"Read Settlers" is a meme, but it's also a true meme. You should read it, or read other things about this thesis regarding the white working class in the US (I've heard other Marxists have since improved on Sakai's thesis but I don't know who they are).
White Americans are doubling down on the racism. As white settler colonialism is starting to face just a little bit of opposition (like teaching kids that maybe the US isn't a perfect, God-blessed country), they are losing their minds over the idea of losing even a tiny bit of their privileges. This is still a perfectly material explanation. White folks have enjoyed an incredible level of privilege since the beginning of this country and they will fight viciously to keep all of it.
IMO the bulk of white Americans are a lost cause. Not to say white folks can't be revolutionary (I'm white), but I think we probably should be spending our very limited time and resources on folks outside the imperial core break from western imperialism, and focus on the oppressed within the core. Any white Americans who want to join in are welcome but any concession to white supremacy is unacceptable.
Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying the Dems lost because racism or whatever. I don't care if the Dems win or lose, it doesn't matter. My point is much more about using electoral results and the campaigns that precede them to see where winds are blowing. It seems that "CRT" and fear-mongering about crime (and thus the need to fund even more cops) was a very effective message in appealing to large segments of the population - particularly the white population.
This is perfectly articulated.
Yeah, this is more or less me. And I will be the first to admit I am not the kind of person we should be focusing our efforts on. Class traitors are good but expending energy on them is a waste. They need to sort of figure things out for themselves, you know?
I 110% agree but the challenge is wrapping my head around what this looks like pragmatically.
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It looks like going to Union drives and reengaging them. I think the big reason you are getting so much pushback is because literally just back in the 80s you had a labor movement tenfold what we got today. The calculous that those strikers and union members all died or became GOP petite bourgeoise is goofy. We need to organize among unions, make a consistent party, not just the occasional electoral movement like Bernie, and go from there.
Also PMC and/or anti-CRT folks are not remotely as big as you are acting like they are, and PMC sure as hell are not as distinct. Like what does not trying to get class traitor PMCs have to do with writing off the majority of white people in this country? The PMC distinction as if it is an actual class has been toxic for discourse.
Huh I actually agree with you about PMCs are actually small, though I do believe in the separate labor aristocrat designation.
And being in a union doesn't automatically make you good. My grandfather was a hardcore union guy and he was also racist af, if he was alive he'd 100% be a Trump supporter today.
If you want to actually change things, if you want people to have any real chance of fighting against the system that instills racism, you need to fight along class lines and that means unions. It doesn't matter if they are personally all good people, the goal is to identify material enemies and organize on class lines. If some of those union men being racist or trump supporters detracts from that for you, then you don't want political change. People are not going to come to you and say "hey I identified that there is a ruling class, please tell me more about race discrimination" you build along the lines of class warfare. Stop with the individualist "is this person good or bad" metric and view strategy on whether it furthers class warfare.
If you write off unions or recruiting from unions because there are racists therein, you will never win or help anyone. The bigots will organize for survival or leave. The individual moral worth of each person in your party or union is irrelevant; the actual collective action and what it furthers is the point. If you care about breaking the system that encourages racism in the working class, you need to actually fight on that front, not an immaterial front of the morally good
If people are bigoted because of capitalism, then you continue the fight against capitalism where it is being fought, and you educate and build solidarity. among the workers. The tools of the ruling class being effective is not an excuse to justify ceding to them
Imagine if Lenin had said "there are antisemites within some of these unions, so there is no revolutionary potential in Russia, not organizing among you anymore" instead of freaking organizing upon a common struggle and urging solidarity through that and untangling bigotry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZzOgFY45s8
Get the unions a cause that will fight for them and rally them, and they wont as easily be unused or individually vote GOP. This defeatism is why people are pushing back hard. These things are struggles, and none of this will go anywhere if you dont have a base of people willing to fight at all against capital. Rally them, organize them, and reeducate them. Giving excuses for writing them all off is not enlightened, it merely means helping diffuse class tensions by being focused on essentializing class power based on individual failings. You can't identify capitalism as causing our racism, and then use it as an argument against organizing those susceptible against capital, this is how you deprogram. If you don't want to just get PMC class-traitors, then you have to organize the working class. Or just give people a reason to fight our common enemy. If you want class revolution, then this is non-negotiable