MAGA is popular for the same reason other nationalist, fascist movements have risen over the course of modern history: as a response to Capitalist decay. MAGA isn’t popular for genetic reasons, intellectual inferiority, or other reasons like that, but as a common class interest. All of the descriptors in the OP are consequences of the driving factor of class interests, not the drivers themselves.
Fascism is most often represented as an alliance between the Petite Bourgeoisie and Bourgeoisie proper, driven by the Petite Bourgeoisie, as monopolization of Capital results in competition becoming more and more difficult, and the Petite Bourgeoisie faces Proletarianization. To prevent the Petite Bourgeoisie from joining the Proletariat in solidarity, the Bourgeoisie proper turns their hatred against the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat.
What does this all mean, in practical, American terms? Small business owners, landlords, ie the “middle class,” is shrinking in power, so the Small Business Owners are aligning with billionaires like Musk and Bezos against immigrants, workers, unhoused peopled, gender/sexual minorities, women, ethnic minorities, and more.
How do we fix this? Grow the Petite Bourgeoisie and restore their position? Absolutely not! That’s when fascism is established. Trying to “turn the clock back to the good old days” results in dramatic reductions in worker rights and a solidification of power.
What we need to do is establish Socialism. A victory of the Proletariat, a folding of the large monopolist syndicates into the public sector so they can be centrally planned for the public good, rather than privately planned for profit, is the way forward. This is the way to escape fascism’s rise. This is the way to defeat MAGA.
I recommend reading the book Blackshirts and Reds, fascism’s irrationality has rational, material origins, that can be understood and defeated, and it isn’t in the “marketplace of ideas.”
This is why the Left always loses.
The Right puts forward a Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump. They give great speeches and stir up people’s emotions. The Left tells people to read a book.
People still talk about Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxemburg because then understood this; they stirred the people up and got them excited.
Instead of suggesting a book, why don’t you try naming an actual candidate that people can vote for? We’re going to have the 2026 election a lot sooner than we’re going to have a Socialist uprising.
The book is supplementary to the comment, I explained the big picture in my comment. Blackshirts and Reds isn’t a call to action or an explanation of what to do, but an examination of fascism and Communism, who they served historically, and the material basis for them.
Voting for Harris won’t stop fascism, because it won’t stop Capitalist decay. You can even see her trying to appeal to small business owners, attempting to “turn the clock back,” in her own campaign. Neither will voting for Claudia De La Crúz, PSL’s candidate, nor will Stein, and obviously nor will Trump.
Electoralism cannot solve the conditions giving rise to fascism.
The answer is to join revolutionary orgs like the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) or Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). Only through organization outside the electoral system does the Proletariat have any hope of steering the ship and seizing the reigns.
The Right puts forward a Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump. They give great speeches and stir up people’s emotions. The Left tells people to read a book.
The US Empire is far-right, they can field candidates supporting the status quo in both the DNC and GOP. Liberalism is the status quo, taught from birth. Leftism requires reading, because they don’t teach it in school, they censor leftism and shun it. It’s a struggle, yes, but it’s a winnable one.
Thanks for proving my point.
I ask for one simple thing; a candidate that I can support. You couldn’t do that one tiny thing.
Why don’t you try actually listening to what people want instead of telling them what they should do?
The Left beat Donald Trump. Even when Trump and his toadies cheated and staged a coup the Left beat his ass.
The Left has skins on the wall. Don’t fucking forget it.
What happened?
The Left failed to get out and support him 100%. Pete Buttigieg, Warren, and a dozen other candidates split the vote and the regular Dem establishment got the most middle of the road candidate they could.
Which gets back to my original point. Instead of sitting around reading books and arguing about the Third International the Left should be a machine that can get people elected.
Bernie would not have established Socialism either. Even if the DNC was in lock-step with Bernie, Bernie would have established a Social Democracy. Far better for the American people, but it would be a temporary solution just like FDR’s Social Democracy eroded over time.
Bernie was super popular among young voters who were too inconvenienced to actually go out and vote for him.
It’s what this person does. Check their post history and you will see how often they flog that specific piece of literature.
Thanks, but I’ll just disengage.
It’s sad but true that the Right falls in line while the Left waits to fall in love.
I recommend many. Blackshirts is just the most relevant both for understanding fascism and contextualizing AES, as well as being more accessible than Marxist texts. I encourage liberals and left-leaning people to read theory constantly. Heck, here’s an “intro to Marxism reading list” I commented earlier today that another user requested I make.
Instead of suggesting a book, why don’t you try naming an actual candidate that people can vote for?
$16 billion was spent on the political campaigns of the 2020 election. $16 billion! Roughly $8 billion per party. The deeply uncomfortable truth is that the oligarch class has nearly full control over which candidates have the funds necessary to have any chance at winning an election. There are rare exceptions, sure, but most candidates are either oligarchs themselves like Trump or Bloomberg, or they have sold out completely to other oligarchs (like JD Vance belonging to Peter Thiel)
Why not both?
Clearly some people are attracted to far-right ideals without being in the petite bourgeoisie and some people who are in it are even repelled by such ideals, plus there is the whole domain of the “highly educated” who tend to be less attracted to far-right ideals and yet are often generally more prosperous than most shop keepers and similar and some even work in similar business structures (such as Architects with their own Studios or Lawyers with their own small Legal Practices) hence would count a that kind of petit burgeouisie.
I would say that it’s a mix of what you point out (so people’s petit burgeouis status or, as I would put it: “people who have just enough material wealth to think they’re wealthy but without the education and worldliness to understand that they’re nowhere close to real wealth”), certain character traits such as one’s level of Empathy and Self-awareness, one’s breadth of life experience (not in term of years but of how many different things one has done and seen and kinds of people one has met, which would explain why city people are less likely be attracted to the far-right that more provincial types) and one’s style of thinking and practice with things like analysing real world situations and trying to solve real world problems (which would partly explain the effect of Education, the other part falling into breath of experience, specifically in the form of how much information one has the tools to understand).
This is without even going into the environment one grew up in and lives in: sometimes that kind of thinking is so widespread in one’s family and were one lives that showing the social cues of far-right belief and even believing it is a natural element of fitting in if only for one’s own protection, similarly to how people tend to be religious when coming from a religious family and living in a religious community.
Genuine question from someone socialism curious: my understanding of petite bourgeoisie was they were upper class but non capital owners, like doctors and lawyers, but i guess business owners and landlords fit too. But Trump’s support is largely non college educated white men. When I think of a Trump supporter I think a mechanic in Pennsylvania. I am thinking of the majority of teamsters based on their internal poll. To put a finer point on it, fascism under Trump seems to be driven by the proletariat. The petite bourgeoisie, if anything, is solidly in the Harris camp precisely because of its concern about fascism.
America is a bit unique, it’s made up nearly entirely of Labor Aristocracy, ie beneficiaries of Imperialism.
The Petite Bourgeoisie are Capital Owners that must labor, small business owners and the like. The lack of college education doesn’t mean they won’t be held back from becoming business owners, and the dominance among the religious and white is because of fascism’s cultural characteristics, explained in the first chapter of Blackshirts and Reds.
Fascism can also be described as Imperialism turned inwards.
Interesting, thank you for the response. I’ll give that book a read, and I appreciate the direct link!
The moment you understand that MAGA is the party of hate is the moment you understand this election. It explains both Islamic and Latino support for Republicans. They were betrayed by Democrats, and are willing to let the rest of us hang for it. I hope selling out for the center Republicans was worth destroying the demographic coalition.
My wife is Indonesian Muslim, hates Kamala for what we’re doing in Palestine and told me not to vote for her. I’m still voting for Kamala but man that was a hard conversation I never would have expected. Seems like the military owns everything these days
My wife is Indonesian Muslim, hates Kamala for what we’re doing in Palestine and told me not to vote for her. I’m still voting for Kamala
Have you considered having solidarity with your wife? Did you convince her to vote Kamala, or is this still a wedge issue? Or are you not even telling her?
Your copy/pasted comment is telling people to defeat MAGA with socialism. But first let’s get it to hard mode by having MAGAs take over and do Project 2025, right?
The hard part is, she gets to pick between genocide, and genocide with fewer rights for women.
I don’t understand why she’d pick the latter, but anger does crazy things.
In defense Kamala is actively in power with Biden and has had many chances to voice and make change on this issue and she hasn’t. We know what we will get with Kamala, and it’s a lot like Biden all over again
They’re both the party of genocide. No matter what, your next president does genocide. Your vote helps decide which you get to protest under.
Oof, that must be a weird conversation. Am Indonesian.
Any conversation touching Islam adjacent lost any nuance with the general population more often than not . Not saying your wife is one, but let’s be honest the education quality here is abysmal and at the same time we’re number 1 muslim by population. Also our “Netizen” is notorious for wrongly attacking any issue they misunderstood.
One of our top singer got berated nationwide because she wore a skirt with a random arabic text in it, people thought it was a Holy script and she’s Christian.
I kid you not one election season I saw an angry mob with a banner that said USA = COMMUNIST !!
Most have hard enough time just to get by day to day so I get it, they take anything to blame. With corruption top to bottom it’s a sad state all around. I’m grateful it’s still a relatively peaceful affair though, at least here in Java.
It’s the dixiecrats after we took the one thing they loved: Jim Crow and their ability to be superior to anyone who isn’t white.
We even dared to elect a black person president over them, they will NEVER forgive us for that, it went against everything they believe in.
You don’t understand, to them this is justice for our unimaginable crimes against them, we took the only thing they had in life.
Would be kinda funny to double down and elect a black woman next. Bet they would just love that.
You don’t understand them.
He was a MAN, he counted, well, when they didn’t call him a monkey.
A woman can be dismissed, anything she does will be considered impotent and meaningless, it doesn’t matter.
The south has its own logic, you can’t understand without going back 200 years in time.
The rest of us, and themselves, hang for it.*
Too many minorities that support their system forget that they’re are minorities, and have no seat at the table. They’re just useful idiots for now, and bodies in the end game. Think of people like Rafael Cruz, Nimrata Haley, and Vivek Ramashwarmy. The fact that two of them had to change their name to have a seat at the table now is evidence enough.
They’re all depressed. seriously we can again blame nixon for the drug war and the subsequent rise in depression in our culture. (hint: shrooms, go take them)
I would place the most blame on Regan for gutting social infrastructure surrounding mental health and safety
smile magic mushrooms are a treatment for depression that was widely available and frequently used. no prescription needed and SSRIs which were invented in the 90s are the closest analog we have available today because of nixon. the lack of mental health infrastructure is pointless if you’ve banned the only effective treatment for 40 years.
but yes, also bad regan.
they are selfish.
That’s where all of those symptoms stem from.
selfish greed.
Lots of them are, but it’s stupid comments like this which make me shake my head. The left will lose 2024 with their fake moral superiority and fail to understand what happened.
Again.
get your maga out of here.
*The left will lose 2024 with their fake moral superiority…"
it is not a fake moral superiority, the left has a practical moral superiority demonstrated by material policy that positively affects the lives of people.
The left beat you in 2020 because of their tangible moral superiority by providing civil protections and material assets for the rights of the electorate.
conservatives are legally trying and succeeding in stealing the rights, liberties and property of Americans.
Americans don’t like that, and voted to the left.
they’re fighting back by prosecuting and removing the selfish conservatives who are harming people, and are creating laws and funds protecting everyone,
civil rights are not a “fake” moral superiority, they are a tangible moral superiority effected through practical, respectful policy.
The smug feeling of moral superiority and the continuous willingness to correct the other’s behaviour is THE reason why people can’t stand “left/wokism/whatever”. Continously pointing out on fake “offensive words” just to show off how morally superior they are.
That how it looks from outside.
(For context i am not American and don’t guve a fuck about orange man neither for so called “christian values” so don’t try to paint me as a conservative MAGA supporter.)
MAGA is popular for the same reason other nationalist, fascist movements have risen over the course of modern history: as a response to Capitalist decay. MAGA isn’t popular for genetic reasons, intellectual inferiority, or other reasons like that, but as a common class interest. All of the descriptors in the OP are consequences of the driving factor of class interests, not the drivers themselves.
Fascism is most often represented as an alliance between the Petite Bourgeoisie and Bourgeoisie proper, driven by the Petite Bourgeoisie, as monopolization of Capital results in competition becoming more and more difficult, and the Petite Bourgeoisie faces Proletarianization. To prevent the Petite Bourgeoisie from joining the Proletariat in solidarity, the Bourgeoisie proper turns their hatred against the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat.
What does this all mean, in practical, American terms? Small business owners, landlords, ie the “middle class,” is shrinking in power, so the Small Business Owners are aligning with billionaires like Musk and Bezos against immigrants, workers, unhoused peopled, gender/sexual minorities, women, ethnic minorities, and more.
How do we fix this? Grow the Petite Bourgeoisie and restore their position? Absolutely not! That’s when fascism is established. Trying to “turn the clock back to the good old days” results in dramatic reductions in worker rights and a solidification of power.
What we need to do is establish Socialism. A victory of the Proletariat, a folding of the large monopolist syndicates into the public sector so they can be centrally planned for the public good, rather than privately planned for profit, is the way forward. This is the way to escape fascism’s rise. This is the way to defeat MAGA.
I recommend reading the book Blackshirts and Reds, fascism’s irrationality has rational, material origins, that can be understood and defeated, and it isn’t in the “marketplace of ideas.”
That’s a modern take that doesn’t really hold up to any scrutiny since there was conservatism before capitalism.
It’s a convenient rallying cry of people who prefer socialism as they understand it, but the direct comparison doesn’t hold any historical water.
mega fits into capitalism and socialist. I think they’re such broad concepts, but definitely not the instigating concepts of fascism are conservatism.
I remember that book, it’s older right? I read it in college or high school at some point.
Conservativism isn’t the same as fascism. Reactionary movements have existed in every form of Class Society, when Capitalism overtook Feudalism it was the holdover Monarchist movements. It isn’t a “convenient rallying cry,” but an analysis of reactionary vs progressive social movements driven by class interests.
mega fits into capitalism and socialist
I have no idea what this means. Why do you think MAGA is Socialist?
I remember that book, it’s older right? I read it in college or high school at some point.
Written in the 90s, you should revisit it.
Never really liked this argument, since it’s not really a contemporary political movement where you just read the policy and go “yup that sounds good”, it’s more akin to a cult with a large indoctrination campaign.
You have alternative news floating around on the same platforms as real ones, you’re told to not believe the “other side” as they’re all in league with one another and always lie, you can have coworkers or your community reinforce these things making it very hard to escape especially if you’ve been a part of it for years. The current ‘liberal politics’ and the living situation doesn’t help either too and does contribute to the general stress that makes people fall down these rabbitholes.
Granted, people who have a lot to benefit from MAGA and are acting as influencers for the movement should be rightfully hated, but not really regular people. I do believe that a lot of people who currently are going to (begrudgingly) vote for democrats could definitely be part of the MAGA cult given different environment (such as work, living area or community they’re part of).
Point is, hate the movement, not the people. While it’s very difficult, it’s possible to deradicalize someone and vilification is not really going to help with that.
Great response. I’m an independent and the loudest voices on the left and the right are hateful but almost none of the people are. This post is just, “hate the right because they hated you first” and that shit gets old and gets us nowhere and widens divides. Oh but election season! The shrieking continues…
Don’t get me wrong, I think that the left/right divide and talking shit about the right are both necessary. There are some right-wingers who aren’t idiots in the world, but most of the right-wing parties nowadays are just spreading hate and endangering certain groups of people while having policies that benefit the top crop.
My comment is about how while MAGA is a hate ideology and should be fought against, the anger shouldn’t be turned into personal attacks against regular people and should be directed towards ideology itself and people who benefit from it. It’s much harder to deprogram someone when the side that tries to deprogram them are actively shunning them on a personal level and calling them inherently terrible people, while it’s likely that the person joined MAGA because of their environment, similar to how religious communities and being born into them work.