The Future of Electoral Politics and National Elections

It’s the second decade of a new century and the country is heading toward a pivotal election - confronted with high inflation, cultural tensions, and political extremism, the people face a choice between overt fascism and an established, but elderly, statesman running for re-election. Not just any statesman, but a statesman who represents a compromise between various coalitions on the left that, despite their concerns over his age and the vitriol he evokes from the far right, believe he’s their best bet to win at a time where there is a widespread fear about the resilience of democracy if he loses. He won the previous election handily, but this time he’s in his 80s and the race is looking much tighter. He’s confronting an increasingly voracious and radicalized right wing party returning with a newfound zeal, focused on reclaiming power and hostile to much of his stated ambitions.

And yet, even with these hurdles and threats and uncertainties, fascism is defeated at the ballot box.

The people ultimately come together, and though it’s close, they choose liberal democracy over autocratic fascism. The elder compromise candidate wins and works to stabilize the country, looking to secure his position while beset by salvos of political roadblocks thrown up by the right wing opposition that continues to exert influence outside the executive office.

Eventually, the president - chosen by the left and elected to stop fascism - comes to the conclusion that in order to halt the momentum of the fascist right, in order to silence their populist arguments that the president doesn’t represent them, that he must built a strategic coalition with his opponents. He decides to welcome their leader into government at a high enough position to be able to confidently say, “Look! I am the president for all people! I understand and respect your concerns and want you to know that I am willing to work with your side to build a better country for all!”

In a foreseeable, but nonetheless disheartening turn of events, the president, age 86, passes away from cancer. With a jarring swiftness that those on the left predicted but which caught moderates off guard, the far right leader, the one brought in by the president, moves to seize power. So begins the fascist reign that will lead to millions of deaths and forever change the course of history.

This is the story of Paul Von Hindenburg, the president of Germany elected on a liberal platform in 1925 who would, in an attempt to appease and work with the right, appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, paving the way for Hitler and the Nazis to seize power upon Hindenburg’s death.

Germany did not vote in fascism, at least not directly.

Instead, Germany voted in a liberal president who viewed fascists as political contrarians to be negotiated and partnered with, as opposed to abject enemies to be defeated and kept far from power. As a result, the fascists won anyway, gaining more and more power as the liberal government refused to wield its own power to stop them.

Clearly, there are parallels between the above history and the present moment in the United States - the similarities to obvious to be worth highlighting further. It’s the story of liberal democracy, and it exemplifies precisely why the continued framing of this election as, “A fight to save our democracy! A fight to stop fascism!” is at best naive, and at worst, manipulative and dishonest hyperbole designed to castigate anyone who would dare venture to question what exactly we’re doing here.

But it’s a question worth asking: just what exactly are we doing putting all our eggs in the Biden basket, if Donald Trump, in fact, represents some abnormal threat to the future of the country? Or the world itself, as some more ardent commentators assert?

It’s a question that’s perceived as dangerous precisely because it opens the door to questioning the importance of parties. It opens the door to letting go of obsessing over national elections as the ultimate expression of political values. It opens the door to no longer viewing working within the system as the ultimate form of resistance to tyranny.

The true threat to progress and liberation is the idea that voting is the most important singular expression of one’s political responsibilities; that as long as you vote, you are doing your part to hold back the tides of fascism. That is what the Germans did: they voted. They voted to stop fascism. They were not a beleaguered and cynical people driven to embrace violence - the majority of Germans voted against that very thing. They were a moderate liberal class who found Hitler and the Nazis alternately distasteful and morally reprehensible and expressed that by voting for the liberal at the ballot box and then returning to their lives. And look what happened.

It is that last part - the dutiful liberals returning to their lives - that explains why Hitler was able to seize power despite not being elected. While the Nazis were working around the clock to formulate plains, hone their messaging, grow their influence, and secure their power through rallies and organizing, the left sat comfortably at home, satisfied that they had done their part. They had voted and that was what liberal democracy was about and whatever else was to happen was out their hands because that’s what they elected Hindenburg to do: to take responsibility for their lives.

Voting then going home to enjoy life until the next time you’re asked to show up on and vote for whoever the liberal candidate is - what more can you ask for? Trusting that electing a moderate liberal who saw the Nazis as a political hurdle (and not a moral foe) would be sufficient for keeping fascism at bay sounds naive only in retrospect. As we can see today, even when fascist policies are enacted, even when they’re co-signed by the supposedly anti-fascist party, even when they’re further expanded, the liberal masses who claim to oppose them stand mostly frozen, unsure what to do except scold and call for more votes.

This internal lack of any sense of political agency, the sense that one is capable of being more than simply a passive cosigner to political outcomes but an active driver and actor, is what enabled such a seamless transition from Democracy to fascism in Weimar Germany.

Unlike voting, reclaiming one’s political agency - learning how to act outside of electoral politics - has no simple set of instructions or roadmap. There are organizers and leaders and writers who can provide guidance, who offer their own programs of modern education, of historical literacy, of support for political action. There are countless community groups and online resources for understanding our political heritage on the left, for learning about the pitfalls and victories of movements past, for seeing how governance actually works, for teaching ourselves how to truly learn to read again after years spent as passive consumers of social and news media. There are people out there, in person and in written form, who can draw out our ability to think critically as we move through the world so that we spend less time and energy parsing propaganda and more time building community with others who want to build a better world.

But none of these things - none of these people or books or groups - can tell you what’s right, can tell you what your priorities should be, can tell you what your politically embodied self looks like. It is the ultimate need to take responsibility for one’s political agency that is the biggest barrier to that agency being put to use. The vast majority of US citizens do not want to have to think about this, to put themselves out there, to risk criticism or rejection or lose friends or free time or pride or energy to political causes or ideals. It’s not their fault they feel this way - it is, after all, what we’re conditioned to think and feel. But it is nonetheless all of our responsibility to break the spell and support each other in reclaiming our innate agency and ability to affect change.

Our habituation to a life where politics exists as a pastime - as entertainment, as a sport, as an identity - keeps us politically inert and resentful of demands to engage further. “Why do I have to learn how to play football when all I want to do is watch?” We are no better equipped to fend off fascism than the citizens of Weimar Germany, and the sooner one accepts that - and accept that electing Joe Biden does not solve things - the sooner the work of actual change and progress can begin.

So What do i do, then?

Read.

Take one hour a day away from social media, away from the news, away from emails and texts, and use it to read non-fiction histories. Not summaries - not someone else’s analysis of someone else’s work - but the core work itself. Read DuBois, read Capital, read The Wretched of the Earth.

Read and look for guidance on what else to read and then read that. If you don’t finish, that’s fine. You’re building a discipline around educating yourself and learning more about the world so that you are able to think critically about politics without needing the news to tell what you what to think or what to do. When the collective cultural baseline is to stop learning after you leave school and to start deferring to the “experts” on TV and social media, cultivating a practice of daily education will be gradual work.

All of these texts, and many more, are worth reading in their entirety, but you may find yourself overwhelmed or lost and needing to come back later after reading something else. That’s part of the process and it’s one you must figure out for yourself. A reading list or instructions on how to understand these things would once again just mean surrendering your own agency and critical faculties to being a facsimile of someone else’s mind. Deferring uncritically to the judgment and ideas of others is how we find ourselves in positions like this, wondering how things got so bad.

Each of us that intends to affect change, that takes seriously our responsibility to each other, must be able to stand on our own principles and knowledge in the face of opposition and antagonism. If you can’t advocate for your values, for your political ideals, for your participation or choices or solidarity in your own words with your own heart, then you’ll be just as susceptible to being a useful idiot for power as the fascist so frequently derided and looked down upon by the left.

Being embodied as a political actor necessarily means having a tolerance for conflict, for derision, for rejection from the group. The marginalized and oppressed would not need to fight for liberation if their humanity was already accepted - doing what’s right will by definition mean being hated and put down and rejected by those invested in maintaining the status quo. As you learn more and grow and evolve your political understanding and agency, you may find yourself surprised at who is invested in the status quo. And you may find yourself surprised at how you feel about that.

Holding your resolve in the face of dissent from community members and conflict with loved ones requires staying grounded in your values, and maintaining the discipline to be accountable to those values. It means learning to correct your own mistakes without needing to be confronted about them first. It means educating yourself past your prior ignorance, and learning how to prioritize what things to become educated on. It means being proactive and not passive in your political evolution. Being passive in this process is what allows fascism to flourish, and make no mistake: turning up every two years to vote based on the rhetoric of wealthy media personalities and social media gossip is just as passive as refusing to engage in politics at all.

This is not a solitary process. Change and progress comes from collaboration, from dialogue, from building real community and learning from one another. It does not come in isolation, removed from any risk of criticism or struggle or awkward interaction. It comes from expanding our sense of solidarity and identity to encompass more than our immediate group, more than what’s familiar or conditioned, more than what feels safe.

This again is why the work of reclaiming one’s political agency is not simply a matter of following a reading list or set of instructions - it must be done in conversation with those you want to fight alongside and it must be responsive to the insights and thoughts and needs of others. It must be done with others because it must be done with the weight on our conscience of seeing firsthand that cowardice in this process will have affect others outside ourselves.

Reading an op-ed and agreeing with it and then arguing on behalf of the grievances of said writer is not community, it’s not advocacy, it’s not politics - it’s parasocial war games and it does not build community or trust or political power. Political struggle and progress does not happen from a position of comfort and safety, of debating on behalf of others - it happens from a place of vulnerability and risk. It happens when we’re outside our comfort zones and surrendering to the uncertainty of putting some part of ourselves on the line in pursuit of something greater.

That does not happen just by secretly coloring in bubbles behind some cardboard barrier every few years when the government gives you permission to use your voice.

The kind of growth, that kind of real change and progress, happens out there, in the world, away from anything resembling habitual responses and argument and behaviors, away from the familiar and rote and comfortable, away from anyone demanding you defer to their vision of life and the world simply because of who they are.

It happens when you begin to see yourself as someone just as capable of being politically active as anyone else; as someone who can be part of something bigger than themselves and bring their unique talents and insights and skills to bear. It happens when you become disciplined and serious about aligning your actions to the things you believe in. It happens when you commit to learning and growing and changing to meet the world where it’s at, and then pushing the world where you want it to be. It happens when you become someone whose principles and values and word carry weight not because of the image present or titles you hold, but because of your actions alongside, and in service of, the well being of others.

It happens when you no longer perceive politics as a symbolic representation of human nature, and instead, slow down enough to recognize the present moment as part of an ongoing lineage of power struggles; when you take the time to learn about the historical and material context that brought us to this point.

It happens when you stop viewing the political landscape as the scope of what’s possible, and start embodying your values and principles regardless of what the political landscape says is possible.

But what about Trump???

To keep this short and sweet: Do you believe there is a statistically significant number of potential voters in this country who would actively back the Democrats if only they were told that Trump is a liar?

Do you believe that, in a country with the highest percentage of its population imprisoned, where 1/4 of all black men by the age of 40 have spent time in jail, telling people that Trump shouldn’t be trusted because he has a criminal record is good or thoughtful or moral messaging?

Do you think that people who have real material grievances with the Democrats, who have directly suffered as a result of policies Biden and the Democrats have supported, are going to turn around and vote how you want them to because you tell them they’re stupid and confused and wrong to not be thinking about Trump?

Do you believe yourself, as someone reading this who is shaking with rage and frustration that this piece has not centered on Trump, to truly be someone with a comprehensive understanding of politics and history and elections and policy and all relevant fields to be able to assert that you know the correct course of action for every single US voting age person to take in regards to their own communities?

Did you know that George Washington, owning tens of thousands of acres of land and hundreds of slaves, had to borrow $500 to attend his own inauguration and that part of the reason he wanted to become president was that despite being one of the largest land owners in the country he was cash poor and saw the presidency as a way to remedy that?

If the opening of this piece taught you anything new, or if that land sentence illuminated something for you about the nature of the beginning of the US that you didn’t previously know, then I would kindly suggest you not presume to be an authority on the nature of electoral politics and what people should, or shouldn’t, be focused on right now.