class strategic project. My fear is that these possibilities are more likely probabilities and I’d like to spend some time on how they might emerge.

This comment expresses a common left/liberal approach to current politics:

The key question for the immediate future is whether those populist revolts will tack left or tack right, and in which countries. The most important, of course, being the USA. If the USA tacks right, with appeals to jingoistic white identity nationalism as the primary motivation for sustaining political support, then the gloom and doom will come to pass.

If the populist revolts tack left, with appeals to the better angels of our nature coupled with appeals for a classical republican (not “R”epublican) mobilization of civic virtue for selfish interests to yield to the interest of the General Welfare in building a new world economy free of dependence on burning fossil fuels, the likely result will be a new “golden age of capitalism.”

-- Anthony Wikrent, Naked Capitalism, 7/19/18

Leaving aside the “better angels” and “new golden age,” there is some value in Wikrent’s recognition of the internally contradictory elements of the populist/nationalist response to the impacts of transnational capital. Roughly speaking, these impacts have a right and a left, each of which contain potentials to morph into the other, as well as to fork in a multiplicity of ways. Wikrent, along with many others on the left, is fixed on hopes that this develops into a populist “left” fork that can resurrect and institutionalize the mass reformist constituency that provided some relative stability for capital in a previous period.

Whether or not it would be desirable, it’s not possible to replicate the “successes” and “victories” of the past in our present not-so “golden age.” The material benefits of those arrangements, which have been termed “Fordism,” were always restricted to strategic minorities of the working class in the “First World” – class segments that are no longer so strategic. The potential political and economic returns for transnational capital from such reformist national class compacts are much more limited than they were historically.

No “New New Deal” is in the cards for the same reasons that the promises of right wing nationalism will not be fulfilled. If left populist movements gain any victories, they are overwhelmingly likely to be “victories” within a parliamentary/electoral context where they will have even less potential to provide tangible benefits for their core constituencies than the similarly questionable victories of their right wing nativist cousins. The characteristics of global capitalism that limit the current prospects for right wing nativist populism; the globalized supply chains and the transnational financial structures, present similar limits for all reformist left variants of populism and they will be particularly effective against those versions of populism that are inclined to follow the social democratic electoral/parliamentary model.

To be continued

Photo credits:
1. Picture by M0tty [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
2. Photo by Natalie Behring/copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Yes, we have Twitter.

well, we've done it. we have finally attempted to update ourselves beyond this 14 year old blog. yes, we signed up to Twitter. but we're still keeping the blog. for now.

we will be using the Twitter account to help publish new material from Three Way Fight as well as reposts/retweets of material related to what we're attempting to do here. not all retweets are necessarily endorsements but all will be part of the thinking and discussions that we're attempting to have and that we hope can be useful.

so here you go: https://twitter.com/Three_Way_Fight

After 14 years we're finally managing to get ourselves some social media (image courtesy of BRRN).

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Two interviews about the U.S. far right

I recently recorded two radio interviews about my book Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire. Between them, the interviews touch on many of the book’s major themes.

Christina Aanestad interviewed me on September 16 for The Sunday Show on KPFA of the Pacifica Radio Network. The interview aired on September 23 as part of the station’s pledge drive and is available in KPFA’s online archives, here. Our 45-minute conversation explored a range of issues, including the following:

• federal security agencies’ history of widely varied relationships with violent right-wing organizations – ranging from sponsorship to crackdown
• Christian theocratic forces – Christian Reconstructionists and New Apostolic Reformation
• the contrasting racial politics of white nationalists and Christian theocrats
• Patriot movement ideology and conspiracist anti-elitism
• the alt-right’s political origins – especially European New Right, paleoconservatism, and manosphere
• Proud Boys – distinct from but in coalition with white nationalists
• the alt-right’s relationship with Donald Trump
• some pitfalls in analyzing the far right
• the need for a multi-pronged antifascist strategy.

The second interview was with Rob Seimetz for the program Moving Forward on the Progressive Radio Network. We spoke for an hour by phone on September 22 and the interview aired a few days later. It’s available here. Some of the points addressed include:

• the concept of fascism and whether the U.S. should be considered a fascist country
• white supremacism and color-blindness as different forms of racist ideologies
• the distinction between rightists who are loyal to the existing U.S. political system and those who are not, and how these forces are also interconnected
• anti-establishment and leftist-sounding elements of far right politics, and the difference between systemic analyses of power and anti-elitism based on conspiracy theories
• the recent “shift in the center of gravity of patriarchal politics in the US” from the Christian right’s emphasis on the patriarchal family (and mobilizing women) to the alt-right/manosphere emphasis on predatory sexuality (and excluding women from politics altogether)
• paleoconservatism’s role in shaping the alt-right
• the alt-right’s mixed success since Trump took office, and the longer-term threat posed by far right forces. 

Photo credit:
Vintage Astatic Silver Eagle Microphone, by Joe Haupt from USA [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Fascistic theocrats: James Scaminaci comments on Insurgent Supremacists

James Scaminaci III is an independent researcher who has done important work tracing the beliefs and activities of U.S. far rightists for several decades. In Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire I drew particularly on his research regarding the interchange in the early 1990s between Christian Reconstructionists and white nationalists, and the often-ignored role of Christian Reconstructionists in inspiring and shaping the early Patriot movement. 

In the letter below, Scaminaci responds to some of the analysis in Insurgent Supremacists, mainly regarding the relationship between Christian Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement. Here are some passages from Insurgent Supremacists that outline some of their major features:

[Christian] Reconstructionist ideology is an offshoot of Presbyterianism (itself a branch of Calvinism) that was founded by Rev. R.J. Rushdoony in the 1960s....

...Reconstructionists advocate a totalitarian theocracy based on their interpretation of Old Testament law. In their ideal society, only men from approved Christian churches could vote or hold office, slavery would once again be legal, and death (preferably by stoning) would be applicable punishment for homosexuality, adultery (by women), striking a parent, heresy, blasphemy, and many other offenses. Women would be permanently “in submission” to men and expected to bear as many children as possible. Workers would have a duty to obey their employers, and labor unions would be forbidden.

Unlike most theocracies, the Reconstructionist model does not involve a highly centralized state, but rather puts most of the coercive authority either with local government or with nongovernmental institutions, especially the family and the church (31-32).

Christian Reconstructionism has always been a small movement, but has had disproportionate influence on the Christian right as a whole. Reconstructionists have been particularly influential in the anti-abortion rights movement, in Christian homeschooling, and in promoting the concept of “biblical patriarchy.”

New Apostolic Reformation, which is was formally launched by C. Peter Wagner in 1996, is a much larger Christian right current based among Pentecostals and Charismatics, who unlike Reconstructionists believe in miracles and divinely inspired prophecy as active components of Christian worship today. NAR is more ethnically diverse than the lily-white Reconstructionist movement, and allows women more latitude to play public and leadership roles. However,

like Reconstructionism, NAR theology declares that Christians are called to “take dominion” over all areas of society in preparation for Christ’s return. NAR leaders phrase this in terms of taking control of “Seven Mountains,” i.e., seven key societal institutions: government, media, family, business/finance, education, church/religion, and arts/entertainment.

[In contrast to Reconstructionism,] NAR is a centralizing ideology, whose leaders want to gain control of big government and make it bigger.... NAR combines a theocratic vision with an organizational structure that is far more centralized and authoritarian than most on the Christian right (38).

*                    *                    *

C. Peter Wagner (1930-2016), founder of
the New Apostolic Reformation movement

NAR leaders teach that their adherents will develop vast supernatural powers, such as defying gravity or healing every person inside a hospital just by laying hands on the building. Eventually, these people will become “manifest sons of God,” who essentially have God-like powers over life and death. In the End Times, too, some one or two billion people will convert to Christianity, and God will transfer control of all wealth to the NAR apostles (39).

I also argue in Insurgent Supremacists that Reconstructionists have pursued consistently oppositional politics, while NAR has tended to straddle the line between far right (rejecting the legitimacy of the established US political system) and system-loyal right.   --ML

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August 15, 2018
Matthew,

I finished reading most of the chapters of your book. I'm glad my research helped out in spots. Thank you for finding those papers useful.

I agree with your expansion of fascism to include religious fundamentalist movements, an improvement over [Roger] Griffin's seminal idea regarding palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism. [See "Two Ways of Looking at Fascism."]

However, where I disagree with you is your treatment of the differences between the Christian Reconstructionists and the New Apostolic Reformation. There is a real difference between the two in terms of their treatment of women--which was a conceptual breakthrough for me. But, politically, they are virtually identical. Not completely. The Reconstructionists would be happy with 50 theocracies and the NAR want to rule all of America.

But, both of them work within the current system. Leading [Reconstructionist] strategists like Gary North and Edwin Vieira talk about coming to power either by having a majority of the population in favor, or, after a catastrophic economic collapse. Gary North, like the NAR strategists, view political conflict through the prism of a titanic battle between God and Satan. The NAR does not disagree, though it’s unique contribution is engaging in spiritual mapping and strategic spiritual warfare—precursors to real-world operations, including genocide. I've seen NAR "prophets" or "apostles" talking about economic collapse or a civil war, even.

I just do not see significant political methodological differences between the two movements, for example where one is reformist and one is revolutionary, or, [Leonard] Zeskind's mainstreaming and vanguardism.

Colonel Doner's book, Christian Jihad, noted that the Coalition on Revival's Worldview documents were drafted by both the Reconstructionism's and the NAR's leading thinkers. They dominated the COR because they had an agenda and a strategy.

On page 161 he notes that the neo-Pentecostals were "especially enthusiastic" and would later form the NAR.

Those Worldview documents committed the entire Christian Right to replacing the current secular, liberal, pluralist social order with a theocracy. In and of itself, those documents are revolutionary, a point you made with regard to the Reconstructionists who "reject pluralist institutions in favor of a full-scale theocracy based on their interpretation of biblical law."

Where there is a real epistemological difference between Reconstructionists and the NAR "apostles/prophets" is that the Reconstructionists take their legitimacy from the Bible, while the NAR argue that they can make things up through prophecy (the Holy Spirit). C. Peter Wagner has argued that even though abortion is not banned in the Bible, prophecy makes it illegal.

And, if you consider the NAR's "spiritual warfare," their combat against demons, and their belief that the federal government, the Democratic Party, etc are controlled by demons, then these institutions are by definition illegitimate. The whole point of the Seven Mountains doctrine is that these institutions are illegitimate.

And, the NAR folks believe that all other religions are illegitimate, especially the Catholic Church and Islam. So, ideologically, the NAR is revolutionary and aims to build a mass movement. The NAR or Third Wave is huge in numbers in America and worldwide. They have mass.

Moreover, the NAR also has the concept of Joel's Army, a supernatural army of young people trained to kill and conquer. Thus, they very much have the violence of fascism incorporated into their ideology. Joel's Army is linked to the revenge fantasy of the Left Behind novels.

If my assessment of the NAR is correct, that actually strengthens your case regarding the fascistic tendencies of the Christian Right, more broadly speaking.

Thus, I think your book represents another conceptual breakthrough.

James


Photo credit: By Jandirp [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons.

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“Racial dissidents have lost the ability to organize openly”: Alt-rightists on Trump, ICE, and what is to be done

This report was written on July 29, 2018 and updated on August 5, 2018. Originally published in Insurgent Notes.

The alt-right, or alternative right, represents the most recent major upsurge of far right politics in the United States. Blending white nationalism, misogyny, and aggressive social media activism, alt-rightists helped put Donald Trump in the White House and proclaimed themselves the vanguard of the Trump coalition. Although they never believed Trump shared their politics, most of them hoped he would buy time and political space with which they could further their own goal of a white ethno-state.

Some alt-rightists say ICE is "repelling
the barbarians." Others call federal agents
a "hostile occupation force."

In 2017 alt-rightists made a push to broaden their scope and impact by linking up with more traditional neonazi forces and expanding their activism from the internet to physical rallies and street violence. But since the brutal August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, at which one antifascist counterprotester was killed, the alt-right has suffered a series of setbacks. Several major alt-right websites have been forced to find new platforms or shut down entirely, infighting and personal conflicts have weakened the movement, and antifascist mobilizations have blocked their mobilizing drive. In addition, as Trump embraced conventional conservative positions and priorities on many issues (from cutting corporate taxes to bombing Syria) and pushed out several of his more “America First”-oriented advisors (such as Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon) many alt-rightists became increasingly alienated from Trump. Some declared that he has been bought off or blackmailed by Jewish elites, while others held out hope that his populist-nationalist tendencies could still win out.

Recent actions by Trump (launching trade wars against China and the EU, criticizing NATO allies, and holding friendly meetings with Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin) have reintensified his conflict with the conservative establishment, while the crackdown on undocumented immigrants has made his administration look more nativist and authoritarian than ever. How have alt-rightists responded to these developments? In this article I’ll explore alt-rightists’ current outlook, focusing on three issues: attitudes toward Trump, responses to the border crackdown and law enforcement more broadly, and political strategy in a time of weakness.

In broad terms, the alt-right’s views on Trump fall in between those of the Patriot movement (which appears to be squarely behind him) and neonazi groups unaffiliated with the alt-right (which are generally hostile). Alt-rightists like the steps Trump has taken to restrict immigration and punish immigrants, but wish he would go a lot further. Applauding the Supreme Court’s decision upholding Trump’s third ban on travel from majority Muslim countries, Hubert Collins of American Renaissance called on him to ban immigration from El Salvador, Honduras, and Jamaica, claiming that “such a ban would save lives and slow the displacement of white Americans.” Identity Evropa (arguably the most successful effort to move alt-right politics from the internet to real world organizing) simply called on the president and Congress to end all immigration to the United States.

Writers at Occidental Dissent have been generally scathing in their assessment of Trump’s administration. Marcus Cicero, for example, wrote, “We were promised isolation and got further Middle Eastern conflict, we were promised a protectionist economy and got watered down free trade, we were promised sealed borders and a wall and got hordes of feral Mestizos, and we were promised realpolitik and got slavish devotion to Israel.” Brad Griffin, Occidental Dissent’s founder who blogs under the name Hunter Wallace, agreed with Mitt Romney (an establishment conservative loathed by alt-rightists) that Trump’s actions in his first year as president were very similar to what Romney himself would have done. But even Griffin and Cicero have praised a few of Trump’s actions, such as ending Obama-era affirmative action policies and holding peace talks with North Korea’s Kim.

In contrast, Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer has tended to downplay his criticisms of Trump. “I know his faults. I know there are Jews in his office. I know he bombed Syria. Twice.... But when I watch these rallies, my heart is saying ‘there’s the leader of my people, he is fighting to protect us.’” And further: “what he is doing, at least with the rallies and the tone, is Fascist in spirit. He is authoritarian, nationalist, and anti-liberal. The racial element isn’t there yet explicitly, but it certainly is there implicitly.”

As a rule, alt-rightists have been strongly supportive of the Trump administration’s border crackdown and “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. Hubert Collins declared that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protects Americans against foreign criminals and deserves full support. Many alt-rightists, like Patriot movement activists and other Trump supporters, have deflected criticisms of ICE’s family separation policy by turning pro-family arguments against ICE’s critics. American Renaissance wrote of “illegals” “using children as human shields” and dismissed criticisms Trump’s border policy as “hysteria” and “liberal viciousness.” Huntley Haverstock of Counter-Currents, drawing on the manosphere-type misogyny that has become standard across the alt-right, declared that news media sound clips of immigrant children crying for their parents represented “emotional abuse against women” – more specifically, an “attempt to hijack women’s hindbrains and override all possibility of rational thought” because “ the sound of crying has such a powerful mammalian impact on women that it can literally cause them to lactate.” Haverstock called this supposed physiological reaction healthy and positive in the right context, but in a political context it was “an argument against giving women the vote.”

However, alt-right discussions regarding ICE have gone well beyond these sort of reflexive attacks on immigrant rights politics. Anglin proclaimed that ICE is Trump’s “Praetorian Guard,” the only non-corrupt federal enforcement agency, which the president will use to implement martial law and impose a dictatorship. As with many of Anglin’s statements, it’s hard to know to what extent he was being serious and to what extent he was just mixing wishful thinking with provocation for its own sake. In contrast, VDare columnist Federale has long argued that ICE is a sham immigration enforcement agency that actually prefers to target non-immigrants. R. Houck of Counter-Currents went much further, declaring that all police and federal law enforcement agencies are part of a “hostile occupation force” and “are used first and foremost to protect Jewish interests.” Reversing the arguments of Black Lives Matter activists, Houck claimed that police actually are more likely to use deadly force against whites than blacks, and that “all bias in policing is in fact against the white race.” These assertions, aimed to counteract many rightists’ pro-police sentiments, highlight the difference between system-loyal and oppositional versions of right-wing politics.

The alt-right’s setbacks of the past year and misgivings about Trump have spurred some members to take a sober look at the movement’s strategic prospects. Many Republicans are predicting an electoral triumph this November and see the recent victory of democratic socialist Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez in a New York congressional primary as proof that the Democratic Party is out of touch with most voters. American Renaissance’s Gregory Hood disagreed, and, like other alt-rightists, his political hostility extended not just to liberals and leftists, but also to conservatives:

Despite (or because of) media coverage, racial dissidents have lost the ability to organize openly, while the socialist Left has gained in strength.... The established conservative movement has largely cheered this process. The Trump victory did not lead to a more welcoming environment for identitarians within the GOP but increased scrutiny and barriers.

In contrast, the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] has the most powerful combination in politics—revolutionary cachet combined with support from the power structure.

*          *          *

The Republican message of ‘economic growth’ is uninspiring compared to the Democrats’ racial socialism, especially when corporate America and economic elites are more favorably disposed towards multiculturalism than they are to Trump-style nationalism. Unless President Trump can truly transform the GOP into the ‘Workers Party’ as he promised during the campaign, it’s unlikely his coalition will last.

In this climate, Hood urged white nationalists “not to daydream about Donald Trump’s ‘Red Tide,’ but to build institutions to ensure our people’s survival in the years when whites will be living under an occupation government.”

Writing from a similar perspective, James Lawrence of Counter-Currents dismissed hopes that large masses of whites will embrace white nationalism and rise up against the established power structure as “alt-right victory fantasies.” He urged alt-rightists to learn from how twentieth-century fascist movements achieved power. Using Robert O. Paxton’s analysis in The Anatomy of Fascism (which is also a favorite among many critics of the right), Lawrence drew a number of lessons, including these:

• “The fascist experience...illustrates the importance, yet also the limitations, of metapolitical action,” i.e., a “process of mental preparation going back decades, in which the failings of liberalism and democracy were exposed and the decline of Western civilization was discussed. This smoothed the way for the creation of fascist movements in the wake of the Great War, but did not guarantee their success.”
• “successful fascist movements must cultivate not only the masses but also the vested interests of society. They must be encouraged, or at least tolerated, by an established ruling elite focused on the greater threat from leftist revolution.”
• fascism “cannot be recreated in the present era…. The modern avatar of leftist revolution is not a military threat from beyond the frontier [such as the USSR in the 1920s], but a political enemy ensconced in every official institution, and it is now the ‘antifa’ and ‘SJWs’ who enjoy judicial leniency and elite patronage.”
• “Of the three stages of fascist pathbreaking, the only one available to us right now is metapolitics…. This can never induce the masses to rise up and replace that oligarchy of their own accord, but it can ensure that they become convinced of its illegitimacy and unwilling to react strongly against threats to its power. That is the first step from which all others must follow."

Lawrence and Hood’s pessimistic but reasoned call for alt-rightists to prepare for many years of base-building stands in stark contrast to Anglin’s glib optimism, in which Donald Trump serves as a deus ex machina for the movement’s own failings. These are two sides of the same movement. Today the alt-right is significantly weaker and more isolated than it was a year ago. However, it has bolstered supremacist violence, expanded the space for hardline rightists in mainstream politics, and demonstrated the political power of internet memes and coordinated online attacks. The alt-right remains a significant political force, which could either rebound or pave the way for other incarnations of far right politics. Andrew Anglin and other in-your-face trolls have been the most public face of past alt-right efforts. But in the years ahead, it is strategic thinkers such as Hood and Lawrence who represent a greater threat.

Addendum – A note about Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer
I want to add some brief comments about Patriot Prayer (PP) and Proud Boys (PB) in light of the August 4th confrontation in Portland, Oregon, when a Patriot Prayer rally faced off against a larger counterprotest—until the counterprotesters were violently attacked by police.

Joey Gibson’s Patriot Prayer and Gavin McInnes’s Proud Boys were both founded in 2016 as part of the wave of right-wing enthusiasm surrounding candidate Donald Trump. The two organizations are not identical, but they represent similar politics and have become closely intertwined. They offer a slightly sanitized version of right-wing racism. Both organizations have longstanding close ties with white nationalists and are staunchly anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant, yet they disavow explicit white supremacist ideology and include small numbers of people of color as members. Both groups uphold patriarchal ideology and glorify political violence.

Unlike alt-rightists and other white nationalists, Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer do not advocate a white ethno-state or a radical break with the U.S. political system. Rather, they want to reassert white male dominance within the existing system. As “The Grouch” put it on the antifascist website Its Going Down: “what they want most of all is to be called on by the State in order to attack perceived enemies of the existing social order. Chiefly this means social movements in the streets, but also journalists who are critical of Trump (or the Proud Boys and the far-Right), migrants, people of color, queer and trans people, and so on.” Unlike the alt-right, Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer are solidly and unambivalently pro-Trump.

Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys are currently engaged in a drive to rebuild the kind of broad coalition of right-wing streetfighters that operated for several months in 2017. This coalition encompassed alt-rightists, neonazi skinheads, and other white nationalists, alongside “alt-lite” Trump supporters and Patriot movement activists. The effort fell apart in the wake of Charlottesville, amid in-fighting, deplatforming by media companies, and mass antifascist resistance. So far the revival of a right-wing streetfighting force has been limited to the Pacific Northwest. Continued militant opposition is needed to shut it down and keep it from spreading.

The August 4th events in Portland, like previous confrontations, indicate a close, friendly relationship between Patriot Prayer/Proud Boys and the police. As The Grouch commented, despite the fact that militant rightists are perpetrating more violence than their opponents, police look on right-wingers “as a group of victims, and anyone that stands up to them as instead a group of criminals and terrorists.” System-loyal right-wing groups such as Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer are better positioned to develop a collaborative relationship with the police than alt-rightists or neonazis, who don’t accept the existing system as legitimate. However, the intricate ties between Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys on one hand and white nationalists on the other underscores that we can’t treat the dividing line between system-loyal right and oppositional right as rigid or fixed. This is a dynamic situation, and I would not want to predict how things will develop from here.

Photo credit: A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent making an arrest,  30 November 2014. Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

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Donald Trump Uses Right-Wing Populism to Unite Divergent Groups (interview)

In this interview with Truthout, I discuss several topics related to the U.S. far right, such as fascism, populism, relations with federal security forces, and Donald Trump’s politics. The interview follows Truthout's publication of an excerpt from Insurgent Supremacists. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Every far-right upsurge in the US over the past 40 years has been powered by different rightist currents coming together. In the 1980s, the convergence between Klan and Nazi forces — which had distrusted each other for half a century — gave us the modern white nationalist movement. In the 1990s, the explosion of Patriot/militia groups was fueled by a new mix of white nationalism, Christian Reconstructionism, John Birch-style conspiracism and gun rights ideology. Over the past decade, the rise of the “alt-right” has followed the same dynamic.

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Federal security forces do their job clumsily at times and skillfully at others, are subject to a variety of internal biases and external pressures, and have to contend with shifting political circumstances. Fundamentally, however, their purpose is to protect ruling-class power. Broadly speaking, paramilitary rightists serve that purpose when they defend the existing order, and clash with that purpose when they seek to overthrow it.

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As many “alt-rightists” have understood clearly from the beginning, Donald Trump is not a far rightist. His policies are racist but not white nationalist (because he doesn’t advocate a white ethno-state and the mass expulsion of people of color) and authoritarian but not fascist (because he wants to suppress opponents but doesn’t aim to impose one totalitarian ideology on all spheres of society). Also, unlike fascists, he did not build an independent organization, but instead cobbled together an elite coalition of “America First” nationalists and mainstream conservatives, and over time the latter have mostly come out on top. Despite some inconsistent steps away from the establishment line on free trade and foreign policy, Trump’s main impact has been to intensify conventional conservative policies, such as deregulating industry, making the tax system even more regressive and making life even harder for undocumented immigrants.

To be clear, Trump isn’t just more of the same. He builds on his predecessors (Republican and Democrat), but he is qualitatively worse than them. Trump is accelerating the decline of the United States’ liberal-pluralist system (often mislabeled “democracy”), and his rise has helped to mobilize popular forces that have the potential to turn toward more insurgent forms of right-wing politics. In this situation, it’s important for leftists to join with others in opposing the growth of repression, demonization and supremacist violence. At the same time, it’s also important for us to strengthen and amplify our own critiques of the established order, our own visions of radical change — and not let far rightists present themselves as the only real opposition force.

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Photo credit: By Tiffany Von Arnim. August 13, 2017 Patriot Prayer and Solidarity Against Hate demonstrations in Seattle. [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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The Far Right Regards Human Inequality as “Natural” (book excerpt)

This book is about far right politics in the United States. It is an effort to understand movements such as the alt-right: what they want, what they do, who they appeal to, and how they interact with other political forces. It is also an effort to place these movements in historical context, to analyze how and why they have developed over the past half-century, and how current circumstances affect their strengths and limitations.

Truthout.org has made Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right's Challenge to State and Empire its latest Progressive Pick of the Week and has published an excerpt from the book's introduction. Here are a few more snippets:

Before 2015 or 2016, most mainstream reporters and political pundits had never heard of the alt-right, and they scrambled to figure out what the movement was and what it stood for. Because alt-rightists didn’t look or act like stereotypical Neo-Nazis, people accused them of trying to hide their white supremacist politics behind a “benign” label, even though in fact many of them went out of their way to sound as offensive and bigoted as possible. Because alt-rightists were explicitly white nationalist, many observers didn’t notice that they also promoted a misogyny so extreme that even many Neo-Nazis criticized it. And because some “anti-globalist” conservatives started using the alt-right label, many critics missed the distinction between fellow travelers and committed adherents — between those Trump supporters who wanted to reclaim control of the American republic for white Christian men and those who hoped for the republic’s collapse. Although media coverage of the alt-right gradually improved, this initial confusion underscored the need to rethink superficial, overgeneralized, and outmoded conceptions, and to recognize the far right as a dynamic, changing collection of movements.

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Instead of focusing on a specific doctrine, my approach begins with a specific historical turning point: in the 1970s and 1980s, for the first time since World War II, rightists in significant numbers began to withdraw their loyalty from the US government. This marked a sharp break with the right’s traditional role as defender of the established order, as one of the forces helping economic and political elites to maintain social control. In my view, the resulting division between oppositional and system-loyal rightists is more significant than ideological differences about race, religion, economics, or other factors.

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The far right presents multiple kinds of threats. In the short term, it’s extremely unlikely that far rightists could seize power and bring about the kind of society they envision. While this cannot be ruled out in the longer term, there are several more immediate reasons to take the far right seriously. First, far rightists carry out harassment and violence against targeted groups, and they encourage other people to do the same. Second, far rightists create more space for system-loyal forces to intensify their own bigotry, scapegoating, and violence, both by offering an example for system-loyal groups to learn from, and also by providing an “extreme” example that helps more “moderate” versions look legitimate by comparison. Third, far rightists can exploit popular grievances to draw support away from left-wing liberatory alternatives. Fourth, far rightists can infect the left itself with their poisonous ideas or recruit leftists to work with them.

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Photo credit: By Mark Dixon from Pittsburgh, PA (Charlottesville-1520282) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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