Democrats are running away from ‘packing’ the Supreme Court

ADD 4 MORE WOMEN JUSTICES AND YOU HAVE 13;  A COVEN

Matt Laslo
August 12, 2024

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) ranks among Democratic lawmakers who are showing no interest in "packing" the Supreme Court with additional members. 

(Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republicans continue lambasting Democrats for wanting to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional justices.

But GOP rhetoric is distorting reality.

Most vulnerable Senate Democrats are actually running away from progressive calls to expand the court beyond its current nine justices. Even President Joe Biden, who last month unveiled a Supreme Court reform proposal, excluded the addition of additional justices.

“Curious your thoughts on expanding the size of the Supreme Court?” Raw Story asked Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).

“We’re commencing on an important discussion, and of course we've heard the president's proposal,” Baldwin — who’s facing Republican businessman Eric Hovde this fall — told Raw Story. “There's often been discussion about what you're asking about. I'm at the very early stages of evaluation.”

“Yeah?” Raw Story pushed. “But you’re supportive of ethics reform?”

“Ethics for sure,” Baldwin said after casting one of her last votes before the Senate broke for its August recess last week.

Baldwin is with most every other Senate Democrat, as they unite around an ethics reform proposal for the Supreme Court.

Reform within the high court has been of particular Democratic interest since ProPublica first broke the news of Justice Clarence Thomas living a lavish lifestyle — one filled with free private jets, exclusive resorts and luxury yachts — on billionaire donor Harlan Crow’s dime.

But most Democrats in power have also stopped short of outrightly calling for expanding the court to, say, 12 or 13 or 15 justices — a move that would ostensibly give a Democratic president the power to fundamentally alter the court’s ideological balance of power.

This isn’t something they’re particularly keen on advertising, however, as they tip-toe around the topic so as not to alienate the progressive — and energized — wing of the Democratic Party, which would love to see Biden, or Kamala Harris were she to win the White House, nominate a slate of new liberal justices.

Democratic divisions

Biden’s package of potential Supreme Court reforms includes capping justices’ careers on the court at 18 years and the installation of an enforceable code of ethics.

While you wouldn’t know it based on Republican rhetoric — from former President Donald Trump on down to the conservative pundit class — Biden has squarely rejected calls to expand the Supreme Court.


So unenthused are most congressional Democrats about expanding the court that one congressional proposal to expand the size of the Supreme Court to 12 justices — the Judiciary Act of 2023 from Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — has sat collecting dust for months, not even gaining a single new supporter in the past year.

Besides Markey, it’s supported by Sens. Tina Smith (D-MN) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), but that’s it at present. If Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) wins his race to replace the late Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, the measure to expand the court could gain a new sponsor.



U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) arrives for a vote at the Capitol on July 8, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

“Right now, people recognize that we've got to do something, and so there's a lot of negotiation about what's the right way to reform the Supreme Court,” Warren told Raw Story as she was walking to her car outside the U.S. Capitol. “But on our side, we recognize that we're not going to save our Constitution and our nation if the United States Supreme Court is going to make declarations that presidents get to be kings and Congress can't do their business.”

Added Warren: “We're still talking.”

If they’re talking, it’s not to their vulnerable colleagues, such as Baldwin.

‘Have not even looked at it’

Before Congress kicked off its August recess, Raw Story interviewed 12 Senate Democrats — including the chair of the Judiciary Committee, three of the Senate’s most embattled incumbents and, arguably, the chamber’s fiercest proponents of ethics reform — about so-called court packing proposals for the Supreme Court.

All told, they reveal the vacuousness of the right’s Supreme Court-packing rhetoric, such as in July, when a Trump campaign statement — reacting to Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election — declared: “It’s all part of Kamala’s scheme to pack the Supreme Court with far-left radical judges who will render decisions based on politics, not the law.”


ALSO READ: Tim Walz's personal finances are extraordinarily boring — and that may help Harris

But that’s far from reality. Democrats aren’t just divided over the topic of court packing — many run away from it altogether.

Inside the Democratic Caucus, most senators aren’t interested in discussing it or plead ignorance about it.


“Have you looked at Markey's measure to expand the size of the Supreme Court?” Raw Story asked.

“I haven’t,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) — who’s facing former Navy Seal Tim Sheehy in November — told Raw Story.



Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) listens during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee hearing on January 11, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)


“Haven’t even looked at it?”

“I have not even looked at it,” Tester said of the decades-old debate that stretches back to the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “The question I have is, where’s it stop? Look, accountability is really important, I don't care what branch of the government you're in, and I'm all about accountability transparency.”

Raw Story asked Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA): “Are the calls in your party to expand the size of the court – like Ed Markey’s bill — are those unhelpful? Because when you watch Fox or Newsmax, the whole party gets pegged as ‘progressive’ on the issue.”

“Look, the president made a really thoughtful proposal on a range of issues,” said Casey — who’s running against Republican businessman Dave McCormick this cycle. “The question of the makeup of the court, that's a question that I've got to take a closer look at. I just haven't spent the time to examine that.”

Casey has company.

“No I have not looked at it,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) — who squeaked out her reelection victory by some 8,000 votes in 2022 — told Raw Story. “It really doesn't take the politics out of it.”

Before coming to Congress, Cortez Masto served as Nevada’s attorney general. She says that these days, she’s hearing about the judiciary from more than angry base voters, including from many bewildered lawyers.

“Because they've also seen under a Trump administration the caliber of the [judges] from the Ninth Circuit, which is outrageous. And so they're having to deal with it, so there's a lot at stake,” Cortez Masto said.

Cortez Masto was especially enraged when the John Roberts-led Supreme Court did away with “Chevron deference” — a decades-old Supreme Court ruling that enabled Congress to pass broad bills before experts in federal agencies wrote out the rules and regulations needed to implement those statutes.

“It's a matter of getting it right, and watching what's coming out of the court now and watching not just rights being eroded, l also recognize that the executive branch agencies have a role to play in discretion in how they implement our programs is very important,” Cortez Masto said. “And for them to overturn Chevron is not just impacting at the federal level, but it is impacting at the state level.”

She says the bubble the nation’s top justices inhabit is having real world consequences beyond Democrats’ fight to restore nationally recognized abortion rights, which seems to get the most attention since Roe v. Wade was wiped away. Cortez Masto says the justices are daft when it comes to the art of legislating.

“You're not going to get it right on the first try — any legislation. You're hopeful, you bring all the stakeholders together, you're there, everybody solving the problem. Everybody has input, but sometimes it's so complex that it takes two or three times to get it,” Cortez Masto said. “That's why it is important that you have that flexibility with those agencies to hear what they're saying, to work with them to implement the ratio. I just think we need to take them out of that process. And what the court has done is injected themselves into the process.”

That’s why Cortez Masto and other Democrats are focusing on ethics reform and not even entertaining proposals to expand the court.

It’s not just vulnerable lawmakers. Even party leaders are staying away from the proposed “packing.”

“I haven’t come out for it,” Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) acknowledged to Raw Story.
‘Term limits are where the mainstream is’

Some progressive Democrats still want to expand the court. But they largely acknowledge that they likely won’t get their way — at least not yet.

“Term limits are where the mainstream is right now. I think it's very clear that the court is out of control and operating in a totally partisan, in some cases unlawful, way,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Raw Story. “There's a recognition that there are three branches of government and these guys shouldn't be permitted to operate with total impunity.”


For many in Congress, it’s started to feel like this Supreme Court is slowly taking power away from the legislative branch, which Schatz bemoans.



Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) leaves a meeting with Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol Building following passage in the House of a 45-day continuing resolution on Sept. 30, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Doesn't mean we should interfere with their individual decisions, but the structure of the court, the ethical standards of the court, how many justices there are, how many circuits there are — all of those are subject to congressional action,” Schatz said. “These particular justices have decided that any exertions of article one power is some sort of obscene transgression and I think the public is wise to that.”

“But expanding the court just goes too far?” Raw Story pressed.

“I don’t know if it goes too far. I just think we should start the conversation where everyone is,” Schatz said.

Biden’s court reform package is uniting the Democratic Party where Chief Justice John Roberts has failed to, because while Roberts convinced justices to adopt an ethics measure, there’s no current mechanism to enforce it.

While Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have fought all year for ethics reform Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) — the author of the SCERT or Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023 — says it’s helpful to have the president on board, too.

“I'm very happy about it. I'm particularly happy with his recommendations aligned with my bill,” Whitehouse told Raw Story.

As for expanding the court?

“Investigation comes first,” Whitehouse said. “I think the aperture for that is not there yet.”
The clock’s ticking, so Dems say keep it bipartisan

Another loud reform advocate agrees. Before Biden came out in favor of an 18-year term for justices, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) proposed as much with his TERM — Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization — Act.

“So whatever tact we've taken, this is why I think the president's measures were so solid, it should be things that objectively are not partisan,” Booker told Raw Story. “And that really helped to restore the prestige and faith to the court.”

Booker says there’s little time to waste.

“This is a real crisis for the Supreme Court right now that the legitimacy of the court is being called into question by people across the political spectrum. We have individuals who are receiving literally millions of dollars in gifts from people that have matters before the court order or fighting logical preferences of the court,” Booker said. “This is very problematic.”

As for calls by Markey and other progressives to expand the size of the court, Booker says it alienates the very Republicans they need to win over to pass any reform measures.

“I haven't looked at the specifics of this proposal. It's like, when does that stop when both sides are trying to do that for political advantage? I think it could be that they could fall into partisanship,” Booker said. “I'm not criticizing the measure. I just know that I have resisted calls to do things that don't have wide bipartisan support.”

In spite of all the accusations that Democrats want to pack the court, most Democrats, including Georgetown educated lawyer Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), have rejected those calls from the party’s leftward flank.

“We should start with the fact that they should have a code of ethics. It’s nuts that you can have a Supreme Court justice or justices accepting millions of dollars in entertainment. Like, what the heck is that?” Hirono told Raw Story. “None of us get to do it, and thank goodness not!”

Matt Laslo has covered Congress since 2006, bringing Raw Story readers the personalities behind the politics and policy straight from Capitol Hill. Based in Washington, D.C., Matt has been a long-time contributor to NPR, WIRED, VICE News, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. More about Matt Laslo.

 

TOTW: Olympics, Bacchanalia, Saturnalia

Aug

11

2024

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The 2024 Paris Olympics came and went, uninterrupted by several counts of sabotage by various actors. There’s been a diversity of complaints about its content, cost, and impacts.

It's one more example of bread and circus that puts nationalism on steroids which, like beauty pageants, reinforces the outlines of national and gender identities, and bolsters jingoism. In another instance of war by other means, nation-states are pitted against each other. The Apollonian millimetric measurement of performance, and eugenic scrutiny of athletes at the microscopic level, predominates over the Dyonisian bacchanal of athletes from all over fucking, an imaginary which scandalizes the public, as made-up rumors about cardboard beds meant to dissuade sex, and of condoms running out, become popular. Beyond the backstage enjoyment of bacchanal, its mere portrayal on stage was also subject of controversy.

Let's consider concerns over the Olympic's budget being an excessive expenditure on non-essential luxury at the tax-payer's expense, in contrast with support for funding anti-immigration policies, police, and military budgets:

"According to Bataille's theory of consumption, the accursed share is that excessive and non-recuperable part of any economy which must either be spent luxuriously and knowingly in the arts, in non-procreative sexuality, in spectacles and sumptuous monuments, or it is obliviously destined to an outrageous and catastrophic outpouring, in the contemporary age most often in war, or in former ages as destructive and ruinous acts of giving or sacrifice, but always in a manner that threatens the prevailing system."

In principle, anarchists are opposed to states and governing bodies of all sorts, and they don’t need a committee to regulate the throwing of a ball or the jumping of hurdles. But, at least in principle, they aren’t opposed to sports or disruptive sumptuous celebrations. In its day, Bachanalia came to be seen as a scandalous threat, so it was reformed and controlled. During the festivities of Saturnalia there was also a temporary overturning of norms "masters provided table service for their slaves as it was seen as a time of liberty for both slaves and freedmen alike". It also influenced what came to be Christmas traditions, like the appointing of a Lord of Misrule/Abbot of Unreason, now a custom in decline, since it was abolished as it was deemed disruptive. Many of the customs regarding the Lord of Misrule have been incorporated into modern-day Carnival and Mardi Gras celebrations.

What are the differences between games and festivities that the state views as a threat, and those that are state-sanctioned? What are the merits of disrupting latter, versus partaking in them in way that turns them disruptive? How were once disruptive festivities recuperated? What would ontologically anarchist Olympics, Bacchanalia, and Saturnalia be like? What are collective and individual ways to expend the accursed share anarchically?

 AUSTRIA

Graz Anarchist Bookfair - The City in Ruins, Sep 19-21

Aug

10

2024

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From non grata, Austria

September 19th to September 21st 2024
3rd ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR IN GRAZ
«THE CITY IN RUINS»

The City destroys our autonomy, our social relations and everything that we and other beings need to live. The City as we know it dictates how we live, how we think and how we see the world. To live in the City means: near-total surveillance, social control, stress, poor air quality and alienation. Any attempt to escape the City soon turns out to be an act of self deception that can only be maintained temporarily at best. We all live in the City – as a system it spans far beyond densely populated areas. Even those who believe themselves to dwell in an idyllic pastoral soon will have to realize that they are completely integrated into the logic of a global infrastructural network. Where ever we try to be living our lives we are dependent on community and mutual aid. No matter if we try to get by within or outside of the city as a physical entity: In order to take control over our lives we must overcome the City as a system.

If the City is everywhere it can also be attacked anywhere.

The City in ruins. It’s a projection.

These are times in which we are lacking perspective. And even if we may not find hope in the negation of the existing, in its destruction, this can still be a point of leverage, a place for us to start realizing our creative potential.

When social tension erupts, this may happen without strategy, but this eruption may still have clear targets. Who ever tries to realize themselves in such an eruption doesn’t necessarily share an anarchist analysis. But still, the well greased engine may start to sputter. And those longing to act out their anarchist dreams in such a turmoil can do so if they only seize the moment. Instead of romanticizing the situation we need to be aware of our task as anarchists in the turmoils that are being anticipated and are already happening: It is to identify and destroy all forms of authority, the existing ones and the ones that are emerging.

The City in ruins. It’s a paralyzing menace.

Those in power are painting a picture of horror before our eyes. This picture is meant to keep us in a state of fear. It’s meant to make us comply. We are living in a state of dependency: What if the umbilical cord of infrastructure rips and we find ourselves alone – destroyed individuals, a destroyed social fabric in a destroyed landscape? We are made believe that we can only surviveunder the warmth of the City’s smog dome, that only its elaborated supply system can provide for us.

Even those who desire the end of the City seem to find more perspective in its “natural” breakdown than in its active destruction through a revolutionary process. The narrative of the collapse is blocking our lust for insurrection.

The City in ruins. It’s a social reality.

Apart from authoritarian scare tactics and insurrectionary projections the reality is that most people live in cities. In spite of all the alienation, our social relationships are inevitably entangled in the city. People are dependent on mutual aid in cities just the same, trying to make our lives as beautiful as possible. Besides frustration and feeling empty inside we also experience joy, community and, at times, self-realization in the cities. And there are many who have fallen in love with the city as a playgroundfor their acts of resistance.

Its destruction confronts us with concrete social problems, in many cases hardship and despair – no matter how this destruction comes about: wars, natural catastrophes or insurrectionaryeruptions.

But both, the destruction of the City and maintaining it, hit those the hardest who are already now the most marginalized. And it may be worthwhile to remind oneself that the City is hostile to life and can by no means support itself. Without the exploitation of the surrounding areas food, water and heating are virtually unavailable.

Rebuilding the oppression coming from the City cannot be our goal. The City is a place of control, exclusion and erosion. And a seemingly good life in the city for some is only possible through the exploitation of many.

Fearing we might lose what we possess leads to the destruction of what we need.

Let us hence destroy the City as a system and its inherent logic of hierarchy, exploitation and the consumption of resources. Let’s begin to reshape our lives on top of the City’s ruins and beyond. Those who seeksalvation in escapism trying to enjoy an idyllic life in the country without seeing the surrounding projects of extractivist infrastructure, without realizing that the periphery is itself part of the logic of the City, have missed the analysis and dropped out of the discussion. No matter how much we long for retreat: We can only exist through community and cooperation. And this cooperation always includes creative and destructive elements.

The City is everywhere. Destroying it is necessary, and possible anywhere.

This proposal is meant to be an invitation to actively participate in the anarchist book fair in Graz. If you want to do a book table or if you have ideas for discussions or presentations, write us (or simply come around). All (anarchist) contributions are welcome. We’d be happy, though, if you’d think about how your proposals might fit into The City in Ruins. As you can see, we also think of this topic in a very broad sense.

A little disclaimer concerning the text itself:
May those reading this text be aware that it has been written within the social reality of Central Europe and its analysis reflects its way of thinking and the experiences that can be made there. It’s certainly important to point out that this is, as we all know, a region of the world in which materially altogether destroyed cities are (contemporarily) not part of those experiences.

And still: A specific (pacified) set of experiences does not mean that one cannot develop their own point of view. To hide behind others at all times when it comes to taking up a position means to kick open the door to authoritarianism. It’s important to develop one’s own standpoint. And it is necessary to either support or disprove postulated arguments with examples or counter-examples. Merely pointing out the background of the authors is simply not enough.

Yet this is still to be understood as an open invitation to criticism: Reactions to and commentary on the arguments of this text are very welcome – especially concerning communities in actual existence that dwell (or maybe still supposedly dwell) outside of the realm of the City and concerning examples from other times.

In order to contact us about the location, (your) program (proposals), book tables, sleeping spots or discordance visit nongrata.noblogs.org or write to nongrata@riseup,net (pls use pgp).

 CHILE

Mapuche anarchists link cement factory arson to ‘Switch Off!’ campaign

Aug

10

2024

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From Freedom News UK, Chile

World, Aug 9th

Indigenous group opposing destructive mining in Mapio river sends greetings to anti-capitalist sabotage campaign

The group “Insurrectional Cell for the Maipo: New Subversion” (Célula insurreccional por el Mapio. Nueva Subversión) has claimed last Saturday’s arson attack in the region of Valparaíso, Chile. Seven trucks were set ablaze at the El Melón concrete plant during the night, and the company offices were also targeted. No injuries were reported.

In a communiqué sent to La Zarzamora, the Mapuche insurrectionary cell cited ecosystem degradation, corruption in extractive licensing, and climate change as reasons for the attack. It also declared “unity with the fight for Mapuche autonomy” from Chile and Argentina. The communiqué sent greetings to “comrades who have dealt blows in other territories of the world”, mentioning recent attacks on cement factories in Germany and resistance to the Mountain Valley gas pipeline in the USA. The communique linked the recent attack to the international Switch Off! campaign, a loose banner for anti-capitalist sabotage attacks on the infrastructure of companies who thrive on ecological catastrophe.

The group has previously targeted cement companies in the region, which depends on the Maipo river for 70% of its drinking water and over 90% of its irrigation water. Sand and mineral extraction from riverbanks affects a river’s flow and speed, creating sinkholes that propagate upstream, leading to a domino effect of regressive erosion. This erosion destroys the surrounding living system and creates conditions ripe for landslides. Worldwide, the impact of cement production contributes to about 9% of global carbon dioxide emissions, tripling the impact of air traffic and ranking among the most polluting industries.

Over the past decade, militaristic policies against any sector antagonistic to the interests of the State have intensified in Chile, continuing today under the social-democratic government. According to the text, the government is “raising false flags of struggle, colouring itself as environmentalist, pro-human rights, pro-‘indigenous peoples’ and against gender violence, proving not only to be a fraud in each of these aspects, but also reinforcing everything contrary”.

~ Mateo Sgambati

 

“Should Anarchists Vote?” is the Wrong Question

Aug

09

2024

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by Wayne Price

As I write this, we are moving ever closer to U.S. Election Day November 2024. (Although if this is read after that election, the issues discussed should still be relevant.) The small number of people who regard themselves as anarchists are discussing whether to vote. From Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin in the late 19th century onward, revolutionary anarchists have rejected participation in elections.

In the words of Kropotkin, “The anarchists refuse to be a party to the present state organization and to support it by infusing fresh blood into it. They do not seek to constitute, and invite the workingmen not to to constitute, political parties in the parliaments….They have endeavored to promote their ideas directly among the labor organizations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital….” (2002; p. 287)

This is based on the central insight that the state is not neutral. By its nature, it serves the rich and powerful in their exploitation and oppression of the people. This state machinery cannot be used to peacefully and “democratically” create a free socialist democracy. Anarchists believe that capitalism and its state must be overturned, abolished, and replaced with cooperative, self-managed, alternate institutions. They should not be strengthened by joining in sham rituals of limited democracy.

Yet here we have a presidential election in which one candidate (the Republican Donald Trump) is arguably much more evil than the other (the Democrat Kamala Harris). Should anarchists vote for the lesser evil for once?

Many Marxists are also in a pickle. From Karl Marx on, their strategy has been to create a workers’ party in opposition to all capitalist parties, from liberal to conservative. Many Marxists, at least those influenced by Trotskyism, have opposed ever voting for capitalist parties. Yet here they are facing two capitalist parties, one which is in the bourgeois center and the other is quasi-fascist. Should they vote for the moderate capitalist candidate? (Also, libertarian-autonomist Marxists generally reject voting and are in a similar bind as the anarchists.)

However, when discussing this (and previous) elections with friends, co-workers, and family, I do not try to persuade them not to vote for the lesser evil Democrats. I don’t much care. One or a few individual votes does not make much difference. The votes of a small number of radicals do not have much of an impact. This is especially true for most U.S. citizens, due to the archaic and undemocratic Electoral College system. Only a minority live in the six or so “battleground states.” For everyone else, their votes are irrelevant; the fix is in. (For example, I live in New York State, whose electoral college votes will certainly go to the Democrats.)

Instead, I try to get others to agree that the lesser evil is indeed evil. Since it is hard for people to admit to themselves that they are supporting an evil, there is a tendency for liberals, after a while, to persuade themselves that the lesser evil, while not perfect, is really pretty good.

Liberals claim that there are various positive programs for which the Biden-Harris administration can take credit. True or not, these must be put alongside the mass murder being carried out in Gaza by the Israeli government, paid for and armed by the U.S. state. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been indiscriminently killed. This is only one activity of the enormous US military-industrial complex, endorsed by both parties, including hundreds of overseas military bases and enough nuclear bombs to exterminate humanity. Not to mention the immigration policies of the Democratic administration. It worked out a “bipartisan” immigration bill which accepted the most repressive aspects of the Republican program. The bill only failed when Trump denounced it, being unwilling to let the Democrats get credit. The extent of economic inequality and regional stagnation has increased—major factors in pushing white workers toward Trumpism. And the Biden-Harris government has presided over a vast expansion of US gas and oil production, further attacking the biosphere. The Democrats talk a good game about ending global warming, but their policies are inadequate and will eventually lead to the destruction of industrial civilization. The lesser evil is still plenty evil.

The Real Question is Mass Strategy

The important question is not what a small number of isolated radicals should do on election day. It is what revolutionary anarchists should advocate for the large organizations, communities, and movements: the unions, the African-American community, Latinx people, immigrants, Arab-Americans, organized women, LGBTQ people, environmentalists, anti-war activists, etc., etc. Overwhelmingly such forces follow a strategy of organizing for the Democratic Party, providing it with money and personnel. They are the “base” of the Democrats, without whom the party would collapse. (In the U.S. system, neither party has an actual membership.)

What anarchists and other radicals should advocate is that these groupings cease spending money and people on the Democrats and adopt an alternate, non-electoral, strategy of direct action.

Overall the liberal strategy (also carried out by democratic socialists and Communists) has not worked out very well. Since the end of World War II, conservative presidents and Congresses have been followed by more-or-less liberal/moderate presidents, to great rejoicing by progressives and reformists. But these have never resulted in stable progressive change. Time after time, these liberal/moderate administrations have been followed by ever-more reactionary governments.

Kennedy-Johnson was followed by Nixon. Carter was followed by Reagan and then the first Bush. Clinton was followed by the second Bush. Obama was followed by Trump, so far the worst of all. The election of Biden did not stop the growth of Trumpism and its complete takeover of the Republican Party. Even if Trump is defeated in November 2024, the far-right semi-fascist movement will continue to grow. It will threaten to come to power in the not-so-distant future. Over time, the greater evil cannot be defeated by a lesser evil. Only a radical alternative can do that.

The main policy of the “democratic socialists” (social democrats, reformist state socialists) has been to work in the Democratic Party. They hope to take it over, or at least to take over a section. This is the program of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and most of the Democratic Socialists of America. Instead, it is they who have been taken over, grumbling about the Biden-Harris genocide in Gaza but powerless to make real change in the government. They are stuck supporting a government of mass murder—as the lesser evil.

Some radicals criticize the Democratic Party, for good reasons. They wish to replace this party of capitalism, imperialism, racism, and ecological catastrophe with a new party. This might be called a labor party, or a progressive party, or a Green Party, or a people’s party. It might start from scratch or be broken off from the Democrats.

The implication is that the problem is the Democratic Party in itself, rather than the electoral system of the capitalist state. But building a new party in the U.S. would be extremely difficult—by no accident. The vast amount of money needed, the Electoral College, the gerrymandering of districts, the number of signatures to get on the ballot, the dirty tricks of the two established parties, the differing election cycles for different positions—all these and more make a successful new party virtually impossible. The last time it happened was the creation of the Republican Party over the slavery issue, as the country was on the verge of a civil war.

In any case, the various advocates of some kind of new party have rarely examined the history of socialist electoralism. There is a long history of independent socialist parties running in elections in Europe and elsewhere. As anarchists predicted, the elected socialist representatives invariably adapted to the political milieu of the government. They made deals and became chummy with their bourgeois counterparts, becoming bourgeois politicians themselves.

Whenever these parties came close to real power, the capitalists have squelched them. Businesses have gone on “capital strikes,” refusing to invest in the country and shutting down industry. They have spent large sums on conservative parties. They have subsidized fascist gangs. They have promoted military coups. Social democrats have been forced to capitulate or be overthrown. From the early social democrats to the rise of European fascism to the history of socialists in France, Chile, Greece (Syriza), Venezuela, and so on, electoral strategies have never worked to move toward a new society. Yet each time there is an upswing of the left, reformist socialists treat an electoral approach as a brand-new brilliant idea.

If Not Elections, Then What?

The liberals and democratic socialists asked: If not elections, then what? How will the people assert power against the ruling elites? Or are you waiting for the Great Day, the Final Revolution, which will solve all our problems? What do we do in the meantime?

Anarchists too are for improvements in the lives of ordinary people. Anarchists are not for waiting for the revolution, which is not around the corner. The fight for reforms may cause people to have better lives in the here and now. Even if such fights were to fail, at times, working people may learn lessons about who their real enemies are and how to fight them. But revolutionary anarchists do not advocate attempts to use elections and party politics to gain improvements. What then?

Errico Malatesta argued that “what little good…is done by elected bodies…is really the effect of popular pressure, to which the rulers concede what little they think is necessary to calm the people….[Electionists] compare what is done in the electoral struggle with what would happen if nothing were done; while instead they should compare the results obtained from…the ballot box with those obtained when other methods are followed, and with what might be achieved if all effort used to send representatives to power…were [instead] employed in the fight to directly achieve what is desired.” (Malatesta 2019; p. 179)

To repeat the previous quotation from Kropotkin, anarchists “have endeavored to promote their ideas directly among the labor organizations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital.”

Consider major movements in U.S. history: In the thirties and afterward, workers won union recognition in major industries. They did this through huge strikes, occupations of factories, and fighting with scabs, vigilantes, police, and the national guard. The New Deal instituted social security and other welfare benefits due to this mass pressure from below.

In the fifties and sixties, African-Americans won the end of legal Jim Crow and racist terror. They engaged in boycotts, mass “civil disobedience” (law breaking), demonstrations, and urban rebellions (“riots”). The right to vote, desegregation, anti-discrimination laws, and anti-poverty programs were achieved through these struggles from below.

The movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam included huge demonstrations, draft resistance, civil disobedience, university occupations and strikes, and a virtual mutiny in the military. (And, of course, the military fight of the Vietnamese people.)

Meanwhile there was an upsurge in labor, including organizing unions and strikes in health care and for public employees, as well as wildcat strikes in key industries (such as the post office).

The LGBTQ movement exploded with the Christopher Street rebellion. It included the later ACT-UP civil disobedience to fight against public inaction on AIDS. The women’s liberation movement developed in the context of these popular struggles and radicalization.

Periods of radicalization have died down. The unions became integrated into the system, heavily reliant on the Democratic Party. Legal segregation was ended—although African-Americans were still on the bottom of U.S. society. The U.S. state withdrew from Vietnam—although imperialism and war continue. The Black movement became co-opted by the Democrats and so were the remnants of the anti-war movement. The Democratic party served as the “graveyard of movements.”

However, the lessons remain, that real victories can be won through popular mass movements and direct action, outside of the electoral trap. The growth of union militancy in recent years and the pro-Palestinian movement on and off university campuses, give hope for the future. One general strike in a big city could change national politics. There is no road to anti-state socialism except through the mass action of the people.

Is It Fascism Yet?

Every election cycle, liberals are prone to shout that “fascism is coming!” unless the Republicans are defeated. Are they right this time? There is widespread fear, spread by liberals, and even not-so-liberal Democrats, that the election of Trump would be the replacement of U.S. democracy by a fascist-like dictatorship. On the other hand, among the far-left, there are those who argue that there really is no significant difference between the two capitalist parties. However there are other alternatives between overt fascism and there being no important differences.

In my opinion, there is little likelihood that a Trump victory would quickly install a regime on the model of classical European fascism. That would require declaring Trump president-for-life, cancelling all further elections, outlawing all other parties including the Democrats, suspending the Constitution, and arming a uniformed vigilante movement similar to Hitler’s Storm Troopers or Mussolini’s Black Shirts.

Business people do not want this; after all they are making a lot of money under the current arrangement. (Most of business—now called “the donor class”—backs the Democrats in recent elections.) There is widespread unrest but not enough to make the bosses feel threatened in their wealth. The rest of the establishment, in and out of government, does not want overt fascism—including the “intelligence community” (national police forces) and the top military brass. It is impossible to make a successful coup without the support of the people with money and the people with guns. And at least half of the population does not want this.
More likely is a creeping authoritarianism, keeping the forms of political democracy while emptying them of content. It will tend toward Victor Orban’s Hungary rather than Hitler’s Third Reich.

“What we are likely to see is a lingering fascism of less murderous intensity, which, when in power, does not necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally. [As recently happened in Poland—WP] But since its successor government…will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to return to power as well.” (Patnaik & Patnaik 2019; p. 29)

Some say that there is no cause for worry, since the U.S. has gone through periods of right-wing repression and came out okay. For example, in the ‘fifties, after World War II, the U.S. was swept by anti-communist hysteria. This was led by Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, the House Un-American Committee, and many more. The Democrats, from President Truman to the liberals, participated in it, instituting loyalty programs and political purges of government employees (including J. Robert Oppenheimer). People lost jobs in the civil service, schools, universities, unions, the entertainment industry, and elsewhere. Meanwhile the Southern states had legal racial segregation, violently enforced by the police and by the Ku Klux Klan. But eventually this repressive politics was cracked by the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement.

However, the fifties and sixties were the period of the “post-war boom,” a big upswing of prosperity, at least for many white people in the U.S. The improvement in living standards made it unnecessary for the rulers to give up the advantages of political democracy (advantages for them), despite the upheavals of “the sixties.”

Today the system confronts deeper crises. On a world scale capitalism is brittle and conflicted. There are wars raging in various places. The U.S. economy, while relatively stronger than the rest of the world for the moment, is in decline. Inequality is worse than ever, there is stagnation in large parts of the system, and it maintains profits by pumping out vast amounts of oil and gas—thus dooming industrial society. The unhappiness and discontent of large sections of the lower middle class and white working class has reached dangerous proportions. People are looking for solutions. Without a significant radical movement, these layers of the population look to the far-right. They are open to blaming Latinx and Muslim immigrants for their problems. They become willing to listen to demagogues such as Trump, who promise to lead them to a mythical land of white supremacy, Christian dominance, and patriotic greatness.

How a few radicals, of various persuasions, vote or do not vote in November is not the important issue. The question is whether it is possible to develop an independent movement of movements, of the working class and all those oppressed and threatened by this disastrous system, to oppose the capitalists, their establishment, their state, and all their systems of oppression. It is whether a revolutionary anti-authoritarian wing of these movements can be organized to fight for a free society.

References

Kropotkin, Peter (2002). “Anarchism” [from the Encyclopedia Britannica]. Anarchism; A Collection of Revolutionary Writings. (Roger Baldwin, ed.) Mineola NY: Dover Publications. Pp. 284—300.
Malatesta, Errico (2019). “Towards Anarchy” Malatesta in America 1899—1900. The Complete Works of Malatesta. Vol. IV. (Davide Turcato, ed.). Chico CA: AK Press.
Paitnaik, Utsa, & Paitnaik, Prabhat (2019). “Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End.” Monthly Review, vol. 71, no. 3. Pp. 20—31.

 

A Letter to the Libertarian Left

Aug

10

2024

comments

From DSA: Libertarian Socialist Caucus

“The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.”

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

We in the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LSC) of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) recognize that our formation has dual obligations, both to the development of the socialist movement in the United States and to the broader libertarian socialist movement that exists outside of DSA. While much of our caucus’ focus thus far has been on DSA’s internal politics, we believe in cross-pollination with the broader libertarian left via an exchange of ideas and mutual support of organizational projects.

To accommodate this aspect of our vision, current and former members of LSC established the Horizon Federation, a network designed to bring libertarian socialists together, regardless of affiliation, in order to share knowledge, skills, and opportunities for cooperative praxis[1]. This piece seeks to expand upon our vision for the anarchist movement in the aftermath of LSC’s post-2023 reorganization, explain how DSA-LSC and Horizon fit into that vision, and summarize our short and long-term goals toward strengthening the cause of libertarian socialism.

Social Anarchism, Social Insertion

Before describing our suggested means of intervention in the broader socialist movement, as well as within DSA specifically, it is worth defining the concepts of organizational dualism and social insertion. These concepts were developed at the end of the 20th century by South American anarchist movements whose particular theories form the backbone of what is now known as especifismo, a tendency of social anarchism which advocates for the creation of specifically anarchist organizations. These organizations serve as rendezvous points for anarchists to develop theory and coordinate effective strategies and tactics for popular struggle which both adhere to and propagate anarchist principles.

Organizational dualism is the idea that the struggle against capitalism occurs on two levels, the political and the social. There are two main kinds of organization through which this struggle occurs: political organizations, which operate under a specific political line with strategic and tactical unity, and social organizations, which are popular organizations, such as labor and tenant unions, social movements, and mass organizations.[2]

Between the political and social movements themselves, there are also two forms of political transmission that may occur: the flow of militants from the social to the political, which we call political organization, and the flow of anarchist praxis from the political to the social, which we call social insertion.[3]

Social insertion describes the relationship between anarchist organizations and social movements through which anarchism comes into contact with the popular movement. As anarchists, we take seriously Marx’s opening proclamation in the General Rules of the International Workingmen’s Association: “the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.”[4] It is on the social level, not the political, that the class-wide struggle against capitalism is predominantly fought, and we believe that the most thoroughly democratic principles of organization are necessary for the working class to win that struggle.[5] These principles include direct democracy, subsidiarity, direct action, self-management, federalism, class independence, revolutionary perspective, and popular protagonism. When these principles are upheld and defended within social movements and organizations, we have social insertion.[6]

As stated by Carl Eugene Stroud, “it is anarchism that should be within the class struggle and not the class struggle that should be within anarchism.”[7] Because means and ends are always intertwined, we believe that these principles of anarchism can only become widespread on the social level through democratic dialogue, not by dictating them. In Social Anarchism and Organization (SA&O), the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) describes this as an ethics of horizontality:

When in contact with the social level the specific anarchist organization acts with ethics and does not seek positions of privilege, it does not impose its will, does not dominate, does not deceive, does not alienate, it does not judge itself superior, it does not fight for social movements or in front of them. It struggles with social movements, not advancing even one step beyond what they intend to.

We understand that, from this ethical perspective of the political level, there is no fire that is not collectively lit; there is no going forward, illuminating the way of the people while the people themselves come behind in the dark. The objective of the active minority is, with ethics, to stimulate, to be shoulder-to-shoulder, giving solidarity when it is needed and requested. By this, unlike the vanguard, the active minority is legitimate.[8]

Social insertion is not entryism. It is not vanguardism, and it is not the mass line. Social insertion is a specifically anarchist method of engaging with and influencing mass movements to adopt anarchist organizational principles in a manner that flows from our most important strategic and ethical anarchist principle: the unity of means and ends.

Entryism is a strategy in which members of a political organization seek out positions of leadership in order to impose their line or recruit for their organization, thereby co-opting them to adhere to the line of the insurgent group or tendency. Entryism gives the appearance of political change without directly engaging the base, eventually acting as a parasite on these movements as the base progressively disengages from an organization that they inevitably feel politically disconnected with. Social insertion, on the other hand, advocates for developing the already existing anarchic tendencies of social movements in order to build them up and push them as far as they can go.[9] Rather than directly seizing the decision-making institutions of an organization to assert our control, we must engage the membership directly to encourage development of a desire to seize democratic control for themselves. This can only be done through social work in which anarchists join many different social movements and operate within them. To build the class struggle, we must push its democratic, horizontal character to the highest degree. To build democracy and horizontalism within the class struggle, we must be present and working within the mass organizations as anarchists and libertarian socialists in order to advance democracy and horizontalism, bringing anarchism from our caucuses and organizations to every front in the struggle against capitalism.

A United Front Toward Popular Power

When it comes to applying the strategy of social insertion to the context of organizing within DSA, a caveat must be made. DSA is a “big tent” organization – meaning it is open to a variety of socialist tendencies, from Trotskyism to Orthodox Marxism to anarchism and many more, all united under the banner of democratic socialism.[10] This entails a basic unity around the commitment to both democracy and socialism, with a diversity of views regarding the means of achieving socialism. If we analyze DSA through the lens of organizational dualism, we quickly realize that DSA is neither strictly a social organization nor a political organization; it is in some sense both – an intermediate organization, also known in SA&O as a grouping of tendency:

The grouping of tendency puts itself between the social movements and the specific anarchist organization, bringing together militants of distinct ideologies that have affinity in relation to certain practical questions. [...] This form of organization aims to solve a very common problem that we find in activism. For example, when we know very dedicated activists; revolutionaries that advocate self-management, autonomy, grassroots democracy, direct democracy, etc. and with whom we do not act because they are not anarchists. These activists could work with the anarchists in the groupings of tendency and defend their positions in the social movements together.[11]

Within DSA, we find a myriad of comrades organizing on every front of the class struggle in the United States – from labor organizing, to tenant organizing, to mutual aid and beyond. Many of them concur with us on a number of practical questions: the necessity of revolution, popular protagonism, self-management, militancy, class independence, and anti-vanguardism. While the particular affinities we have with comrades from each of the internal caucuses within DSA varies widely, the assemblage of caucuses with which we have the greatest affinity comprises what is colloquially referred to as the “left wing” of DSA, with LSC at its left edge.

This coalition, albeit loose and informal, has fought and continues to fight for an anti-capitalist, class-independent, militant and revolutionary DSA. We believe that DSA has the potential to be such a grouping of tendency wherein comrades from every sector of the anti-capitalist struggle come together to create a united force exponentially more powerful than the sum of its parts. In fact, we believe it is already acting as such, albeit only partially.

Beyond merely being a grouping of tendency, DSA has the potential to be an organization which can unite the socialist tendency of the entire struggle and produce a force great enough to topple capitalism – what Black Rose Anarchist Federation describes as the front of dominated classes:

This Front of Dominated Classes seeks to unite the broad base of the dominated classes in all their diversity, in all their organizational expressions and demands. While the organized working class remains a critical component of this front, our fundamental task is to build bridges between the full range of organized social forces fighting against the system of domination—from undocumented immigrants struggling against deportation, detention, and discrimination, to fights over housing, healthcare, gendered violence, war, policing, ecology, and more. Isolated from each other, there are concrete limits to what these movements can achieve. Only through a Front of Dominated Classes will we be able to bring about a revolutionary rupture with the system of domination and replace it with libertarian socialism.[12]

This front, like DSA, lies at the intersection of the political and the social, presenting a broad coalition of forces united in the struggle to end capitalism and the state. The front of dominated classes is the seed of popular power, the ultimate strategic aim of especifismo during the pre-revolutionary period, and the necessary condition for social revolution:

When the especifistas claim that it is necessary to “build popular power”, what is defended is nothing more than the construction of a popular social force capable of promoting a social revolution and, with that, establishing a relationship of power against the ruling classes and great agents of domination in general. Obviously, it is not about the construction of any power, but about a self-managed power, which implies the direct combat of the relations of domination, and that points to a society without classes and other forms of domination. Therefore, our conception of popular power is a conception of self-managed power.[13]

Despite our belief in the potential of DSA, we are under no illusions that DSA is ready at this moment to be a front of the dominated classes. DSA is in serious danger of losing itself to the traps of reformism and electoralism, leading comrades down a political dead end via opportunism and cooptation.

We must also note, however, that DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States. If we ignore the role that DSA plays in the American socialist movement we risk losing out on the gains made in left-wing politics over the past decade. We believe that all socialists need to recognize the opportunity that DSA’s genuinely democratic organizing model provides us. It is an organization with the potential to be a major catalyst in the formation of a genuine popular power, rather than merely siphoning off the existing power of the state by cozying up to politicians or appointing a clique of “enlightened” leaders to govern on behalf of all.

Building the Libertarian Left Beyond DSA

One of the outcomes of our caucus’ reorganization has been a renewed emphasis on direct ideological expectations upon one another. The Points of Unity we drafted and approved near the start of 2024 committed us to an overall ideological platform that simply did not exist in the previous iteration of LSC.[14] As one member of our caucus described in their piece “LSC Does Not Belong to DSA: We Caucus Wherever We Are,”[15] we do not see our work as having to exist within DSA or even within LSC. Our commitment is, above all, toward the revolutionary cause. If there is a need to discard our own identity as a formation, we are willing to do so, especially if it would allow for the unification of the libertarian socialist movement in shared struggle.

To this end, we not only tolerate dual-carding with other libertarian socialist organizations but honor our members’ diverse movement backgrounds. We respect the prerogative of our comrades to freely associate at their discretion. And, we are thrilled to welcome Cooperation Milwaukee to Horizon Federation. To our siblings on the libertarian left, we invite you to connect with us to further shared goals. Regardless of your relationship to DSA, we know there exists countless organizing projects in the communities we share, and we endeavor to aid your work and build mutual trust and power.

Finally, we recognize that if the libertarian socialist movement is to unify in our means and ends, it does not benefit us to remain disorganized while the working class continues to have no place to turn for liberation. Our goal is not to demand that a plethora of libertarian socialist and anarchist organizations immediately unify and cast aside their independent identities and ideological distinctions. Rather, it is by engaging one another that we will better learn to engage with the American and global working classes and empower them to fight for their freedom.

To those watching from the sidelines and not currently active in struggle: multiple comrades in our caucus became radicalized as libertarian socialists during, or even because of, their time in DSA. Whether our work happens within DSA or outside it, we must continue to support each other amidst the atomization of our capitalist society. If you wish to fight for freedom, solidarity, and democracy, we're building the libertarian socialist left here and now, and we need all the help we can get.

Reach out to us at dsa-lsc.org/horizon, dsa-lsc.org/join, or contact us by email at lsc.dsa.lux@gmail.com, and let's get to work.

Solidarity Forever,

Libertarian Socialist Caucus