POST PANDEMIC; 

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME 

After Biden Unveils Covid-19 Relief Plan, Tlaib Doubles Down on Demand for $2,000 Monthly Payments

 "The people deserve, demand, and require 

$2,000 recurring monthly survival checks."

by

Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Published on Friday, January 15, 2021 

by

Common Dreams

ts

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) looked on before then-Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke at IBEW Local Union 58 on October 25, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nic Antaya/Getty Images)

Joining a chorus of progressive critics disappointed by the direct payment provision of President-elect Joe Biden's new coronavirus pandemic relief plan, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Friday evening reiterated the need for two bills she has introduced that would aid Americans affected by the ongoing public health and economic crises.

Biden's $1.9 trillion proposal calls for $1,400 checks, the difference between the $600 that lawmakers agreed to in a recent relief package and the $2,000 sought by some Democrats for months. Though President Donald Trump backed boosting the checks on his way out the door, the increase failed to garner enough congressional support.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) expressed disappointment that Biden's plan doesn't include $2,000 checks. Tlaib (D-Mich.) joined in, tweeting: "That $600 is already in the clutches of landlords and bill collectors. Stop compromising the working class, and our most vulnerable neighbors."

Tlaib also promoted two bills she introduced last session: the Automatic BOOST to Communities (ABC) and the Building Our Opportunities to Survive and Thrive (BOOST) acts. The former would provide $2,000 per month to eligible individuals during the Covid-19 crisis, then $1,000 monthly payments for the next year.

As a Forbes report about the ABC Act, shared on Friday by Tlaib, detailed:

The payments would be made via direct deposit if the [U.S.] Treasury has the individual's banking information on file, unless the individual would prefer to have their payment made on an Interim BOOST Card (BOOST Card).

The BOOST Card would be a prepaid debit card that would not be subject to any fees, penalty charges, or usage restrictions. The full amount would be available for immediate withdrawal at any ATM in the country without any usage or withdrawal fees. Individuals who do not have banking information would receive their payments via a BOOST Card.

The Michigan Democrat officially introduced the ABC Act in April 2020 with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), after a few weeks of public discussion about it. Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is currently battling Covid-19 after sheltering with maskless GOP lawmakers while pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week.

"We have to deliver $2,000 survival checks to the American people. Not anything less," Jayapal tweeted Thursday evening. She has stuck to that call throughout the pandemic:

Tlaib on Friday also highlighted the BOOST Act, which she and Jayapal introduced in June 2019—months before the pandemic—with Reps. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). That bill would provide a Middle-Class Tax Credit of up to $3,000 annually for a single taxpayer and up to $6,000 annually for married couples, families, and joint filers.

According to a page of Tlaib's congressional website dedicated to the BOOST Act:

• Individuals can receive up to $250 per month.
• Families can receive up to $500 per month.
• The credit is refundable, meaning that taxpayers who qualify for it can get it even if they owe no taxes. Filers with no income are still eligible for the credit.
• Can be claimed by single filers making wages up to $49,999.
• Families making wages up to $99,999 are eligible.

When the bill was introduced, long before the economic devastation of the pandemic, Adam Reuben, director of the Economic Security Project, said that "while Americans work hard—whether it's a full-time job, or caring for a sick family member—an outdated notion of who deserves help from our society means that too many still struggle to make ends meet."

"The BOOST Act would essentially provide a cost-of-living refund to those who need it most," he added, "so that in the richest country in the world, we can make sure that no one lives in poverty."

With millions of Americans now out of work because of the public health crisis, and struggling to keep food on the table and a roof ever their heads, the need for relief is even greater. As Pressley put it in a tweet Friday afternoon: "The people deserve, demand, and require $2,000 recurring monthly survival checks."

$2,000 Means $2,000': Ocasio-Cortez Says $1,400 Payments in Biden Plan Fall Short of Promised Relief

"$2,000 does not mean $1,400."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Published on Friday, January 15, 2021 

by

Common Dreams

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference outside of the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 19, 2020. (Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

While there is much for progressives to applaud in President-elect Joe Biden's newly released $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package—from a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage to billions in funding for vaccine distribution—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that the $1,400 direct payments included in the plan fall short of the promise that helped Democrats win control of the U.S. Senate.

"$2,000 means $2,000," the New York Democrat told the Washington Post. "$2,000 does not mean $1,400."

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) echoed Ocasio-Cortez's criticism in a tweet late Thursday:

On the eve of the Senate runoffs in Georgia, Biden told the state's voters that "$2,000 checks" would "go out the door" if they elected Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who both embraced the push for $2,000 checks on the campaign trail and ultimately defeated their Republican opponents.

"There's no one in America with more power to make that happen than you, the citizens of Atlanta, the citizens of Georgia, and that's not an exaggeration," the president-elect said of the $2,000 payments. "That's literally true."

But the Biden camp and others contend the plan was always to provide $1,400 checks on top of the $600 approved under a relief measure that President Donald Trump signed into law last month, not an additional $2,000 check—even though, in their messaging, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris continued to call for "$2,000 stimulus checks" after the $600 payments were already distributed to many Americans.

In response to one journalist's claim that Ocasio-Cortez is engaging in "goalpost-moving" by demanding $2,000 checks instead of the proposed $1,400 payments, progressive organizer Claire Sandberg tweeted that "Biden is the one who moved the goalpost."

"In a last-ditch effort to win the Senate, he said that '$2,000 checks' would 'go out the door' if Warnock and Ossoff won," said Sandberg, former national organizing director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "Warnock posted this realistic image of a $2,000 Treasury check!"

On the whole, progressives largely welcomed Biden's nearly $2 trillion relief proposal as a solid first step while stressing that it is not sufficient to fully bring the U.S. economy out of deep recession and confront the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 388,000 people in the United States. Some economists have argued (pdf) that Congress must approve between $3-4.5 trillion in spending in the short-term to set the stage for a strong recovery.

It is far from clear how much of Biden's initial offer will become law, given that Democrats will control the Senate by the narrowest possible margin and thus be unable to afford any Democratic defections. Potentially making matters more difficult is Biden's insistence on attaining enough bipartisan support to push the proposal through the Senate with 60 votes.

The New York Times reported that top House and Senate Democrats "are preparing to pivot quickly to a parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation" if Biden fails to win the support of enough Republican lawmakers. Only a simple majority in the Senate is needed to pass bills through the reconciliation process, which Republicans used to ram through their massive tax cuts for the rich in 2017.

Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, vowed earlier this week to use the reconciliation process to "boldly address the needs of working families."

In a statement late Thursday, the Vermont senator said Biden "has put forth a very strong first installment of an emergency relief plan that will begin to provide desperately needed assistance to tens of millions of working families facing economic hardship during the pandemic." On top of $1,400 direct payments to many Americans—including adult dependents—the president-elect also proposed increasing the current $300-per-week federal unemployment supplement to $400 and extending emergency jobless programs through September.

"The president-elect's Covid relief plan includes many initiatives that the American people want and need, including increasing the $600 direct payments to $2,000, and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour," Sanders continued. "As the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I look forward to working with the president-elect and my colleagues in Congress to provide bold emergency relief to the American people as soon as possible."

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Despite Pain and Record Death, 

Why Is the Stock Market So High?

How did rich corporations and finance capitalists come out of the pandemic in very good health in contrast to the general population?

by

Rajko Kolundzic

tPublished on Sunday, January 17, 2021 

by

Common Dreams

Citizens wearing protective masks form lines to receive free food from a food pantry run by the Council of Peoples Organization on May 8, 2020 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

On November 24, 2020, the S&P 500 hit a record, "defying” the pandemic the Wall Street Journal notes. The Journal added that stocks’ stellar year defied the virus and economic slump—describing it as dazzling and as a “euphoria.”

At the same time, the rich are getting wealthier. Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and now second richest man in the world, became richer by 13 billion dollars in just one day (while denying his workers paid sick leave at the same time). The richest American family, the Walton’s, increased their account balance by $21 billion within 20 weeks. Elon Musk became the second richest person in the world and has since overtaken Bezos as the world’s richest person on the planet. In fact, this is a defining trend for the rich since the start of the pandemic.

As of December 8th, the Institute for Policy Studies calculates that U.S. billionaire wealth has increased by $1 trillion since March 18th. The numbers are eye popping: the total net worth of their wealth has increased by billions per day.

Indeed, the stock market finished the year near all-time highs, “enriching” the wealthy despite a deadly pandemic that has witnessed nearly 350,000 US deaths (and rising) while millions are unemployed. As the coronavirus crisis lingers on, we are once again reminded that there is a clear divergence amongst the two sides of society and the economy: the rich and the poor.

So how did we get here? How did rich corporations and finance capitalists come out of the pandemic in very good health in contrast to the general population? Why is there such a major stock market-economy disconnect?  Why have the fortunes of the rich been completely detached from the issues experienced by the rest of society?

Firstly, it is important to recall that the stock market is not the economy. As economist Dean Baker has noted multiple times, the stock market is a measure of expected future corporate profits. In other words, the stock market can be in great shape while the economy is reeling because investors anticipate higher profits.

Yet more importantly, as part of the CARES Act bill passed by Congress, on March 23, 2020, the Federal Reserve, in a first-time move, announced that it will directly buy corporate debt as part of its emergency lending programme. That was all it took in creating profound effects across markets. The reason is clear: its announcement was all that was needed to stabilise corporate stocks and bond markets causing them to surge because it sent the message that if corporations are in trouble, they need not worry because once again they have the “free market” government to rescue them. Furthermore, this massive corporate rescue helped secure further corporate bonds that wouldn’t have been possible without this Fed guarantee as it allows corporations to take on more bonds without its negative consequences. Needless to say, this had its intended effects. Many companies, such as Apple, explicitly noted that its bond issuance will be used for “share buybacks and dividends.” Corporations like Boeing secured $25 billion while Exxon got $9.5 billion on the bond market.

In addition to buying corporate debt directly, the Federal Reserve pumped massive amounts of new money by setting rock-bottom interest rates in which subsequently little of this actually flowed into productive investments that could have put the economy on a progressive track and could have helped millions in dire need of assistance. Rather, this new money went where returns are rapidly rising: the stock market. This perpetuated the cycle and gave us a “euphoric” year. Through another major intervention by the state, corporations, financial intuitions, and rich investors used most of this new money to buy more stocks driving up stock prices. Hence, this is why we constantly read news of a record-breaking stock market.

Of course, there weren’t any set of conditions such as worker retention leveraged in the Fed schemes. As a report from the Center for American Progress notes: “Importantly, none of these large corporate bailout facilities include any conditions for the companies receiving government support, such as restrictions on share buybacks and dividends, limits on executive compensation, or payroll maintenance requirements.” So, it was perfectly legal if corporations chose to fire their workers during an ongoing pandemic. This was, in fact, what Boeing did for example. It cut thousands of jobs even though it secured tens of billions in bonds—only made possible through the Fed scheme.

In addition, on December 18, 2020, the Fed gave a green light for banks in 2021 to resume share buybacks in another move that will balloon the stock market. The banks wasted no time with this gift—just 10 minutes after the announcement, JPMorgan Chase announced a new $30 billion share buyback program. It shares climbed 5 per cent the same day.

At the same time, government support for the general population has been inadequate, slow, and too little to what should have been done. Many had to desperately wait for a one-time ‘stimulus’ check or $600 a-week supplemented unemployment insurance from Congress that had several issues—which eventually dried out months later, and then were forced to wait nearly 5 months for another insufficient Congressional relief bill. Amidst all of this, millions are barely getting by and are living in profound misery. To highlight one example, according to Feeding America, more than 50 million people have experienced food insecurity by the end of 2020 while millions are in lining up breadlines. Yet, the latest relief package signed in December does not include direct state and local aid, threatening neoliberal austerity cuts onto millions while including a significant tax cut for the wealthy. The Economic Policy Institute forecasts a dire picture if federal aid to state and local governments isn’t secured: over 5 million jobs will be lost by the end of 2021.

As Matt Tabibi opines: “the financial markets are getting the World War II-style ‘whatever it takes’ financial commitment, based upon the continuing fallacy that “wealth creators” must be the first in line for rescue in any crisis. This was a wrong assumption on the decks of the Titanic, a wrong assumption after 2008, and a criminally wrong assumption now”.

Recently, United States Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin declined to extend the CARES Act’s Federal Reserve lending programmes. The reasoning he gave is openly honest and indeed true: the lending programmes have “achieved their objectives.” Undeniably, he noted that credit markets, which nearly halted during the start of the pandemic prompting a financial shock, have been rehabilitated. Amidst this, millions are in dire need of unemployment benefits and state budgets face massive shortfalls amid a looming austerity crisis which will produce disastrous effects on millions of lives. As with the Great Recession, Wall Street is saved once again at the expense of the general population.

Rajko Kolundzic is an American university student at the University of Essex in the UK, studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

 

 

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One Group Who Knew All Along How Dangerous Trump Was: Mental Health Experts

From the perspective of his psychopathology, Trump's coup attempt last week was wholly predictable.

by

Bandy X. Lee, Jeffrey D. Sachs

Published on Sunday, January 17, 2021 

by

Boston Globe

Of course, the media environment was set up for the likes of Trump. America is filled with racism, sexism, and hatred, and with mass media outlets like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News that have no responsibility to the truth. The Fairness Doctrine, which used to protect us, was repealed decades ago by the Federal Communications Commission under Ronald Reagan, and in place of fairness jumped right-wing extremism. Social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Parler, also played a major role.

Yet Trump posed a special challenge. Into the brew of hatred and racism came a mentally disordered individual with a knack for self-promotion. Trump was not merely conniving, and that’s the point. He suffers from severe impairments, including characteristics of sociopathy, pathological narcissism, and sadism. A mentally disordered leader in a country filled with inequalities and a mass media environment promoting extremism led to a terrifying situation.

"Trump was not merely conniving, and that’s the point. He suffers from severe impairments, including characteristics of sociopathy, pathological narcissism, and sadism. A mentally disordered leader in a country filled with inequalities and a mass media environment promoting extremism led to a terrifying situation."

Mental health professionals started to warn Americans about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, but they were shut down by none other than a professional organization of their own, the American Psychiatric Association. The APA was unique among mental health associations to adopt the so-called Goldwater Rule, which resulted from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, when some psychiatrists questioned Goldwater’s mental health fitness for office. After that, the APA decreed that it was unethical for mental health professionals to diagnose public figures without a personal examination and without consent.

With the arrival of the Trump administration, however, the APA expanded the Goldwater rule dramatically. Originally, the rule applied to diagnoses. Now, according to the APA, any offer of professional comment regarding the mental health of a public figure was deemed to be unethical. When some mental health professionals started to warn specifically about Trump, the APA pushed back hard, invoking the Goldwater Rule. There were reports that the APA may have acted to protect its federal funding. Whatever was the actual motivation, the APA revisions under the Trump administration troubled many mental health professionals.

Several psychiatrists convened at Yale School of Medicine in early 2017 and published the proceedings in a book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” which raised the topic of Trump’s mental unfitness in public discussion.

The mental health experts correctly predicted that the dangers of Trump’s presidency were greater than the public and the politicians suspected, that the dangers would grow over time, and that they would possibly become uncontainable. Of course, these experts did not predict the coronavirus pandemic, but they recognized right away that the US death toll from COVID-19 — now at nearly 390,000 — would depend more on the president’s mental state than on characteristics of the virus. Well before the 2020 election, they warned that Trump would refuse to concede, declare the results a fraud, and refuse to leave office. They warned that the post-election transition would be the most dangerous days of this presidency. Though they were correct in these predications, many political leaders continued to treat Trump as a normal, albeit highly manipulative and unprincipled politician, not as dangerously disordered.

Trump’s coup attempt last week was predictable from the perspective of Trump’s psychopathology. Convicting him in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial is also important to keep Trump from running for office again. Yet we must draw further lessons.

We must find formal ways to incorporate psychological insights into political discourse. This would involve, among other measures, correcting the Goldwater Rule, adjusting the 25th Amendment to ensure that it can be applied to dangerous psychological disorders, and taking steps to reduce the powers of the presidency so that the nation is not vulnerable to the whims of one mentally unbalanced individual.

Bandy X. Lee is an internationally recognized expert on violence. Trained in medicine and psychiatry at Yale and Harvard Universities, and in medical anthropology as a fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health, she is currently on the faculty of Yale School of Medicine's Law and Psychiatry Division.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017)  and “The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

© 2020 Boston Globe

Denial of American Fascism Has Cost Us Dearly

The inconvenient truths about fascism, like learning about the climate and health crises, could lead us to actually shift our beliefs and lives.

by Zoltán Grossman

Published on
Sunday, January 17, 2021
by
Common Dreams

Proud Boys march in support of President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, December 12, 2020. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)


For too long, our country and our communities have been in denial about the rise of far-right authoritarianism and the enabling of fascism. For how many months and years have anti-fascist researchers and activists been warning that an attempted coup against democracy would happen, in some form? How many times have we seen eyes glaze over, hearing only condemnations of “both sides,” or dismissive comments minimizing serious fascists as merely “patriot conservatives,” cosplay “clowns,” or stupid “rednecks”? We heard it when Trump was elected, we heard it the next year when far-right militants and death threats besieged our college, and last year when three far-right paramilitaries roamed and held rallies in Olympia.

Our own police and city leaders hyped the threat of antiracist protesters, and turned a blind eye to three paramilitaries armed with semi-automatic rifles, bear spray, and zip ties, even rewarding a cop who had her photo taken with them. There was less government and media reaction to two far-right shootings in December than to earlier Black Lives Matter protests. There were clear cases of a biased double standard, in both Washingtons, and we saw the results last week.

"If four years ago, our country leapt from the frying pan of neoliberal corporate rule into the fire of enabling fascism, on January 20 we’re leaping back from the fire into the same old frying pan. Unless we see deeper changes, we’ll be back in the fire before long."

As Olympia city council member Renata Rollins just said, “Locally we’ve had a collective delusion that the violent alt right would go away if the racial justice protestors would just tone it down … It was convenient to believe that right-wing violence was coming from a desire for 'law and order.' That if we didn’t say anything, at least maybe they’d leave us alone.” In other words, if we ignore them, and decide not to counterprotest, they won’t go away.

Fascism Denial

What we're now seeing is the consequences of years of “Fascism Denial” by conservatives, liberals, and many progressives. As I wrote after the 2018 Pittsburgh Massacre: “Just as climate change has gradually crept into our lives, and we notice it only when a major storm, drought, or flood dramatically announces its presence, fascism has gradually crept out from under its racist rocks that have long been embedded in our society, and we only notice when it erupts in violence. We try to deny the crisis, or explain it away as part of some other, more easily grasped issue, rather than facing the realities head on.

In 2020, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that far-rightists carried out 67% of the year’s domestic terror attacks, and that in the previous decade far-rightists had killed 117 people. Only one was killed by an anti-fascist, who then became an American assassinated on American soil, next door to Olympia.

There’s a long historical pattern of western powers downplaying the rise of fascist movements, focusing their wrath instead on leftist movements. In the 1930s Depression, they mainly feared socialist revolutions and union strikers, and they enabled a fascist rebellion to overthrow a leftist democratic republic in Spain. Leftists from around the world, who had warned their own countries about fascism, volunteered to fight in Spain, but were defeated, paving the way for World War II. In effect, the western powers left the gates of civilization unlocked, for the fascists to take over. Only when Pearl Harbor was attacked did the U.S. finally wake up that fascism was the real global threat. Even then, the leftists who had fought in Spain were officially persecuted as “premature antifascists.”

Now the liberals and conservatives are so damned surprised by last week’s far-right “Pearl Harbor.” The police literally left the gates to the U.S. Capitol and Governor’s Mansion unlocked and open to the fascists, and were unprepared and slow to deploy forces, in contrast to their advance overreactions to many BLM protests. The D.C. mob was so unused to police pepper spray that they used water to wash it out of their eyes, which BLM protesters know not to do.

Our leaders may finally wake up far-right paramilitaries and QAnon cultists are a literal threat to democracy, and there’s no “dialogue” or “conversation” possible with their leaders. Even then will they continue to ignore those of us who repeatedly warned them, and dismiss us as “premature antifascists”? Or will they start to listen to the fact that without deep, systemic social and economic change, the fascist cancer will continue to metastasize? It is not just enabled by Trump in the U.S., but is in the global context of the rise of right-populist authoritarianism, from Hungary and Turkey to Brazil and the Philippines. Fascism shouldn’t just be a label we put on meanies we don’t like, but represents a specific violent ideology, and a reaction of deep-seated local nationalisms against the impersonal placelessness of corporate globalization.

Our wars abroad and the wars at home mirror and reinforce each other. In our foreign policy, the Pentagon and CIA under both parties have backed coups of far-right dictators and death squads, to maintain elite rule and corporate profits. In many parts of the world, this is who we are. They called any dissent from below an “insurgency” or “insurrection” that has to be put down, one of the reasons I don’t use those terms to describe the attempted coup from above in D.C. Americans think that coups have to always involve soldiers and shooting. But there have been right-wing political coups against leftist governments, like in Honduras in 2009 and Bolivia in 2019, more successful versions of Trump’s failed attempt to steal the election. On 1/6, just like on 9/11, U.S. leaders were so shocked when the goons that they backed to stop their enemies carried out a violent blowback against democracy, biting the hand that fed them.

Not your grandparents’ fascists

If the rise of fascism is a global pandemic, then white nationalism is the main U.S. variant of the virus. But today’s American fascists don’t fit the old simple stereotype of Nazis and Klansmen. Their organizers often hook recruits first with legitimate grievances such as opposing corporate trade deals and Big Tech, Pentagon militarism, and even sex trafficking and pollution, and only later reveal their true agendas. Far-right conspiracy theories are not just influencing Trumpian rednecks, but our own friends and families. Most of the groups are mainly motivated by white nationalism, but others are motivated by Christian nationalism (against Muslim or Jews), so-called “libertarian” reactions to gun rights, health measures, and public lands, so-called “Patriot” opposition to immigration and Indigenous rights, or cis het supremacy and misogyny.

Northwest far-right groups (such as Patriot Prayer) recruit token people of color through these other ideologies, and love to showcase them, or even use pro-gay rhetoric to oppose Muslim immigration. Not all fascists are white supremacists (remember that Japan was an Axis Power), and more importantly, not all white supremacists are fascists. So we can’t fool ourselves that defeating far-right shock troops is all we have to do to confront the much larger and pervasive, deeply rooted institutional power of white supremacy.

I’d caution anyone who assumes last week’s violence will discredit and demoralize the far-right. I did notice that they took the stickers off many of their vehicles parked near the January 10 Capitol protest in Olympia. I remember when the so-called militias declined dramatically after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and it took them some years to recover. But there wasn’t the QAnon cult or social media back then, so I think they’ll step up their irrationality and regroup more quickly this time.

We might also assume that the far-right and Republicans dividing or splintering from each other will make things safer. But our experience in the Midwest was the opposite--the far-right is even more dangerous when they're down to the hard core, and remember that in the Mideast, ISIS was formed in a split away from Al Qaeda, whom they saw as softies. So smaller crowds does not necessarily mean the far-right is less of a threat in the short term, but it does mean they have less of a social base to persevere in the long term (much like ISIS). The good news is that rightists usually hate and fight each other even more than leftists do.

Some of us might also assume that the far-right threat will decline with Trump leaving office. That may be the case, but losing power could also unleash them untethered to any restraints, as we’ve seen in Michigan. We cannot assume Biden will adequately meet the challenge. If we simply try to “return to normal,” we forget that the normality of social and economic inequalities is what gave us Trump in the first place.

If four years ago, our country leapt from the frying pan of neoliberal corporate rule into the fire of enabling fascism, on January 20 we’re leaping back from the fire into the same old frying pan. Unless we see deeper changes, we’ll be back in the fire before long.

Instead of effectively meeting the challenge of far-right militancy, proposed federal legislation against "domestic terrorism" or "extremism” is so vague and broad that I fear it will be used against dissenters who are practicing and defending democracy (like Black Lives Matter protesters and water protectors blocking oil pipelines), rather than against those trying to impede and shut down democracy.

Local responses

What can we do at this point in our history, on a more local scale where we can make a difference?

We can hold socially distanced rallies for a peaceful transition, as one is being held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Olympia, to make clear that the opposition to anti-democratic forces is broad-based in our communities, not just among highly politicized leftists.

There is now state legislation against openly carrying arms at demonstrations, Senate Bill 5038. In Olympia for the past six years, it’s almost exclusively right-wing demonstrators who have carried these weapons. I hope the bill covers not only the immediate area but also armed harassment or visible snipers farther away. There are also existing state laws against unauthorized militias and brandishing weapons to intimidate that have not been enforced.

Many Pacific Northwest county sheriffs have been refusing to enforce mask laws or gun laws, and Oregon sheriffs enabled rural militia checkpoints to find ghost Antifa arsonists during the wildfires. Law enforcement is racist enough, and now we have to worry that they could de facto deputize armed paramilitaries. After the attempted coup, we have to build a firewall to “separate Cult and State.”

Instead of being intimidated by the recent crises, we can be encouraged by the longer-term trends in U.S. society. The future looks bright, it's just the present that sucks. In a temporal demographic shift, the U.S. is becoming more racially diverse, and younger voters back social equality and environmental sustainability. We’ve also seen a spatial shift of progressive rallies emerging in smaller cities and towns, in red and purple counties, where the battle for American hearts and minds is really taking place.

The Georgia election could be a tipping point both in time and space, starting a rollback of Nixon/Reagan’s racist “Southern Strategy” that solidified Republican rule in the South, so may portend deeper changes than the presidential election. We may look back on Trump and his coup as the last gasp of the dinosaurs, trying to hold back inevitable change, and the upsurge of social movements as the comet that wiped them out.

In the longer term, white people can take responsibility to support counterrecruitment of middle and high school students who may be drawn to far-right messages, or work with fellow soldiers and veterans, or in our work and social circles. By writing off large swaths of the country as cultural-political wastelands, we’re leaving a vacuum that the far-right has filled.

Community organizers have done some amazing work in rolling back far-right harassment and violence in red and purple counties, such as the Rural Organizing Project in Oregon, Love Lives Here and Not In Our Town in Montana, the Hate Free Schools Coalition in North Carolina, and many more. Research groups such as the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights in Seattle, Political Research Associates, Three Way Fight and Southern Poverty Law Center have provided valuable information on the far-right.

Widening our circles

No matter what our personal opinions, we spend too much time talking with people we feel are right for the right reasons, and railing against people who are wrong for the wrong reasons. We need to enlarge our discussions, that’s where new connections can be made and crises can be reframed.

There are lots of people who are wrong for the right reasons. Their hearts in the right place but they’ve been attracted to false propaganda. As I stated in my book, "Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands," some white fishers who scapegoated Native treaty fishers for declining fish stocks, started working with the tribes to protect the fish from habitat destruction.

If you have friends really concerned about sex trafficking of kids, but are taken in by false conspiracy QAnon theories about Hollywood Satanists drinking kids’ blood, tell them about the real factual crisis of trafficking, such as the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

There are also people who are right for the wrong reasons, such as opposing billionaires like George Soros or Bill Gates, but because they supposedly want to overwhelm the West with immigrants or track us through vaccines. We can redirect some of these people toward the plenty of other reasons to dislike billionaires.

Similarly, some people dislike Big Tech for its censorship, but only objected when Trump’s Twitter was shut down. There are plenty of problems we can identify with Big Tech shaping opinion, in fact facebook abetted the rise of the far right. When our friends or family have a poor information diet, we can start to fill that vacuum with more factual, nutritious information, but more importantly by connecting to their emotions of anger and hope.

Like in facing the climate crisis and the pandemic, confronting the threat of fascism cannot be based on passively waiting for government action from above, or the results of the next election, but starting to form a patchwork of models from below, at the local, grassroots level. Learning the inconvenient truths about fascism, like learning about the climate and health crises, could lead us to actually shift our beliefs and lives, in order for democracy to survive, recover, and grow.

Zoltán Grossman is a Professor of Geography and Native Studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He is author of Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands, and co-editor of Asserting Native Resilience: Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis. His website is here.

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