The Savior Self was born of a time when the tide of fascism appeared to be ebbing and liberal democracy was once again the order of the day. Thus, the Church adopted a stance of passive exclusion against the current order; that is, rejecting or ignoring the current system as much as possible and focusing energy on building parallel structures of governance.
But the ebb did not last long, and once again the global threat of fascism is fast on the rise. Far-right groups have recently made huge electoral gains in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Romania, and the United States has also ceded all three branches of government to far-right extremists with an overtly fascist agenda.
So perhaps it is time to reconsider the stance of passivity.
may be choose to ignore these threats and their unquestionable consequences, and accelerationists will, by definition, be pleased with these events, as they misguidedly believe that once conditions get to some undetermined level of awfulness, the masses will suddenly self-liberate and an anarchist utopia will last forevermore.The passivist stance of “deliberate uninvolvement” will surely result in tremendous harm happening to people and to the planet. Autonomy is also the precise antonym of fascism, so efforts to establish parallel structures of self-determination will almost certainly be met “unfavorably” by fascist regimes. It is simply not an option to “tune out” for the next four years and hope that things will get better on their own. This is unequivocally irrational.
If we wish to secure a better future– even only for ourselves and our “opt-in” intentional communities, if not for the world at large– we must actively oppose the rise of fascism. This is particularly true since fascism and nativism will only continue to rise as climate change creates scarcity and instability.
In considering our opposition, we must then decide how we wish to engage the fascists. The Democratic Party has proven itself to be staggeringly useless, time and time again. They have failed the American people for decades, but their gross incompetence over the past decade appears almost deliberate. We simply cannot believe that they, along with a few remaining “moderate” Republicans, can thwart even the most extreme goals of the far-right at this point. Their self-labeling as “The Resistance” during Trump’s first term was farcical, to say the least. The respectable people in suits will not protect us.
This is to say nothing of how the “political left” has allowed the American people to become so uneducated, misinformed, and indoctrinated over the last half-century. Two-thirds of the country either actively voted for fascism, or felt so alienated that they took the passivist stance and chose not to vote at all. But that is ultimately a topic for another time.
Relying on our established system of government, with its vaunted checks and balances, is also a losing strategy. Totalitarian regimes do not care about rules, and they most certainly do not respect norms or traditions. It is now far too late to rely on established rules and precedents to prevent the rise of fascists to power.
They already have the power.
In fact, they have all the power across all three branches of government. Any opposition that could be mounted is ineffective, as they are intent to dismantle the government as fully as possible, and to do so at such a rapid and chaotic rate that attempting to use the “system” to prevent or undo the damage will take far too long, and the damage will be done. We saw this during Trump’s first term, but now they have had nearly a decade to plan and prepare for this.
Protests are ineffective, even where they are not already being criminalized. Organizing a group of well-intentioned Liberals to try to make clever posters, go chant at a building for a few hours, pat themselves on the back, and then go home accomplishes precisely nothing.
Public protest serves two key purposes: to shame the offending parties, and to energize your base to promote further action. But shame wields absolutely no power in modern politics, or really in modern society in general. And the Left has consistently failed to capture their base’s energy for anything other than fundraising.
Even sustained, large-scale movements repeatedly fail the Left, although they do produce results for the Right:
- The Iraq/Afghanistan protests saw continued escalations of those conflicts and did very little to sway public opinion outside of liberal circles
- The Tea Party movement was coopted by the Republicans and resulted in a surge of electoral wins of farther-right candidates
- The Occupy movement was ignored and then ridiculed until it fizzled
- Trump’s candidacy was itself just a performative protest against status quo politics until it, too, was embraced by the Republicans and led to the enduring MAGA cult
- The Women’s March achieved a temporary fashion trend and nothing else
- The BLM protests and their escalating civil disobedience did ultimately achieve some short-term concessions and reform, but most of those have been rolled back (or will be very soon as authoritarianism goose-steps back in)
Time has run out for the Left to learn how to abandon purity tests and identity politics and to translate grassroots movements into meaningful electoral victories. With the legal and less-than-legal suppression of public protests and the continued inefficacy of the “free press,” there is even less chance of peaceful protests having any impact on policy or public sentiment.
Certainly, there must be some threshold that impels the centrists and the moderates to abandon their steadfast faith in the “system,” to admit that sticking to high roads will not save us from savagery, and that gentle rebukes and thinkpieces about the parallels to historical fascists are not enough to stop the barbarians who are now well past the gates.
What option then remains? The resolve to become truly ungovernable? Widespread civil unrest? Sacrifice of what little comfort and security we have? Political violence?
Yes.
If the threat to is this dire, we must all fight back accordingly. We must meet savagery with force. If the nationalists intend to imprison and deport millions of people, we cannot stand by and watch in silent horror. If the oligarchs plan to fully take us back to a feudal state, they must be stopped. If the theocrats want to strip us of our bodily autonomy, they must be neutralized. If the tyrants are moving to oppress us further, we must cut them down.
There is no more time for inaction. No more time for civility. No more wringing of our hands and hoping that some vestige of the establishment will stand up and save us. Extremism must be met with extremism.
This is far from virtuousness, but it is necessary.
