Fighting the Far Right

From May 1st Anarchist Alliance
By Benjamin

“This is the problem that we must solve.  The Democrats and their allies will tell us that defeating Trump is the answer, but it will not defeat the forces that brought us here.  We need to reject the politics of cooptation and failure, stand up and fight against the far right”.

A man walks into Latin night at a gay nightclub in Orlando during the city’s LGBT Pride weekend, murders dozens of young people, and injures dozens more.  The FBI and police cite nonexistent evidence that he is connected to ISIS, which is regurgitated by the major media corporations despite being quickly disproved.  The Republican presidential candidate promises to end all Muslim immigration despite the shooter being American-born.  In Congress, Democrats stage a “sit-in” in defense of a gun control bill that hinges on the government’s “terror lists,” which have been found to include thousands of innocent Muslim people, as well as anti-war activists, black lives matter protesters, popular musicians, and others. In cities across America, Muslims face increased harassment and violence.

Amidst all this, there are increasing calls to focus on the election, on Trump.  None of them seem to state the obvious: that the far right is winning.

What I mean is this: whatever the outcome of the presidential election, the far right–currently rallying around Trump and his anti-immigrant, white supremacist agenda–is already driving major aspects of American politics and life and will continue to do so. We see it in the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and the never-ending deaths in the Arizona desert of migrants forced to take dangerous routes by border walls already erected along safer crossings at the behest of anti-immigrant groups.  Both are happening more now than they ever have before, and Trump and Clinton both promise to escalate these attacks even further.

We see it from the nearly-constant acts of right-wing terrorism against women, LGBT people, and racial minorities to the regular state-sanctioned murder of young black men, by police who frequently are sympathetic to white supremacist organizations, if they are not outright members. Both Trump and Clinton have accepted these parts of our lives, and will do nothing to stop them.

The only thing that will stop the far right is organized movements against white supremacist, sexist, and homophobic violence and for solidarity and self-defense for working people.  But due to decades of repression by the state and cooptation by the elites in the Democratic party, if you’re poor and angry in America, there’s a good chance that the only people talking to you are saying it’s because of immigrants, or minorities, or feminists, or gays.  Many people’s choices are either the far right or to simply accept the violence against them.

This is the problem that we must solve.  The Democrats and their allies will tell us that defeating Trump is the answer, but it will not defeat the forces that brought us here.  We need to reject the politics of cooptation and failure, stand up and fight against the far right.  It’s not enough to defeat Trump.  We need to defeat the far right’s America.