4 POEMS by Ben Nardolilli

Nauseated Drive has published 4 POEMS by me. I say POEMS because that's how they chose to title the section about my works. I guess one by itself is still a poem but taken together they are POEMS. So head on over and read them.

New Year, New Poems

New year and new decade (the twenties start in 2020, don't @ me) Two poems of mine are in Sleet Magazine's Millennial Edition. The second one I wrote while taking the Empire Builder (pictured above).

Part V: The Final Frontier (So Very, Very Tired)

Wow, I’ve spent so long talking about who I think shouldn’t win and there’s little space to say who should get the nomination. I guess based on what I’ve previously written, you the reader can understand now where I’m coming from and where I hope the party and the country go from here on out. We need a candidate that will deal with the problems we face, rather than seek compromise right after their inaugurated. We need someone who will bring progress rather than a return to Neoliberalism and austerity. America has to end the endless wars abroad, and the War on Drugs at home. There needs to be healthcare for all, education for all, labor rights for all, and reproductive rights for all. The Democratic Party needs to become a working class party in order to remain viable, and a Green New Deal has to be pursued in order for human existence on this planet to be viable too. We need a candidate who will fight and will leave no options off the table. Packing the Court? Declaring a Climate Emergency? Nationalizing industries? They all have to be considered.

We need to make up for lost time folks

We have to be as radical as reality. There are only two candidates in the race who understand this, and have a chance of winning. They have the ability to come down from the Mountain, conquer the Plain, seize the Dais, and crush the gatekeepers along the way. They represent the Only Real Hope Tier, and I wish it was the biggest bench in this contest. But what can you do, other than see them get elected? From a process of deduction, it should be obvious who they are by now:

Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders

Yep. Two. Count them again. It’s a depressing number. I wish there was someone younger, someone of color, and someone more radical who could run, but alas, AOC is too damn young and Ilhan Omar was born abroad. I guess there’s something of a blessing here. The radical vote won’t be split and the it won’t be lost amid a cacophony clamoring for Medicare for All on the debate stage. If Warren or Sanders win, it’ll bring up a whole generation of progressives hopefully into office, and it will drag those in the middle to the Left. Victory leaves a garden in its wake.

Of these two candidates, I rank Sanders higher than Warren. In my dream world, Sanders runs, wins, gets a term, then decided not to run again. Instead, it’s his Vice President Warren who follows him into office. Maybe AOC will come after her. Then again, it might be Subcommandante Lee Carter. I understand the desire for a female president and I don’t believe Warren would have that much harder of a time getting elected than Sanders. She’d be just as electable

So why pick Sanders over her? I think Warren has great ideas and solid proposals. It’s good that she leaves other candidates clamoring behind in her wake, looking for policies of their own. Just as Sanders moved the party left in 2016, Warren is crystallizing the commitments of others. They can no longer wear a label like “progressive.” They have to explain their stances. However, I think there are differences between Sanders and Warren, which make me back him over Warren. Needless to say, I would be fine supporting either of them in the general (Tankies, feel free to call me a dirty, dirty lib in the comments)

The first difference is foreign policy. Sanders is much more anti-imperialist in his orientation. He doesn’t just want a “green” army like Warren. He wants to shrink it and bring it home. His whole life he’s opposed intervention and wars abroad and that’s crucial. People forget that the President’s greatest power is as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Congress and the Courts give the Executive the widest latitude here. Warren is nowhere near as bad as Biden, or the rest of the field. I don’t think she’ll get us into a war with Iran. But will she radically change our approach to the country? Or Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela? Or on the other hand end our blank cheque of support to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia?

The second different is the relationship to the Democratic Party. Warren wants to take the party as it is and lead it to a more progressive direction. It’s an admirable goal, but without changing the fundamental structure of the Democratic Party, she’ll be constantly blocked by the DNC. The donor class will try and put the kibosh on whatever she proposes. Due to his background running more grassroots campaigns and insurgent candidacies, Sanders has more experience building the mass movements necessary to change the party from within.  The Democrats have to become a party devoted and made up of the working class first and foremost. Otherwise, it’ll never be able to fight directly for the proposals of Sanders, Warren, AOC, or anyone on the Left. The Party needs to speak with one voice and fight as one instead of arguing and fighting amongst itself. Since the rich already have a party, the GOP, they can all go there instead. A Sanders victory will help accelerate that trend. He’ll push the rich out of the party like St. Patrick and the snakes in Ireland.

Lastly, Sanders and Warren have different visions of the economy and what needs to happen with American Capitalism. Warren is a reformist. To be fair, she’s a far greater reformist than anyone since FDR and that should be noted. However, she’ll leave in place the parts of the economy that have brought us back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s. What good is to merely reform things so that we may one day have to deal with finance wrecking everything all over again? A stronger approach has to be taken. Warren hints that she might be able to get there eventually. She has proposed putting workers on corporate boards. But Sanders sees the system as fundamentally unequal and unsound. He knows that attempts to regulate it while leaving capital in the hands of an unelected elite is no long-term solution. He understands that the democratic control of the economy is the only way forward. In Sanders’ American it will be for the many, not the few at all levels of society. So as in the ballot box, so as in the boardroom.

I know Warren has more concrete proposals than Sanders, or at least ideas for specific legislation that have managed to percolate to the top of the political discussion. Sanders’ campaign is more about emphasis and stressing values. Both of them have a vision, however it is filtered in different ways that reflect the different personalities running. Remember my old extended metaphor of the Plain and the Mountain? Sanders and Warren are both candidates from the Mountain who are uniquely situates to leave the rafters and seize the Dais. Each of them will do so with their own approach. Warren is coming down from Mount Sinai, with commandments and laws. Meanwhile, Bernie is coming down from Mount Olivet. Either way, they’re coming for your graven images, false idols, golden calves, and fig trees.

Part III: The Plain and the Mountain

In my last post, I discussed a tier of candidates who will pretty much do everything in their power to return the party to the 90s and keep it there. Whether it’s the 1890s or the 1990s is the main point of contention among them. None want to update the Democratic party to fit in with the values of its members, or confront a changing world. Their solutions are unworkable and their ideas are old. They believe in a return to a much-fabled normalcy, which is about as Utopian as the proposals of Fourier or Lyndon LaRouche. Putting them at the top of the ticket would be wrong and it would be a losing strategy, especially down-ballot.

Now we move on to those candidates who are slightly better than the Backset Democrats previously discussed. They at least understand the direction the party and the country are moving in (left, and towards disaster, respectively) and what to do to accommodate these changes. Some of them are fairly chameleon-like in their politics, such as Gillibrand, and that is worrying. However, this group of Democrats, are still amenable to pressure. They may not be ideologically committed to either change, nor the status quo, but they can be moved.

Call them the Progressive Centrists, although I think the term Centrist here has to be understood in relation to the party as a whole. It is not about left or right, rather the Plain and the Mountain. Students of the French Revolution will understand what I mean. Listeners of Mike Duncan’s podcast will too. The terms left and right are based on where people sat in the National Assembly in 1789. Supporters of the king sat on the right of the legislative body, those who wanted more radical changes sat on the left. Since then, we’ve come to use left-wing and right-wing to describe political beliefs. However, back in Revolutionary France, this distinction gave way in the subsequent National Convention, where delegates grouped themselves based on a different arrangement that was dictated by the particular seating of their meeting hall in the Tuileries Palace.

Here, there were seats close to the main dais, seats behind them, and then seats on an elevated platform around the room. Delegates chose to sit close together based on their beliefs, with the right-wing Girondins sitting together near the front and the left-wing Jacobins and others sitting in the gallery. In between them was the majority of the Convention, men who would vote with either faction. They became known as the Plain (or Marsh) while those radicals who occupied the galleries became known as the Mountain.

The reason for this little history lesson is that I think this arrangement shows how the factions in the current Democratic party operate. The National Convention in sense looks very much like a political convention today, with more conservative party leaders at the front and center, the party faithful representing states in the middle, and the activists and radicals in the rear and the galleries (the new Mountain). The candidates of the Plain represent those who believe in the Democratic Party, but also want it to do more. They are reformists and progressives of different stripes who are moved by the voices coming from the radical peanut gallery.

Here are the candidates of the Plain as I see them:

Kamala Harris
Kirsten Gillibrand
Andrew Yang
Bill De Blasio
Julián Castro

…and sometimes

Buttigieg (Schrodinger’s candidate)

Of course, unlike the Plain in the French Revolution, they are more willing to lead on their own terms, rather than allow others in the Democratic Party’s factions to dictate the direction of the party. They want to bring the left and right together in the spirit of common agreement on the common good in order to defeat Trump. They see the need to update the Party as well, and do things to appeal to younger voters. Hence you have Andrew Yang and his proposal for a basic income, and his internet-centric campaign. You also have Castro arguing for Reparations for African-Americans and Harris even talking about potential support for Medicare for All (though she’s walked that back recently, remember the Plain listens to both the Mountain and the donors up at the Dais).

They all have their problems, which is why I put them above the Backset Democrats and below the candidates who are either of the Mountain, or willing to come down from it. The first is that they do not go far enough to solve the problems of this country. The second, is that they are too willing to moderate themselves for the interests of the donor-class. The third is that most of them have been in office before and haven’t used it to try and advance their own agendas. Harris was a reactionary prosecutor. Castro didn’t do much about the affordable housing crisis at HUD. Gillibrand was a fairly conservative congresswoman when it came to immigration. Yang was a capitalist.

DeBlasio probably has the most progressive accomplishments of anyone running besides Warren and Sanders. However, what’s concerning about him is the lack of a structural vision for the government and the party. After all, he was hampered the most in office from a fellow Democrat: Governor Andrew Cuomo. It would be great if he could run with ideas about improving the power of cities and local government at the expense of states, and how to revolutionize the country’s transportation systems. DeBlasio’s a big guy, but he needs big ideas to stand out. Things could change. DeBlasio might start issuing one policy idea after another, making pledges left and right to the Mountain.

This primary has had an interesting effect so far, with candidates releasing all kinds of proposals in order to catch up with one another. Warren leads the pack here, with Sanders, Booker, Castro, Harris, and Yang behind. It’s an interesting contrast to the 2016 Republican Primary, where there were so many candidates running and hardly anyone felt the need to create any policy proposals. The only person with any ideas was Trump. They were all terrible, but no one was trying to meet him with ideas of their own. Consequently, it helped him dominate the discussion at the Debates. If anything, it shows just how intellectually bankrupt the Republicans are, and how “conservatism” in America has reached a complete dead end. Unfortunately, this sclerotic movement still holds sway over a major party, creating a situation I outlined in my previous post, where only one party has any real debate inside it, and then has to compromise with a party that doesn’t.

Oh well, now let us turn to our attention to the Mountain. This is where the activists, the radicals, the rabble rousers, and left-wing of the party sit. In the Convention, they are elevated, seeing all the action, but at a distance. Consequently their voices travel farthest and they are closest to the doors, making them the faction most likely to bolt if things go bad enough for them. The Mountain has its candidates, but I think it’s important to distinguish that they fall into to two groups. There are the candidates who are of the Mountain first and foremost and willing to stay there. Then there are those who have been on the Mountain, have seen the promised land, and want to lead the rest of the Democrats there. You can probably guess who I believe are in the latter group. The former includes the following:

Jay Inslee
Marianne Williamson
Tulsi Gabbard
Mike Gravel

What makes these candidates “of the Mountain?” Well I think in part its because they are identified with a particular issue. They are not generally interested, it seems, in advancing a broader set of proposals. Instead, they want to argue for a radical position in regards to a single problem facing the country. There’s nothing wrong with that, only that you can’t win the nomination this way, unless it’s 1896…the issue is bimetallism…and you’re William Jennings Bryan.

That said, I’d prefer these candidates over the Plain and the Backset Democrats. Why? Because they are willing to actually change the status quo on issues that have caused or will cause immense suffering here and abroad. One thing about the Mountain, is that it can look into the future and across national borders. That’s a strength, but the Mountain, like any political faction has its weaknesses. There’s the issue of seeing so far into the future, that they lose sight of the present. There’s also an impatience with the very mundane and boring aspects of politics and party processes. Finally, there can be a blinkered vision that focuses too much on a single issue (as vital as that issue might be).

As far as issues go, there are two main ones that define these candidates. The first is Climate Change, which is the center of Jay Inslee’s campaign. If the media really was as left-wing as conservatives say it is, and Climate Change the liberal conspiracy it’s supposed to be, he would be getting far more attention than Pete “the South Bend Mr. Bean” Buttigieg. Inslee understands there is a problem and it has to be confronted by all necessary means and at all deliberate speed. It’s a real issue, not like “radical Islamic extremism” or whatever combination of words thereof conservatives think you need to say to defeat terrorism. If I had to have a single-issue candidate in office, he’d be the one. Nothing else is as important.

Then there are two candidates who represent the Mountain’s views on foreign policy, more or less. The less is represented by Tulsi Gabbard. The more is being pushed by Mike Gravel. They want an end to interventions in other countries, though Gravel is willing to go much farther than Gabbard. It’s unclear how strenuous her opposition is. Is she against certain current engagements but fine with the overall size of the armed forces and the powers of our intelligence agencies? Mike Gravel is the only one who is clear on reducing everything, bases, invasions, incursions, and budgets. Unfortunately, he’s too old to be president and his campaign is more meme-powered than anything else. He represents the Mountain at it’s highest peak. Incredibly serious about the issues, not serious enough about the process.

Finally, there’s Marianne Williamson. I don’t know what to make of her or how to describe her policies. Again, it’s another peak Mountain campaign. She has a firm commitment on reparations. However there’s also an emphasis on New Age mysticism. In the past she’s described herself as a “bitch for God,” so there’s that too. Maybe she can help reclaim religion from the right, if nothing else.

Part II: The Lamestream of Backset Democrats

Here is where I begin my analysis of the candidates in the race and try to convince my fellow Americans, why there are only two people worthy of having their name at the top of the ticket. Maybe I don’t have a network behind me, but I think I am just as insightful as Jonathan Chait or Chris Cilliza or Cilia or Cilicia, whatever it is. I’ve examined the field of political ideologies thus far, and I’ve read the Wikipedia articles on every single American president, election, primary, and convention. That must be more than any of the so-called experts have achieved. For instance, despite their myriad analyses, few of them have mentioned the 1924 Klanbake.

The term, “at a crossroads” is often overused. It is often misused too. Sometimes people forget the origin of the phrase goes back to the play Oedipus Rex. Specifically, it describes the scene where Oedipus unknowingly kills his father Laius, at a crossroads. He then sells his soul to the devil in order to play the blues lyre so he can bring his wife back from Hades. The band Cream made a song about it. But the truth is the Democratic Party has to decide what it believes and what it wants to fight for. Opposition to Trump isn’t enough. Although Trump might be at the top of the ballot, there’s so many other races to consider. The Democrats have to get people out to vote for them. This requires a unified vision and platform people can get excited about.

The party can’t assume people will vote for their slate of candidates just because of Trump. Given our polarized state-by-state elections, there’s plenty of people who might not come out to vote for the Democratic candidate for President if they think the state they live in will go out for him or her anyway. But in doing so, they will ignore all the races down-ballot the Democrats need to win. You know, the races the Democrats used to care about winning. I’m talking State Senators. Aldermen. Comptrollers. Clerks of the Court. (and no, not dog catcher. That’s not an office that’s actually up for the ballot anywhere.)

The Democrats can’t win these without someone who gets people excited, even in blue states. The leaders of the DNC will deny it and the pundits will ignore it, but the truth about politics these days is that you don’t win by appealing to some mythical center. You win by getting your base out to vote. The Democrats, ostensibly being the party of “the people” should have more voters in this scenario. You’d think they’d understand that and push for it, but alas that seems to be beneath the current leadership. As we saw in 2016, they were more interested (as in Chuck Schumer’s analysis) to give up blue collar votes in the Rust Belt in favor of mythical Republican moderates in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Cleveland.

In this portion of my ongoing series on the candidates, I’ll look at the candidates who are…well…meh. These are the men and woman running who can’t really articulate what they will do differently in the White House and what makes their approach to the issues and the electorate more than just a repeat of Hillary’s disastrous run in 2016. They can’t even really explain what makes them unique from one another. Why so many of them are running might be the biggest mystery of the 2019-2020 primary. Here are their names, the absolute meh tier:

Seth Moulton
Eric Swalwell
Michael Bennet
Steve Bullock
Amy Klobuchar
Cory Booker
Beto O'Rourke
Wayne Messam

…and sometimes

Pete Buttigieg

Are they being goaded to run by some entity within the party? Is the DNC or some faction thereof responsible? And if so, are they failing to communicate with one another? It’s hard to explain this phenomenon. We have so many people running for such a small piece of electoral real-estate. Sure, the big donors are all there, but the voters? They’ve largely gone over to the more liberal, progressive, or outright leftist wings of the party. Yet here we have several candidates essentially trying to resurrect Clintonian triangulation and the 1990s. The trouble is, Bill could only do what he did thanks to a particular combination of demographic and economic factors three decades ago. Plus, he had charisma. None of these people running in the Neoliberal lane have anything approaching the personality Bill Clinton displayed.

They also seem to collectively forget how much of a disaster Bill was for the long-term health of the party. Sure, they won the presidency. Then they lost Congress. That consolation prize seemed to be worth it, until they lost the presidency under Al Gore anyway. As a result, America ended up with an emboldened right-wing Republican Party in control of this government, and the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a brief window of opportunity to realign the country again under Obama’s first term, but what happened? More triangulation, more surrender to Wall Street, and more foreign entanglements. Instead of breaking with Clinton’s Neoliberalism, Obama sought to reinforce it with a kinder face. Now we’re reaping the proceeds of this continued failed strategy. Trump is in the White House. The Conservatives have hijacked the Supreme Court. The GOP controls the preponderance of state houses and governorships across the country.

It is true that once more, the Democrats have Congress to try and stand athwart the Republicans and yell “stop!” But the victory in the 2018 midterms had more to do with disgust and frustration over Trump and the Republicans, than any genuine enthusiasm for the Democrats or their policy.  It can’t be used as a barometer for the voters, or would-be voters in 2020. It certainly shouldn’t be seen as a desire to return to the triangulations of the 1990s and the compromises of the aughts. However this first batch of candidates are clamoring for the presidency under the assumption that what Americas want are grand bargains, entitlement cuts, endless “smart” wars, and the last full half-measure of devotion to the New Deal.

Now I’m being generous. I’m assuming they’re running because they believe in all that and believe that’s what’s best for the country. Maybe they really all want to Vice President. Maybe they are hoping to get a book deal out of their runs. Maybe it’s just pure ambition, which most politicians have, and it only seems like so many mediocre people are running because the Democratic Party has a surplus of mediocre people. It could be that an army of overpaid consultants see them as easy marks, and have goaded them to run in order to line their own pockets.

Sure they will argue they have certain advantages and offer up diversity to the field. In some cases, like Cory Booker, it’s true. Buttigieg too, we can’t forget him (because the media won’t let us). In others, they do represent regions of the country outside the usual “Blue States,” though how that will translate to victories in other states (or even just their own) is unclear. Then there are candidates running on their youth, despite not believing in anything young people want. There’s a veteran or two in there as well. They want to be John Kerry 2.0 it seems.

Collectively their problem is a lack of substance, that points to new ideas, a clear vision, and how to restructure and rebuilt America. At best, what they have are piecemeal reforms. At worse, they will put a happy face on privatization and austerity. This might be the solution to the mystery I mentioned earlier. Maybe so many of them are being encouraged to run by the party so they can put a damper on the whole race. That would explain the strangely high number of them throwing their lanyards in the ring. They are here to crowd out the debate stage and tell us we can’t have nice things. If things get too rowdy in the primary, their role is to remove the punchbowl.

To give any of them the presidency would be a disaster for the party, for the progressive movement, and for the country at large. Given the looming ramifications of Climate Change, they are also a disaster for the world. Why? Because they are the apotheosis of the two trends that have been ruining the Democrats since 1992. The first is ideological. They are proud defenders of Neoliberalism, although their version is just a rehash of an already dated revival. They want laissez faire at home and intervention abroad, open boarders to capital and gated communities for labor. The market over all, yes, and that means you. The Democratic Party not only gave free reign to “free” markets in the 1990s, it did so back in the 1890s as well. That was the heyday of the Bourbon Democrats. But these Democrats are worse than Bourbons, at least the Bourbon Democrats opposed imperialism and interventions. These are Backset Democrats.

The second tend they embody is functional. This pertains to what the role of the Democratic Party should be in our system, regardless of its ideology. Instead of being a vehicle and a catalyst for change, these Backset Democrats want a party that acts a gatekeeper to activist groups. Within the party, they want to defend the leadership up at the Dais from challenges coming up the aisles. Whether these movements are for labor, civil rights, peace, or the environment doesn’t matter. It’s a familiar story that’s happened since the 1960s. Activists and movements reach out to the party and in the end get co-opted by it. Seeking power to effect change, they find themselves blocked by the Democrats who now demand votes from them in exchange for progress. In the end, the Democrats capture these movements and hold them hostage. The threat of a Republican victory is used to keep them in line.

The Backset Democrats want to maintain this version of the Party. To a lesser extent almost all the Democrats except Sanders and Warren want to too. But the Backset types, along with Biden and his clones believe this is the only way the party can function. It is the Divine Right of the DNC. They want a party that is muddled, confused, and watered-down. They want a party constantly compromised by itself. While they may think this makes the Democrats seem reasonable, or that this will make their proposals look better, in effect, it just leaves things open for a further compromise with the Republicans to drag everything farther right. What the Backset Democrats fail to realize is that no one is impressed by how much debate occurs within the Democrats to produce a policy. It certainly has no bearing on the further dialectic with the Republicans.

In a way, it is a good thing so many of this type of Democrat are running. It might deprive Biden of some support, especially in regards with endorsements. However as I mentioned above, so many Backset Democrats on the Debate stage might just add more opportunities to prevent an actual discussion of the issues. If there has to be constant debate within the party, it should occur without their hand in it. It is true that the only serious discussion of politics in this country is happening within the Democratic Party. It’s an unfortunate situation. I’d rather have a Republican Party where all the Neoliberals could dwell, leaving a Progressive Democratic Party behind for good. But that doesn’t mean the Democratic Party should support a failed consensus in the meantime or weaken its commitments.

Some of these men and women running have tried to be dream candidates by checking off what they assume to be a list of boxes in the minds of voters. Mayor Pete is probably the most egregious example of this. It’s an unproductive exercise for candidates and the voter. What is needed are not dream candidates, but candidates who dare the voters to dream of a better world. The Backset Democrats don’t want that and we shouldn’t want them because of it.

The Green Light for Progressive Poetics

More poems for May, one of them is political. Guess which one? Is it the work that appeared in the Green Light poetry month issue, or the poem that appeared in Progressive Poetics? Find out!

2020 Candidate Roundup, Part I: The Great Democratic Party Primary & Other Excursions

Well folks, the clown car keeps getting bigger over at the 2020 Democratic Primary. If this trend continues, pretty soon there will be more Democrats running for President than will be running for the Senate. Good job, Chuck Schumer! It shows you that running for Senate has now become harder than President, otherwise O’Rourke would be trying to take out Cornyn instead of Trump. Running for President means you get to travel! You get to see the country! You get to go to Iowa! You are invited onto CNN for town halls! You get to live on a bus! When you lose you’re considered for a cabinet post, or ambassadorship! You might even get a gig on TV or a chance to sell another book! Lose a senate election though and what do you get? Obscurity.

Although maybe that’s changing with O’Rourke…

Anyway, there’s 24 candidates running with any real shot of winning. By “shot” I think it’s helpful to visualize a basketball court. There’s the candidates standing on a ladder next to the hoop and those right under the next. Then there are candidates aiming from the free throw line, as well as those shooting for a three-pointer. Finally you have people in the stands, who could in theory still make the shot. In total, there are 24 of these candidates in the primary so far. There are of course people running who have no name recognition at all, no money, no presence, no experience, and lack a decent website to boot. These candidates are too numerous to bother with.  They are beyond the court and outside the arena. There’s no chance of them getting the ball inside the net.

I’m going with 24 because it seems Steve Bullock and Bill DeBlasio are running. There’s also people have said they are forming exploratory committees but haven’t filled out that final ream of paperwork to “officially” say they are in the race. Regardless I’m putting the number at 24. That’s who I’m going to deal with in this blog post.

24 candidates, sounds crazy, no? Well, yes, this is a rather large batch. What’s surprising is how little separates most of the people running. The number of White moderates (Dr. King’s favorite people) is extremely high. I guess that’s par for the course. That’s who the party treasures and nurtures, telling them they represent “the real America” (wherever that is). So why not run for president then, since you represent the heartland and you bleed apple pie?

However we can’t let these MWGs (mediocre/moderate White guys) make us too cynical about this field. It does include the most diverse crowd of candidates for either party to date. Several minorities are represented for sure: African American, Hispanic Americans, LGBT Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish Americans (and no, I’m not going to include Native Americans for Warren). We also have a record number of women running, who in fact, are not a minority. I know that may surprise some people, given how women have been historically excluded and oppressed, but rest assured it wasn’t because of a lack of numbers.

In terms of experience, there’s diversity too. We have gurus and governors, senators and Silicon Valley tycoons, and Congress critters and Mayors. I think that’s good. You don’t want just a bunch of senators, or a group of governors on the stage, because the problems facing this country require action at all levels. So feedback from a local state, house and cabinet perspective is good. Now, that doesn’t mean all that experience is the same and that everyone on the stage should be president if they’ve been in government for years. Only that a little perspective could be welcome.

That said, the debates probably won’t provide us much discussion, or any real debate. It’s not that I’m bemoaning the end of some golden age of public discourse, only that there’s too many people on stage for anyone to say anything of note. If everyone running manages to qualify, there will be 24 people up on the dais, and how much time realistically will each one of them get? Realistically how much have anything to say too? Perhaps we’ll get the first Twitter-style debate. Each candidate will only get to make statements and respond to questions and attacks using 280 characters or less. The jabs and jests might be worth it.

One thing that will have to go is the audience. First, because they’ll have to make room for all the candidates. Second, the candidates will just end up playing for an audience reaction. That’s how the lower-tier ones will try to get to the front of the pack. The Trump strategy. If we have to have a debate (personally I think the Town Halls should just be enough) then let it be someplace without obnoxious hooting and hollering.  Part of the reason Trump was able to dominate in the debate was ability to manipulate the audience and their reaction, even when it didn’t agree with him. That and his ability to use an air horn .

Will the debates be a make or break moment for the candidates? Undoubtedly, they have to be. If a candidate wants to break out from the lower tear of no–names and has-beens (and those who have never-been) they have to speak out and say something, or forever hold their peace. That should make for a little entertainment. The real interesting thing to see is who has already given up on the White House and is trying to position themselves for a VP slot, or a spot in the cabinet. There will be candidates who go after Sanders in order to endear themselves to Biden and the DNC. Watch out for them. Bernie will turn the Blue Dogs into snakes on that stage. Whether he’ll be able to drive them out of the party is another matter.

Then there will be those candidates who realize they have to go after Biden, since there’s no chance of them winning over Sanders voters, and because there’s no chance they’ll be on the ticket with him. Beto, Warren, and Gillibrand are part of this group. To a lesser extent, Gabbard is too. It’s highly unlikely Biden would want any of them as VP. Beto is too male and too White (and his youthful Punk cross-dressing notwithstanding, too straight). Meanwhile, Warren has feuded with Biden over the banks. Gillibrand could be selected, since she balances out the male at the top of the ticket. However, she represents a solidly blue state, can’t win over progressives, and burned her bridges with Hillary Clinton at the height of #MeToo. Her treatment of Franken also makes her a liability in getting the support of party loyalists.

Of course who ends up becoming VP might not have anything to do with the desires of the candidates. If Biden’s current lead collapses (a guy can dream, right?) and nobody has a majority of the pledged delegates, then some serious horse-trading will have to commence. Everyone wants to avoid a contested convention. It makes for great television and a terrible campaign. We haven’t had one since 1976, and the party who had it lost (although maybe shots of Tony Orlando dancing with Betty Ford were what really sank the Ford’s chances of reelection). At that stage it’s quite likely that one of the two front-runners will try to convince one of the mid-tier candidates to come on board and bring their delegates over. Otherwise, the superdelegates will get involved and when they do, that will further split the party.

That’s why if I had to bet on who will be VP, it’s going to be someone like Kamala Harris. Now it’s possible she’ll break out from her position in the current polling and start winning primaries. She’s relying on California’s early start to try and propel her forward with a homefield advantage. If that falls through, she could still end up with a decent pool of delegates that will be necessary to get a majority.  She will provide generational, racial, and gender balance against either Biden or Bernie, who seem to be the likely front-runners at this point. She would also provide a balance with Warren too, if she takes the lead. Harris provides a regional angle as well. The Democrats haven’t had a Westerner on the ticket since…well…really ever. The farthest west candidates have been from Texas or South Dakota.

It’s still too early to see who will be at the top of the ticket. Biden is certainly polling in the lead but the debates could cut that down, especially as people realize what he was actually doing before Obama nominated him for Vice President. Remember, Biden ran twice for president on his own merits in 1988 (before AOC was even born) and 2008. Each time his campaign went nowhere. The only person who likes the real Biden is Biden. For everyone else, it’s either misplaced nostalgia for Obama, a desperate desire for normalcy, mistaking Biden for a meme, or thinking he’s in the middle of the party when in reality he’s on its right. By himself, he’s completely unappealing. Who knows how long his campaign can keep up the illusion that hides the real candidate?

There’s also no telling what will happen in the news between now and the primaries, or what will happen during the primaries as well. Party shenanigans could cause issues with delegate allotment. Plus the instability of Trump means a foreign intervention or a recession that throw a wrench into things. It’s hard to say who benefits from that sort of situation. If we invade Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, or all three, it could make an explicitly anti-war candidate look better by comparison. It might also entice voters to try and put someone more stable in office for its own sake. A recession might lead the party to support someone with a business background, then again, our current president has such experience and look at Trump’s legacy of unnecessary tax cuts, feuding with the Federal Reserve, trade wars, and subsidizing coal plants.

On the other hand, a recession could make the party faithful see red, in a good way. Not in a let's bail out the banks one more time kind of way. Again, a boy can dream.

Brooklyn Is Berning, Bernie Sanders’ First Campaign Rally: A Review

He's above the blue hoodie

Of course it had to snow. As Bernie Sanders would put it, we got Vermont weather in honor of his visit to Brooklyn. Of course, it’s not that strange to get snow in March. Oregon Trail taught me that, which is why it’s better to leave Independence, Missouri in April. We think somehow because there’s been a change in the page of the calendar, spring is suddenly supposed to be here. March is as good as May, just as early September should be exactly like late November. Nevertheless, I went to the rally this Saturday at Brooklyn College.

Authentic Brooklyn snow

I couldn’t trust the sidewalks. Otherwise I would’ve walked there. Many of them were slushy and icy, while every intersection seemed to have the kind of puddles made famous by Groundhog Day. That meant using the buses or trains to get to the rally. I opted for the train since taking buses involved transfers, and I would be above ground, dealing with the cold and snow all over again. But using a train wasn’t’ a quick fix either. Thanks to the legacy of Manhattan’s imperialism over Brooklyn, there wasn’t a direct way to get there. All lines lead into the city, instead of crisscrossing the borough. I had to take the Q north, then get on the 2, and using Atlantic Avenue as a slingshot to get down to the campus.

The weather gave me mixed feelings. I’m not sure if there’s a name for it. The snow was a disappointment on one hand, and a blessing for me on the other. I wanted there to be a big turnout so the event would be a success and get coverage. On the other hand, I wanted fewer people there so I could get a good view. It’s like how you want everyone in the world to use public transportation, just not when you want to get on the train or the bus. When I reached the end of the 2 line and got off, I saw lots of people moving with me. That was the first time I got a sense of how many people were going to the rally. It was a lot.

Of course, none of us knew exactly where to go or how to get in. As I left the Flatbush Avenue Station, I headed into the part of Brooklyn I call Little America. Traffic was coming in all directions and Berniecrats stumbled around looking for the college. Eventually, I got my bearings and found a side street that took me to the entrance. That was not enough though, there was a line to get in, and it snaked around the block and then some. I’d never seen anything like it before. It just went on and on with no end in sight. At one point I thought maybe I would end up all the way in Canarsie, or Dead Horse Bay, freezing and hardly feeling the Bern.

I didn’t have to travel that far, but it was still a good distance. Good for Bernie, I thought, good for America, bad for me, but then again, I too am America or something like that. It was hard not to be in a Whitmanesque mood. Everyone was upbeat, including the campaign volunteers. Even the people selling buttons stuck to umbrellas seemed happier than normal, as well as the cranks shoving newspapers and poorly xeroxed manifestos in our faces. Sure it was cold and wet, with snow clinging to the branches. Nevertheless there was a sense of excitement and anticipation.

It only grew as the line inched closer to the East Quad, the site of the rally. The path to the event was lined with campaign volunteers who thanked us all for coming, then high-fived us. I admit I was a little restrained at first. What was I getting myself into here? So many genuine people, what was the catch? As a Millennial, I’m not used to such displays without a catch. I remember plenty of occasions of forced fun throughout my years in school, college, work retreats, and summer camp bondings. Energy and enthusiasm for the lamest of things like new regulation coasters, corporate sponsored trust falls, and cheers about how one particular student government association was going to kick the ass of another particular student government association.

In my head I went through the possibilities. Was I being led into a cult? I know a thing or two about them and I couldn’t say this was one. There were no matching uniforms or rhetoric. I heard no code words and twisted forms of grammar. I had a clear example of a cult outside of the event too. In addition to the members of other Leftwing groups, there were LaRouche supporters. I saw them while I was waiting in line to get in. One of them had a sign that read: THE GREEN NEW DEAL IS SUICIDE. Another had a shirt that asked WHO IS LYNDON H. LAROUCHE? “A dead man!” I wanted to yell at him, but I didn’t. (Don’t engage with LaRouche supporters folks, just blast music at a non-scientific pitch at them).

The other possibility? My mind went to Disney. That’s the only other example I had to go with. All these smiling people, excited, and welcoming me forward, they were leading me to Bernieland. Or maybe Sandersworld. On the other side of the gate would be rides and games. I could play whack-a-Bezos and go on the equality-coaster, which would just go in a circle on a level track. Of course, this idea was nonsense. As soon as I reached the East Quad, I saw nothing but signs, bleachers, flags, and a crowd of people nervously waiting for Bernie to take the stage. This is what faith in democracy looks like, I guess.

It was a diverse group, though it was younger and Whiter than Brooklyn as a whole. It was still a far cry from the stereotypes from 2016. College-aged Berniebros were there for sure but their voices didn’t dominate or drown out anyone else during the event. I saw people from all walks of life from the borough, including people too young to vote. There was also a snowman covered in merchandise for the campaign. Bernie Snowmanders, if you will.

The Whitest Berniebro 

The event opened with the Star-Spangled Banner. It reminded me how much I hate the Star-Spangled Banner. It’s a terrible tune about a mostly forgotten war that expresses nothing of value about America. We fought, the flag was still there, we’re great. Don’t ask any questions about the people in chains living in the shacks next to the home of the brave. Plus it just leads to people showing off when they can manage to sing it. I wasn’t sure why Bernie needed to open with it or who would be convinced by it. I mean, who is on the fence thinking he’s the incarnation of Lenin but would support him now because of that song? From now on it’s going to be This Land Is Your Land (including the verse about private property), and nothing else.

A series of speakers went before Bernie. I understand why they were there and they all said good things. However, it was cold and I wish the introductions were a little bit shorter. I’m sure everybody prepared their remarks for warmer weather. Jane Sanders went on and talked about Bernie’s roots in Brooklyn. I learned about Bernie’s support for a strike in Pennsylvania from a union official, and received pep talks from Nina Turner and Terry Alexander. Shaun King spoke about Bernie’s history in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. I learned about his protests against the Willis Wagons, which were substandard trailers used to house Black students in overcrowded redlined schools in Chicago.

Waiting for Bernie

Throughout the whole time, any mention of Brooklyn led to massive cheers from everyone, because it’s the law that when somebody says Brooklyn, people from there have to make noise. None of the other boroughs do this, I think. Anyway, this habit backfired at least for one person in the crowd. Shaun said that Bernie was “born in Brooklyn, the year the Holocaust started.” He paused after saying Brooklyn, and somebody cheered right after, which made it sound they were happy about the Holocaust. Who knows if that will be used for fodder to claim Sanders or his supporters are anti-Semites?

Then it was finally time for Bernie. I was losing feeling in my fingers, but I soldiered on. I had a rolled-up copy of the Independent and used it to make noise by rapping against my hands. That kept the frostbite at bay. I didn’t have a sign and I don’t know where they came from. They were everywhere though, and they came out to welcome the candidate. I was fortunate to have a good view of Bernie and saw him embrace his wife while surrounded by a sea of signs. They were white or blue, and the blue was either, sky, navy, or Dodger. It was a nice image. Sometimes you come across them in real life and wonder if you’re in a movie.

Bernie looked energetic, although I could see the pink in his face all the way from the back of the East Quad. At one point we began chanting his name and he shushed us. It was not about him, he said, it was about us and what we were going to do together. He pulled no punches and went after Trump directly. However, he didn’t just go on and on about norms and how the Orange man was bad. He made his attacks and then pivoted to the kind of campaign he wanted to run and what he was running for. He mentioned Medicare for All, college for everyone, a reduction in American intervention abroad, criminal justice reform, a $15 minimum wage, ending the Drug War,  and making it easier for workers to join a union.

We were all enthused, cheering, shouting, clapping, and pumping fists. I never thought I would ever get to hear a major party candidate say these things, and use this kind of rhetoric. Of course, he did in 2016 as well, but here I was in public, hearing it directly from Bernie Sanders. Talking about labor rights, and the struggle against the oligarchy in particular. Plus the military industrial complex. Who was the last to sue that phrase? Kucinich in 2008?  No vague platitudes and bromides about “opportunity” and the “American Dream.” A real vision and a road map to getting us to the kind of hope we need and real change we can use. Did he whip out charts and crunch the numbers in front of us? Certainly not.

This was no TED Talk. This was no corporate presentation. This was something more. It was a rally, in the sense that it gathered us together and boosted our beleaguered spirits. But it also needs to be pointed out that it was all about the ideas. Sanders had no slick production behind him (there were no Bernie Babe Dancers). He wasn’t young and bouncing around the stage, his hair was white, thin, and disheveled in the wind. There were no pithy or memorable turns of phrase. Just as in 2016, we were for Bernie because of the vision, not the man. It’s something a lot of pundits and commentators still fail to understand. He has charisma through his ideas, not apart from them.

After Sanders left the stage, we shuffled out through the campus. The Doobie Brothers’ “Takin It to the Streets” played overhead. Perhaps it was a nod to Sanders call for decriminalization of marijuana. It was followed by Jon Lennon’s “Power to the People” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” All of these superior to the Star-Spangled Banner. It was jarring to leave the collective warmth of the Brooklyn College campus for the hustle and bustle of Little America (i.e. Flatbush Junction). I watched as people carried their Sanders signs through the neighborhood and did their best to disburse. Some people waved the signs at the cars and buses, others held them close.

Since all the places to eat were packed by Berniecrats, I started walking back to Ditmas Park. The snow had started to melt, and I thought I could make it smoothly along the sidewalks. But it hadn’t melted enough. There were plenty of patches that remained, along with piles blocking the intersections. People hadn’t shoveled and it left glistening hazards behind. I guess it was evidence against the twin pillars of today’s Left. The snow was proof Global Warming is a hoax, and the fact nobody wanted to remove it showed Bernie Sanders’ socialism can’t work. Checkmate liberals...

...nevertheless the specter of Communism still haunts us

A Collective of Poems in Collective Unrest

Five poems of mine are up at Collective Unrest. They are of a political nature. One is about Redlining, and the rest are from a series I've been working on called "La Resistance." I started them after Trump's inauguration. The title is partially a self-deprecating joke.

A Bump and a Huff of Poetry

Another month, another poem. Barren Magazine might be sparse in spirit and vision, but isn't barren of my work, not anymore. My work, A Bump and a Huff, is there for your reading pleasure.

Also, I was bored the other day and felt like doing some compiling and comparing. So here's my 2018 PRESIDENTIAL RANKINGS!!!

Abraham Lincoln

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

George Washington

Harry S. Truman

Thomas Jefferson

James K. Polk

Lyndon B. Johnson

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Woodrow Wilson

Barack Obama

Andrew Jackson

John F. Kennedy

Ronald Reagan

Bill Clinton

James Monroe

John Adams

William McKinley

James Madison

Ulysses S. Grant

William H. Taft

George Bush

John Quincy Adams

Chester A. Arthur

Jimmy Carter

Grover Cleveland

Calvin Coolidge

Martin Van Buren

Benjamin Harrison

Gerald R. Ford

John Tyler

James A. Garfield

Millard Fillmore

Zachary Taylor

William Henry Harrison

Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Richard M. Nixon

Warren G. Harding

Franklin Pierce

Herbert Hoover

Donald J. Trump

George W. Bush

Andrew Johnson

James Buchanan

On My Mustache

I have a mustache. I don't hide it, I keep it out in the open. When one has a mustache, one has little choice. From time to time the mustache gets some company in the form of a beard. Usually though, it sits all alone on my upper lip. It's a conversation starter, of sorts. Lately I've been noticing differences in how people talk to me about my follicle creation. For instance, Men like to preface any kind of mustache-related conversation by asking me how long it took me to grow it. Women, as a whole, seem less interested. I suppose men who are in awe of the mustache want to know what kind of effort is need, how patient they have to be. Many of them will admit they wish they had the chops to grow what I have. Perhaps it's one of the few jealousies I inspire in anyone.

For women, it's different. there's little interest in knowing the time it took to grow my whiskers. That's fine, sense I'm not really sure myself. I grew a beard in 2007 and shaved it all off on Halloween, save for the mustache. Philosophically speaking, one could make the argument I never grew a mustache at all, I only grew a beard. This would ignore the original definition of a beard. A person can grow one without have a mustache. Abraham Lincoln is probably the best example of this. These days, it's implied though, that to have a beard means having a mustache. Neckbeards are the exception keeping facial hair originalism alive, I guess.

Women tend to make reference to someone else with a mustache, usually a figure from pop culture. There was a point where a lot of the comparisons involved Ron Burgundy. Inevitably, the specter of 1970s porn stars came up. I never got a Tom Selleck reference, but I used to glean allusions to Daniel Plainview or Bill the Butcher. Around the 2010s, Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec took over and for several years after I couldn't go out to a bar or a party without someone (most of the time, a woman) comparing me to him. I took it in stride, since he's generally considered a fine character on the show, our political disagreements notwithstanding.

So I'd make a reference to Duke Silver, or eating all the bacon and eggs, and that would please people. After Parks and Rec went off the air, mentions of Ron Swanson dropped off. It made sense, he was no longer on television. Thankfully, nobody called me John Bolton, who probably sets his mustache using the blood of dead Iraqis. Or former Trump attorney Ty Cobb . In fact, people generally left me and my mustache alone through most of 2015 to 2017. It was able to exist on its own terms, without inviting a comparison to another famous mustache.

However, that's changed. In the past couple of weeks, I've been getting Ron Swanson references all over again. It's weird and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Why now? Of all times, would he be making some sort of comeback? Then it hit me. The current political climate (which has also been hitting a lot of people literally lately) explains it. People, especially young women, are binge watching Parks and Rec the way Liberals watched The West Wing during the Bush years. It's a coping mechanism, especially since Leslie Knope and Hilary Clinton are spiritually linked as characters (and Amy Poehler has played both).

Inevitably, watching Parks and Rec for Leslie Knope means seeing a lot of Ron Swanson. Seeing him, makes one think of his mustache. Then seeing me, makes him the easiest reference point. I guess going forward, I can judge the state of the country and its level of despair by how many references I get to Ron. The fewer, the better. Maybe in some far off glorious day, I will be getting compared to Randy Bryce instead of Ron.

Denis Kearney: America’s First Fascist?

The Subject of Tonight's Essay, who I originally learned about on The Dollop

In this essay, I will be exploring the nature of Fascism and how it applies to the political life and times of Denis Kearney. I will argue that he can be regarded as America’s first Fascist, albeit with some important reservations. Exploring his rise and fall in obscurity is important because it shows how Fascism can and will take root in America if we’re not careful.  The fact that few Americans have heard of Denis Kearney is both good and bad. Good, because his successes were few and his fame fleeting. Bad because by forgetting him, we forget an unpleasant part of our past. When we do that, we become more likely to repeat it.

In short, Denis Kearney was a 19^th century demagogue who organized the Workingmen’s Party of California (WPC). Comparison with the Know Nothings are valid to a point. Like the earlier Know-Nothings, the Party was driven by hatred of perceived outsiders. However their prejudice was based in Racism instead of religion. In particular, they opposed Chinese immigration (there was a Know-Nothing movement in San Francisco that also hated the Chinese, but it was a small part of a national Anti-Catholic movement). Unlike the Know-Nothings, they were not a national party. They were only strong in California, but still sought a nationwide ban on the Chinese coming to the United States. 

Another important difference between the WPC and Know Nothings was its class character. It was mostly made up of urban laborers and craftspeople, with a heavy concentration in San Francisco. In contrast, the Know Nothings included people from a variety of economic backgrounds. In New England, there were members who were factory workers, teachers, and ministers. In the rest of the country they included factory owners and merchants, as well as slave-owners in the South. This gave the Know Nothings a more varied platform. Not only did they oppose Roman Catholicism and the Irish, the movement also took on different causes depending on the area. Know Nothings were known to fight for railroad regulation, clean government, and prohibition.

We see how the WPC was different from the Know Nothings. They were more racial in their worldview and they presented a working-class character.  In a sense they were a bridge between Anti-nativist movements of the mid-19th century, and Fascist groups in the 20th. In that way, they could be compared to the Klan. The WPC differed from this organization as well, because it was explicitly party based (the Klan supported Democrats in the South and Republicans in the Midwest) and it didn’t utilize any specialized garb, gab, or rituals.

Yet despite being a bridge of sorts to 20th Century Fascism, the WPC can be seen as close as a group could get to Fascism in the 1800s in America, before anyone knew the term.  Now, Fascism is a contentious term and nobody can agree on its definition. The label of “Fascist” gets thrown a lot and many different kinds of being and movements are labeled with it. I try to limit my usage of it to certain specific characteristics. For instance, I wouldn’t label the Klan, Donald Trump, William F. Buckley, the John Birch Society, or Pat Buchanan Fascist. They are Conservatives of different stripes. I would label Steve Bannon, Richard Spencer, and the figures of the Alt-Right Fascist. What’s the difference?

The difference comes down to an approach to hierarchy in a Capitalist system. Conservatives want to preserve it. Fascists want to purge it. For added comparison, Liberals want to reform it, and Radicals want to overthrow it one way or another. Take Hitler’s view on the bourgeoisie of his time: “Today’s bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can.” Like a typical Fascist he sees them in need of correction and subordination, but not elimination. He reserves that level of ire for the Jews, regardless of their economic class.

Yet Conservatives and Fascists both sit on the political right and have the same political enemies, that doesn’t make them natural allies and it certainly doesn’t make them the same. Even Conservatives who support authoritarianism aren’t Fascists. It brings them closer to it and creates a risk of tipping over into Fascism. It still doesn’t make them Fascist. For instance, a Conservative may want to preserve an absolute monarchy. Fascists, meanwhile, want to keep Monarchs out of power. They see royalty, nobility, and other forms of aristocracy as examples of degeneration within the elite.

Of course, Fascism’s support for Capitalism doesn’t make all Capitalists Fascists either. And yes, Fascism does support Capitalism, and no, Fascism and Socialism aren’t the same thing. Fascism can appear to look like Socialism because of its opposition to Liberalism, especially liberal Capitalism. Fascists attack the banks, they attack trade deals, and they criticize unemployment and exploitation. However, this isn’t because they are Socialists. They attack these things because they are viewed as threats to the mythical Nation (e.g. the German or Italian people) and the hierarchy within its borders. So banks are bad because they put the Nation in debt to people from outside it (i.e. Jews). Trade is bad because it weakens borders. Exploitation and class conflict are bad because they weaken cohesion within the Nation, and so on. 

The Statist and Capitalist nature of Fascism is best evident from the writings of its leading figures. As Mussolini says in his 1915 Doctrine of Fascism: “If the 19th century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State,” or as he put it more directly, “everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state.” Yet this state still has its classes and a fundamentally Capitalist character. This is why someone like Ludwig von Mises could support Fascism as a temporary fix to beat back any Socialist or Communist threat during the 1920s.

Any rhetoric about class, exploitation, or opposition to banking which Fascists espouse has to be squared with this. People often mistake (sometimes rather deliberately) what Fascists say for what Socialists do. Both groups are interested in class conflict under Capitalism and both groups have different approaches to the issue. Socialists want the working class to overthrow and displace the bourgeoisie as owners of the means of production. Fascists want to organize the classes of society in a way to promote the harmony of the State. This is usually done by unifying people against a domestic enemy (such as Communists or Jews), and a foreign one as well (such as the British or the Soviets).  Fascists may show support for institutions such as unions, but this support is not related to any emancipation of the working class from Capitalism. As French thinker Charles Maurras, explained what Mussolini’s Fascism sought in trade unions:

“A trade unionism free of the chains of the class struggle had imposed on Italian labor. A methodical and successful will to bring together in a same fascio all the human factors of national production ... A determination to approach, to threat, to resolve the worker question in itself ... and to unite unions in corporations, to coordinate them, to incorporate the proletariat into the hereditary and traditional activities of the historical State of the Fatherland.”

Fascism still believes in private property, class divisions, and private ownership of the means of the production. Hence it is not Socialist. It is not Liberal, either, because it subjugates the Market Economy to the State as the manifestation of the will of the Nation. It does not abolish it either, which puts Fascism firmly in the Capitalist camp. The Capitalist class understands this. That is why when forced to choose between a revolution on the Left or a revolution on the Right, they choose the one on the Right and as individuals, they hope they do not meet the local Fascists’ definition of degeneracy. 

As we can see, one of the key aspects of Fascism is its reactionary character. Not just in a political sense, but also in the historical sense as well. Fascism is a reaction to Socialism and Liberalism, and the perceived failure of Conservativism to respond to both. This makes it difficult to classify groups before Mussolini as Fascist. The Workingmen’s Party of California is no exception to this. In an era before the rise of Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism as serious threats to the political order, can Fascism be said to exist? The idea of when an idea constitutes a challenge or a threat is open to debate. In 1850, the radical left existed but had yet to take power in any real sense across the world. By 1920, that situation has changed thanks to the Russian Revolution. When the WPC was active though, this threat existed in a hazy area. Using the old Terror Alert system, one might say it was Elevated, rather than Severe. After all, the Paris Commune was a recent memory.

I think it’s important to keep this fact in mind. In the 1870s, There was a generalized fear of Left-wing movements. You can see this in a cartoon by Thomas Nast I posted below.  In it, he equates the WPC and the new state constitution they passed with Communism and Anarchy. This is an early example of Horseshoe Theory, equating the far Left with the far Right. Nast can be forgiven for engaging in this fallacy though, since there was no concrete Fascist movement to criticize. One could only go by rhetoric. However, make no mistake about it. The nature of the 1879 Constitution the WPC helped to pass is a reactionary and racist one. It has a whole section (Article XIX) dealing with Chinese Californians. Mostly it strives to prevent them from becoming employed.

How the Political Mainstream Saw Denis Kearney and the WPC

And with that, let’s move on to the case of Denis Kearney (1847–1907)

As mentioned before he was a demagogue who rose to political prominence in California by attacking Chinese Immigrants. One might think he was born in California itself, since he was so adamant about protecting it from foreign influences. Nope. Denis Kearney was born in Oakmount, County Cork, Ireland in 1847. An immigrant attacking other immigrants for not being American enough? Only in America. Kearney took a job on a clipper ship as a young boy and claimed to have sailed around the world. He jumped ship around 1868 and ended up in San Francisco, where he became a citizen and started a business hauling freight by wagon. By 1877 his business was so successful he owned five wagons and moved goods all over San Francisco.  

1877 was also the year he made his first foray into politics. As San Francisco and the country were dealing with the effects of an economic depression, Kearney challenged city-backed monopolies on transporting, carting, and hauling goods. Over time, he was drawn into more radical politics. While he was not an outright Socialist, he did side with the city’s working class against the wealthy. That summer, a group of Socialists from the national Workingmen’s Party (later known as the Socialist Labor Party of America), held in a rally in the so-called Sandlot near City Hall. The speakers urged working class unity and an end to exploitation by Capitalism. 

A group on the outskirts of the meeting started asking about how to handle the Chinese population, blaming them for the unemployment problem in the city. The organizers refused to acknowledge them and tried to maintain order. The Anti-Chinese group left the rally and proceeded onto Chinatown, where they started a two-day pogrom that had to be quelled by the state militia with the help of locals who had organized an ad hoc brigade armed with pickax handles. 

The event appears to have further radicalized Kearney, who was one of those who served with the pickax brigade to maintain order. He saw the power of harnessing Anti-Chinese feeling in the city and the appeal of Socialist ideas. He tried to join the National Workingmen’s Party but was denied for his Anti-Chinese prejudice, and previous statements condemning the laziness of the working class. Undeterred, he formed the Workingmen’s Party of California and began a quick rise through the city’s political ecosystem. His speeches did stress labor issues at first, yet this was a halfhearted commitment, since he was critical of unions and denounced strikes.  Eventually working-class concerns faded to the background and the Sinophobia took center stage. 

This was despite being a minority himself. San Francisco was far from the liberal beacon it is today and anti-Irish prejudice was common, just like in the rest of the country. Members of the city’s elite, who might’ve harbored Sinophobic views themselves, distanced themselves from Kearney’s movement because of his Hibernian roots. Contemporary author Hubert Bancroft, considered the WPC to be “ignorant Irish rabble, even though that rabble sometimes paraded the streets as a great political party." Other critics disliked Kearney’s brash rhetoric and saw him as the perfect representation of Irish American stereotypes. To many White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, it was Kearney and his fellow Irish who were the real risk to American Democracy, not the Chinese. They were aggressive, and quarrelsome drunkards who lacked the steady emotional and rational reserve of good Protestant stock. Hence, the reason they were behind corrupt political machines, such as Tammany Hall.

How Thomas Nast saw the Irish, which was pretty typical of WASP Republicans

Despite this criticism, Kearney’s movement grew in support. He regularly spoke to hundreds of people at the Sandlot, stirring up crowds with Anti-Chinese rhetoric. While he did show contempt for the press, capitalists, and the political establishment, Sinophobia was the continuous thread running through all his speeches, trumping all other things he hated. They were the “other” that consumed his attention.  Their mere presence in San Francisco, and America at large was intolerable. Kearney often ended his speeches with "And whatever happens, the Chinese must go," an echo of Cato the Elder’s attacks on Carthage, as well as a preview of Hitler’s attacks on the Jews. This eliminationist discourse is classic Fascism and can be contrasted with the emerging system of Jim Crow in the South. Being a Racist does not necessarily make one a Fascist. An extra step is needed to reach that level of prejudice. As violent and oppressive as the Klan and other Redeemers were, they did not want to rid Dixie of its Black population. They were too important to the local economy. However, Kearney sought the expulsion of every last Chinese person from America.

Just like the Nazis, Kearney framed his prejudice in terms of a question. In this case it was the “Chinese Question,” rather than the Jewish one. Of course, by referring to relations with the Chinese community this way, he could presuppose a problem on their end, and demand something be done about it. Just like the Nazis, and other Fascists, he placed this “Question,” above all other issues. To him, it was of paramount importance:

“When the Chinese question is settled, we can discuss whether it would be better to hang, shoot, or cut the capitalists to pieces. In six months we will have 50,000 men ready to go out. . . and if ‘John’ [the Chinese] don’t leave here, we will drive him and his aborts [sic] into the sea… We are ready to do it… If the ballot fails, we are ready to use the bullet.”

This is Kearney engaging in a common Fascist tactic, taking in the grievances shared by the lower-middle class and the working class and directing their anger at a completely unrelated target. The threat of the Chinese is played up to a fever pitch and dealing with it is so vital, that if Democracy cannot solve it, then violence is necessary.

Violent rhetoric against the political system was a common theme in Kearney’s other speeches. It often got him in trouble with the law but he was always released after being arrested. No one would testify against him. Here are a few gems of Kearney’s rabble rousing:

“Shoot the first man that goes back on you after you have elected him intelligently…see that you hunt him down and shoot him.”

“…before I starve in this country I will cut a man’s throat and take whatever he has got…The Workingmen’s Party must win, even if it has to wade knee deep in blood and perish in battle.”

  

“When I have thoroughly organized my party, we will march through the city and compel the thieves to give up their plunder. I will lead you to the City Hall, clean out the police force, hang the Prosecuting Attorney, burn every book that has a particle of law in it, and then enact new laws for the workingmen.”

“For reporters of the press I have great respect. The reporters of the newspapers are workingmen, like ourselves ‒ working for bread and butter. But for the villainous, serpent-like, slimy imps of hell that run the newspapers, I have the utmost contempt.”

Ironically, at one point early on in his political career, Kearney urged laborers to be "thrifty and industrious like the Chinese.” It was a short phase and by 1878 he was demanding that the railroads fire all their Chinese workers, and threatened lynchings if no action was taken. Taking advantage of the depression of 1873-1878, the WPC won elections and took control of the process to draft a new Constitution for the State of California. It combined Xenophobia with a strong anti-monopolist stance. For instance it banned railroads from hiring Chinese workers and put them under a California Railroad Commission that would regulate other business practices to make rates fairer to consumers. Kearney tried to spread his political message to other cities and increase his national stature, to limited success. He brought out crowds in cities such as Boston, but this enthusiasm failed to create a lasting political movement. The WPC would remain confined to California. Kearney shifted gears and tried to get the Greenback Party’s nomination for VP and failed in this endeavor as well.

Kearney remained in San Francisco where his political star continued to fade. Although he managed to get the Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, his local laws and initiatives were overturned by the courts. Meanwhile, Chinese-American civil rights activist Wong Chin Foo would become a thorn in his side, attacking Kearney for his prejudices against his people. In 1883, Wong challenged Kearney to a duel, offering him his choice in weapons. These were Chinese chopsticks, Irish potatoes, or Krupp guns. Kearney, ever eloquent, called Wong an "almond-eyed leper." In his 1887 essay, Why I am a Heathen, he argued against Christianity using the example of Denis Kearney. In a fanciful speculation, he believed that under Christianity was possible for Kearney to repent his bigotry on his deathbed and then enter into heaven, where he could proceed to organize another mob to expel the Chinese. Kearney died in 1907, believing his work was instrumental in putting the “Chinese Question,” before the public. Today there is a Kearny Street running through San Francisco’s Chinatown, but it is not named after him. Most likely it is named after Mexican-American War Army officer Stephen W. Kearny.

The rise and fall of Denis Kearney and the Workingmen’s Party of California are important to remember when considering the possibility of Fascism in America. Yes, they were Fascist, or as Fascist as one could be at the time. To make a comparison to music, they could be described as Fascist the way the Stooges could be described as Punk. Chronologically they were off, but temperamentally they embraced the same basic template. They were political outsiders looking to transform the government by any means necessary, hence a revolutionary and not Conservative movement. At the same time, they were not arguing for changing the fundamental economic system, despite their attacks on the rich, which made them different from Socialist groups. Kearney and the WPC went beyond the racism of the day and wanted to expel a group from California, a trait seen in the ethnic cleansing espoused by figures like Adolf Hitler in Germany and even Mussolini in Libya. Kearney did not care for reasoned debate, and embraced a politics of pure emotional spectacle at his rallies, another trait reminiscent of other regimes in the 20th Century.

Yes, contemporaries accused Kearney and his party of being radical Communists. But this ignored the WPC’s deeply reactionary politics on race, which functionally made them a right-wing, not left-wing party. This failure to understand the movement only increased their appeal to a working class who felt they were being left behind in America’s rapidly industrializing economy. This is a mistake that proponents of the Horseshoe Theory make. Instead of accusing Fascists of class charlatanism and exposing them for what they are, Horseshoe Theorists lump them with Socialists, mistaking rhetoric for action. This ends up hurting the Left and helping Fascists gain support. If the far-Right and the far-Left are equal ideologically and occupy the same political space, then Fascists can gain the upper hand over Socialists. They can do this because they often operate with the support of the wealthy, certain segments of the media, the military, and law enforcement. This allows them to take working-class anger and turn it away from the system and towards an out group, such as Jews, Muslims, immigrants, or Gays.

Denis Kearney not only shows the possibility of a Fascism in America we must be vigilant about, but also the ways Fascism has been limited so far in this country. Despite plenty of racism, prejudice, and fear of Socialism, why have we avoided Fascism? The limitations of Kearney’s movement reveal part of the answer. Tensions with the White community were probably the largest barrier to his rise as a national figure and the WPC as a national movement. Until the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, Catholic and Protestant divisions would’ve stopped any Fascist movement from gaining too much power. A figure like Denis Kearney, or later on, Father Coughlin, would’ve been constrained to support among Catholics. Meanwhile a group like the KKK couldn’t branch out beyond Protestant communities. There were additional ethnic issues as well, with Southern and Eastern Europeans distrusted by those of Northern European ancestry, and vice versa. Now, things have changed. White Americans no longer are as divided by religion or national origin as they once were. This is good for many reasons, yet it presents the possibility of mobilizing White Americans as a political group nationally for the first time in this country’s history.

Another issue limiting the spread of Fascism has been the sheer size of this country. It makes it harder to organize a national movement due to cost and the likelihood of rival groups with similar politics appearing in other regions. It makes centralizing power, a necessity of Fascism, difficult to achieve. If Kearney turned the WPC into the WPUSA, he would have to contend with Party bosses in New York, New England, and the South. To be sure, the Constitution also poses an institutional challenge. Checks and balances and all that. Yet American history is riddled with plenty of Supreme Court rulings that empowered authoritarianism in the Presidency as well as instances of Congressional cowardice in the face of the Executive overreach. Revanchism is missing too. Unlike Germany or Hungary after WWI, or Italy after the Fall of Rome, American has never lost a major war (only police actions). Therefore the appeal of a Fascist movement promising to restore national glory is limited. How long that state of affairs lasts is anybody’s guess. A defeat by Iran could lead to the rise of someone ever farther to the Right of Trump, who is better organized in both mind and movement.

Sinclair Lewis once argued that when Fascism comes to America, it will be carrying the flag and the cross. I think the example of Denis Kearney illustrates that the cross is not necessary at all. Nationalism and racism will be all that is necessary, since religion would be too divisive to build a movement. Anti-Catholic and Anti-Irish feeling prevented Kearney from using Anti-Chinese fervor to catapult himself to a national office. Kearney shows that not just any old racism will do either. It must be a racism that is about more than White Supremacy. It will be part of an ethnic cleansing campaign, in this day and age linked to our current geopolitics. The out group under attack has to be one seen as a fifth column undermining the nation.  Perhaps it will be Muslims or Chinese-Americans, or both. If the economy is tanking, look for this movement to speak the language of working class grievance. It may even be called Leftist, because of vague attacks on Capitalists. But when that day comes don’t be fooled. In dealing with Fascists, look for their specific targets that receive the most detailed attacks, both in speech and in physical form. That list will most certainly include ethnic and religious minorities, as well as any genuine working-class movements that are present. Because as the reactionaries know, these are the only real antidote to Fascism.