Trump’s opening fascist tirade, during which I kept picturing him with a little moustache and straight arm salute, was designed to engender fear. He wanted to make it clear to all that you join in his mass campaign of jingoism and racism or you will be a victim. Dare not to speak words of racial, gender or international equality; dare not to oppose the police or the military; dare not to welcome strangers; dare not to even think thoughts that question the new order; dare not to question that wealth must flow to the already wealthy and the poor deserve their lot. Dare not to question that we are better off with more fossil fuels and less public health. Dare not to wonder if “meritocracy” and erasing consciousness of color means an end to racism.
In fact, the campaigns of fear and retribution started well before the liberals left power. College students and teachers who expressed opposition to the genocide in Gaza have been suspended for long periods and fired. From Columbia to NYU to MIT, the anvil has fallen fast and hard. Professional associations like the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association and the American Public Health Association have vetoed their members wishes to express solidarity with the victims of genocide. Liberal newspapers like the New York Times have banned the use of the word genocide. Now that the stage has been set, the real action can begin. The liberals can go back to saying they’re against repression.
We must question the widely held assumption that today’s leap to the right arises purely from the disordered brain of Trump and his acolytes. Or is the accelerated move to fascism – nationalism, racism, sexism, abridged speech, militarism – a necessity of capitalism in decline? The US has been on a steady losing trajectory in comparison with its main imperialist rival, China, falling behind in manufacturing, arms, trade and influence in much of the world. The US has lost every recent war from Vietnam to Afghanistan and is afraid to draft an army that may well rebel. The US is reduced to a single strong Mideast ally, Israel, that behaves in such a way as to rapidly multiply its enemies.
The environment is decayed by climate change to such an extent that natural disasters are burgeoning even in the US and yet the only response is “to drill.” As workers are increasingly asked to pay the price of this decline, they must be fed ideas to explain it and promote desperate measures of capitalism trying to save itself. It all started well before January 20 and it will get worse.
For us – workers, students, soldiers – there is the need to resist the fear and resist the enemy. We will need to think of largescale tactics like obstructing deportations, strikes, and mass student actions. We will need to build awareness that the enemy is capitalism, that is destroying the world in front of us with climate change and ever wider wars. While attacking first the poorest and darkest-skinned among us, it will soon be everyone who must fear the new detention centers.
We must resist the most toxic idea that weakens us, promoted by the fascists and even much of the left – nationalism. We have nothing in common with the capitalist exploiters of our own nation, an idea with which many can agree. Unfortunately, when we talk about smaller nations, colonized or recently “liberated” but still poor and oppressed, it is usual to support whoever is their leader. But these leaders, from the governments of South Africa to El Salvador to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Fatah have remained the tools of the banks and imperialists of the world. Most ordinary citizens remain in poverty.
Even Hamas, despite the valiant fight against Israel, does not operate in the best interests of ordinary Gazans. They have long reserved wealth and privilege for themselves as they attempted to create an Islamic society, and have taxed, suppressed, and brought heavy fatalities down on the populous during many smaller conflicts. In the current struggle, Hamas could have predicted a massive, violent response from Israel, but did not provide for the feeding, protection, or enlistment in the struggle of most Gazans. Although it is hard to judge their accuracy, most surveys of Gazans suggest only minority support for Hamas.
So from the US to Palestine, from Israel to El Salvador, we must build a united, class conscious, large, militant and fearless movement to fight the ideas and forces of fascism. It is not easy. It requires careful analysis and broad outreach. But our survival is at stake.
Ellen Isaacs is a physician, anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist and co-editor of multiracialunity.org. She can be reached at [email protected].
