Of course, there are workers with racist and fascist ideas who really are lost to our cause, but a lot more of them are not, and we have to fight over them. People are hurting, but people are isolated. We have to organize, organize, organize if we want to reach them and bring them together. That doesn’t mean we can’t lose, or at least face temporary setbacks, but at the end of the day, we can’t leave the working class to the far right.

Now, it takes a lot longer to build a brick house, and it can be very tempting to build one out of straw instead — one that relies on social media and charismatic spokespeople — but at the end of the day, without durable structures, you are lost. You need a party rooted in communities and workplaces, that meets on a regular basis, that intervenes in the community, that educates its members and serves as a kind of university for them. We shouldn’t be naive: if we are going to confront capitalism, if we are going to organize real ruptures in how our societies are governed — not just participate in a coalition, but lead a government that actually improves working people’s lives — we will need a strong organization behind us.