[The people-power, energy, and savvy exist to regain the
initiative against MAGA and win a ceasefire in Gaza. To do so, we will
need to call on positive vision, political clarity, narrative
power—and courage. ]
[[link removed]]

SIX CHALLENGES FOR THE TOUGH YEAR AHEAD  
[[link removed]]


 

Max Elbaum
January 5, 2024
Convergence Magazine
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The people-power, energy, and savvy exist to regain the initiative
against MAGA and win a ceasefire in Gaza. To do so, we will need to
call on positive vision, political clarity, narrative power—and
courage. _

Solidarity Mural, by Atelier Teee (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

 

Amass slaughter
[[link removed]] of genocidal
[[link removed]] proportions
backed by the current administration is taking place in Gaza. A
candidate espousing US-style fascism
[[link removed]] has energized
his base
[[link removed]] and
makes no secret of his dictatorial day-one agenda
[[link removed]].
The opposition to MAGA is divided (on Gaza and immigration policy
especially) and is not displaying the momentum anti-MAGA displayed at
this stage of the 2020 campaign.

The people-power, energy, and savvy exist to regain the initiative.
Different parts of the social justice movement will contribute in
different ways. Here are six challenges that I think progressives must
take on if we are to emerge from 2024 stronger than we are today.

1. Hammer home the danger—and look to what we can gain.

KEEP SOUNDING THE ALARM ABOUT THE DANGER OF MAGA WHILE GIVING EVERY
COMPONENT OF THE ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY A POSITIVE REASON TO VOTE AGAINST
TRUMP.

Ignore all the pseudo-scientific polls—they are really
just “punditry in disguise.”
[[link removed]] Instead,
follow Michael Podhorzer’s lead and look at the results of the 2018,
2020, and 2022 elections to understand the behavior of the Trump-era
electorate. The key takeaway is that there is an anti-MAGA majority
[[link removed]] in
this country that wins elections when it is motivated to turn out.

One part of providing that motivation is hammering home the nature and
danger of the MAGA agenda: The GOP “Mandate for Leadership
[[link removed]]”
plan promises to overhaul government policy across the board
[[link removed]] to
serve an agenda of “all wealth to the wealthy”; to-do lines
include plans to expand use of fossil fuels
[[link removed]],
and to use the Justice Department against political opponents
[[link removed]] (which
includes rounding up leftists). It’s not just Trump: Liz Cheney’s
new book reports in detail on the depth and breadth of the Republican
drive to break laws
[[link removed]] and
overturn what remains of US democracy.  

But fear of MAGA will not be enough. We will also need to convey what
can be gained by a Democratic victory over MAGA and the ways defeating
MAGA can increase the clout of grassroots-based and progressive
organizations. To be effective, this kind of messaging must be focused
and specific, sector by sector. For example, for winning workers of
all racial backgrounds to vote against MAGA, stressing the pro-worker
nature of the current NLRB and the prospect of it becoming an even
more powerful defender of union organizing
[//prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/] can
be an important tool and something for other sectors to learn from.

On some issues, we can only make a strong case that there are gains to
be made with a Democratic victory if we can push the Biden team to the
left.  Immigration policy, where the administration is considering
caving to Republican pressure, and Biden’s “bear hug” backing of
Israel (see next section) must be a focal point of progressive
attention in the coming days and weeks. These issues are of special
concern to constituencies that have made decisive contributions to the
anti-MAGA front in the last few elections: Arabs and Muslims, youth
and especially Black youth, peace and immigrants’ rights advocates.
Only a broad progressive movement that throws down in the spirit of
“an injury to one is an injury to all” can move the Democratic
leadership on these issues, and thus help bring the energy of these
too-often-marginalized sectors into the high-stakes 2024 electoral
battle.

2. Ceasefire now!

INTENSIFY THE FIGHT FOR A CEASEFIRE AND RE-ELECT EVERY PRO-CEASEFIRE
MEMBER OF CONGRESS.

Intensifying pressure on Biden to join the rest of the world
[[link removed]] in
demanding that Israel halt all military operations—with consequences
if they don’t—is imperative. The pro-ceasefire movement continues
to shift public opinion,  and new initiatives such as the January
12-13 Emergency Summit for Gaza
[[link removed]] initiated
by Jesse Jackson will squeeze the administration further.

Stepping up for elected officials who have come out for a ceasefire
will be an essential piece of this fight. As of this writing, 56
representatives and four senators
[[link removed]]—all Democrats—have
defied the administration and embraced the ceasefire demand.  AIPAC
and other Israel Lobby organizations, fearful that they are losing the
“bipartisan consensus” that has long sustained
blank-check-for-Israel policies, plan to spend over $100 million to
defeat the most outspoken of these (Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Jamaal
Bowman, Summer Lee, Ilhan Omar) in Democratic primaries. As primary
season comes closer, we can expect other pro-ceasefire representatives
to be targeted too.

These primary battles will be the next major test of strength for the
Palestine solidarity movement. If AIPAC’s assault can be beaten
back, it will undermine the “fear factor” that is largely
responsible for the big disconnect between sentiment at the base of
the Democratic Party and the majority of its congress members. Such a
victory would not just defend the foothold pro-Palestine sentiment
already has in Congress, but provide a springboard to taking the
offensive.

Gains in this battle would also bolster the case being made by this
writer
[[link removed]] and others
[[link removed]] that
our chances of beating MAGA are diminished unless Biden either changes
course or steps aside in favor of a nominee not complicit in
Israel’s genocide.

3. Don’t cede the fight against anti-Semitism.

GO ON THE OFFENSIVE IN FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM.

Apologists for Israel—realizing that defending the country’s
actions is a losing proposition—are steadily amplifying charges of
anti-Semitism against the Palestine solidarity movement. In beating
back those attacks, the Left has necessarily spent a lot of time and
energy debunking the charge that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. In
doing so, however, we have too often let ourselves get locked into
purely defensive posture, which has made it easier for the apologists
to advance the false charge that anti-Zionists care about what happens
to Palestinians but don’t care about what happens to Jews.

We need to break this dynamic and go over to the offensive, making the
case that the forces who are backing Israel today include the most
diehard and dangerous anti-Semites: Christian Zionists
[[link removed]] who
see Israel as prelude to a “rapture” when Evangelicals will go to
heaven and Jews to hell, and white nationalists
[[link removed]] who
see Jews as part of a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy America
via “great replacement” through immigration. Further, the program
of even the most liberal elements in the Zionist camp—a state in
which Jews have special privileges and exclusive control the military
and police—is inherently flawed.

It is the anti-Zionist Left—we who fight for equal rights for all in
racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse societies—who are the
most consistent opponents of anti-Semitism. It is our program, not
theirs, that in actual practice as well as in theory means more safety
for Jews. The Israeli ethno-state —supposedly a guarantee of Jewish
safety—provides no such thing, as its dispossession and oppression
of the Palestinians is a recipe for constant violence and war. Diverse
societies where fights for racial, gender, and religious equality have
made even incomplete breakthroughs are safest for Jews. And it is
these very gains that are now under attack in the US by white
Christian nationalists who boast of how pro-Israel they are, as if
this immunized them from being anti-Semitic

A lot more work is required to turn these thoughts into a coherent
program and, more important, an action strategy. But now is the time
to get serious about it.

4. Build internationalism.

BEEF UP OUR INTERNATIONALISM AND REBUILD AN ANTIWAR, ANTIMILITARIST
MOVEMENT.

The unprecedented upsurge of pro-ceasefire activism does even more
than create conditions for a major leap forward in building a more
unified and broad-based Palestine solidarity movement.

As the first sustained movement at scale with internationalism at its
center in more than a decade, it underscores both the need and the
potential to make an internationalist vision and practice integral to
the life of progressive groups focused on domestic issues. It also has
thrust the militarist and anti-human rights character of US foreign
policy in general into the spotlight, spurring discussions of how to
revitalize peace and anti-militarist activism in general.

Again, a lot of thought and work will be required to take advantage of
these opportunities. But the door is open at this moment in a way that
it has not been for many years.

5. Seize history to explain our present and light our future.

POPULARIZE A NARRATIVE ABOUT US HISTORY THAT EXPLAINS HOW WE GOT TO
OUR CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES AND POINTS TO THE SOCIAL FORCES THAT CAN
DRIVE A THIRD RECONSTRUCTION.

The capacity to “shape people’s conscious and unconscious
understandings of the world, of what is politically possible, and of
their own place in the world
[[link removed]]”
is integral to the fight for political power. Developing and
popularizing a compelling narrative about this country’s past,
present and future—one that “makes meaning” out of people’s
disparate experiences and points in a liberatory direction—is
imperative for a Left that aims to lead a coalition that can govern
the country.

The rise of MAGA has led to new experiments in crafting such a
narrative, often building on W.E.B. DuBois’ work centering the
experience of the post-Civil War Reconstruction, and on lessons from
the Second Reconstruction embodied in the 1950s-‘60s Civil Rights
breakthroughs. Peniel Joseph’s book, _The Third Reconstruction:
America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century_
[[link removed]],
makes a major contribution. A new effort directly tied to grassroots
activism, _Two Americas on Contested Terrain: Constructing a White
Supremacist Nation vs. Reconstructing a Rainbow Democracy_
[[link removed]], comes from Carl Davidson.

As we work towards strategic clarity and engage in the battle over the
story of this country and its future, work in this direction has a lot
to offer.

6. Keep hope alive: courage is contagious!

It will be difficult to meet all the challenges flagged here as well
as others that face us in the tough year ahead. We will have to be
real about the power of our enemies while remaining confident that
appealing to the majority’s “better angels” can create a force
that overcomes that power. In this effort, stories of what individuals
can do in the face of adversity tend to have more power than even the
most insightful analysis of each side’s strengths and weaknesses. We
are in a moment when such stories abound:

* Palestinian journalists working in Gaza are paying “a
staggeringly high price these last two months for the twin perils of
being Palestinian and covering the war. Those who have dedicated their
lives to uncovering and sharing the stories of people who have
suffered a 16-year blockade and have seen their Western and
Palestinian colleagues killed, maimed, and imprisoned by the Israeli
military and censored by its tech allies…‘It’s time for Gaza’s
Journalists to be treated like the heroes they are.
[[link removed]]’”

* “A young Israeli man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days behind
bars for refusing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces as it wages
a genocidal assault on Gaza,
[[link removed]] a
war the teen condemned as ‘a revenge campaign… not only against
Hamas, but against all Palestinian people.’“

* “Black mother-daughter Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and
Shaye Moss stood strong against the most vile life-threatening
danger”
[[link removed]] after
Trump toady Rudy Giuliani and a host of right-wing media outlets
falsely accused them of ballot tampering. “People called for the two
to be hung at the Capitol where witnesses could ‘hear their necks
snap.’” They may never receive any of the $148 million the jury
awarded them, but they faced down their defamers and won.

These stories gain even more power in the context of the collective
courage being displayed week after week by people standing up, sitting
in, speaking out, risking their comfort and careers—and in Gaza
simply struggling to keep their families, neighbors and themselves
alive.  All these stories bring our inspiration and hope. Let’s
lift them up.

One part of providing that motivation is hammering home the nature and
danger of the MAGA agenda: The GOP “Mandate for Leadership
[[link removed]]”
plan promises to overhaul government policy across the board
[[link removed]] to
serve an agenda of “all wealth to the wealthy”; to-do lines
include plans to expand use of fossil fuels
[[link removed]],
and to use the Justice Department against political opponents
[[link removed]] (which
includes rounding up leftists). It’s not just Trump: Liz Cheney’s
new book reports in detail on the depth and breadth of the Republican
drive to break laws
[[link removed]] and
overturn what remains of US democracy.  

But fear of MAGA will not be enough. We will also need to convey what
can be gained by a Democratic victory over MAGA and the ways defeating
MAGA can increase the clout of grassroots-based and progressive
organizations. To be effective, this kind of messaging must be focused
and specific, sector by sector. For example, for winning workers of
all racial backgrounds to vote against MAGA, stressing the pro-worker
nature of the current NLRB and the prospect of it becoming an even
more powerful defender of union organizing
[//prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/] can
be an important tool and something for other sectors to learn from.

On some issues, we can only make a strong case that there are gains to
be made with a Democratic victory if we can push the Biden team to the
left.  Immigration policy, where the administration is considering
caving to Republican pressure, and Biden’s “bear hug” backing of
Israel (see next section) must be a focal point of progressive
attention in the coming days and weeks. These issues are of special
concern to constituencies that have made decisive contributions to the
anti-MAGA front in the last few elections: Arabs and Muslims, youth
and especially Black youth, peace and immigrants’ rights advocates.
Only a broad progressive movement that throws down in the spirit of
“an injury to one is an injury to all” can move the Democratic
leadership on these issues, and thus help bring the energy of these
too-often-marginalized sectors into the high-stakes 2024 electoral
battle.

2. Ceasefire now!

INTENSIFY THE FIGHT FOR A CEASEFIRE AND RE-ELECT EVERY PRO-CEASEFIRE
MEMBER OF CONGRESS.

Intensifying pressure on Biden to join the rest of the world
[[link removed]] in
demanding that Israel halt all military operations—with consequences
if they don’t—is imperative. The pro-ceasefire movement continues
to shift public opinion,  and new initiatives such as the January
12-13 Emergency Summit for Gaza
[[link removed]] initiated
by Jesse Jackson will squeeze the administration further.

Stepping up for elected officials who have come out for a ceasefire
will be an essential piece of this fight. As of this writing, 56
representatives and four senators
[[link removed]]—all Democrats—have
defied the administration and embraced the ceasefire demand.  AIPAC
and other Israel Lobby organizations, fearful that they are losing the
“bipartisan consensus” that has long sustained
blank-check-for-Israel policies, plan to spend over $100 million to
defeat the most outspoken of these (Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Jamaal
Bowman, Summer Lee, Ilhan Omar) in Democratic primaries. As primary
season comes closer, we can expect other pro-ceasefire representatives
to be targeted too.

These primary battles will be the next major test of strength for the
Palestine solidarity movement. If AIPAC’s assault can be beaten
back, it will undermine the “fear factor” that is largely
responsible for the big disconnect between sentiment at the base of
the Democratic Party and the majority of its congress members. Such a
victory would not just defend the foothold pro-Palestine sentiment
already has in Congress, but provide a springboard to taking the
offensive.

Gains in this battle would also bolster the case being made by this
writer
[[link removed]] and others
[[link removed]] that
our chances of beating MAGA are diminished unless Biden either changes
course or steps aside in favor of a nominee not complicit in
Israel’s genocide.

3. Don’t cede the fight against anti-Semitism.

GO ON THE OFFENSIVE IN FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM.

Apologists for Israel—realizing that defending the country’s
actions is a losing proposition—are steadily amplifying charges of
anti-Semitism against the Palestine solidarity movement. In beating
back those attacks, the Left has necessarily spent a lot of time and
energy debunking the charge that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. In
doing so, however, we have too often let ourselves get locked into
purely defensive posture, which has made it easier for the apologists
to advance the false charge that anti-Zionists care about what happens
to Palestinians but don’t care about what happens to Jews.

We need to break this dynamic and go over to the offensive, making the
case that the forces who are backing Israel today include the most
diehard and dangerous anti-Semites: Christian Zionists
[[link removed]] who
see Israel as prelude to a “rapture” when Evangelicals will go to
heaven and Jews to hell, and white nationalists
[[link removed]] who
see Jews as part of a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy America
via “great replacement” through immigration. Further, the program
of even the most liberal elements in the Zionist camp—a state in
which Jews have special privileges and exclusive control the military
and police—is inherently flawed.

It is the anti-Zionist Left—we who fight for equal rights for all in
racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse societies—who are the
most consistent opponents of anti-Semitism. It is our program, not
theirs, that in actual practice as well as in theory means more safety
for Jews. The Israeli ethno-state —supposedly a guarantee of Jewish
safety—provides no such thing, as its dispossession and oppression
of the Palestinians is a recipe for constant violence and war. Diverse
societies where fights for racial, gender, and religious equality have
made even incomplete breakthroughs are safest for Jews. And it is
these very gains that are now under attack in the US by white
Christian nationalists who boast of how pro-Israel they are, as if
this immunized them from being anti-Semitic

A lot more work is required to turn these thoughts into a coherent
program and, more important, an action strategy. But now is the time
to get serious about it.

4. Build internationalism.

BEEF UP OUR INTERNATIONALISM AND REBUILD AN ANTIWAR, ANTIMILITARIST
MOVEMENT.

The unprecedented upsurge of pro-ceasefire activism does even more
than create conditions for a major leap forward in building a more
unified and broad-based Palestine solidarity movement.

As the first sustained movement at scale with internationalism at its
center in more than a decade, it underscores both the need and the
potential to make an internationalist vision and practice integral to
the life of progressive groups focused on domestic issues. It also has
thrust the militarist and anti-human rights character of US foreign
policy in general into the spotlight, spurring discussions of how to
revitalize peace and anti-militarist activism in general.

Again, a lot of thought and work will be required to take advantage of
these opportunities. But the door is open at this moment in a way that
it has not been for many years.

5. Seize history to explain our present and light our future.

POPULARIZE A NARRATIVE ABOUT US HISTORY THAT EXPLAINS HOW WE GOT TO
OUR CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES AND POINTS TO THE SOCIAL FORCES THAT CAN
DRIVE A THIRD RECONSTRUCTION.

The capacity to “shape people’s conscious and unconscious
understandings of the world, of what is politically possible, and of
their own place in the world
[[link removed]]”
is integral to the fight for political power. Developing and
popularizing a compelling narrative about this country’s past,
present and future—one that “makes meaning” out of people’s
disparate experiences and points in a liberatory direction—is
imperative for a Left that aims to lead a coalition that can govern
the country.

The rise of MAGA has led to new experiments in crafting such a
narrative, often building on W.E.B. DuBois’ work centering the
experience of the post-Civil War Reconstruction, and on lessons from
the Second Reconstruction embodied in the 1950s-‘60s Civil Rights
breakthroughs. Peniel Joseph’s book, _The Third Reconstruction:
America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century_
[[link removed]],
makes a major contribution. A new effort directly tied to grassroots
activism, _Two Americas on Contested Terrain: Constructing a White
Supremacist Nation vs. Reconstructing a Rainbow Democracy_
[[link removed]], comes from Carl Davidson.

As we work towards strategic clarity and engage in the battle over the
story of this country and its future, work in this direction has a lot
to offer.

6. Keep hope alive: courage is contagious!

It will be difficult to meet all the challenges flagged here as well
as others that face us in the tough year ahead. We will have to be
real about the power of our enemies while remaining confident that
appealing to the majority’s “better angels” can create a force
that overcomes that power. In this effort, stories of what individuals
can do in the face of adversity tend to have more power than even the
most insightful analysis of each side’s strengths and weaknesses. We
are in a moment when such stories abound:

* Palestinian journalists working in Gaza are paying “a
staggeringly high price these last two months for the twin perils of
being Palestinian and covering the war. Those who have dedicated their
lives to uncovering and sharing the stories of people who have
suffered a 16-year blockade and have seen their Western and
Palestinian colleagues killed, maimed, and imprisoned by the Israeli
military and censored by its tech allies…‘It’s time for Gaza’s
Journalists to be treated like the heroes they are.
[[link removed]]’”

* “A young Israeli man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days behind
bars for refusing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces as it wages
a genocidal assault on Gaza,
[[link removed]] a
war the teen condemned as ‘a revenge campaign… not only against
Hamas, but against all Palestinian people.’“

* “Black mother-daughter Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and
Shaye Moss stood strong against the most vile life-threatening
danger”
[[link removed]] after
Trump toady Rudy Giuliani and a host of right-wing media outlets
falsely accused them of ballot tampering. “People called for the two
to be hung at the Capitol where witnesses could ‘hear their necks
snap.’” They may never receive any of the $148 million the jury
awarded them, but they faced down their defamers and won.

These stories gain even more power in the context of the collective
courage being displayed week after week by people standing up, sitting
in, speaking out, risking their comfort and careers—and in Gaza
simply struggling to keep their families, neighbors and themselves
alive.  All these stories bring our inspiration and hope. Let’s
lift them up.

_Max Elbaum is a member of the Convergence Magazine editorial board
and the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to
Lenin, Mao and Che 
[[link removed]](Verso
Books, Third Edition, 2018), a history of the 1970s-‘80s ‘New
Communist Movement’ in which he was an active participant. He is
also a co-editor, with Linda Burnham and María Poblet, of Power
Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections 
[[link removed]](OR Books, 2022)._

_Convergence is a magazine for radical insights. We work with
organizers and activists on the frontlines of today’s most pressing
struggles to produce articles, videos and podcasts that sharpen our
collective practice by lifting up stories from the grassroots and
making space for reflection and study. Our community of readers,
viewers, and content producers are united in our purpose: winning
multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic economy._

* Strategy
[[link removed]]
* Internationalism
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* elections
[[link removed]]
* anti-Semitism
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

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