The Fighting Fascism Fallacy

Voting Democrat won't stop fascism

With midterm elections just around the corner, the strategy of lesser evilism has once again been proposed by many organizations. This is a strategy that has been proven to be a complete failure. But under the façade of a two-party system which is actually two wings of the same corporate capitalist party, people can be fooled into believing voting Democrat is useful. This is a fallacy which must be addressed once again.

The Sunrise Movement recently launched their Fighting Fucking Fascism campaign. They describe this campaign to elect democrats as a theory of change and self identify with the Democrat party. Their launch email stated:

We know we have the people, but it’s going to take all of us coming together to win this fight. Over the next few months, we need our Sunrise fam to flex our organizing power and come together to fight fascism this election.

For them, fighting fascism means campaigning and voting for Democrats. This has been a common theme among “progressive” organizations. Our Revolution recently sent out an email with the subject line “Stopping American fascism before it's too late.”

In another similar email, they wrote:

Fascist Republicans are an existential threat to abortion rights, the climate, workers, free and fair elections, and more.

That's why Our Revolution is going all-in to support progressive Democrats in the key Senate swing states of Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

This is no big surprise coming from organizations that have historically tied themselves to the Democratic Party. However, the Communist Party USA is taking a very similar stance. In an article entitled “Democracy on the Ballot” released on September 20, 2022, Joe Sims wrote:

We want to encourage everyone to join in the effort to defeat the MAGA right in November. We know there are hesitations. You don’t like the Democratic National Committee, and we’re not crazy about them either. However, that’s not the point: we’re fighting fascism.

This is disturbing rhetoric coming from a party that should be in opposition to all bourgeois parties and politicians. The only democracy that is on the ballot is bourgeois democracy. The Democratic Party is not democratic at all - they rig their primaries and remove the Green Party from the ballot every chance they get. How exactly is voting for this corrupt corporate party defending democracy? It isn’t and the CPUSA should know this.

Unfortunately, this has been a pattern with the CPUSA. They did the same thing in 2020 with Joe Biden. During the 2020 election season, they released the following articles:

#VoteAgainstFascism: What you can do in the coming days

Today’s main enemy—fascism or neoliberalism?

Pledge to Defeat the Trump Agenda

Young Communists Against Trump For the People

The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance

This strategy had interesting results including backing John Hickenlooper in Colorado.

In Colorado, where Republican Sen. Cory Gardner is up for re-election, YCL members are joining in the efforts of the broad coalition that has come together to unseat him. Gardner recently came out in opposition to hazard pay for mentally ill workers. YCL Denver organizer K.B. Ohler says, “There is no love for John Hickenlooper, Gardner’s Democratic opponent, but he’s a smidge better on some issues.”

A smidge better is not significant. John Hickenlooper has defended fracking and taken millions in corporate cash. He is certainly not worth voting for, let alone actually canvassing for! And they had the same strategy in 2016! In an article entitled America Needs A Landslide Against Trump, they fully endorsed Hillary Clinton:

Some of those votes may go to Gary Johnson and the Libertarians. In a very close election, the votes for Johnson and Jill Stein could throw the election to Donald Trump. The argument for a landslide unity vote could convince some of those to do the right thing.

These articles are embarrassing coming from a self proclaimed communist party. According to the CPUSA, voting for Hillary Clinton was the right thing. What use are “communists” who support neoliberalism? It is an insult to the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin that the CPUSA supports these war mongers.

This is the same Hillary Clinton who just recently said that the victory of fascist Giorgia Meloni in Italy was a step forward.

The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing - Hillary Clinton

The resurgence of fascism in Italy is not a break with the past, no matter the gender of the person leading the movement. But Democrats like Hillary Clinton are happy to focus on identity politics even when it means propping up fascism. Would Hillary applaud if Lauren Boebert were elected as the first woman president? That would be a break with the past, but certainly not fighting fascism. Will the CPUSA get behind Kamala Harris in 2024 or 2028? It seems likely considering their history.

The best way to fight fascism is to fight neoliberalism, not to ally with it. CPUSA does a disservice to the left when they align themselves with the Democratic Party. They even republished an article in October 2020 called “Today’s main enemy—fascism or neoliberalism?” This incredibly misguided opinion piece isn’t worth the time I spent reading it:

With only weeks to go, criticizing Biden serves no progressive purpose and instead plays into the hands of Trump. Let us achieve the immediate challenge: defeat Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate.

Though the Clintons and Biden represent neoliberalism, I think they can be included in the anti-fascist (which is not an anti-capitalist) front. After all, they are working against Trump and his following, not for it.

Now Clinton and Biden are actually anti-fascists! Neoliberalism and fascism go hand in hand. It was the Chicago school’s neoliberal policies that were put in place under brutal fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile after the US backed coup murdered Salvador Allende in 1973. Fascism as a reaction to capitalist crisis. Neoliberalism fails to meet the material needs of the people and opens the door for fascist take overs. Neoliberalism cannot defeat fascism, it can only enable it. The strategy of electing neoliberals to defeat fascism is bankrupt from the start.

So much for the CPUSA fighting for socialism. The Democratic Socialists of America have done a slightly better job on this issue, releasing a statement in June:

The leadership of the Democratic Party have proven time and time again that they cannot be depended upon to save us. Despite many opportunities to codify Roe v. Wade into law, the Democrats in Washington failed to act. Nor can we rely on our judicial system to guarantee us civil rights. 

These are nice words, but they do not fit their actions. They are still campaigning for Democrats and do not hold their own members in Congress responsible when they openly vote against DSA’s platform. They have endorsed members of the Democratic Party who voted to send more weapons to Ukraine and to Israel. They may not have blanketly endorsed “Blue No Matter Who,” but they are still complicit with their support of the Democratic Party.

DSA member Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has voted yes on every funding bill for war in Ukraine. She was recently called out by activists at a town hall, asking her to explain these votes.

Rather than explain herself, she has deflected and equivocated. These votes go against her own stated position which she proposed in an amendment (italics added):

PROHIBITION ON ARMS SALES .—The President
may not sell, transfer, deliver, license for export, authorize
the performance of any service relating to, or otherwise
make available any defense article, defense service, or de-
sign and construction service, as such terms are defined
for purposes of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C.
2751 et seq.), to the government of any foreign country
or any agent or instrumentality of such government that
has engaged in gross violations of internationally recog-
nized human rights, genocide, or war crimes.

There is plenty of evidence that both sides of the Civil War in Ukraine have been guilty of war crimes since 2014. The Azov and other battalions are openly Nazi. Ro Khanna introduced an amendment to prevent weapons being given to the Azov battalion which passed in 2018.

Rep. Ro Khanna @RepRoKhanna

We also must ensure that these weapons do not reach white supremacist elements within the Ukrainian Army, such as the Azov Battalion. The House has repeatedly voted to block weapons deliveries to this group.

thedailybeast.comIs America Training Neonazis in Ukraine?Officially no, but no one in the U.S. government seems to know for sure.

Ro Khanna is a major supporter of single payer healthcare; co-founded the NO PAC Caucus an anti-corporate-money Congressional caucus; and endorsed the Green New Deal. Khanna is a reliable ally in the global fight against fascism and his foreign policy is sound. We recommend that voters re-elect him.  - Silicon Valley DSA

Ro Khanna has also voted for every single spending bill on Ukraine, even though those weapons have ended up in the hands of the Azov and other extremist groups. Everyone in congress in 2018 should have known about this amendment as they voted on it. Yet there was no mention of it when the aid bills were approved by Democrats unanimously in 2022. The Nazis did not magically disappear just because Russia launched a military operation. But political expediency meant that arming Nazis was now Democratic policy and not one Democrat had the courage to stand up to this.

Bourgeois traditions, such as the widespread belief that there can be but two parties, Conservatives and Liberals, and that the working-class must work out its salvation by and through the great Liberal Party.  - Friedrich Engels

The left needs to maintain its principles and not succumb to supporting bourgeois ideals. The people need to stand up and say enough is enough to both parties. Bernie campaigned on the class struggle in 2016 and 2020, but failed to see it through when he endorsed neoliberals. Bernie was not a revolutionary leader in spite of his revolutionary platform and rhetoric. Bernie failed to learn the lesson that Eugene V. Debs did.

 There was a time in my life, before I became a Socialist-when I was still young and had the vanity of youth and the ambition and enthusiasm of a boy-when I permitted myself as a member of the Democratic party to be elected to a State Legislature. I have been trying to live it down. I am as much ashamed of that as I am proud of having gone to jail. - Eugene V. Debs

Swiping blue is not going to stop fascism. Voting blue will not stop fascism. To defeat fascism, it makes no sense to support a party that enables fascism at home and funds fascism abroad. The Democratic Party is not the answer to fascism unless the question is how to achieve it.

Biden has been president for almost two years. We are seeing record spending on the police and military. He has ratcheted up the rhetoric against China and Russia, threatening World War III and/or a new cold war. His signature piece of legislation is the Inflation Reduction Act that doesn’t reduce inflation and expands oil and gas drilling. The working class are suffering under inflation while corporations see record profits. He has done nothing for immigration except continue Trump’s policies and build his wall. He continues to privatize Medicare while bragging about decreasing Medicare premiums. This is the Democratic agenda at work. More Democrats will not fix this - only a mass worker’s movement in solidarity against the capitalist class will do that. And this movement cannot be created through backing Democrats.

We want to use the democratic party to win the things we need for our lives to be better. It’s not for the party, it’s for each other. It’s for a strategy that ends in the Green New Deal, and that requires an organizing effort in an election cycle that doesn’t just spit out the talking points of a party. - Sunrise Movement

Sunrise Movement’s Fighting Fucking Fascism strategy is a failure from the start. Any organization that backs a capitalist party is failing to stand up for the working class. The people in these organizations need to call out the leadership that are making these poor decisions. What these organizations should do is unite against capitalism, not just fascism. By understanding that fascism is a byproduct of the capitalist system, only then can we understand that the Democrats and Republicans are both enemies of our class. Influential organizations like these and people like Bernie, AOC, Ro Khanna and others could create a real movement by breaking with the Democratic party. Instead they choose to support the enablers of fascism. The working class should break with these leadership decisions and back a socialist movement to smash the capitalist system. Only then can fascism be defeated.

“It’s like saying to somebody, ‘You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you’ve got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.’ It’s still shit.” - Nina Turner

Lesser evilism is a myth. The Democratic and Republican parties are different flavors of the same evil - the evil of capitalism. In many cases, the Democrats represent the more effective evil because the media has managed to convince enough people that they represent the lesser evil. Democrats have effectively crushed the anti-war movement, the #MeToo movement, the BLM movement, and the environmental movement. Democrats have launched a new cold war. Democrats have sent weapons to Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine. Voting Democrat will not stop fascism.