Where I live, people are angry, even apoplectic, and for good reason: our communities and ecosystems have been destroyed by a toxic mixture of neoliberalism, racism, cultural degradation and militarism, both domestic and foreign.
Rightwing Populism in the Shadows of Globalization
Northwest Indiana, like hundreds of communities throughout the American Rust Belt, was at one time an industrial powerhouse. But those days are long gone. Steel mills that once employed over 125,000 union steelworkers in the mid-1980s, today employ less than 35,000 in an area stretching from Chicago to South Bend. Overall, millions of manufacturing jobs are gone. And from the looks of it, those numbers will continue to rise, with no alternatives available for displaced workers and their families, only minimum wage jobs and a skeletal welfare state to make up the difference.
Indeed, it’s not just the jobs that are missing from our once vibrant region – the night clubs, bars, restaurants, cultural institutions and various local businesses that once dominated our urban landscape are now vacant lots, drug houses or sparse prairies littered with used heroin needles and empty liquor bottles. Homicide and violent crime are the norm.
Before August 2014, no one outside of the Midwest had ever heard of Ferguson, Missouri. Yet, those of us who grew up in highly segregated communities immediately identified with and understood the situation. At the time, I remember thinking about what the future would bring.
Today, we’re getting a glimpse of that future: Donald Trump, a growing number of antigovernment militias, emboldened white supremacists, and well-funded rightwing opposition to even the most limited progressive legislation and ideologies.
Without doubt, this anger will grow. Namely, because the jobs are never coming back. Corporate Globalization has failed. From China to Japan, Greece to the U.S., global capitalism is increasingly fragile and incapable of providing a decent and stable standard of living. Consequently, the U.S. (much like Europe) has seen the rise of rightwing demagogues such as Donald Trump, although Trump is not alone in the American context. In fact, a majority of Republicans agree with virtually every one of his policies; they simply talk about the issues in coded terms, whereas Trump says what he wishes, as he wishes, regardless of how offensive or incorrect his comments may be.
Unsurprisingly, according to a recent NBC/Esquire poll, “Half of all Americans are angrier today than they were a year ago. White Americans are the angriest of all.” Interestingly, the angriest group within White America is the middle-class who feels increasingly disenfranchised:
Are you disappointed? Do you feel stifled and shortchanged and sold a bill of goods? Then you’re probably pretty angry. Consider the white men and women in our survey: From their views on the state of the American dream (dead) and America’s role in the world (not what it used to be) to how their life is working out for them (not quite what they’d had in mind), a plurality of whites tends to view life through a veil of disappointment. When we cross-tabulate these feelings with reports of daily anger (which are higher among whites than nonwhites), we see the anger of perceived disenfranchisement—a sense that the majority has become a persecuted minority, the bitterness of a promise that didn’t pan out—rather than actual hardship.
What’s most shocking, almost scary, has been the manner in which progressives, leftists and liberals have reacted to these trends. Back in 2010, many progressives ignored the T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) Party. After all, it was an astroturf political movement (billionaires and millionaires were the primary pushers of the Tea Party Brand). However, the Right’s corporate-manufactured brand of politics resonated, and still resonates, with a significant segment of white Americans.
In 2010, progressives laughed at the Tea Party’s absurd costumes and childish rhetoric. Even today, many progressives snicker at the prospect of a Trump presidency. At some point, however, progressives will stop laughing, and in my thinking, that day is coming soon, if it hasn’t come already.
White Americans and the Future
It’s vitally important to remember that civil society is an inherently fragile project. Turn off the water, cut the food supply, or drastically shut down a society’s electrical infrastructure, and the tide of violence and irrationality quickly engulfs entire communities and nations.
To many people, these scenarios seem extreme or far-fetched, yet according to the world’s top climate scientists and ecological experts, those days are quickly approaching (if they haven’t already for communities such as Flint, Michigan or Gary, Indiana, to name just a couple cities that are living in a Third World status). As sea levels rise, food shortages increase and extreme weather (droughts, wild fires, tornados, hurricanes) becomes the norm, it is projected that hundreds of millions of people around the world will be displaced.
Worse yet, these disasters are expected to take place at a time when the global economy can no longer provide even the most minimal material security to broad segments of the global population. Combine these trends with existing racial tensions, segregation, the proliferation of weapons, income/wealth inequality, and limited access to welfare state resources, and we’re left with a deadly mixture. In this context, progressives must organize white communities in order to possibly avoid, and most likely endure, the most cataclysmic of future scenarios.
Right now, the Left’s inability to organize middle, working-class and poor white communities is a political inconvenience, an inconvenience that is quickly becoming a full-time political impediment to enacting any meaningful progressive political changes. Under current socio-economic-political conditions, the Left still has an opportunity to mobilize angry whites around progressive values and leftist politics. Yet, there will be several challenges in doing so:
Racism: Without question, getting whites in the U.S. to critically discuss the history of race relations and what that history means today is quite the task. Here, there are two levels of racism white people must examine: a) personal racism, and b) structural racism.The first level, personal racism, is the easiest to discuss, critique and change. On an individual level, it’s simple to rectify peoples’ views and behaviors. On an institutional level, the processes are much more complicated and challenging. Without doubt, a combination of popular education, symbolic actions, creative enterprises, direct action campaigns, alternative electoral parties and civil disobedience will be necessary. Anti-racist organizing also requires an infrastructure. At the same time, the Left is broke. Thus there are few material resources for such endeavors. Until this dynamic is rectified, antiracist movements will continue to fluctuate, as there is simply no permanent infrastructure available to address, challenge and dismantle institutional racism.
Guns: Since there is no reasonable way to confiscate weapons in the U.S., and since that would never happen even if there were reasonable avenues, progressive activists would be wise to focus their energies on the sources of gun violence as opposed to gun violence as such. Remember, a good portion of white voters remain loyal to the Republican Party, not only because they harbor racist ideologies, but also because they fear that someday the Federal Government is going to take away their guns. Educating working-class and poor whites around this particular issue is important, regardless of whether or not progressives think so. White people consistently vote against their own interests. Here, we can have a discussion about what is more important: Guns? Or living wage jobs? Today, these conversations are mediated through FoxNews and MSNBC, which only further alienates people. Working-class whites aren’t going to listen to people who look and sound like Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow: we need blue collar progressives to speak to working-class and poor whites.
Religion: Without question, the Christian Right is a potent and destructive force in American politics. Here, I don’t think it’s critical to encourage white people to give up their religious beliefs, as much as I think it’s important to provide them with alternative religious perspectives and ideologies. In other words, it doesn’t make sense to completely bash religion, but it does make sense to point out why reactionary religious beliefs are counterproductive while simultaneously providing alternative perspectives on race, class, poverty, war, and so on. Progressive churches exist, but have limited capacities and resources. These entities may provide an entry point for progressives to engage working-class and poor whites around spiritual issues and so forth.
Of course the above list is insufficient, but it’s a starting point. Talking about race allows us to speak with whites about the prison-industrial-complex, economic inequality, poverty, public education and the War on Drugs. Discussions about guns allow us to explore the cultural coordinates of the white working-class, their fears and anxieties. And serious conversations surrounding religious beliefs and spirituality allow us a space to talk about gender, reproductive rights, patriarchy, etc.
Additionally, serious debates about what the state does, doesn’t do, can and can’t do, are equally important. Anti-state propaganda proliferates TV and radio airwaves, to the point where it’s almost impossible to convince many white Americans that the government can indeed be a useful and at times necessary entity.
In the end, activists must put aside their own anxieties and hypersensitivities if they hope to effectively organize whites in the U.S. It will be challenging, demanding, and require great patience. Progressives will undoubtedly encounter individuals and organizations who will speak and behave in ways that are foreign to their values. Some of their organizing experiences will seem jarring, even outright offensive. But that’s okay: people change, if given the chance. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, so let’s get to work.
Vincent Emanuele can be reached at [email protected].
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