Kevin in Alaska
“Why is this happening?” For those trying to understand how this moment fits into the long arc of history, for those who seek an explanation of the widespread embrace of right wing populism, I recommend this short book (or long essay, really) by Nancy Fraser. It’s only 60 pages, and it’s available as an ebook from Verso for $5. https://www.versobooks.com/products/849-the-old-is-dying-and-the-new-cannot-be-born
A short thread:
Kevin in Alaska
The old world is dying. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
Whatever comes next will seem radical and extreme by any old measure of normalcy.
“The question,” MLK reminded us from a Birmingham jail cell, “is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”
Kevin in Alaska
As the multisystem crises of late capitalism intensify, faith in these assumptions will continue to deteriorate. People embrace radical alternatives that would be unthinkable in the dying social order.
Fraser identifies two alternatives: European-style social democracy or White nationalist populism.
The Democratic Party, as recently as the Harris-Walz campaign, has resisted calls for more redistributive economic policies from people like Bernie Sanders.
While the GOP and Trump offer fascism.
Kevin in Alaska
Fraser observes that for the last half century there was a broad, mostly bipartisan consensus about these two ideological dimensions of *recognition* and *distribution*
The conventional wisdom was that all members of society deserve institutional respect, but that meritocratic/capitalist logic should ultimately determine the “fair” apportionment of resources. This is multiculturalism, but with free markets. Black capitalism. Lean-in feminism. In other words, progressive neoliberalism.
Kevin in Alaska
In this book, Nancy Fraser expands on Gramsci’s writing about hegemony (the book’s title is borrowed from the well known Gramsci quote, too).
Trumpism, she argues, is the most visible symptom of a deeper hegemonic crisis. The public faith in society’s core assumptions is unraveling. The broad postwar/post-Civil Rights consensus about how society should apportion respect and distribute resources is coming apart. “Now is the time of monsters.”
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