I am surprised when I see people on the left insist (repeatedly in some cases) that white workers are neither the money bags nor found at the apex of the MAGA movement. Who thinks they are? Who makes such a claim?

Years, even decades ago, it was apparent for anybody who paid any attention that the financial moneybags and decision makers of this movement aren’t found in the lunch rooms of an Amazon distribution center or a steel mill in Gary or auto plant in Detroit or a Starbucks coffee house in Seattle or a Walmart supercenter in the Bronx, Des Moines or Lubbock. They hang out elsewhere – not only Wall Street – and make their unearned billions from a range of businesses.

But that fact shouldn’t conceal another well documented fact that a considerable section of white workers, largely high school educated, voted for Trump and constitute a section of the MAGA mass base. To ignore, minimize, or conceal this shift toward authoritarian and neofascist politics by white workers under the subterfuge that white workers aren’t found in the command centers of this movement reveals a radicalism that is long on wishful thinking and short on what is absolutely necessary at this perilous moment – sober analysis. And that helps no one.

Such negative trends should be addressed, straightforwardly. And with a confidence that white working class voters can be won to voting and seeing the world differently. There is already some evidence for that. Otherwise, the struggle to decisively defeat the MAGA movement and the likelihood of a political realignment within the working class and people’s movements toward democracy, equality, and social advancement becomes a much steeper climb.

A strategy that pins much of the election hopes of Democrats on the voting disposition of suburban white women may be a near term necessity, but, looking ahead, it shouldn’t be a substitute for mobilizing low propensity Democratic voters and sections of the diverse working class. Instead, the two should complement each other.

This isn’t a socialist response to the present crisis. This is the thinking of one socialist. It lacks a concrete grounding, strategically and tactically, any sense of what the immediate challenges are and what is politically necessary in this moment if we hope to take a giant step down freedom road. Or, to paraphrase the Communist Manifesto, we take care of the future in the struggles of the present.

I don’t normally post interviews on my blog page, but I consider this interview of Kavita Krishman, who recently stepped down from her leadership position in the CP of India ML, particularly insightful.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/10/6/cpiml_kavita_krishnan_india_russia_ukraine

What are we to make of the unflinching support of Republican leaders for Herschel Walker? To a one they lined up behind him in the wake of news that Walker, who is the party’s Senate candidate in Geogia, paid for an abortion for his former wife. Nearly all of the many critics of the GOP say that it is one more example of its overweening desire to regain control of Congress in the coming elections. In this interpretation, the practical desire for power – to win at any cost – eclipses everything else.

That’s one way to look at it. But there’s another way to understand their reflexive support for Walker – and it isn’t at war with the first explanation. It is this: a deep patriarchy in all of its ugliness was a core feature of right wing extremist and fascist movements in the 20th century and the present day Republican Party (and MAGA movement) are a continuation of this phenomenon.