Prominent leftwing intellectuals are allowing their singular, disdain-driven focus on (neo-) liberalism to completely distort their perspective on the Right.
@tzimmer_history wow! I had no idea that was happening. only thriving when they are in conflict with the mainstream. Actively shunning the idea of ever being seen as cooperative against a common enemy ! Incredible
A specific camp of leftwing intellectual Skeptics is stubbornly refusing to engage seriously with the fascism argument and the radicalizing tendencies on the Right. Their overriding concern is a political struggle against what they believe is the real enemy: The (neo-) liberal elites.
In their view, Liberals are using the “fascism” bogeyman as a way to distract from their own culpability; to discipline the Left into accepting a popular front under liberal leadership; to reinvigorate the (neo-) liberal project by conjuring fears of the ultimate evil.
To the Skeptics, the fascism talk is intended to make people flock to the liberal cause; to expand power by using tyrannophobia as a way of entrenching liberal rule. It’s all just liberal dishonesty, self-exculpation, and self-aggrandizement that needs to be opposed aggressively.
The problem is that their devotion to this anti-liberal struggle has led them to propagating positions that are increasingly untethered from what is happening on the Right – sophistry in defense of a premise that is more and more at odds with empirical evidence.
This is Part II of my deep dive into the fascism debate. Part I offered an extensive reflection on the stakes, the scholarship, the key arguments, and the politics of the question of whether or not Trumpism is best understood as fascism.
I do not make these accusations lightly. The piece is almost 5,500 words long, with lots and lots of concrete examples. Add Part I, and I wrote about 11,500 words on the fascism question in the past three days. Happy holiday weekend reading!
@tzimmer_history The sort of smug insistence that we're over-reacting about everything was a major tendency within the Jacobin-aligned wing of the DSA. They insisted that anyone talking about racism, sexism, or LGBTQ rights was a part of the "professional-managerial class", and that raising those issues was alienating the white working class.
That tendency was impossible to work with, perpetually shutting down projects by fair means or foul, and was a major reason I left the DSA.
@tzimmer_history I think you may have a different view of what is going on with the anti-liberal left. The issue isn't that they don't take the rights move into fascism as reality, it's that the neoliberal, and Liberals are complicent.
The ruling class is consolidating power, that part you understand. The idea that fascism is being used as a call to unify the center may even be true. The problem is that the center is moving toward fascism.
@tzimmer_history Romantic revolutionaries are in love with chaos, and therefore covertly in league with the chaotics of the right. They believe fascism will lead to revolution, and therefore embrace the accelerationist tactic of hobbling not-left-enough politicians, often by repeating right-wing disinformation verbatim.
The case of Spain, where the united front was ditched by the communists, leading to a long generation of fascist rule with no revolution, is dismissed.
@tzimmer_history Casually, while I think your intentions are superb and your intellect firm, not sure how as a scholar the term 'fascism' is not defined in 2024 terms. Of course there is hoopla all around over 'fascism' - it's a term from a hundred years ago that has not been updated.
@tzimmer_history Intellectuals and lovers of self-determining freedom would be well advised to update their understanding of what is fascism, and define it for modern global applications and understanding by commoners and elites, academics and fascists themselves.
@tzimmer_history a lot of bs to unpack here.
Fascists use might makes right and are funded by capitalist class. Neo liberals say wealth makes the rules & are funded by/are the capitalist class. Tech AI/Surveillance, weapons manufacturing, fossil fuels…all capitalists destroying EVERYTHING.
But we who are fighting its root cause are the problem? Not those profiteering & preventing change for the better?
You focus on semantics, labels. It’s about truth, people, & survival of the planet.
@tzimmer_history OMG, neoliberalism. It’s been a quarter century a the term remains invaluable in public discourse as a perfect indicator to dismiss anything that precedes or follows its earnest use as self-absorbed drivel.