Some further thoughts and replies:
The issue that socialists must firmly come to grips with is the crisis in the working class. Every country has its own particularities, but that crisis is not confined to just the US working class. Why is it, for example, that there is such widespread support for Reform UK among British workers? Even before that, consider Brexit: I know that many socialists on this list supported it as did large sectors of the British working class. But without getting back into that debate, it is indisputable that the workers who supported it did so for two reasons: One was anti-immigrant sentiment. The other was the view that British workers and the British capitalists have a common interest. Or consider Latin America: Large sectors of the Brazilian working class voted for Bolsonaro, as the Argentine workers did for Millei. Or consider in SWANA: On the one hand we have the Israeli working class, where mass ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be widely supported. On the other side, Islamicism and other forms of nationalism seem to have a major grip within the Arab working class. True, Israel is the major cause of the crisis in the Arab working class, but that does not mean such a crisis does not exist. I had had some hopes for the role of the Kurdish movement, but after a review of the important Kurdish parties in Turkey <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/03/28/the-kurdish-struggle-and-world-revolution-part-1-turkey/>, Syria <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/03/31/kurdistan-and-world-revolution-part-2-syria/>, Iran <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/03/31/kurdistan-and-world-revolution-part-2-syria/https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/04/04/kurdistan-and-world-revolution-part-3-iran/> and Iraq <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/04/09/kurdistan-and-world-revolution-part-4-iraq/>, I am moving towards the conclusion that they and their supporters are mired in a similar dead end - nationalism without a link to working class unity. (In Iraqi Kurdistan - the only region where the Kurdish parties actually rule - those parties are even worse; they are totally corrupt.) In the United States, the crisis stems from a variety of reasons, but socialists do themselves no favors by denying that that crisis exists. That denialism became most evident ten years ago, when most socialists argued that there was no widespread working class support for Trump. (The denialism actually existed before then, and I participated in it to an extent.) Now, it’s impossible to make that argument, but the socialists who made that claim back then should openly admit it and consider the source of their mistake. Basically, the crisis stems in part from a yearning for a partly mythical past, when well paid jobs were plentiful (at least for many white workers) and the US was “Number One” internationally. All the old prejudices are returning with a vengeance. (They never really disappeared.) White supremacy, ethno-nationalism, anti-intellectualism, mysticism - MAGA is built on all of that and more. Mark Baugher talks about “a crisis of leadership”, but the situation has gone far beyond that. The old ties that at least to a certain extent bound workers together revolved around some sort of union consciousness. Now, that has largely collapsed. It’s true that polls show unions being more popular than in many decades, but the simple idea of joint working class struggle and sacrifice is very low. Here and there, we can find union dissidents who are doing their utmost to build a fighting union… and receive almost no interest from the great majority of their fellow members. Most socialists - including those on this list - have not paid anywhere near sufficient attention to the rise of Tucker Carlson. Part of the issue is Carlson’s anti-Semitism. Since almost anybody who opposes Zionism is accused of anti-Semitism, socialists tend to shy away from that issue, but genuine anti-Semitism - including sympathy for Hitler - is a growing tendency within the US working class, as my article “The many faces of Tucker Carlson” discusses <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/05/08/the-many-faces-of-tucker-carlson/> (as well as our original article <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2025/08/10/anti-semitism-is-a-growing-danger-but-not-in-the-way-you-think/> on the rise of anti semitism in general.) Here’s one example that says a lot: I have heard two different instances where a worker said “we should just nuke them” regarding Iran. In one case, a worker said “I don’t care if they kill every single Muslim, as long as what I pay for gas goes back down.” They said these things around a group of workers and nobody was horrified. Michael Meeropol asks whether Graham Platner or Dan Osborn can become “a possible kernel of a pro-labor formation… within the Democratic Party.” I don’t think it can be ruled out, but what is at least equally possible is a mass movement built around people like Tucker Carlson. As for Platner, he might build a movement around himself, but who knows where he might turn from there in the absence of any organized working class socialist tendency? Mark Baugher seems to equate MAGA with fascism. There certainly are fascist elements within the MAGA movement, but different bonapartist regimes have often had fascist elements within it. The main point is that bonapartism can take many different forms. Compare Mexico under the PRI to Argentina or Chile under the military dictatorships or Hungary under Orban. Finally, Ben Seattle asks me what “practical measures that would encourage full and open debate” I would advocate. I’ve been doing what I can for years now, and it has not exactly led to massive success. A recent example was the International “Anti-Fascist” conference held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. That name was a complete misnomer since international fascism cannot be discussed in anything even approaching a serious manner without discussing the role of Putin as an organizer of international fascism, yet that was entirely off the table at the conference. The reason was that the main organizers of the conference at the very least are sympathetic to Putin. But even those who oppose Putin failed to raise his role as a fascist center. Not even by the Ukrainian lefts and those who support Ukraine. I believe the reason is that pointing out Putin's role would mean explaining that those who in some way defend him are complicit with fascism, which would mean a break with the majority of the socialist movement. <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/04/25/the-international-anti-fascist-conference-that-wasnt/> I pointed all this out, <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2026/04/25/the-international-anti-fascist-conference-that-wasnt/> but there has been almost zero response. I believe the basic issue is the objective situation, first and foremost the crisis in the working class. That crisis is directly related to the collapse of the socialist movement, to its descent into its own little echo chamber, going back to its denial of widespread working class support for Trump (and well before actually) and the present failure to recognize the danger of working class support for the likes of Tucker Carlson. This is augmented by the fact that most workers simply don’t read anymore. A professionally produced series of videos might have some small impact, but for that money, expertise and connections are necessary, and those who have those resources are in general out of touch with the working class and anyway are unwilling to swim against the stream. That's how they got to where they are in the first place. The popularity of the light minded, superficial and demagogic Hasan Piker is a prime example. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe there’s a better way to approach the matter but if so I don’t know what it is. Trotsky once said that a great crisis is necessary for the working class to throw off its established leadership. We are talking about a crisis far greater than what exists at present. Until then, I think the best we can do is study the facts, unflinchingly draw the conclusions in terms of perspectives, and constantly be on the lookout for any tender shoots of an independent movement of the working class and learn from it, and see what we can do to encourage it, and help it find a way forward. That is both a huge task as well as a very moderate one, but there are no magic formulas. John Reimann -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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