Shifting Focus

Organizing for Revolution Not Crisis Avoidance

Kali Akuno, Brian Drolet, Doug Norberg

Since the meteoric rise of Donald J. Trump in 2015, significant numbers of liberals, progressives, social democrats and leftists have been fixated on his politics, policies, and personality and what they portend for the future of liberal democracy. This built on a fixation with the elections of right-wing strongmen like Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Erdoğan, Boris Johnson, Narendra Modi and Viktor Orban to name a few. The rise of the “strong men’‘ has been interpreted by many on the left throughout the world as a sign that the so-called “age of liberal democracy” is coming to an end and that fascism is ascendant. In response, we are being widely implored by these forces to concentrate our energy on “defending democracy.”

Fighting to save democracy under capitalism is a dead end

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“There are many deeply problematic and dangerous presumptions embedded in this “defend democracy” orientation. For one, it says and does nothing for the vast majority of humanity that have never experienced the alleged benefits of bourgeois democracy. And for another, it presumes that bourgeois democracy is the antidote to fascism, rather than its enabling twin.”

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