Fidel Castro once said, “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a fight between past and future.”
I quote the late Cuban president because the world currently finds itself at a crossroads between the past and future. A new, uncertain age of tyranny has settled upon us in recent weeks. Combating this tyranny means understanding the history of the forces of old and evil — and how these forces will reinvent themselves in the years to come.
What’s amazing about Castro’s death is, despite the failure of the Cuban socialist project, the world still hungers for a resistance against imperialism and exploitation. As this resistance forms, it’s important to heed the lessons of the past, while at the same time creating political ideologies and movements that are indistinguishable from their predecessors.
The first goal of this resistance should be to destroy the Democratic Party and the toxic liberal ideology it espouses. No politically radical movement will flourish within the Democratic machine, as it is an openly anti-working class group that serves the interests of multinationals, banks and defense contractors. The fact of the matter is the Democratic Party is the same group that dropped atomic bombs on Japan, escalated the Vietnam War and signed neoliberal legislation throughout the 1990s.
Though the Democrats once had the appearance of a working class party, this changed in 1992 with the election of Bill Clinton. After his inauguration, Clinton met with his advisors to discuss economic policy. Growing annoyed with the pro-Wall Street advice he received, Clinton snapped, “You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” The answer was yes, and the transformation of the Democratic Party began.
This alone can explain the election of Donald Trump. The success of the far-right in the United States and Europe is not predicated on racism alone. Though racism is an important component of the far-right’s insurgence, its other distinguishing feature is unrelenting criticism of the political establishment.
It frankly doesn’t matter that Trump and those who led the Brexit movement are part of the elite themselves. They speak truth to power. Remember that a major selling point for Trump is that he supposedly “tells it like it is.” To the desperate and disenfranchised masses, Trump’s opportunistic vulgarity could be ignored as long as he pulled up the curtain and exposed the powerful.
Yet, according to the liberal establishment, Trump won because of white supremacy and “fake news.” If Trump’s only appeal was white supremacy, then how did he outperform Mitt Romney with minority voters? The liberals have every interest in playing down the dynamics of class relations within the United States. This is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic that splits the country along racial and cultural lines, preventing the formation of a working-class identity or consciousness.
The truth is that since the 1970s, a “class project” has taken place across the globe. This project is typically referred to as neoliberalism.This period is defined by the loss of social rights, economic inequality, deindustrialization, worker insecurity and environmental degradation. Put all of this together, and it becomes obvious that a class war has been waged against the population.
To quote the Marxist geographer David Harvey, “If it looks like class war, and it feels like class war, why don’t we call it class war? And why don’t we engage in it back?”
luwrobin@indiana.edu
