Horseshoe? More like Horseshit
Why the revolutionary left has nothing in common with the MAGA insurrectionists
Now that the dust has settled on the latest incursion of militant far right fascism into Washington, DC, a myriad of discussion has formed on the left regarding the actions of those who participated in the Capitol Building siege. Many on the left are pretty shaken, seeing the latest manifestation of militant fascism, and what it is capable of despite its eventual shortfalls and failures during the siege. Others on the left take a vastly different approach to analyzing this situation. There is a significant portion of the left who takes a more sympathetic approach to those who participated in the siege, taking a moral equivalence approach to describing their rage. They also suggest that these people are as much the victims of decades of neoliberal politics as anyone else on the left, and think there might be room for far right/far left collaboration since the siege participants experienced in their minds what amounted to a crackdown by the very law enforcement apparatus that they previously worshipped. These same people on the left even think we should mourn the death of Ashli Babbitt, the former solder and police officer, who was shot and killed during the siege. This latest manifestation of “horseshoe theory” is troubling for many reasons, and because it has taken root in so many corners on the left, I decided to address some of the claims they are making head on.
Horseshoe theory is a political science term that asserts the far left and far right closely resemble one another, instead of being polar opposites, as some might otherwise think. This of course is nonsense, and is actually a very dangerous anti-left logic that buys into left detractors who believe that Communism is only a step away from fascism. Horseshoe theory preserves the myth of normalized centrist neoliberalism as the preferred equilibrium of global order, adding to the “end of history” mythos that has pervaded political discourse since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another reason that horseshoe theory and its many manifestations creep into discourse is because of lazy political analysis on both ends of the spectrum. The reality is that the far right and far left could have nothing less in common, and taking the example of the Capitol Building siege will help illustrate why the left has no business celebrating, emulating, or even studying their tactics other than for the purpose of understanding how to combat them.
Before we get into that I want to be crystal clear that the people who took part in the Capitol Building siege are dangerous, and they are our enemies. During the Capitol Building siege, we saw those taking part donning confederate flags, wearing Nazi memorabilia (including holocaust denial shirts), carrying nooses, setting up gallows, etc. Regardless of their aims that specific day, those aims being the possible taking hostage and possible execution of politicians in the building, the extreme end goal of militant white fascism is the eradication of not only all non-white people, but people in general who don’t accept the superiority of Americanism, and every ideology that comes from it. Some may deny the racism of this movement, even people on the left, instead seeing a naively optimistic version of events that day. Of course you may have seen a few non-white participants safely participate that day, but as we all know racist organizations love their tokens. Perhaps in Lindsey Graham’s fantastical version of fascist white America, where black people can maneuver safely as long as they are Conservative (yes he said this), non white folks could be safe. Try not to roll your eyes too hard reading that last sentence, as they might stick that way permanently.
Some on the left are suggesting that eventually, it should be us storming the Capitol Building, so we should either be supportive of those who did on January 6th, or at least study their organization and methods. This assertion of course is nonsense. Those who took part in the siege of the Capitol believed they were fomenting the beginnings of a revolution. What really took place was the opposite of a revolution, because a revolution involves the upending and complete replacement of a status quo political order with a new one. What these people were doing was participating in a government crackdown. Donald Trump is still constitutionally the president until January 20th, which means their “revolution” was actually a riot attempting to maintain the political status quo. Furthermore, the ideological foundation of this revolution was not rooted in making this country better, but making this country more “American”, and bringing back American exceptionalism and American dominance. The entire paranoia at the root of the siege was the notion that “their” country was being taken away from them, and they were trying to take “their” country back. To say these ideas have anything in common with the goals of the left would be insane. Anyone on the left who believes this needs to be reeducated with haste.
The siege of the Capitol saw some minor dust ups between the participants of the siege and the police. Depending on where you look for analysis, some might say that claims of police collusion were exaggerated based on a misinterpretation of the video footage, or that police were actually pretty aggressive with the siege participants. Some on the left are actually suggesting there might be room to approach the far right in regards to the issue of policing, given the fact that some of the participants were getting increasingly angry at the cops, and the fact a siege participant was killed in the process by those same cops. Again, this is nonsense. Even if we acknowledge that some of the claims of collusion were exaggerated, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that collusion occurred, and to deny it is to deny what we know publicly about the relationship between white supremacists and law enforcement. Of course not every single police officer is sympathetic to the cause of the siege participants, but given the video footage we saw of police officers not only removing the barricade to let them in, but also directing them, and later escorting them out peacefully, there is more than enough direct proof to warrant saying that police colluded with the siege participants. Further, we know that white supremacists have been systematically infiltrating police precincts for decades, and this phenomenon has been under investigation from the FBI and DHS since 2006.
If there is any growing enmity between the police and the fascist militants, it is because the fascist militants do not view the police as fascist enough, not because they are becoming anti-police anarchists. The far right’s adoption of the blue lives matter flag as a rallying symbol had nothing to do with their respect for “law and order”, it was based on their understanding of police being a tool of white supremacy to protect white America from encroaching counterculture, whether that be Black Lives Matter protesters, Antifa, Communism, or progressivism of any kind. Anything to the left of John McCain is seen as an existential threat to this militant fascist right, and their understanding of their relationship with the police is not based on that of the police being a force of stability, but a blunt force tool to assist in their agenda. At these demonstrations, we are beginning to see more clashes between far right militants and police, with more militants calling cops “traitors” and questioning their “loyalty”. Anyone from the left thinking there is room to adopt the right into the “Defund the Police” movement once again needs critical reeducation. The goal of these people is not to Defund the Police, but to turn the police fascist. Once again, these people are not anarchists, since their goal is using force to seize political power. Instead, they will likely continue to pursue a strategy of police infiltration to further increase their numbers within those ranks.
Some on the left are arguing that it is dangerous to over exaggerate what happened during the siege because it will just create the conditions for the Neoliberal technocracy to further crack down on all dissent. Now this is the most reasonable take from the fascist skeptical left and the most likely to be true. That said, there are still some holes in this line of thinking that need to be addressed. We know that in the face of crisis the political establishment always has something waiting in the wings to unleash on the public in response. The events of 9/11 led to the passage of the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. At the time, few foresaw the potential for blowback and how it could be used to crush political dissent that had nothing to do with terrorism. As some have noted, one of Trump’s biggest weapons during the crackdown on domestic dissent has been the Department of Homeland Security, whether that be the use of ICE for fascist campaigns of mass raids and deportations, or the use of DHS against racial justice protesters in many cities across the US. The coming Neoliberal technocratic response to the Capitol Building siege is coming, and it is going to be brutal.
That said, even that big picture analysis is not the entire picture. The left should not take such a piecemeal approach to political analysis. We need to have the ability to run and chew gum at the same time. While it is clear that the current threat of creeping fascism on the right is the weaker of the two evils, we should not underestimate it as a growing threat. Yes, the Neoliberal status quo showed its ability to quickly stomp this latest manifestation of fascist militancy when it wanted to, but the militant fascist right has shown the ability to respond, further organize, and mobilize with greater rage with each manifestation, and we should expect more of that in the wake of the Capitol Building siege. Spectacle matters in any movement, and images of the militants occupying the Senate chambers, the offices of politicians, looting items, clashing with police, and even coming away with a martyr should worry the left. Something the left doesn’t understand about this movement is how rooted in symbolism it is. There is a metaphysical aspect of this movement that we are just beginning to understand. Because the left tends to root analysis in the material world, we often find ourselves struggling to explain the immaterial of movements, especially those rooted in religious and political eschatology. It is one thing to know with certainty the dangers of fundamentalism, but it is another thing to be able to gain perspective without actually being in the shoes of a fundamentalist.
What I am trying to say is, that the left is underestimating this threat because many don’t understand it yet. There is a lot more history to study and a lot more to analyze about this modern form of creeping authoritarian fascism. Too many of us are stuck on the spectacle of action and narrowly defining our goals so the tiny spectacle of commonality we might share becomes what dominates the analytical narrative. Far right fascism is a threat. If they had their way, they would exterminate everyone on the left from the face of this planet. Sure, they may let some non white folks survive, but they would have to essentially become tokens and blindly adopt their ideology. This is an element of every fascist government that took root in history. There were Jewish soldiers, commanders, and generals that served in Hitler’s army, people from colonized nations that fought wars on behalf of their colonizer. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone on the left who understands how these power dynamics works.
That said, let’s come full circle in a way that horseshoe theory doesn’t allow us to. A theory that better illustrates the dilemma of the modern left is actually “Fish Hook Theory” which asserts that the political spectrum is more like a fish hook.
Here’s an illustration to help us:
This is far more accurate a description of our material conditions than a horseshoe. Political centrism is the greatest enabler of fascism, because political centrism is the greatest threat to the progressive left, especially the revolutionary left. Political centrism embraces the inevitably of Capitalism as the dominant system of societal management, and the dominance of corporate power over people’s lives. Lest we forget that the most consequential legislation that was passed during the Trump administration was his tax cuts for the super wealthy. Corporations were thrilled to align themselves with a fascist when it came time to line their pockets, and ultimately this relationship would have grown had a more competent fascist been in office. See, there is a reason that fascist governments always take care of their corporations. One of the primary tenants of fascism is that of “public-private collaboration”, or the merging of the public and private sector into one working machine. In this symbiosis, it is often more likely that corporations exert more influence over society than governments do, because corporations have the ability to pull levers and either build or destroy entire cities and communities with economic power. Politicians don’t have this ability, but a fascist politician might, if it decides to use the power government does have, which is the monopolization on the legal use of force, against corporations.
In America, the power balance of that symbiosis is tilted towards corporations, who were on the side of Trump until he became a force for economic destabilization. The Oligarch class was thrilled with the tax cuts, but not his handling of the pandemic, and that resulted in them turning on Trump. Not only did Joe Biden receive more support from billionaires than Trump during the 2016 election, but Biden also received support from the US Chamber of Commerce, an unprecedented endorsement given all the accusations against Biden from the right that he is essentially controlled by the “radical left”. Corporate oligarchy is a more dangerous form of fascism, because the corporate Oligarchs literally own all of the planet’s resources, control the economies of the world, and have the ability to control the most powerful political leaders in the world like sock puppets. One of the reasons I argue why last year’s uprisings were more effective than Wednesday’s Capitol Building siege is because it threatened disruption of Oligarchic power. That’s what real revolution does. Businesses boarded up in the face of unprecedented anger and eventually were forced to at least look like they cared about black people and police brutality.
The only thing that the Capitol Building siege exposed was the fact that the emperor never had any clothes in the first place. That said, the symbolism of a group of fascists marching into the Capitol Building thinking it belongs to them shouldn’t be lost on us. The Capitol Building itself should also be viewed as a symbol of Fascism. For the last four centuries, it has served as the seat of governance for a country that was built on the literal kidnapping of large numbers of Africans and the violent extermination of indigenous tribes. For black and indigenous people, they have already existed in a fascist dystopia for a long time, and what happened on January 6th was just another manifestation of the white rage this country was founded upon.
Perspective is everything, but we can have a better understanding of what happened when we factor in as many perspectives into our analysis as possible, instead of letting ourselves fall into confirmation bias. The left needs to recognize who our enemies are, before we let some of our more confused, misguided comrades accidentally fall into the gallows.
Link Dump
Note: All links this week are articles and analysis about the Capitol Building Siege.
1) There is growing evidence that the Capitol Building siege received help from some of the highest places of the national security establishment.
2) Excellent analysis from Crimethinc on the political implications of the Capitol Building siege and the potential for escalation.
3) Jeff Sharlet of Vanity Fair tackles the ways that symbolism feeds into the mythos of fascist power and how the Capitol Building siege serves as inspiration instead of defeat for their efforts.
4) The FBI and DHS have been investigating the white supremacist infiltration of the police since 2006
5) Christian fundamentalist groups involved in the organizing and funding of the Capitol Building siege participants.
6) The security implications of the Capitol Building siege are being investigated, especially the possibility of stolen classified documents.
7) Trump’s fascist putsch to remain in power should have been seen coming by any observer on the Left if they were paying attention.
8) QAnon believers made up a significant portion of the siege participants. It would be a mistake to dismiss the existential threat of this movement going forward.
9) Police took part in the Capitol Building siege. There are those who are also visible supporters of QAnon.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/us/head-nypd-union-qanon-mug/index.html
https://abc7ny.com/amp/us-capitol-building-riot-police-donald-trump-supporters-in-dc/9507311/
A note to my readers: Admittedly, there is still much to learn and much to read about the events of January 6th. I hope this newsletter addition helps to provide clarity and information that helps push you to research further and prepare yourself better for the future. Admittedly the last week has not been easy. Washington DC was attacked, and the repercussions of this are just starting to be understood at a community level. I apologize for being a bit off my game this week, and will try to get back to the regular format of this newsletter for the next edition. Stay safe comrades.