By Ron Jacobs
Counterpunch
October 11th, 2024
I wrote the following earlier this year (2024).
“Will we be fighting this fascism that, as Black panther George Jackson wrote fifty years ago, “tolerates the existence of no valid revolutionary activity…. (and) is concealed behind the illusion of a mass participatory society.”. Or will it be a drastically more radical fascism that extends its ruthlessness beyond the prisons, slums and radical left, taking its revenge on everyone who dare oppose the great leader, Democrats included?”
The fact that this remains a valid and important question a couple weeks before the election is a vivid indication of the current situation in the United States. If I were not the cynic that I am about the US political system, I would be appalled that Donald Trump could win the 2024 election. Instead of being appalled, though, I am considering the options. Leaving the country isn’t really a possibility for me. Nor do I believe one can run from the fascist current existent in the world, especially among the populations of the more advanced capitalist countries. That being said, what might the future look like for those of us determined not to buckle under a fascist regime?
Regarding this question, a couple of books published this year provide both clarification and possibilities. Even if the candidate not backed by numerous fascists and fascist groups wins, the fascist movement will not disappear. Knowing who that comprises and how their networks interact and present themselves is important to the fight against fascism. Knowing previous antifascist struggles and their successes and failures is equally so. Donald Trump is certainly the figure around which fascists in the United States have flocked to more than any other politician, but the movement does not need him as much as he needs the movement. In other words, if he and his cohort, JD Vance, lose the election, the fascists and their allies will not disappear. Indeed, their fight will move into the streets; if they can cause enough chaos they will force the government in place to respond with intense force and authoritarian methods. If the government in power does not respond in this manner to the chaos the fascists unleash, the fascists will present themselves as the way to resolve the chaos they created.
Fascists and fascist sympathizers have become more brazen in the years since Trump was elected in 2016. This is a commonly understood fact. More frighteningly, their ideas are often part of the mainstream conversation and mouthed by elected politicians from small-town sheriff departments to the misnamed Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives. The last time such extremely racist and misogynist arguments were heard on such a large stage was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when George Wallace ran for president. Today, we live in a world where the president of the United States from 2016 to 2020 surrounded himself with men and women who not only repeated Wallace’s bigoted politics but used his power to enforce them, just like a 1960s southern governor standing in front of schoolhouse doors with his ax handle. Like those southern governors of the US apartheid era, Donald Trump has a fair number of well-armed men willing to kill for the beliefs he embodies for them. That, and he remains a viable candidate for public office.
That last sentence is telling. About the United States, capitalism, and the fear that permeates the white supremacist segment of the US population—that they are losing the ultimate power they have enjoyed since the beginning of the colonization of North America. History moves forward. These folks want to turn it back. As BBC reporter Mike Wendling describes in his book Day of Reckoning: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy, the coalition of forces hoping to do that is unlike previous conglomerations that worked for the same goals. In addition to the Klan, other racist groups, various traditional far-right groups, and conservative businessmen associations, this new right-wing counterrevolution also includes nominally libertarian Proud Boys, rightwing militias, fascist and otherwise, real fascists, alt-right influencers, and a mixed bag of conspiracy theorists. Most prominent among the latter are those who gather under the QAnon umbrella of anti-vaxxers, burn-outs, and conspiracy theorists who have turned the fictional conspiracies in Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus Trilogy into non-fiction.
Writing in accessible prose, Wendling’s text introduces these players and a few more. Various journalists that have bitten into the conspiracy apple, like Matt Taibbi, are discussed; so is the founder of the Proud Boys, Stuart Rhodes. Rhodes’s fanaticism led him to commit acts on January 2, 2021, which put him in prison for several years. If one recalls, Donald Trump told this group to be ready should Trump lose the 2020 election. Rhodes and hundreds of others took Trump’s words to heart. Many of them are now in prison, hoping for a Trump victory in November and a pardon in January 2025.
A recent collection of essays edited by XTN Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons dives considerably deeper into the presence of fascism in the US and the struggle against it. Titled Three Way Fight: Revolutionary Politics and Antifascism, this book is perhaps best understood as something of a prequel to Day of Reckoning. In addition, its politics are considerably more left. Lyons is a long time antifascist organizer and commentator. Generally speaking, his work explores the interactions between right-wing movements and political systems. Certainly anti-authoritarian, he is also an anti-imperialist whose politics are informed from the Left. Three Way Fight is a collection of documents and essays discussing and describing fascist movements and the resistance to them in the United States. I put this book together with Day of Reckoning in this essay because—as I hint at above—those of us on the Left side of politics must be ready to fight fascism no matter which candidate wins in November.
This book begins with a classic piece of the US antifascist movement written in 1982 and distributed by the radical Sojourner Truth organization. It concludes with a collection of essays regarding the rebellion in 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd. In between, the reader will find a discussion of anti-imperialism in an article titled “Fascism in the Antiwar Movement,” which looks at the difference between leftist anti-imperialism and other manifestations of anti-imperialism, such as that expounded by paleoconservatives and right-libertarians like those who run the Antiwar.com website. This article also discusses the politics of the more authoritarian Left groups like the Workers World Party, who tended to support authoritarian rulers like Saddam Hussein just because they opposed US imperialism. There’s also a history of the group White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a group founded by former Klansman Tom Metzger and focused on youth organizing. The essay here looks at WAR’s actions, organizing and eventual dissolution due to constant harassment by grassroots antifascist organizations like Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) that brought their militant campaign to the heart of WAR.
The United States remains in a politically volatile moment. The distinction between right-wing establishment politicians and right-wing groups and militias in the streets has shrunk considerably since the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the liberal wing of the establishment political party system has been unable to effectively respond. Indeed, the fact that Donald Trump has yet to be imprisoned much less tried for most of the crimes he is accused of, provides us with a clear look at how ineffective the US system of capitalist law and order is when it comes to going after right wing political criminals (especially those who are extremely wealthy). If a leftist had said words similar to those spoken by Trump to a crowd rejecting the election results in 2021, it’s reasonably safe to assume that person would be locked up by now. Donald Trump remains free and is running for president. His far right supporters have already decided that the election is a farce unless he wins. Given the facts of history, it seems unlikely that the liberal power elites will respond effectively to any reactionary violence that happens in the election’s wake. If Trump wins, one can be even more certain that the liberal power elites will do little to prevent the authoritarian havoc he has promised if he does.
Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: [email protected]
