Several months ago I heard long-time progressive activist George Lakey speak on a zoom call. One of the main issues he addressed was political polarization and how, though it may feel otherwise, it can be positive, a reflection of major changes for the better, potentially, taking place in society.
There is a very big, current macro example of this. Over the last seven years we have seen the Republican Party become dominated by extreme right-wingers, deniers of democracy and climate disruption and upholders of racism, patriarchy, heterosexism and deepening class oppression. At the same time we have experienced an increase in left-wing progressivism via the two Bernie Sanders Presidential campaigns, deep and wide climate justice activism, an upsurge of the anti-racist, women’s, labor and other movements, and the growth of both The Squad and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
This growth of strong progressivism was in large part a response to the serious threat represented by the rise of Trumpism. And although those neo-fascist, regressive political forces were set back in the elections a month ago, it is clear that they have not been defeated. There will be on-going battles for the foreseeable future.
How can we ultimately defeat them? It won’t come about via the pro-corporate, incrementalist-at-best approach of the dominant forces in the Democratic Party. It is that approach which, via NAFTA and other “free trade” policies during the Bill Clinton Presidency, decimated an already struggling industrial working class in the US. This had something to do with the eventual rise of the rightist Tea Party movement, followed by the rise of Trumpism and the positive response to it from far too many white workers.
The political battle between system-critical progressives, system-accepting centrists and rightist authoritarians-or-worse is nothing new. It goes back centuries throughout much of the world. Is there anything different about our situation today that can give us hope that si, se puede, yes, we can win? I think there is.
A major difference in the 21st century is that we are facing the certainty that human societies and ecosystems will unravel in apocalyptic ways in the coming decades if, at a minimum, we do not break the power of the fossil fuel industry and their allies and shift rapidly as a world to conservation, energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Several days ago on CNN I saw Neil…