6 2 July 2016
W
e have nothing to fear but fear itself.
If you grew up in the US during the
mid-to-late 20th century, as I did, this
quotable quote was like a mantra echo-
ing around popular culture and memory.
It was spoken, more or less, by President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in 1933,
then smoothed slightly by time’s revising red pen for
extra clarity and rhythm. It’s supposed to be everything
you ever needed to know about FDR’s approach to
depression and war (and thus it’s a key point in millions
of exam papers in American history).
It’s a nice line, but as political wisdom I never really
felt it. In the years after 9/11, when people on the left
– Michael Moore, most prominently and insistently –
proclaimed that Bush and his cronies were practising a
politics of fear, I didn’t buy it. If you insist on attributing
emotional affect to a ‘global war on terror’ that was
basically set up to advance US economic and geopoliti-
cal interests, you might try ‘sadistic rage’ – and the
same goes for the Islamophobia that has followed it in
its wake; but I must say I
never saw a whole lot of
fear, real or imagined, felt or
conjured, in the waging or
selling of that war, those
wars.
These days, some of the
same people who analysed
Bush’s alleged politics of
fear with such disdain are all
over the internet being…
fearful. Or at least saying
they’re afraid, which may or may not be the same thing.
The torrent of left and liberal fear-discourse unleashed
by the Brexit vote and the resulting boost to Britain’s
racist right has been unmissable, but it was preceded
over the last year by a rising tide of fearful postings
about the triumphs of Trumpism.
Almost everyone I have seen expressing such politi-
cal fear is a middle-class white person. (Yes, I know that
such persons are disproportionately represented on the
internet, but my American Facebook friends include
dozens of working-class schoolmates of widely varying
pigmentation – thus far more or less fearless – so I do
actually have a contrasting sample from which to draw
my generalisation.) Therefore I find myself frequently
suppressing an urge to comment along the following
lines: ‘Unless and until it’s your ass that is liable to be
locked up, shot at, kicked out or at least kicked as a
consequence of these political developments, expres-
sions of fear are self-indulgent and evasive’. Or just
‘STFU’.
I suppress the urge, because I think these new fear-
mongerers mean well, and their fears are often
genuinely felt and expressed on behalf of those people
who (yes) have very real reason to be fearful right now.
Some of these relatively privileged people have in the
past and would in the future voluntarily put their asses
in danger. But I worry that, in general, fear is demobi-
lising, paralysing, stupefying. Examples of the
stupefaction include, say, the ‘pro-EU’ demonstration
in London after the Brexit vote, less than a year after
thousands rallied across Europe to defend Greece from
the predations of Brussels and Frankfurt. (Pro-migrant
demos are another story, and very much welcome.) In
a US context, stupefaction would entail lefties cam-
paigning for that war-loving creature of Goldman Sachs,
Hillary Clinton.
Yes, it’s tricky. No, I’m not (quite) one of those leftists
who cheers every two-fingered salute directed at
‘elites’; thinks that the more crisis-y things get, the
better; insists that Trump’s pronouncements on trade
and war put him meaningfully to Clinton’s left. I am,
however, one of those leftists who looks at a world that
has seen the rise of Sanders as well as Trump (Bernie
got almost as many primary-season votes as The
Donald with barely one per cent of the media attention),
Almost everyone I have
seen expressing fear of
Trumpism is a middle-
class white person at
risk of stupefaction into
supporting Hillary Clinton
Fight for a
bright future
We can oppose the murderous racist right
without serving the murderous technocratic
centre by being clear about the principles
on which we stand
by Harry Browne
BREXIT
July 2016 6 3
of Corbyn as well as Farage, of Syriza as well as
the Front National, and thinks, “Same shit-
storm, different brollies”.
Given what neoliberalism has unleashed
upon the world, and given the historic capitula
-
tion of most of the left to its power, perhaps we
can be encouraged that, globally, there is actu-
ally quite a lot of potent and popular left-wing
resistance to counter the racists, proto-fascists
and capitalists. Admittedly it doesn’t arouse
quite so much optimism when, say,
Syriza joins the ranks of capitula-
tion, or when most British
‘Labour’ MPs choose to
line up with the capital-
ists and against the
resistance, even when
the resistance takes
the form of their own
party leader.
How can we oppose
the murderous racist
right without serving
the murderous techno
-
cratic centre? By being clear
about the principles on which
we stand.
When it appeared Donald Trump would
visit Ireland in late June, I was asked to support
the #TrumpNotWelcome campaign of protest. I
did so for two basic reasons: (1) none of the
major political figures of US power should be
welcome here – this view would not necessarily
be widely shared, given that Vice President Joe
Biden was in town, unmolested, by the time
#TrumpNotWelcome held its press conference;
and (2) Trump (like Farage) instrumentalises
racism and sexism as political tools in a way
that merits special condemnation, not merely
on moral grounds but because he opens discur-
sive space where racists, misogynists and
fascists can thrive.
The sort of objection to Trump’s discourse
summed up in that second point is easily con-
fused with an objection to vulgarity, as in ‘Ew,
he has really crossed the line this time, hasn’t
he?’ (To be followed, time and time again, by
the discovery that Republican voters have
stronger stomachs, or wider lines, than most of
us.) There is nothing to be gained and
an awful lot to be lost when we
depict Trump (and Brexit)
supporters as crude igno-
ramuses who can’t and
don’t appreciate the
finer aspects of politi-
cal and cultural life.
In the aftermath of
the Brexit referen-
dum, there was a slew
of agonised articles
and postings that per
-
haps could be
summarised in the cry, ‘Oh
my god they’ve killed Bee-
thoven!’. This particular
europhiliac tendency was dopey in any
number of ways, but mainly for the conflation
of historic European culture, writ large, with the
narrow reality of the EU – which still has only
half the membership of, say, UEFA. (The Brexit-
related schadenfreude when England’s football
team was knocked out of the Euros by Iceland
mostly managed to ignore the fact that they
were despatched by representatives of a coun-
try that has stayed out of the EU on principle.)
Neither Trump nor the right-wing Brexiters
can kill the reality of multicultural, multiracial
societies on both sides of the Atlantic in which
the phrase ‘white working class’ is less a socio-
logical description than an appeal to nostalgia.
They can, however, make life quite a bit harder
for people who are already on the sharp end of
discrimination, poverty, violence and disen-
franchisement. So the third main reason to say
#TrumpNotWelcome is to honour and stand
beside the significant numbers of mostly young
black and Latino activists in the United States
who have (fearlessly, you could even say,
though I’m sure there was plenty of fear
involved) gone into the streets and into Trump
rallies to say the same thing.
He needs to be fought clearly, without carica-
ture, without contempt for the people who dig
his act, but in defence of the people for whom
its consequences are all too real. And we need
to do that without exaggerating his power too:
Trump is unlikely to be president, and the age
demography of his support – as opposed to,
say, that of Bernie Sanders – points to a far
brighter future. But that future won’t come with-
out a fight, and without rallying forces that
understand just as well what terrors might
await us in another Clinton presidency as they
do the fearsome prospect of President Donald
Trump.
Trump (like Farage) opens
discursive space where
racists, misogynists
and fascists can thrive.
Some confuse this with
vulgarity.
#TrumpNotWelcome would've been ready
That Beethoven has been
killed is not the point

Loading

© 2015 Village Magazine

Back to Top