This is Part 4 of a 4 part series written by Collectivist Action

Please refer to Part 1 here:

https://ongoingclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-new-confederacy-collectivist-action.html

and Part 2 here:

https://ongoingclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-new-confederacy-collectivist-action_22.html

and Part 3 here:

https://ongoingclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-new-confederacy-part-3-collectivist.html

~~ written by collectivist action ~~

THE NEW CONFEDERACY

Part 4

By Collectivist Action

“. . .Reproductive justice is a contemporary framework for activism and for thinking about the experience of reproduction. It is also a political movement that splices reproductive rights with social justice to achieve reproductive justice. The definition of reproductive justice goes beyond the pro-choice/pro-life debate and has three primary principles:

1) the right not to have a child

2) the right to have a child

3) the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments.

In addition, reproductive justice demands sexual autonomy and gender freedom for every human being” (5)

Efforts to control reproduction by controlling women’s bodies began in the ancient world. Once people began to connect sex with reproduction - especially the male role in it - and the productive values of reproducing more laborers, controlling the process became imperative. Moreover, the process of reproduction broadly includes social reproduction, i.e., child and elder care, cooking, household maintenance, early education, etc.; activities which, arguably, are still considered to be, for the most part, women’s work.

As Theodore Allen noted about the effect of the myth of white supremacy on people classified as white, the myth of male supremacy has had a ruinous effect on males, particularly, the vast numbers of us with little to no political and economic power .

Not unlike the struggle against white supremacy in the 20th century, patriarchy suffered major blows as a relentless multifaceted Women’s Liberation Movement (begun in the 19th century, or before) was not only able to ‘illegalize’ patriarchy, but also abolish some of its most egregious social aspects, by the 21st century.

Nevertheless, it has been during this century that fascistic forces have become more determined than ever, under the guise of “protecting children “ and/or preserving the “nuclear family”, to role back hard-won progress.

As this social tendency has organized itself into ostensible religious-based groups and united with what can be described as ‘white christian nationalism’ it has become one of the most dangerous currents of the fascistic New Confederacy.

Self professed white nationalist, David Lane (imprisoned for crimes committed as a member of the terrorist group, The Order) popularized the idea that white people faced a genocidal threat from non-white immigration, 'mixed' families and abortion and same-sex relationships. In this view people classified as black are often depicted as “pawns in a Jewish plot to undermine white America through violence and crime and identity politics”.*

https://youtu.be/GZs7hMFh2v8

https://youtu.be/jxaujYa9NAY

The horrific 9/11, 2001 attack, aka, an 'inside job', to some observers, which brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, represented a major turning point in U.S. and world history. Never before, as Cornel West observed, had so many white Americans felt so afraid by the threat of random violence; a fact of life for many people of color, for centuries.

The overwhelming evidence for the attack pointed towards Saudi Arabia, one the world's foremost sponsors of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. It was the Saudi monarchy, collaborating with the CIA, which had funded and trained Al Qaeda, as part of the Islamic insurgency against the former USSR in Afghanistan.

Now, one of imperialism's many Frankenstein monsters had escaped control and become a serious problem for everyone..

For most of the rightwing forces characterized in this essay as the New Confederacy, 9/11 meant either the beginning of the apocalypse, referred to in biblical texts (God using a small rogue force to violently chastise 'his chosen people"), or an ominous alliance of 'jihadists' and Marxists' bent on destroying the U.S.

Nonetheless, if we include the 1st Iraq war, the U.S. would be bogged down in Middle Eastern wars for three consecutive decades.

Meanwhile, in 2008, the U.S. neoliberal-dominated economic system crashed, again - aka, The Great Recession - as the 1st black president was about to occupy the White House at the end of that year.

The resurgence of the New Confederacy cannot be comprehended without recognizing the virulent backlash to the Obama presidencies.

Almost immediately after he announced his candidacy a vicious pushback arose, often likened to the one during Radical Reconstruction and the Black Liberation and social justice movements of the 1960s/early70s. Although Obama promoted, at best, a liberal politic, well within the parameters of a neoliberal-led Democratic Party platform, for most New Confederacy elements, being identified as Black and even remotely connected to progressive and radical political movements were enough to justify the opposition to his candidacies. Much of the latter was mobilized under the banner of The Tea Party.

Before and during his first term, Donald Trump, a well-known t.v. celebrity by now, and others, demanded that Obama prove his eligibility for the oval office by producing a birth certificate which would confirm that he was a born or naturalized U.S. citizen (He did)

Also, in his first election, Obama won approximately 75%% of the nonwhite vote, and 43% of the white vote. The second time around, the white vote dropped to about 40%, while the nonwhite vote stayed about the same, or showed a slight decline.

Concurrently, many of the anti-Obama forces, were mobilizing across the country under the banner of, “Make America Great Again”.

After the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine by the Reagan administration, Rush Limbaugh III emerged as one of the most influential media commentators in the U.S.. In early 1987, EFM Media Management signed him to a 2-year radio contract. Subsequently, Limbaugh moved to NYC, and launched a 3-hour talk radio program which eventually reached an estimated 20 million listeners, weekly. In 2008 he signed an 8-year contract worth $400 million (renewed in 2016). From 1992 to 1996 he hosted a television show, produced by future Fox News chief, Roger Ailes. He also had a brief stint as an NFL commentator in 2003.

“At first Limbaugh was more a cultural warrior than a partisan spear carrier. The great enemy was the “politically-correct police” who were “stifling white Americans” - to openly express their bigotries and assert their various forms of supremacy. Limbaugh was a master self-publicist, issuing a stream of intentionally quotable blasts of crude racial stereotyping, gay bashing, misogyny. . .The freedom to offend . The right to assert your privilege without guilt or embarrassment. . .” Bob Moser, "Rush Limbaugh Did His Best to Ruin America", Rolling Stone, February 17, 2021

By 2017 Limbaugh was the 2nd highest paid radio personality, behind Howard Stern. He won the National Association of Broadcasters’ ‘Marconi Award' five times between 1992 and 2014, inducted into the NAB’s ‘Hall of Fame’ in 1998, and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1993.

In 2020, Trump had his wife, Mylania (1st lady at the time) award Limbaugh with the U.S.’s highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. . .

By the time he descended the elevator of Trump Tower to announce his own presidential candidacy in 2015, as a Republican*, Donald Trump was already a popular media personality, and wealthy entrepreneur, in the U.S. Growing up in NYC as a multi-million dollar ‘trust-fund’ baby, and heir to a real estate fortune of an open white nationalist, Trump was able to use his celebrity status, money, award-winning reality-t.v. show and ‘brand-naming’ capital, and parley all of that into a political base by, interjecting himself into, and getting out in front of the anti-Obama movement - “Where’s his birth certificate?”

It is correct to say, as many liberals and leftists do, that ‘Trump’ - or as some are now saying, the ‘Trumpocene’ - is not the cause of resurging fascism in America, rather a symptom of it; the disease is the system itself.

Of course, the New Confederacy has its roots in the old Confederacy, i.e., the unrepentant, white American nationalists, who after being defeated on the battlefield in 1865, NEVER relinquished their quest to restore their power. Having defeated Radical Reconstruction they were able to reconstitute their forces several times at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th. By the beginning of the 21st century this confederate tendency had objectively, if not intentionally, allied with Christian nationalists, misogynists, xenophobes, anti-communists, catastrophic climate change deniers and some of the worst reactionaries in the country; becoming a formidable and violent political alliance. . .without Trump.

However, since the January 6, 2021 attempted coup*, (during a pandemic which would eventually kill more than a million people, just in the U.S.) we have more than enough credible evidence to suggest that Trump & co, and his large loyal following, along with his tangible connections to INTERNATIONAL fascism, have become, altogether, more ominous than ever.

In 2016 Trump ran for president, and won, and despite massive opposition to a presidency which promoted an unmistakable far-right agenda - or because of it - the Trump-figureheaded alliance gained further steam.

Even after losing the 2020 presidential election, encouraging a coup attempt on January 6, 2021 outside the U.S.capitol to prevent the transfer of political power, and , two impeachments, Trump remains the nominal leader of, arguably, the most powerful alliance of rightwingers in U.S. history..

Nevertheless, as always, it’s not so much about the man (or woman), but the plan and the breadth, depth, organization, trajectory and contradictions of social movement(s) at hand.

The leadership of movements may change.

Alliances and coalitions constantly shift.

Other fascist forces, within and without the New Confederacy, may replace Trump.