Trouble Brewing for Cornel West and the Left
with Sabrina Salvati and LaJuan Loury
The left-wing comic and podcaster Jimmy Dore recently posted a tense interview with his (now former?) friend and political ally, 2024 presidential candidate Cornel West. The exchange brought to the surface some nascent tensions in the left-wing circles, but it seems like there’s something more than simple political disagreement at work. I wanted to understand the issues at play, so I brought in podcaster Sabrina Salvati and my lovely wife LaJuan Loury to break it down for me.
This is a clip from the episode that went out to paying subscribers on Monday. To get access to the full episode, as well as an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
I’m astonished by this conversation. It goes back to the puerile epithets thrown around by the SDS people in the sixties, when everyone who didn’t agree with them was a “fascist.” Joe Biden is a bloviating fabulist, a weak and cowardly bully and mentally impaired at this stage, but surely not a fascist. He is just a very average politician from another era and a lousy president. That does not make him a fascist. Does no one have any information about Mussolini or Hitler any more?
Part of the revival of American Civics needs to be differentiating "fascist" from "authoritarian". As Glenn says, fascism has a very specific political and historical meaning. It's not a synonym for "authoritarianism" or even (as it seems to be used most often now) for "the worst kind of authoritarianism." Fascism denotes a movement that involves myths of cultural regeneration and martial elements embodied in a strongman leader who enjoys a high level of popularity among the people. In every authoritarian system, there is oppression. In a fascist system, that oppression is often meted out by the people themselves against political opponents, outsiders, minorities and people who resist or area viewed as enemies of the movement. Ironically (or perhaps unironically), ANTIFA may be the closest thing we have in America to a "fascist" organization at the moment - one whose explicit goal is to do violence against its political opponents.
Certainly the Make America Great Again movement fits the bill for a myth of cultural regeneration and there is a cult-of-personality around Trump, but the Trumpian Right's general distrust of all things government disqualifies it from categorization as "fascist." I think of this whenever I see a "Don't Tread on Me" or similar-themed bumper sticker on the same pickup as a "Trump" one - which is quite often. Meanwhile, the American Left in 2023 has no shortage of authoritarian ideas that might be common in a fascist government: from compulsory vaccination to a supreme emphasis on race and ethnicity in policy, and many Americans who identify as left-of-center seem willing to do the government's work for it by outing perceived enemies through cancellation, but the Left lacks any sort of unifying cultural message that can be embodied in and advertised through a strong individual leader. In fact, most of its leaders seek to appear compassionate to a fault, and are afraid of endorsing one culture or value system over others.
Fascism should not be a slur for a politician or policy one disagrees with or thinks is dangerous. There are better, more precise descriptions out there that can effect better results in our national discourse.