Saw this thread, and it really hit a chord with me, as these similar fears tend to constantly weigh on me (for various reasons- being trans, ethnic Chinese, commie, etc).
I think we all (leftists, but also just most minorities) know, shit is bad and will get worse, it’s just a question of how bad it will get. People mention it offhand without usually going further into the details, and similarly in other spaces - non-leftist ones as well, for instance Asian diasporic and LGBT spaces in my experience, these fears come up, but ultimately we keep the bulk of our concerns to ourselves. What are our expectations here, for the west? Not just for the US, but the Anglosphere and Europe?
This is for the US specifically. Ok so I’ve thought about this A LOT and my best prediction, avoiding both wishful thinking and doomerism, is that I don’t think those who are openly fascist will be able to turn the country into Nazi Germany. The US is just too diverse and that kind of blatant fascism likely will only fly with a minority of white chuds. This is especially true of the younger generations who would need to be co-opted in order to enforce it, since old people are generally not the best when it comes to fighting wars, either internal or external. As it stands now, younger generations are increasingly more diverse and increasingly have shifted left in their views, which would make co-opting them difficult, and an example of this at the present time is the issue the pentagon has been having with military recruitment. They (the fascist right) really don’t have the numbers on their side. Remember when US marshals under Trump tried to subdue Portland? That was a complete and utter failure, and it’s only one city. Imagine if they tried that in every major US city.
So yeah, I could be wrong but I don’t think open fascism is likely. What’s more likely imo is a continuation of the dysfunction we’re already seeing, which means more stuff like mass shootings, terror attacks, etc. by chuds, more quiet “liberal” fascism that pretends the US is a functioning democracy, and potentially more Balkanization. The US is also going to be facing more and more pressure on the world stage as China passes it up economically and militarily. I think all this combined will lead to a worsening situation and increasing destabilization, but again I think open fascism isn’t all that likely to succeed.
For Europe I’m less certain, but some of the same arguments apply I think. The US is the lynchpin holding the current global order together, so once they start to falter, Europe may starting looking to boost ties elsewhere, such as with China and Russia who may have more to offer. Also open fascism in Europe would likely threaten the EU, which it seems would not be the best outcome for the ruling class, so I think they’d likely lean towards EU stability over nationalism in individual EU countries, but that’s just a guess.
The problem with your argument here is it ignores that whiteness isn’t static. It can and will expand to include other groups of people to prop up white supremacy. Plus, we already have two parties pushing fascist immigration policies and massive amounts of Islamophobia. We don’t need a majority of marginalized people to go fash. We just need enough and I think the Democrats doing a genocide while most of their base still willing to vote for them is going to go a long way to legitimize fascist policies, especially if that party continues to choose the triangulation strategy. I mean…I’ve had other queer people basically fantasizing about me being hate crimed for being nonbinary in the Middle East because I won’t vote for Holocaust Harris.
People were saying Gen X were too cynical to buy into right wing bullshit and then they did. You’re starting to see the same thing happen to Millennials as we age and there’s nothing stopping the younger generations from going that way either. There’s always going to be people inheriting their family’s wealth and turning into shitty rich (or upper middle class) people. Being “left wing” doesn’t really amount to anything when there’s no organizational structure to weed out grifters, opportunists and crypto-fascists. Many people don’t become right wingers because they love being reactionary, they do so because they give up on the possibility of social change and start to adopt the right wing framing of “it’s everyone for themselves.”
I’m not a doomer. I think the fact that colonized people who had it way worse than Americans threw off the chains of oppression mean that we can too but I don’t think assuming that demographics will stop us from going fascist is a good idea. Democrats have been beating that drum since 2008 and we’re just becoming more and more right wing as a society.
That’s my concern, too: I’ve personally met Hispanic people that were MAGA because they hated black people that much, and recently I’ve met black people that somehow went MAGA because they hated Hispanic people that much.
Honestly, other than the historic genuine anti-blackness in Latin America (due to the colonial history) IMO the west has just really done a good job of cultivating inter-racial community grievances. For instance the (now genuinely felt rather than just ignorant) “anti-blackness in the Asian diaspora community” is well known in the west, but the reverse is also absolutely true- and there’s all sorts of other grievances each group can have with the other, etc. All capital needs to do is declare open season on one group or another (hate crimes and crimes against Asians for instance), play favorites and hypocrites, spew their usual narratives, prop up their favorite self-hating or other-hating POC talking heads, and provide conflicting incentives (like affirmative action despite its flaws, and on the other hand genuine and undeniable extreme racial discrimination against Asians) and while solidarity is not all lost, things get toxic as all hell.
I’ve had a lot of great, actual solidarity in the west, sure. But the truth is also that for the broader society I don’t have much hope for racial relations (re: whites and minorities, or minorities and other minorities) getting truly and properly dealt with until the system of empire and white supremacy is stomped to the curb. Having seen how things could be like elsewhere (not to claim that Singapore as an example is perfect or even based, very far from it)- it’s incredible the difference in how things are, when a society actually tries to integrate its people together into a harmonious yet undeniably diverse society- couldn’t recognize it for what it was and appreciate it when I first saw it, but nowadays- well, the difference could not be clearer, flawed as it may be.
Pretty much. I hesitate to say this, but for instance if, when, and as (since it is ongoing ATM) anti-Asian and anti-Muslim hate ramps up, opportunists in the black and Latino communities will jump in on it (of all social strata- open season is open season- that said if the tables were turned this would also happen, let’s all be honest here this is how it is). Just as we all are atomized/hyperindividualized, all our communities are as well; the west has poisoned the well as best as they could in regards to solidarity and divide-and-conquer politics and the narratives within our communities are heavily controlled.
There’s a consciousness making a resurgence- one that never quite went away, but which is particularly active now mainly in the face of livestreamed industrial genocide. But if the west cannot manage more than peaceful protests and some war sabotage attempts (incredibly important as they are- and let’s be honest anything else, while based, would be cracked down on with the full brutality of the state- hell things are already brutal against dissent as is) then I don’t think it will be enough. I hope I’m wrong and am not advocating for defeatism, but my outlook for the west is just very bleak and by the time the necessity for revolutionary change has been accepted at large I suspect it will have been too late- as I see it the way things are going it may very well be so dire for the west that BRICS and the rest of humanity will be the ones to either force a change for the better from the west, or otherwise be forced to put down the western regimes like a rabid dog before running intense de-Nazification/de-mental-colonization.
Like you I’m not a doomer. And I’m actually very profoundly optimistic for the world (provided the US doesn’t start nuclear war), especially seeing current developments. But I think that (while we can’t afford to accept it) realistically the imperial order, particularly in the cores, will go down thrashing in as wretched a manner as possible and has a lot of fight, a lot of hate in it yet- thankfully the world is moving past the west in all aspects, such that all the west has left is terror…
why?
I’ve talked about it elsewhere before, but don’t think I can say I have the full energy at the moment (I’ll try to reply again later, maybe). But as to the gist of it:
If you look at the development as well as energy across the global south and Russia, amazing things are happening. The BRICS is creating the foundations for the end of US dollar dominance and western finance imperialism- not to say it will happen overnight. The BRICS are providing alternative, infinitely better choices, equality and democracy of nations, etc. for humanity. By-and-large outside the west, when you look at it- the world may be immensely flawed as all things are; most nations may not be AES but even highly flawed states like Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. you name it- are choosing peace and prosperity and respect over constant destabilization and divide-and-conquer warmongering, resource theft and destruction, and western diktat and chauvinism. The system which specifically targets AES, anti-imperialist states, states pursuing their own sovereignty and interests ie. actual democracy, etc. and destroys them- imperialism- is crumbling.
Look outside the west, and while there is horror and fear at the wickedness and destructiveness of the empire, the spirit of humanity is rising up. The entire global south is developing, bit by bit, but at this point in a way that is unlike any other time in history (sadly the Soviets during the cold war did not have such means whatsoever, though they sought to assist nations all the same). It’s all over for the world system of imperialism if you ask me and I can go into much more detail on it when I have the energy but there are also many good sources on it (I would recommend looking more at Lemmygrad for this sort of thing, or watching proper Marxist economists and geopolitical/etc analysts like Geopolitical Economy Report, Professors Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson, the Tricontinental, etc).
In the west it’s all doom and gloom so long as the mechanism of empire remains (not to say that the empire cannot be overthrown from within); but look at the south and I have infinite optimism (which will in time come to the west, if we cannot sort our business out ourselves). Though whether the west will first try to take down all of humanity with it if they cannot maintain hegemony and worldwide exploitation is another matter and a very real concern.
To be a little more clear, I think this type of liberal fascism absolutely will continue. What I was trying to say is that I don’t think we’ll see an openly fascist government like in Nazi Germany where undesirables are hauled off to death camps, since I just don’t think that really fits with present day US. The sort of thing we’ve already seen and continue to see will still be there, though, and likely will continue on its current trajectory.
We are already putting undocumented migrants in concentration camps and supporting Israel who is definitely running death camps. Fascist USA will look different than Nazi Germany for cultural reasons but I don’t trust liberals to be better than the Nazis, I mean German libs supported the OG Nazis at the end of the day.