[‘The main political responsibility of the Left is to identify,
assemble, animate, and unite the social forces capable of
accomplishing the primary breakthrough required at each moment.’ ]
[[link removed]]

MAGA IS FOCUSED AND ALL IN. ARE WE?  
[[link removed]]


 

Max Elbaum
July 22, 2022
Converge Magazine
[[link removed]]


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

_ ‘The main political responsibility of the Left is to identify,
assemble, animate, and unite the social forces capable of
accomplishing the primary breakthrough required at each moment.’ _

March for Our Lives, NYC, mathiaswasik (CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

The recent burst of Supreme Court rulings and January 6 Committee
revelations have put the MAGA agenda and its plans to seize power
front and center in U.S. politics.

From white supremacist militias through the Supreme Court majority,
from Trump and DeSantis over to “Republican Team Normal,” the
MAGA-controlled GOP is all in. They have their differences (some of
which we might be able to take advantage of). But they are
collectively laser-focused on taking back the House and Senate in 2022
and conducting a “legal coup” to add the Presidency to the
Republican column in 2024.

Most of the U.S. population (and the majority of the electorate)
rejects the MAGA agenda. That’s the fundamental reason MAGA can be
stopped. But that will only happen if at least some of the political
players trying to galvanize that majority exceed our opponents in
focus and all-in determination to win.

This means facing some stubborn political facts:  

* One, the 2022 and 2024 electoral outcomes are at the pivot of
determining whether the U.S. returns to the racist authoritarianism
and vigilante “justice” that stomped out Reconstruction  or makes
a fresh start on the road to multiracial democracy.
* Two, only an electoral coalition that stretches all the way from
socialists to GOP Never-Trumpers has the capacity to stop the MAGA
steamroller.

These realities have big implications for the Left—those of us who
understand that MAGA is not a creation of Donald Trump, but a
political tendency rooted in the structure and history of this country
which Trump tapped into and further unleashed. All temptation to look
away (“Don’t Look Up!”) must be resisted. It may make us
uncomfortable, but we simply do not get to choose the terrain on which
we have to do battle.

We are too small to defeat MAGA on our own. But we have the potential
to play a crucial role as a catalyst that moves larger forces into
action. It falls to the Left to offer a vision that can motivate
people who are exploited, angry, and marginalized to vote and take
part in politics in other ways. It is our responsibility to model both
combativeness and a unity-building spirit that will attract and
stiffen the spines of the wavering elements among the anti-MAGA
majority. And we are the ones who can tell the truth about the
structural obstacles we are up against and why we can win.

If we shoulder those responsibilities—that is, if we focus and go
all-in—we will not only maximize the chances of beating MAGA in 2022
and 2024. We will build a larger base and expand the reach of
progressive organizations and leaders, thus strengthening our capacity
to shape the country’s agenda once MAGA is pushed to the sidelines.

MAGA: Fascism American-style

MAGA’s rollback program is far from limited to what the Court has
already done by overturning Roe, barring serious gun control, gutting
any federal effort to fight climate change, and shredding the doctrine
of separation of church and state. And it goes beyond the removals of
all rights won under the rubric of privacy (for example, birth control
and gay marriage) as signaled in Clarence Thomas’ opinion. The
protections offered by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (the
“Reconstruction Amendments”)  which first put the country on the
still-blocked road to a multiracial democracy are squarely in the
MAGA Court’s gunsights
[[link removed]]. It’s a
toxic brew of white nationalism, Christian supremacy, and strongman
authoritarianism wrapped in the American flag and the Onward
Christian Soldiers
[[link removed]] cross.
This is fascism American-style
[[link removed]].

And MAGA’s laser focus on gaining the political power needed to
impose this agenda is no longer limited to using voter suppression,
gerrymandering, and giving money unchecked power in electoral
contests. It has now incorporated the “independent state legislature
doctrine
[[link removed]],”
which would give GOP-controlled bodies full control of elections—up
to and including deciding that their own preferences override the will
of the voters. MAGA is anticipating a SCOTUS ruling upholding this
doctrine next year, and is making plans to deploy it to conduct a
“legal coup” if needed in 2024.

Not a moment for business as usual

Progressives and the Left entered the 2022 fight against MAGA far
better prepared than in previous years. Numerous social justice
organizations learned much and expanded their reach in the intense
2020 contest. Their rich experiences
[[link removed]], Bernie’s 2016 and
2020 campaigns, the efforts which produced and then expanded the
Squad, the increased links many organizations have made between
electoral and non-electoral organizing, the energy unleashed by the
George Floyd uprising, and the new surge of worker militance and union
organizing—all these give us a stronger baseline from which to fight
than we had going into 2016, 2018 or 2020.

But we need more. We—the Left and progressive world as a
whole—have not yet matched MAGA in acting on the understanding that
we are at a turning point. Taking the coup effort which culminated on
Jan. 6, 2021 as a trial run, MAGA has dispensed with previous
“norms” and is subordinating everything to its relentless drive
for power.

We need to be just as audacious. Proceeding in a business-as-usual
manner will not cut it. Only if we adjust our thinking, priorities,
and strategies to match the urgency of the moment will we prevail in
the battle right in front of us.

What this means for each specific Left organization and sector will
vary. In the remaining months before the mid-terms, and even more
between those contests and November 2024, we will need to be
proposing, debating, testing and evaluating strategies on a host of
questions. In which sectors and districts can we have the most impact?
What messages best motivate key constituencies? How can we best
synergize electoral with non-electoral work? But three general points
already stand out:

First, defeating MAGA at the ballot box is not sufficient for stopping
the MAGA bid for power, _but it is an indispensable
precondition. _We need to prepare for mass direct action to protect
electoral results—up to and including a scale of protest that can
prevent rogue state legislatures and an illegitimate Supreme Court
from imposing their will should they make the attempt. But to gain the
moral and political high ground for such actions to succeed, it is
absolutely essential to win majority votes in local, battleground
state, and federal races, especially in House and Senate contests, and
the race for President.

Defeating MAGA at the ballot box is not sufficient for stopping the
MAGA bid for power, _but it is an indispensable precondition._

And a lot is at stake in how we conduct our electoral work and
coordinate it with other efforts. Investment in long term,
no-quick-results organizing is crucial to revitalize the labor
movement, rebuild the peace movement, and sink deep roots in the
multiracial, gender-inclusive working class. Without gains in those
and other areas, we will never get past one emergency defensive
election after another.

Second, we have to be pro-active—not passive, much less opposed—in
the challenging work of building a “unite all who can be united”
electoral front. We need a stance comparable to that of January 6
Committee stalwart Rep. Jamie Raskin when asked about his friendship
with Committee vice-chair Liz Cheney
[[link removed]]. We on the
Left are eager to get back to putting our main energy into fighting
with establishment Democrats and conservative Never Trumpers on all
the things we disagree about. And we aren’t suspending our
contention with them over policy issues amid the current crisis.

But the central issue in the 2022 and 2024 elections is whether we
will live in a country where it is possible to do political battle by
anything close to one-person, one-vote, democratic means. Many who are
anti-MAGA have views the Left rightfully finds abhorrent. But if they
vote against MAGA, even actors with abhorrent politics are defending
democratic space that was won by decades of mass struggles against
racism, sexism, and class-based exclusion at great cost in blood and
treasure. And retaining those rights provides the most favorable
terrain for all progressive struggles to proceed going forward.

Three, our current fragmentation diminishes our ability to build the
kind of anti-MAGA front we need. Many groups and circles on the Left
agree in general with the above two points. But that is not
sufficiently translated into coordinated work and
think-outside-the-box unity-building steps. It weakens our call for
uniting all those who can be united against MAGA when the Left looks
to those just a few steps away from us as a set of separate groups
divided by small differences.

Stretch beyond our comfort zones

Putting the above considerations central to our thinking and action in
the next three years will be uncomfortable for much of the Left. In
protests and the battle of ideas, which for many years constituted the
main forms of progressive activity, it is necessary to stress our
differences with others, to put out our distinct program and fight for
it against all comers.

But in the fight for political power, protests and the battle of ideas
are only parts—and not the main parts—of the Left’s task. The
main political responsibility of the Left is to identify, assemble,
animate, and unite the social forces capable of accomplishing the
primary breakthrough required at each moment. A Left that accomplishes
that not only fulfills its responsibility to move the class struggle
forward from one stage to the next. It maximizes the left’s
influence when—in the next stage—there is a changed set of
circumstances which require a different set of alliances.

MAGA has gotten as far as it has because its driving core has focused
laser-like on stitching together its divergent parts into common bloc
fighting for power. It is our job to exceed the MAGA core in political
acumen, willingness to push the envelope, take risks, and
determination to inspire and unite all who can be united to stop them.

_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 [[link removed]] is a magazine for radical
insights. We produce articles, videos, and podcasts to sharpen our
collective practice, lift up stories about organizing, and engage in
strategic debate — all with the goal of winning multi-racial
democracy and a radically democratic economy. Convergence
on: _Facebook
[[link removed]], Instagram
[[link removed]], Twitter
[[link removed]], Youtube
[[link removed]].

* Left Strategies
[[link removed]]
* Left Electoral Strategy
[[link removed]]
* left electoral tactics
[[link removed]]
* MAGA
[[link removed]]
* Fascism
[[link removed]]
* Anti-Fascism
[[link removed]]

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

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]