"I was so proud of my 88- and 89-year-old parents for wanting to join yesterday's demonstration, and join the well-intentioned movement against oligarchy and fascism. It felt great to be surrounded by such an enormous number and broad range of strangers who all shared the same outrage towards the current administration. The shouts and horn-honking were very heartening. If nothing else, it showed how many of us there are.
At the same time, there was a strong contingent who enjoyed the camaraderie and performative aspect, but ironically reduced the sense that any real change might result. For example, the Harris "I'm Speaking" t-shirts celebrating her famous dismissal of Democrats warning she would lose the election if she didn't adopt a better policy on genocide and war crime. Or signs celebrating Cory Booker, who has a long history of Trump-like positions on AIPAC and public education. Or signs celebrating Joe Biden, whose climate policy centered around building more Tesla charging stations. To me this contingent lent the demonstration a defeatist undertone.
Two clues that this "anti-oligarchy" demonstration posed no real threat to oligarchy (or capital, militarism, or the police state) were that they were widely advertised and covered by oligarch-owned media, and at least in Tucson, there was zero police presence. Compare this to many demonstrations in recent years that actually have posed a threat to capital, militarism, oligarchy or the police state. Even when they are perfectly peaceful and organized by Jews, they are deemed "terrorist" and "anti-Semitic", met with instant and overwhelming police attacks and arrests, while being ignored by oligarch-owned media.
Democrats seem to be responding to Republican radicalism by attempting to re-frame themselves as the Conservative party, calling for the Republican changes to stop, and for a return to the "normalcy" of last year. This is obviously a losing strategy, supported only by a shrinking white middle class that still benefits from such "normalcy." This strategy proposed to simply recreate the exact conditions that led to mass disillusionment and the election of a Hitler-esque candidate.
Many wondered aloud how there could even still be any Trump supporters, considering the violence he's doing to the people, institutions, and norms of the country and the world. This forgets that in order to support someone, you don't have to agree with everything they do. You only have to be tricked into believing that there are only two possible choices and that your person is better than the alternative.
I remind liberals what they were willing to overlook in order to display Biden or Harris bumper stickers and yard signs last year: record levels of poverty and homelessness, record deportations, record military budget, record fossil fuel profits, record transfer of wealth to billionaires, constant lies, and a literal genocide. All because "we have no other choice and this is better than the alternative." Not so different in mindset from the "incomprehensible" Trump holdouts.
Democrats and Republicans are not identical. But they are two factions of a capitalist/militarist/oligarchic/fascist ideology that stands for mass deportation, mass incarceration, mass poverty, mass transfer of wealth to billionaires, lobbying, ignoring public opinion, privatization of human needs, forever war, arms dealing, nuclear weapons, crime, segregation, apartheid, land theft, genocide, violent crackdowns on dissent, and putting fossil fuel profit above human survival.
It is one thing to oppose this capitalist/militarist/oligarchic/fascist ideology. It is another to say "I'm ok with this ideology, as long as I'm the beneficiary and someone else is the victim." The latter is the mantra of brainwashed American political cheerleaders of both major parties. But you will never stamp out fascism by insisting on no change of course for the defeated opposition party, no third party, no revolution. Stamping out fascism will probably require something more radical and bold, something that would dramatically improve people's worsening material conditions."
— Deerhoof / Greg Saunier
