For a long time, a phrase on the left has been socialism or barbarism. Sadly, as we look towards the presidential election, socialism doesn’t seem immediately plausible, but barbarism sure does. It’s important to see the historical moment for what it is before jumping to conclusions on steps toward achieving socialism in America. To frame all of America’s problems on increased capitalist accumulation misses something key. Dangerous policies from America’s right push forms of cruelty that have little to nothing to do with surplus value extraction. I find barbarism the best term to use over fascism for two reasons: one, fascism is overused by many sides, and two, Nazis and fascists of the mid-20th century are merely specific types of barbaric societies. Fascism and other forms of authoritarian madness feature elements not connected with growing an economy. As socialists, we oppose moving America backwards, and it is critical to break down what the outcomes could be if the Republicans win the election, since real material consequences stand in the balance for many.
Leading up to the 2020 election, activists had reason for hope. After the police murder of George Floyd, all sorts of elements of American society got fed up and took to the streets. The people demanded defunding the police and for America to truly stand for liberty and justice for all, but the results in police reform have been non-existent nationwide. Police reform is not part of the Democratic party agenda, local, state, or federal. If police want to treat non-white people worse than white citizens and even kill them, it is not part of the Democratic party’s agenda to make any changes to police standard operating procedure. Despite the brief moment of Americans coming together for racial justice and police reform, New York City elected a Democratic Party cop, and recently Portland, Maine followed suit. It is further from the truth that the Democrats are against police: in fact, police are key to the coalition. Why would a party based on the slavers’ Constitution of the United States that famously opposed reconstruction be against the police?
After over 30 years of the Republicans treating the Supreme Court as a hyper-partisan body and infamously putting rapists and abusers on the court, Roe v. Wade was finally overturned. The new landscape is clear: if states want to ban abortion, they may, anyway they wish. The right to make medical decisions with a doctor doesn’t apply, with a growing number of states having criminal penalties for abortion. Democrats deserve some credit in places like Maine, pushing for more expanded protections for abortion but, on the flip side, a federal plan to make abortion legal in all 50 states doesn’t seem to exist. The thought of a pro-choice supermajority being able to vote in abortion rights is far less plausible than Republican majorities shutting down abortion rights in the remaining states that allow it. It is certainly true that we have no movement from the Democrats on packing the court, which seems pretty insane considering the Republicans have put some of the most corrupt people imaginable on the court. What the way out is remains to be seen, but as it stands every election has the ability to affect abortion rights federally, and on the state level that is now a reality, not just a slogan. It should be noted that labor force participation rates are at an all-time low in America, which kills the dishonest Republican argument that we must have more kids for new workers.
Immigration has become one of the biggest right-wing social issues, with former President Trump claiming he will implement the largest deportation program in history if reelected. To say the Democrats enabled the Republicans and did very little for a dignified immigration policy is an understatement. Housing prices have become a massive problem in American cities, and we have countless examples of Democratic party-run cities that aren’t coming up with solutions for housing people coming to America: homeless shelters and busing them around are part of the “solutions.” The right plays its old trick, turning broke Americans against immigrants, this time more focused on housing over jobs. Without defending or cheerleading the Democrats, if Trump follows through with the biggest deportation program in history we fall closer to barbarism. Using state resources to rid the country of immigrants is above and beyond just capitalism, since it would not expand surplus value extraction at all and would cost the federal government a lot of money. The Nazis didn’t gas people to expand capitalism or win the war, they did this in spite of those goals. Barbarism is much bigger than the value form and history is a lesson.
Finally, we come to the right’s war on transgender people, which has accelerated in ways that absolutely should be compared to Nazi Germany. I don’t wish to do a deep dive into trans history, but it has been shocking to go from the Obama era, in which very few people outside of LGBTQ circles discussed trans people, to the conspiratorial idea that gender clinics are mutilating our kids and that public school teachers are trying to force people to be trans. None of the Republicans’ claims about trans people make any sense, and the right could never get away with the open slurs and lies about any minority in America like they do with trans folks. Just like abortion, honest people who support freedom, justice, and liberty for all don’t get between healthcare providers and gender-affirming care. The right’s claims about trans people today are on the same level as 1930s claims in Germany about blood libel. Multiple states have banned care for trans children with many hoping to do the same for trans adults. Florida doesn’t allow them to use the correct restrooms and now may criminalize trans people for using a driver’s license. To be fair, I’m unaware of a plan from Democrats nationally in Congress to address this, and in places like Maine, Democrats have backed down from further protection of trans people in response to right-wing lies and violent threats. Just like abortion, it’s hard to deny a Republican majority with Trump would attempt to negate trans rights nationwide. Just like all these issues I’m highlighting, making it illegal to be trans doesn’t expand capitalism, it is just barbarism.
One of the most blood-boiling issues right now is the voters don’t have a candidate for president to stand up on these issues in a serious way. The last decade should have been used to build an independent left-wing party, but history had other ideas, Democrats adopted Occupy Wall Street language, and Bernie Sanders, an open socialist, mounted two charges within the Democratic Party primary process that stood zero chance but drew a large number of young adults into the Democratic Party spear. This isn’t an essay to reargue history, it’s one trying to create some clarity on the historical moment. The honest and sad assessment is that building a serious left-wing party this year is not occurring. Both Jill Stein and Cornel West poll way behind crackpot and former Democratic party nepotist Robert Kennedy Jr., with little hope of closing the gap or ever receiving much mainstream media coverage. After Ralph Nader’s historical run in 2000, Nader put efforts into growing the Green Party, but what isn’t as widely known is that Nader abandoned the Greens before his 2004 run due to the lack of seriousness the party has always had. I’m a former member of the Maine Green Independent Party and ran for State Senate: they do not operate democratically or openly, and many early 2000s Maine green activists have left for the Maine Democratic Party, including a sitting State Senator. The Georgia Green Party was infamously disaffiliated from the national Green Party in 2021 for being bigoted against trans folks. The Green Party is nothing but a corpse from the 20th century with very little energy outside presidential election years and, at every turn post-2000, has never come close to its 5 percent goal. Even a modest goal of having 50 state parties having democratic input from working folks and growing a coalition is something the American Green Party isn’t able to pull off.
If a party cannot win over 5 percent, scare the major parties, and grow itself, at what point do you cut the cord and try something else? I do not think any idealists in the Green Party, up to and including Jill Stein, can tell us. To be clear, I would never attack Stein’s values; I think she speaks clearly on a number of issues and doesn’t support barbarism against women, trans folks, or new Americans. But what does listening to her speeches and having her finish well behind Kennedy do for anyone, including the American left? Cornel West gave me and others optimism when he stated he would seek the Green Party nomination last year, West has good name recognition and, like Dr. Stein, has a good set of values. With that said, West seems to have no plan to get on all 50 state ballots by his own team’s admission and makes unfounded claims about being competitive in Michigan. After leaving the People’s Party and the Green Party, West is treating an election like rising the ranks of academia, making boastful claims about his chances with no evidence backing that up. In the end, joining DNC operatives to ask these people to leave the race would be undemocratic and wrong, but I would argue both of these runners have no plans to build a left-wing party and do not even have serious plans to build coalitions that could gather 5 percent or more per state. What is the point of speaking to true believers, having no chance to build a party, and putting us right back into the same boat before 2028? I’m not calling them spoilers, but West and Stein saying things like “I will make abortion legal” or even “I will stop war spending” doesn’t move the needle. They both know they have no chance at a victory that would allow them to attempt any policy. I have no moral concern if someone wants to vote for these two; I have a problem with anyone claiming these efforts are bringing the masses into a left-wing party that can do anything. The high horse that West and Stein are more moral than Joe Biden doesn’t end barbarism in America and does not feed any workers.
When considering lesser evil voting for Biden, which I’m reluctant to do (I’ve voted 3rd party for president my whole life), I’d ask a few moral questions in response to the online left-wing discourse. Was it okay for the working classes to support Winston Churchill in their efforts to protect the United Kingdom and liberate Europe? Churchill was no friend of the working class but was far better than Adolf Hitler, and of course, working class people should have supported the end of Hitler! I feel today’s hooligans on the left might support Hilter on grounds of ending the British crown and British imperialism, the way I see online discourse heading. A more American example would be the Vietnam War and alternative service in the US military. Some Americans fled to Canada and others were able to earn conscientious objector status but a third group was able to serve with the military without going to the front lines and killing people. My point is that no serious left discussion pits different elements of Americans avoiding combat duty in what was a dangerous historical moment. I would never argue on Biden’s political history that he deserves to be president and, as I’ve pointed out, the Democratic Party has no plans to make abortion legal, end all anti-trans laws, and treat immigrants with respect. The Democratic Party holds the slavers’ constitution just as near and dear as it always has. The irony is that the vast majority of elements of America who should be labeled slavers support Trump and the Republicans. To win the election, Biden clearly needs young people and various elements frightened by the bigoted and barbaric Republicans to come to his side. I don’t for a second think the Democratic Socialists of America or anyone else can push the party or Biden left. That has always failed historically and is not worth my time in any essay. One more time, I’m incapable of making a moral argument that you must vote for Biden but I’m willing to throw it back to others on the left and ask, what else is the plan? Does having abortion illegal in all 50 states, more criminalization of trans people as well as the biggest deportation program in history get us closer to socialism? No, it does not, and I for one will not entertain the various feel-good hooligan idealists who claim that is true. It seems clear that nobody has an alternative to the Democratic coalition in 2024 if you value keeping the barbaric Republicans out of power. You can go to a Cornel West rally, you can do expressive protest in the streets, you can even be an anarchist who doesn’t vote, but none of those things are moving the needle to keep Republicans from turning up the barbarism.
I won’t claim to care or know who Karl Marx would vote, for mainly because he’s dead and we have to make our own choices, but I know Marxism has distorted his views on history and revolution. Karl Marx admired Abraham Lincoln for knowing his historical role, not because Lincoln was a socialist. It’s absolutely true Lincoln was awful on a number of issues, including Native Americans, but he led America out of slavery to a new epoch in capitalism. Would today’s American left support the Union and The Republican party of that time? I almost doubt it…
In a tour de force of language, Marx details Napoleon III’s rise to power. In The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, when read closely, Marx is critical of everyone, including the working classes. Marx shows how the bumbler Bonaparte rises to power despite not having a clear plan. Does this remind you of anyone? My point is we have no canned responses on how to rise to historical moments and we should not fall victim to Orthodox Marxist ideas from the 20th century that produced the failing USSR and capitalist China. The idea that Marx spent a lot of time on how the working classes would create a revolution in his writing is a Marxist idealism. Karl never looked up to Nostradamus. The task at hand in 2024 is to find out what is best for today, that helps set conditions for tomorrow towards socialism. A deep fall into barbarism is not a step closer to socialism.
I firmly believe that a coalition of the American public needs to reject anti-abortion politics, reject anti-trans politics, and oppose any and all efforts to mistreat immigrants. I opened this essay with BLM summer not only to bash The Democratic Party. I cite it because it proved a coalition of decent people in modern America is possible; we just got blocked by the Democrats from defunding the police. To repeat myself, I have seen no evidence firsthand or otherwise that the Green Party or West has any ability to create that coalition. I don’t have clear answers on how to successfully launch a left party to beat Biden this year, so I refuse to waste my time on that. Now is the time to focus on preventing further barbarism, and if that means supporting the Democratic coalition I say so be it. A demand from the left of a constitutional convention is something I’m brainstorming for 2025 and beyond, as we must come up with a way to end the slavers’ constitution, expand liberty and justice for all, and make America about human values, not endless capitalism. Lesser evil voting isn’t a choice of moral values today, it’s about material reality. I like Marx and try to base all my political thinking around material reality. Do you really expect me or anyone to believe less liberty for women, trans folks and immigrants helps us get socialism? More barbarism is not the historical answer.
-Seth Baker
