In the 1990s, the anti-globalization movement was left-wing, anti-corporate, and internationalist. Today it is weak and has been largely replaced by an anti-globalism movement that is right-wing, anti-Semitic, and ultranationalist. A few elements have brought us here.
The moderate left shoulders much of the blame. Even during the Battle of Seattle, we were treated to such monstrosities as Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan playing huggy-huggy, and Medea Benjamin and her allies forming a human shield to protect the windows of a Starbucks from protestor rocks—the shopkeeper's window being the most important thing in the world, after all. The next year, she'd appeal to the company to have fair trade coffee in their stores. This is called "getting a seat at the table." At around the same time, the far-right started to operate freely, if quietly, within the movement.
Then came 9/11, and the US left blinked. The massive protest movement in the US was sucked into the Democratic Party and transformed into an absurdity—an objectively pro-war "anti-war" force rallying around the asinine slogan "Justice Not Vengeance." When Simon Wisenthal named his book Justice Not Vengeance, he was discussing legal prosecution of Nazis, as opposed to summary justice, after the war was completed. Justice not vengeance necessarily implies war. In 2004, anti-war Democratic hopeful Howard Dean criticized the US war in Iraq, but was all for the war in Afghanistan and even rattled a saber in the direction of Saudi Arabia. That was the left of the possible.
But corporate globalization is a massive problem, economically and environmentally. Neoliberalism doesn't have any solutions, mainly because globalization is its goal rather than a problem to be solved. At best, neoliberalism looks simply to administrate the bumps of the globalization process away, and for that it requires a large number of bright young things who speak well, dress nicely, and are sufficiently cosmopolitan to not get very upset or confused if they must adopt local clothing or eat strange foods for a few weeks here and there while carrying out their tasks. The highly educated militant-liberal (who considered themselves radical) white left of the 1990s basically grew up and got jobs at NGOs, or in neoliberal political parties. So the anti-globalization movement liquidated into the pro-globalization movement. Fair trade coffee for all; buy that Starbucks stock!
Meanwhile, the neoconservatives made a hash of things, thanks to their consistent delusion that you can bomb and bribe people across the world into becoming Jeffersonian democrats.
Politics abhors a vacuum. Without as left or mainstream right alternative, the far right was able to blossom and grow. Thus Brexit, thus ultranationalists and outright fascists in parliaments across Europe, thus ISIS because al-Qaeda was too soft, and thus yesterday US voters sought to end the advantage of the rich and powerful voted for a politically inexperienced billionaire selling white nationalism. And, to be perfectly clear, Trump did better among blacks and Latinos than mainstream Republican Mitt Romney did four years ago. (I was as surprised as anyone who foolishly believed poll numbers that Trump won yesterday, but I've repeatedly said he'd surprise people with the extent of his popularity among people of color.) Trump didn't just win because of racism, he won because There Was No Alternative.
This wasn't inevitable. Five years ago, Occupy had to be physically smashed by the police in order to be defeated. Right-wing infiltration of it was limited to a relative handful of libertarians and conspiracy kooks thanks to its broad appeal to those outside of the middle-class elite-university left. (People fight more when they can't just opt out by switching sides.) Bernie Sanders was a sheepdog for the Democratic Party, but the old coot did remember enough of his early politics to build the beginnings of a movement that would exist beyond the election and beyond mere parliamentary politics.
For the actual left, it's past time to create the alternative. There were enough "shy" Trump voters yesterday that it is clear that people don't really want to associate with pussy-grabbing racists, but if the neoliberal center doesn't want to associate with them when Lady Gaga and several Saudi princes are available, they'll take what they can get.
The moderate left shoulders much of the blame. Even during the Battle of Seattle, we were treated to such monstrosities as Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan playing huggy-huggy, and Medea Benjamin and her allies forming a human shield to protect the windows of a Starbucks from protestor rocks—the shopkeeper's window being the most important thing in the world, after all. The next year, she'd appeal to the company to have fair trade coffee in their stores. This is called "getting a seat at the table." At around the same time, the far-right started to operate freely, if quietly, within the movement.
Then came 9/11, and the US left blinked. The massive protest movement in the US was sucked into the Democratic Party and transformed into an absurdity—an objectively pro-war "anti-war" force rallying around the asinine slogan "Justice Not Vengeance." When Simon Wisenthal named his book Justice Not Vengeance, he was discussing legal prosecution of Nazis, as opposed to summary justice, after the war was completed. Justice not vengeance necessarily implies war. In 2004, anti-war Democratic hopeful Howard Dean criticized the US war in Iraq, but was all for the war in Afghanistan and even rattled a saber in the direction of Saudi Arabia. That was the left of the possible.
But corporate globalization is a massive problem, economically and environmentally. Neoliberalism doesn't have any solutions, mainly because globalization is its goal rather than a problem to be solved. At best, neoliberalism looks simply to administrate the bumps of the globalization process away, and for that it requires a large number of bright young things who speak well, dress nicely, and are sufficiently cosmopolitan to not get very upset or confused if they must adopt local clothing or eat strange foods for a few weeks here and there while carrying out their tasks. The highly educated militant-liberal (who considered themselves radical) white left of the 1990s basically grew up and got jobs at NGOs, or in neoliberal political parties. So the anti-globalization movement liquidated into the pro-globalization movement. Fair trade coffee for all; buy that Starbucks stock!
Meanwhile, the neoconservatives made a hash of things, thanks to their consistent delusion that you can bomb and bribe people across the world into becoming Jeffersonian democrats.
Politics abhors a vacuum. Without as left or mainstream right alternative, the far right was able to blossom and grow. Thus Brexit, thus ultranationalists and outright fascists in parliaments across Europe, thus ISIS because al-Qaeda was too soft, and thus yesterday US voters sought to end the advantage of the rich and powerful voted for a politically inexperienced billionaire selling white nationalism. And, to be perfectly clear, Trump did better among blacks and Latinos than mainstream Republican Mitt Romney did four years ago. (I was as surprised as anyone who foolishly believed poll numbers that Trump won yesterday, but I've repeatedly said he'd surprise people with the extent of his popularity among people of color.) Trump didn't just win because of racism, he won because There Was No Alternative.
This wasn't inevitable. Five years ago, Occupy had to be physically smashed by the police in order to be defeated. Right-wing infiltration of it was limited to a relative handful of libertarians and conspiracy kooks thanks to its broad appeal to those outside of the middle-class elite-university left. (People fight more when they can't just opt out by switching sides.) Bernie Sanders was a sheepdog for the Democratic Party, but the old coot did remember enough of his early politics to build the beginnings of a movement that would exist beyond the election and beyond mere parliamentary politics.
For the actual left, it's past time to create the alternative. There were enough "shy" Trump voters yesterday that it is clear that people don't really want to associate with pussy-grabbing racists, but if the neoliberal center doesn't want to associate with them when Lady Gaga and several Saudi princes are available, they'll take what they can get.