All of the notions that Trump won the U.S. Presidency are correct, but they also miss the point.
buy: The Parting of Jason Hickel
Yes, for the Democratic Party, fielding soulless candidates without a shred of progressive policy vision, arming and funding genocide while pursuing support from neocon hawks that everyone hates. It was insane to think that we could win by disrespecting and suppressing those who commit genocide. Have enough morals to protest against it. It’s infuriating that Democrats are so self-righteous and blind to this.
read: extinction of light
But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly.
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It is a dysfunctional ideology that cannot provide meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and must be abandoned.
Democrats have proven time and time again that they cannot accept even that. basic Measures such as public health care, affordable housing, and public employment guarantees will dramatically improve the material, social, and political conditions of the working class.
And they cannot accept fiscal strategies that steer production away from fossil fuels and toward a green transition to give us a chance at a livable future.
why? Because these things go against the purpose of capital accumulation. And for liberals, capital is sacred.
They are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation and that is their only consistent commitment. Domestically, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies.
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Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices and block the possibility of sovereign economic development in the Global South.
The Democratic Party, all its life, has done all of this deliberately and knowingly, not as some kind of “mistake” but with full awareness that it is in the interests of capital.
And since liberalism cannot address our crisis and crushes socialist alternatives, it will inevitably pave the way for right-wing populism.
Even though they know this pattern, they still take the risk every time. This election is just the most recent example.
terrifying
They did it in 2016, aggressively crushing the Sanders campaign and putting Trump in the White House. They do this because ultimately they, and I’m referring here to the liberal establishment, don’t really care if the fascists come to power, as long as they secure the conditions for capital accumulation.
They prefer this 100 percent to the possibility of a socialist alternative. So progressives have to face reality. The dream of “converting” the Democratic Party is over.
This is now a fact and must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass movement capable of reclaiming the working class, uniting disparate progressive struggles into a unified and powerful political force, and mobilizing the political means capable of achieving substantive change. be.
This requires real work, real organization, but it has to happen, and that process has to start now.
this author
Jason Hickel is Professor at ICTA-UAB and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at LSE, London. he is the author of divide and Less is better. He writes about global inequality, political economy, and ecological economics. This comment first appeared on X.com, where Jason uses the handle @jasonhickel.org.
