USA: Interview with Ashley Smith. Militant and socialist writer

We share by Alejandro Bodart in Panorama Internacional, the program of the LIS.

Alejandro Bodart: The political situation in the US shows elements of radicalization and polarization, with the immense anti-racist rebellion as the central protagonist, but also actions of extreme right groups. Could you briefly describe your opinion on the social and political situation in the US in general?, and the dynamics of these elements in particular?

Ashley Smith: Yes, I think the United States is probably one of the most politically polarized societies in the advanced capitalist world.. And that is a long-term phenomenon that has been dramatically intensified by the crisis that began in 2008. And then with the recession that precipitated, whose arrival was very clear by the end of last year. The pandemic has dramatically intensified that recession. So now we are in the middle of a catastrophic pandemic, two hundred thousand people have died. Unemployment skyrocketed to around 15%. Now it's back to around 8%. People die at work. They are dying in nursing homes and they are dying, in particular, in Black and brown communities. So there was already a deep political polarization in the country. Towards the left expressed around the dramatic growth of the DSA to an organization now of around 70.000 people and to the right with the election of Donald Trump. And then, the growth of fascist and far-right forces around Trump's right, They are a hard core within that broad Trump right. So the pandemic and recession have intensified it. And I think the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis really set off an intense period of fighting and deepened polarization.. So we've had basically an entire summer of anti-racist protests led by the Black community, but very multiracial in nature, that have crossed the entire country from the large urban centers, to almost all towns and cities, even in the overwhelmingly white. And that shows a really dramatic shift to the left in the consciousness and militancy of millions of people.. So it is estimated that as much as 26 millions of people have demonstrated in the wave of protests that we have seen. Now, having said this, now we are in an ebb of that wave of protests. It's calmed down a little. But the shameful ruling in Breonna Taylor's murder has sparked another round of fighting. And I think that's going to be characteristic of the situation because the police will continue to kill Black people and people of color.. And the system of injustice will not do justice to the victims of these murders. And so we will see rounds and rounds of new fights. Now that fight has produced a counteroffensive against that multiracial anti-racist uprising, led by Trump from the White House, and then down to the Police Departments. So, basically, Trump has designed his entire re-election campaign around “law and order” racism, describing the protests as terrorist, as directed by antifa, as socialists. Using every trick in the book to try to demonize her and portray Black people as out of control people and dangerous threats to society.. So you're involved in the worst kind of racist law and order politics. Worse than we've seen, really, in generations. I don't know if there is a living precedent, You have to go back to the sixties and early seventies, the kind of naked racism we've seen with Donald Trump. And the police have taken that as a green light to apply more brutality on the country's streets.. And that has caused the growing mobilization of far-right forces and fascist forces that are armed and appear at anti-racist demonstrations in a threatening and intimidating manner.. So I think we have a deep political polarization in the country that will not end no matter what the results of these next elections are.. This is a deep pattern that is particularly severe in the United States., but it is not exclusive to the United States. And it is an international phenomenon, whether in advanced capitalist countries, or in the developing world. We have political polarization as a global phenomenon rooted in the crisis of the system and the crisis of neoliberalism. And the search for alternatives that can go in a left direction and in a right direction. And the conflict that is emerging, internationally and in the United States, It is which political wing of that polarization is going to be able to provide a solution to the majority., in the fight, in electoral politics and in social reforms and systemic change. And that is the battle that will shape the entire next period of global politics..

Alejandro Bodart: In this stage, with Trump encouraging racist and far-right groups, There are sectors of the left that call to vote for Biden and some characterize Trump as a fascist. You recently wrote an article debating these views., Could you develop your opinion on this??

Ashley Smith: And. Good, I think the key is to understand that this election is shaping the entire political discussion in the United States.. In “mainstream” political figures, on the socialist left, in social movements. This is an extremely politicized society right now.. I think the most politicized thing I have seen in my entire life as a conscious activist. And people are immersed in an intense debate about how to address the rise of a right that has not existed in this way., in a lot, a long time.

I think the key to understanding the debates on the left is to correctly characterize Trump. I think it's wrong to call Trump a fascist.. I think it is a mischaracterization of him and his political project. He is a political figure from a conservative to authoritarian right., that does not threaten bourgeois democracy, does not threaten to suspend the norms of bourgeois democracy. It is certainly pushing the limits of bourgeois democracy, of formal democracy, questioning the election results and doing all sorts of things like that. But I think the argument that he is fascist is wrong.. He does not threaten a coup to impose a dictatorship and suspend the right to elections, freedom of assembly, Press freedom, whatever. There are supporters of him who defend these types of positions.. But I think it's important to make a distinction between Trump and those people. Trump is a politician on the right of the Republican Party, that's the best way to understand it.

Now, liberals and sectors of the left argue that we can stop this phenomenon of Trump's growth, trumpism, the extreme right and fascism, voting for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. And I think that's a deeply misguided position for several reasons.. First, we have to define Biden and the Democratic Party precisely. This is a capitalist party. It is an imperialist party. And he is committed to restoring neoliberalism and the United States' position of power in the world in the face of the damage caused by the Trump administration.. So, in a genuine sense, This is not an alternative in the sense of undoing some of the deep problems of the system for the vast majority of people.. It is a capitalist party that may be a lesser evil compared to Trump, but it's still bad, and continues to be against the interests of the vast majority of the working class and the oppressed of the country. So I think we have to understand Biden and the Democrats precisely., because we live in a country, in United States, where we don't have a Workers' Party or a Labor Party, a Social Democratic Party. We have two capitalist parties. A right-wing capitalist party, and another liberal and neoliberal capitalist party, the Democratic Party. So we have a horrible election this year.

I think thinking that the election of Biden and the Democrats will stop the rise and greater intensity of Trump, Trumpism and the extreme right, it's a mistake. First, electing Biden will restore the political project that is at the root of the rise of Trumpism from the beginning. Because if you think about what I said before, The roots of the development of the extreme right have to do with the crisis of American capitalism. Y, in particular, of its neoliberal regime of accumulation during the last decades. Attacks on the social welfare state, union busting, cuts in social benefits, attacks on the rights of the oppressed in the country. That's what Joe Biden represents. So, if elected, will restore a political project that is the root of the crisis for the vast majority and that has triggered the political polarization that we have in this country. So, in many ways, getting him and the Democrats back into power restores the problem that polarization creates, both left and right, of our society. So I don't think it will stop Trumpism if Biden is elected.. In any case, I think we will see greater development of the more radical right in opposition to a Biden government, with an increasingly militarized and organized faction on the ground in the coming years throughout the country. So, The extreme right is here to stay and will not be eradicated by these elections.

The second problem for the left, the labor movement and the social movements that support Biden is the classic trap of the lesser evil. That is to say, by striving to get the second most enthusiastic capitalist party in American society elected, the labor movement and social movements subordinate their struggles, their political demands and their independence to a party they do not like, to a party that does not support their demands and opposes their movements. Just think about the Black Lives Matter uprising we have witnessed. The demands of that movement, that in its clearest form, are the defunding, the dismantling and eventual abolition of the police. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are absolutely opposed to these demands. So this social movement is just an example. For all social movements, The labor movement, Supporting Biden means suspending our demands and our fight for those demands in the hope that Biden will be willing to respond to our demands when he is in power, when he and the Democrats are in power. And there is no evidence that that is the case. And the biggest danger in the social movements and the labor movement in doing that is that we will give Biden a honeymoon, the only opposition to Biden will be from the extreme right, which will be like the Tea Party that we saw in opposition to Obama, more radical, more militant and militarized. And if that's the case, We already know Joe Biden's inclinations. When facing opposition from the right, instead of fighting it, reach an agreement. So, The danger is that we will be in a situation where if Biden wins, the left, social movements and the labor movement will give it oxygen, If not honeymoon and the right will be the only opposition. And Biden is willing to close a deal with the Republican Party in the Senate and Congress to defend himself against attacks from the right in the streets. Instead of promoting our interests, our demands and our power fundamentally compromise them.

So I think that, by last, and this is the big problem with this whole movement, is that he accepts the electoral framing of the problem. Accept that it is an electoral problem, that Trumpism is the result of the elections 2016 and can be resolved in the elections of 2020. Which is a flawed analysis., as I pointed out in the previous question, and what i just said. This is a deep-rooted political polarization, and can only be resolved through mass struggle, through class struggle, strikes, demonstrations, protest movements such as the Black Lives Matter uprising, that they can win and advance our demands and provide a credible solution that can convince sectors of the working class that out of desperation and hopelessness have voted for Trump, out of disgust with the Democratic Party. So the battle will not be resolved in the electoral arena, will be resolved in the streets through struggle, and that means that the movements and the left have to have political independence from both capitalist parties, and most importantly, Democratic Party. Then you can chart a course of independent struggle for the demands we must meet for reform and systemic change to uproot the roots of Trumpism in our society..

Alejandro Bodart: It's very close to the elections, and there are all kinds of analysis around what can happen. There are those who talk that Trump will carry out a coup d'état, what, as Chomsky said, there will be a civil war. What scenarios do you see for the elections and the coming months and what should be the policy of the socialist left??

Ashley Smith: I think one of the things about American society is that it is absolutely unpredictable.. So I don't want to be made to think I have a crystal ball in this situation.. For example, No one expected that the video of George George Floyd's murder would trigger the largest social protest movement in American history with tens of millions of people in the streets across the country.. So there are many contingencies in a very volatile and unstable political period. But looking at the elections, how we see them at the moment, Biden is clearly ahead in national polls. Depending on the survey, between six and 10 percentage points ahead in national opinion polls. In state polls, And that's the most important thing for people to understand., in the United States we do not have a democracy, The person who gets the most votes does not necessarily win the election.. He is the one who wins the most votes in the Electoral College, which is a proportion between the different States of the country. We have an undemocratic electoral system in the United States. Then you have to look at the state polls. In state polls, Biden is still ahead and has an easily seen path to victory, and he is doing much better than Clinton in 2016, in pre-election polls, and he's doing so well, but better than Obama in the 2012 in the election against Romney. So you have a clear path to victory in the elections. If I had to predict, I would think Biden is the most likely winner. I think the Trump administration knows this.. They know they have a weak hand in the country right now. They are behind in the polls, both at the national level, as in the States, even in states traditionally dominated by Republicans. So they are in a very weak position. And I think the entire Republican Party knows it.. I think that partly explains the rush to get this new judge nominated to the Supreme Court., because they see it as a way to ensure a set of political positions that are supported by minorities in the country right now. So Trump is in a weak position, electorally, but it is also in a weak position in terms of the structures of the state and the US economy.. THE. Most of the capital never supported Trump. They use the Trump administration to get what they want, what are tax cuts and deregulation. But they don't like his protectionism, its alienation from strategic allies in Europe and many other places around the world. They don't like America First's foreign policy strategy, of unilateralism, that Trump has defended. So, I would say that most of the capital, including Wall Street, tends to support Biden at the moment. Even centrist Republicans, who do not hold positions, They are also joining Biden. And then, if we look at the heart of the American state, the us army, in your body, in his officer corps, opposes Trump and supports Biden, The State Department opposes Trump and supports Biden, the fbi, The CIA supports Biden and opposes Trump. That is the core of the US State. THE. who is behind Biden and would prefer to see Biden come to power and restore neoliberalism as usual, and restore US imperial domination. THE. in the world, that has been so compromised by both Trump and the pandemic and recession. And that's where most of the establishment is headed right now. That's why I think the idea that Trump is organizing a coup is just a misunderstanding of the situation.. What Trump is doing is building an alibi in case he loses the election. He will claim that he has been robbed and that in fair play, would have won. So he's building an alibi. And he's also using that to feed his hard-right base to come out and vote for him in the elections.. So you are using this rhetoric of not respecting the election results as a tool for electoral politics.. And the other thing he's doing is putting pressure on the Republican Party establishment., to challenge voter registration, challenge mail-in voting, and engage in voter suppression. But this is what the Republican Party has been doing for decades. In fact, this is not new. What's new is Trump's open defense and tweets. That's a new phenomenon. But this is how the Republican Party has remained electorally viable for decades. It is a minority party that is based on racism and the vote of rural areas of the country. And in the controlled districts, which are gerrymandered districts that give Republicans a chance to win. In any type of fair democratic election, the Republican Party would lose. And they all know it and have been planning to retain their position of power by fighting against democracy for a long time.. So this is standard GOP behavior. Having said that, I don't want to minimize how Trump is dramatically escalating the rhetoric and fueling the far right around this issue., There is no doubt that there will be right-wing vigilantes who will appear at polling places, There is no doubt that we are going to see more far-right demonstrations around the elections. And in the event of a Trump defeat, we will see, like i said before, a Tea Party-style formation with Trump probably at the head and with militarized factions within. So I think it's a very dangerous situation we're in..

So I think there are three scenarios that are very likely in the elections. The first scenario, which I think is likely, It is a victory for Biden in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The second scenario, what i think is possible, is for Biden to win the popular vote but narrowly lose in the Electoral College due to voter suppression and challenges to mail-in voting. And the third scenario, which I think is a possibility, is that we see a repeat of the election of George Bush against Al Gore of the 2000, in which the entire election depended on the results of the Florida vote and was legally challenged, and it remained unresolved for a month until the Democrats threw in the towel and allowed George Bush, who did not win the elections, will occupy the presidential position. So that's a possible situation., not only in one state, but in several states through legal challenges to mail-in votes. So I think those are the three possible scenarios.. In this situation, I think the tasks of the left are very clear. We have to be agitating for demonstrations in defense of democratic rights in our country. First, we should protest Amy Coney Barrett's nomination, who is one of the most extreme right-wing judges in the country. And its confirmation before the Supreme Court would be a threat to the right to health care., labor rights, women's rights, abortion, anti-racist rights, any number of things that are very important to our side, for the working class and oppressed people. Thus, we should mobilize people to protest that and organize meetings to prepare for the protection of voting rights in November, and protests in case the election is stolen by Trump through the mechanisms I have described: voter suppression, challenging the vote by mail or getting the election to be decided through a manipulated Supreme Court with Barrett already confirmed in the Supreme Court. I think we should agitate around that.. And in the event that Biden wins, This already sets in motion a collaborative project between all the different elements of the left that have been divided over the question of the election, a unity around protesting the demands we all support. So, I think it is important that we do so to forge the greatest possible unity for the defense of basic democratic rights in the country., in the midst of a highly polarized debate on the left about the elections. And many of us are trying to do that, although it is a very challenging situation to organize it, due to the pressure to subordinate everything to campaigning and advocating for people to vote for Biden, makes it challenging to organize the kind of street protests that I think are essential right now.

Alejandro Bodart: To close, let's talk a little bit about the topic, although it is related, You are a member of the Tempest Collective, recently formed, which proposes creating a space for the ideas and debates of revolutionary socialism. Could you tell us what this project is about??

Ashley Smith: Yes, bueno, I think if you look to the left of EE. UU., in many ways, It's the best of times and also the worst of times. It's kind of a Dickensian moment., dialectical, when you think about it. Because on the one hand, we have the growth of a large scale socialist organization, not on a massive scale, now we have 70.000 members in the DSA, of which I am a member and I think that is a great advance in leftist politics in the United States. For an entire generation, Bernie Sanders has become an iconic figure and a representation of the demands for social reform, and an idea of ​​an alternative to the capitalist horrors we experience in the United States, and the idea that socialism is a real solution to this catastrophe in our society. So we have a growth of socialist politics and socialist consciousness in a way that is of enormous importance. And I think the DSA, but not only DSA, many other socialist organizations, have grown up in this context. Other socialist organizations have entered into crisis in the midst of this situation. And I think we have a whole dynamic of renewal, recomposition and revitalization of socialism and a deep reflection on how we move forward in the situation we are in. I am part of the Tempest Collective, In it we get together people who were in different organizations, in the ISO that voted to dissolve, in Solidarity, independent left-wing people, of new radicals who are members of DSA, or members of the labor movement and part of the broader socialist radicalization that they are trying to reach, of facing a strategic debate within the DSA, and on the left in general, which has been mainly oriented during the last five years to the strategy of the electoral route to socialism. That is to say, especially Bernie Sanders, and a whole idea that if we could win more electoral positions for socialists, we could begin to change the balance of politics in the country and help change the balance of power between the classes. So I think there is a kind of conception, not exclusively but predominantly electoralist, how we are going to reach socialism. That is to say, by using the Democratic Party ballot, a block of elected socialist figures is gradually built and, Finally, a predominantly electoral party is launched, of social democratic type in the country. I think we have seen through Sanders the dead end of that project, of that strategic orientation, the strategy of trying to use the Democratic Party to advance the struggle for independent socialism. Because the Democratic Party will simply block, when it is significant, the socialist challenge within its ranks. It will retain its status as a capitalist party. Your sponsors, its bureaucracy and its elected officials, the politicians, They will block us at every decisive turn. Having said that, there are many elected socialists in the country who have only a minor sense of being accountable to the DSA and the social movements and the labor movement. So I think what Tempest is trying to do is create a space for revolutionary socialists broadly understood, not from a particular tradition, unite around a policy of socialism from below where the emphasis is placed on struggles from below, from the workers, social movements, the demands of the oppressed, that we are going to win them largely through strikes, street protests, and that what we have to do is agitate for an independent electoral project connected to that. Thus, keep people away from the idea of ​​trying to win the Democratic Party over to socialism or social democratic politics, or trying to advance this project of socialism using the Democratic Party as an electoral vehicle.

So, It is about arguing that we have to build the struggle of the workers and the oppressed and build an independent electoral project connected to it. and eventually, and frankly, as soon as possible, start launching discussions about how we are going to form a new Socialist Party in the United States that has multiple tendencies. And I think the most important thing, given the experience of broad parties around the world, is to have a conscious and coherent revolutionary pole of attraction within him. So I think it's a very exciting time.. It is a very urgent time. And I think there are many, many debates on the left about this. And I think one of the most important things is not to pigeonhole people into their current positions., but to accept that it will be a fluid process of recomposition of the socialist left in the coming years. Where it is an urgent project that we build a coherent political and activist alternative to the right. And that will be the framework of the battle for the next period. How effective can the left be in organizing around a clear socialist policy?, against the right that is going to become more and more radical, the extreme right with fascist components. Welcome to polarization in the United States.