“Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organization that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism” — Joseph Stalin
Bernie Sanders’ nativist tendencies are in the news again. When asked in a recent interview if Trump had done anything right so far, he praised how the new administration—not to say dictatorship—has handled border policy. Repeating an electorally salient lie that helped put us in this mess, Bernie is apparently quite pleased to see Trump and his cronies cracking down on the flood of fentanyl supposedly crossing the US-Mexico border every day. Not quite content with the government screwing innocent, hardworking drug importers and their customers, he went on to express opposition to “illegal immigration.” And while he backtracked somewhat later on, expressing nominal opposition to mass deportations, it’s hard to see how a crackdown on illegal immigration can be detached from deporting people who immigrate illegally. At this juncture, nobody should be mincing words in the face of the regime’s attempt to deport millions of people who have violated no moral law by entering the country, or else to confine them in concentration camps. This policy of ethnic cleansing is increasingly being done without due process, and against the protests of the courts. Won’t somebody inform the old man that people have rights, including absolute freedom of movement, which no government may abridge?
It’s pretty interesting that someone who is perhaps the most iconic alleged lefty in contemporary American politics is also broadly supportive of these far-right policies. It also isn’t remotely surprising. Known for his consistency, Sanders commented in 2015 calling open borders a “Koch brothers proposal.” In July, he joined in the chorus of commentators, on the left and the right, panicked by the existence of H1-B visas (the problems with which can only be solved by moving in the direction of open borders). More generally, Bernie has always been a populist demagogue intent on destroying any cultural currency held by ideas like liberty, justice and the rule of law in favour of a politics which sees the state as a cudgel with which to enforce sweeping, top down reforms that would require a shift in the direction of quasi-monarchical executive fiat. He’s spent a career appealing to parochial, sectional interests in a way that is bereft of genuine egalitarian sentiment. He has poisoned the collective unconscious in ways that we are only now, in this brave new world, in a position to see.
At every turn, the populist left has enabled the rise of fascism. Americans are not, on the whole, impoverished wage serfs living paycheck to paycheck. Contrary to the progressive mob, the median voter was actually doing just fine going into this election: Unemployment was low, wages were world-historically high, inflation was getting under control and there was, back then, no sign of an impending recession. To the extent that a minority faced non-trivial economic pressures, the appropriate response was to address an admittedly out of control cost of living situation by liberalizing housing markets, moving in the direction of free trade, and removing onerous regulatory measures that drive up the price of consumer goods—all measures that the Sanders campaign opposed while pushing inflationary progressive policies and trying to convince people that they were poor. Trump likewise capitalized on largely hallucinated economic anxieties and the recent memory of inflation to take the White House.
There are some true things that superficially map onto left wing populist rhetoric at the level of slogans. But the vapid tone that has allowed the movement to put concerns with things like economic inequality to the purpose of populist rabble-rousing makes this fact actively dangerous. The inability to effectively diagnose the causes of capitalist stratification, or accurately track its moral dimension, has led to a kind of vague levelling egalitarianism lacking in principles or the fortitude necessary to avoid co-option by the right. This populist malaise has led to a confused, fascistic anti-elitism that gives the new administration semiotic space with which to delegitimize any institution that stands in its path to omnipotence.
Left-wing populism, like its right-wing cousin, appeals to the vacuous. Good policy doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker. ”Medicare for All,” “Green New Deal,” and “Tax the Rich,” all make for great political rhetoric, which also makes them insidious in the way they obscure more literate and, ultimately, efficacious liberal solutions. Unfortunately, these solutions are often not very compelling to the civically illiterate American public. The idea that the government can and should simply legislate problems out of existence is, on the other hand, easy to understand and vote on the basis of. The selection of policies based on their potential as political slogans, rather than their efficacy, is, for this reason, the new normal. It’s become much worse since Obama and we have people like Bernie to thank.
Once this style of politics infects the entire political spectrum, fascists, who are excellent at it, have the upper hand. The only thing more compelling to the unwashed masses than the idea that the government can magically solve their (real or imagined) problems is the idea that the government can solve those problems by punishing people they don’t like. When it comes to immigrants, Sanders is basically on board. This is no accident; Trump is the logical conclusion of a style of thought, rhetoric and policymaking that progressives helped popularize by stoking visions of an American carnage that never really occurred. History will tell of the grave consequences.
Bernie didn’t trigger a political revolution, he merely helped build the wall.
