{"id":1668,"date":"2020-10-01T05:17:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T09:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2021-05-16T14:03:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T18:03:37","slug":"the-urgency-of-anti-fascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2020\/10\/the-urgency-of-anti-fascism\/","title":{"rendered":"The urgency of anti-fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>e all face a growing danger \u2014 workers, people of color, queer folks, women, immigrants, socialists and left-anarchists, and all others who do not fit into the white nationalist \u201cpatriotic” narrative. This is not hyperbole or fear mongering. It is becoming a fact of \u201cAmerican\u201d life. Recognizing this does not mean running back to the skeletal bosom of U.S. liberalism. In fact, it means the opposite.<\/p>\n

For this reason, I took issue with some of David Renton\u2019s recent formulations around Donald Trump and the question of fascism, particularly in his blog post, \u201cOn the limits of liberal anti-fascism.\u201d<\/a> Renton has since responded<\/a> with a more nuanced view that I appreciate, although one that still seems somewhat distanced from the immediacy of the threat. Here I will unpack some of this disagreement, and sketch out a case for anti-fascist urgency.<\/p>\n

I want to emphasize, at the same time, my complete agreement<\/em> with the conclusion of Renton\u2019s latter blog post: “If I was in the States I\u2019d be thinking \u2013 is there an anti-fascist coalition in my city? What have I done to build it<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Slouching Toward Fascism<\/h4>\n

\u201cOn the limits of liberal anti-fascism,\u201d<\/a> seems to present too much of a focus on the definition of historic fascism, rather than seeing it as a dynamic within capitalism, a possible tendency born of crisis.<\/p>\n

The difference between fascism and \u201cnormal\u201d liberal and conservative politics isn’t simply quantitative<\/em>\u2014Trump deported less people than Obama, Trump hasn’t built that much wall, etc.\u2014it is qualitative<\/em>. It is that fascism reconciles (or tries to reconcile), temporarily, in the interests of capital, contradictions that can’t be resolved by the normal functioning of bourgeois democracy. It achieves this, in part, by reactionary overhauls to the capitalist state in tandem with a mutually-reinforcing,<\/em> reactionary mass movement (largely made up of the disaffected middle-class).<\/p>\n