Wylie Greer touches upon a question that the left in the US is struggling with: what to do with the white working class? He is responding to an article in the DSA publication Democratic Left that uses a biblical metaphor of the Prodigal Son to say that we should have grace for those former MAGAs who wish to join our movement. Greer takes issue with this; in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father accepts the son without having to repent for their sun or face punishment: “the point of the Parable is that he didn’t actually have to apologize, nor did he have to make such amends”. Are we then supposed to simply let Trump supporters into our movement without them making amends?
Greer doesn’t seem to think that we should exclude ex-Trump supporters from our movement. But he clearly thinks there needs to be some kind of litmus test. Yet what exactly the contents of this test are or what they’re supposed to look like is completely unclear. We are simply sold “some degree of ideological commitment to social justice and socialism are expected of ex-Trump converts”, a phrase as vague as possible. This leaves one with more questions than answers. What the hell are we supposed to expect from former reactionaries for them to welcome into our movement?
Some leftists do seem to think that the sinner is forever damned. All the time on Twitter this debate will rage on and on with people fighting over whether it’s ok for ex-Nazis to become DSA or IWW or PSL members. The problem is that at this level of abstraction the debate is simply pointless. Is this Ex-Nazi or Trump Supporter or ex-Military Intelligence officer a well-known public figure? Or are they just someone who passively supported a right wing politician because they held socially conservative or just ignorant views? Unless there is serious reason to think someone is being opportunist or cynical I don’t see any real reason to turn them away – why would they want to join our org if they didn’t have a real change of view? I don’t know how else we are supposed to see if their commitment to social justice is genuine other than by talking to them.
I think the heart of the issue, which Greer does touch upon, that we don’t change our politics to specifically target the 15% of socially conservative working class people, pandering to them with pathetic odes to family and country that no one will really buy into. What we need to do is hold true to our values and demonstrate that they are correct through the one thing that truly educates people: lived experience. And in this case, no experience changes people more than collective class struggle. It’s not a matter of creating a litmus test to see if someone is ideologically dedicated enough. People change through struggle, and what we need is not ideological purity before people a legible to struggle. The takeaway is not that we need to create a litmus test of commitment to the true values of socialism to see if ex-right wingers are worthy of joining our organizations but creating organizations that allow people to overcome their reactionary viewpoints by participating in struggle with workers. It’s struggle on the shopfloor as comrades where workers will come to question the racism and sexism that inspires them to support right wing demagogues like Trump.
Solidarity Forever,
Paul Duke
