Mini-Theory Blog: Primary Front

NinaIllingworth November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 anarchism, anarchist theory, antifascism, become ungovernable, blog, Civil Rights, collaborators, Democracy, FA1, fascism, instagram, left wing theory, legal fascism, Little Eichmanns, Mini Theory Blog, NIDC, Nina Illingworth, oligarchy, police state, Politics, resist fascism, rigged oligarchy, SCOTUS, Social Justice, social media, Socialism, ST2, Theory, top down fascism, US Midterm Elections, US politics

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As the awful death wail of another Amerikkkan election season recedes into the background, I think it’s worthwhile to stop and examine the relationship between electoral politics, and resisting fascism, in a faux liberal democracy that behaves like an oligarchy. As I’ve repeatedly noted, you can’t stamp out fascism in a reactionary capitalist society at the ballot box; particularly when a six to three fascist high Supreme Court is busy turning elections into racist Calvinball affairs all over the country. Voting against reaction can throw obstacles in the path of the fascist creep, but historically these folks are not well known for respecting democracy and civil liberties. Did losing the 2020 US presidential election stop American fascism? Of course not.

By that same measure, it must be understood that just because fascists are capable of perverting democratic systems in profoundly anti-democratic ways to gain power, doesn’t mean we have to recognize or obey that clearly illegitimate authority. Reactionary capital can rig elections for its fascist minions, who can then pass bills to install a fascist laws, which in turn may be sanctified by a fascist judiciary, but nobody can make us obey those orders. For all of the pre-supposed power of these rules and systems, a fascist society still depends on our willingness to bend the knee and participate in atrocity. Rule by decree presumes the consent of the body politic, but it cannot force the consent of the individual.

In short, democracy can lose at the ballot box, but that’s not where fascism wins. We can refuse to submit to fascists as readily as we can refuse to submit to any other form of hierarchal power. We can become ungovernable.

Unfortunately the very concept of “becoming ungovernable” can be quite terrifying in a reactionary police state absolutely teeming with “little Eichmanns” who’d happily sell their own mother down the river for personal gain. In a society that openly preaches a false equivalency between state violence and protest, fascism and antifascism, domestic terrorism and the merely inconveniencing capital, the installation of a top-down fascist order will produce limitless collaborators and gleeful enforcers for tyrannical reaction. There may indeed come a day soon when what is legal, cannot be moral, and what is moral, cannot be legal; but fascism doesn’t win unless we agree to obey. And that contest features no polls, no ballots, and no procedural rituals to hide behind.

That my friends, is the real fight we must win.