Chaos in the Capitol: The Right, the Left, and the Road to Fascism
Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 marked an unprecedented event in the history of the current American empire. While Congress met to officially certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, thousands of armed and angry Trump supporters began gathering outside the nation’s Capitol. Met with surprisingly little police resistance, within hours the mob had managed to breach the Capitol building and infiltrate the House and Senate chambers as lawmakers were hurriedly evacuated. Decked out with Trump paraphernalia, both American and Confederate flags, and other symbols of national pride and white supremacy, these fascists made a huge spectacle out of the occupation of the US Capitol. They shouted to anyone who would listen that Trump had rightfully won the election, posed for photo ops in Nancy Pelosi’s chair, and hung Trump flags on the walls. They seemed to lack any coherent political strategy or platform, besides an unwavering yet unsupported conviction that their candidate was being unfairly denied reelection. Even closer to home, a pro-Trump rally in Olympia managed to break past the gates of the governor’s mansion, occupying the entire area and the steps of the state Capitol. Similar protests took place in other cities across the nation. For his part, Donald Trump spent the day unconvincingly calling on his supporters to remain peaceful, while continuing to praise them for coming to his defense. To understand why this all happened, we must recognize fascism as a reactionary – and certainly not revolutionary – response to capitalism in decay.
Although his supporters may not be able to articulate it, there is a reason beyond general charisma that Trump has garnered such fanatical support among his base. His presidency was a faux-populist, nationalist response to the forces of neoliberal capitalism and globalization. Almost all of the wealth produced since neoliberalism took off during the 1980s has gone to members of an increasingly shrinking capitalist class, who are continually bailed out and protected by government. Owners of small companies increasingly find themselves outcompeted and driven out of existence by big corporations, the latter of which are given relaxed restrictions to continue providing goods and services due to their integral nature to the functioning of the entire US economy. As a result, many have chosen to lash out and rebel in racist and reactionary ways, just as they did today at the US Capitol. These people are not truly anti-government, after all; they want a government that grants them more power, and to ensure their positions as controllers of labor and property. They ask for their own liberation at the expense of the true working class and colonized people at home and abroad. They ask not for freedom from exploitation, but for freedom to exploit.
Understanding Fascism, yesterday and today
Historically, fascism has arisen out of very similar situations to the one the US is in now. During the 1930s and 40s, fascist leaders in Italy and Germany used nationalist sentiment and an economic crisis to fuel capitalist interests. In Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parteni offers an extremely cogent analysis of how fascism is used to serve the wealthy while appealing in rhetoric to a populist, nationalistic sentiment. Faced with an economic crisis after World War 1, Mussolini and Hitler both turned to the same repressive solution – crushing political dissent in order to “save big capital from the impositions of democracy” (p 6). They threw crumbs to the populace while cozying up to big business, all the while preaching the superiority of the Italian or German race. Fascism is a brutal appeal to traditionalism and the sensibilities of those who benefit from systems of inequity, but ultimately serves the interests of the true propertied class, i.e. the capitalist class, alone. It is the method by which the wealthy reassert control when all else fails and capitalism is plunged into crisis.
While it has been said many times and in many ways, the rise of Trump perfectly mirrors the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the 2008 financial crisis that America never fully recovered from, when then-President Obama bailed out the big banks that had destroyed the US economy, sinking millions into financial ruin. It was the conscious political decisions of politicians across both sides of the aisle to prioritize the financial elite over everyday working people that created the situation we are in today. By using fascist tactics and appeals, Trump now gets to benefit from the crisis that he helped create.
At the same time, the world we live in today has changed significantly since the first half of the 20th century. One major shift is the extent that neoliberal capitalism has become globalized. As a result of neoliberalism, national politics has taken a backseat to the whims of global markets and transnational corporations. Corporations no longer reside in any one particular country, but instead in all of them at once, constantly seeking the cheapest markets where they can maximize exploitation and minimize costs. This has fueled a nationalist fury across the globe, as racist white workers and small business owners blame immigrants for taking their jobs – which in reality were outsourced to the cheapest possible labor source. The cries of “America First” and “Make America Great Again” are nostalgic appeals to a mythologized time when the economy seemed to work best for big and small business; the 1950’s to 1970’s postwar era, which for non-white people was marked by terrible oppression by the state and white supremacist violence. There is no America that is “Great Again” for the nonwhite people of the US. With every ounce of their energy, the reactionary, conservative white property holders fight to hold on to the privileges they feel entitled to, in a desperate attempt to avoid being left behind, with the rest of the downtrodden, by monopoly capitalism. But now, their interests are aligned with an earlier stage of capitalism that no longer exists.
The Left vs. the Status Quo
Another change we have witnessed since the 20th century is the decline of the organized left, to the point where it is impossible for most Americans to envision a world outside of capitalism even as it is thrown ever further into crisis. Historical fascist movements have used Red Scare tactics to fuel their movements, to demonize their opponents and to prevent working class people from turning toward a truly revolutionary means of liberation. Without an organized leftist movement, right wingers in and outside of government have tried to convince the populus that the country is under attack by “radical left Democrats”, many of them also in government. This is clearly a ridiculous line, not capable of convincing anyone that they need to rise up and protect their country from “communist” Joe Biden. As long as neoliberalism maintains its deathgrip on American society, fascists and capitalists won’t have anyone to blame for internally plotting against the state. Without that, they have nowhere to draw legitimacy from to seize control of political power and stifle dissent. Until the left is able to offer a viable alternative, we will continue to be stuck in this purgatory of liberal capitalism from which there is no escape.
As further proof that he will never even begin to provide an alternative to the status quo, Joe Biden’s speech on Wednesday failed to make any acknowledgement whatsoever that this fascist uprising had to with the crises and instability of capitalism. Instead, he delivered a grave speech with concerningly fascist undertones himself, indicating that he would use Wednesday’s events to crack down on political dissent and increase funding for the police. Joe Biden is not afraid of fascism. He is, however, terrified of populism when it may be turned against the status quo. More police should never be our answer, whose purpose is solely to protect the state and capital rather than the people. Ironically, by claiming to be working towards the defeat of fascism, Joe Biden’s administration may end up being more fascist than any we have seen before. We must denounce white supremacists and fascist reactionaries at every opportunity, while we also continue to oppose political repression and police violence. Clearly, we have no dog in this fight. As leftists, we face threats from both sides.
We also know that there’s a reason this mob of protestors was not met with more resistance as they stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. White, racist conservatives have never posed a real threat to the capitalist status quo, because they seek to ultimately reaffirm it. If they had their way, they would assert white supremacy in violent and horrifying ways, but not in ways out of line with American history. Seeing the Confederate flag being flown in the Capitol building was a chilling sight for many, and a reminder of the state-sanctioned atrocities committed in America not so long ago. Despite yesterday’s repeated claims by both Democrats and Republicans that “this is not who we are”, the angry mobs at the Capitol are who America was built for – wealthy, property-owning, white elites who profited off the backs of immigrant, native, and slave labor. As late stage monopoly capitalism starts to fail even white supremacists whose whiteness had previously made them immune, the left needs to get organized to counter these reactionary uprisings. Only we, as leftists, can build a movement designed to liberate the working class as a whole and eliminate exploitation in its entirety. This is going to require coalition building on a scale we have never seen before. Now is the time to join an organization pushing for real systemic change. As the right gets armed and organized, so must we. The working class must be united around a coherent message of liberation for all.
