Thread by @realZacCorrigan

This thread is against attempts to 1) downplay the danger of a coup and/or 2) argue that Trump's Twitter ban is actually what we should be worried about. All posts are directly lifted from today's WSWS perspective, linked at the end.

#CoupAttempt

The claims being made by various pseudo-left tendencies that the seriousness of the events in Washington should not be exaggerated, that it is wrong to refer to a coup, are dangerously complacent.

Jacobin magazine, which is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, argues against “social media posts and liberal magazines of record [that] immediately characterized the rampage as a coup.”

The danger of fascistic violence, Jacobin claims, is minimal because the ruling class supports democracy. It writes: “The takeover of the Capitol has laid bare the lack of backing, both among corporate elites and within state institutions, for far-right authoritarianism. [...]

[...] Capital, it seems, is still committed to liberal democracy, which has served to safeguard its interests throughout American history.” [end of Jacobin quote]

Such comments combine political stupidity with the utter complacency that characterizes the privileged layers of the upper-middle class for whom Jacobin speaks.

The authoritarian actions of Trump, according to Jacobin, are disconnected from the class interests of the ruling oligarchy and the massive social inequality that has eroded the objective basis for democracy.

The pressures arising from social polarization have been driven to the point of explosion by the pandemic, in which more than 385,000 people in the United States have died.

Another aspect of the complacent underestimation of the political crisis and the dangers posed by Trump’s attempted coup has been the response to the shutting down of Trump’s Twitter account over the weekend.

To see this action [Trump's Twitter ban], in the present circumstances, as the main threat to democratic rights expresses a complete underestimation of what is now taking place.

Trump is not merely an individual, let alone the representative of a dissident progressive and left-wing movement.

[Trump] is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States, with staggering power at his disposal—including the power to launch a nuclear war—as long as he is president.

To insist on his unfettered access to Twitter and social media—so that he can mobilize and incite his fascistic followers throughout the country—as if this were a critical free speech issue is politically irresponsible, if not insane.

And if it is impermissible to shut down his Twitter account, it must be doubly impermissible to demand his immediate removal from the White House and arrest!

The politically bankrupt cynics of the pseudo-left should be less worried about Trump’s rights and more concerned about the defense of the democratic rights of the working class.

It is no doubt true that the Biden administration will be a right-wing government of Wall Street, the intelligence agencies and the military.

But the task of fighting a reactionary bourgeois government is the responsibility of the working class, and not that of a right-wing dictator mobilizing fascist forces.

The working class must intervene in the crisis independently, waging a struggle against fascism through its own methods and with its own program.

It is impossible to place trust in any section of the ruling class to defend democratic rights. Trump’s opponents within the ruling class are keenly aware that Trump’s incitement of fascistic violence risks unleashing a civil war.

However, they [Trump's opponents within the ruling class] are far more concerned with suppressing opposition to Trump that threatens to develop into precisely what they fear the most: a movement of the working class against capitalism.

It is for this reason that the Democrats are seeking to quarantine the issue of Trump’s role in inciting the fascistic coup from the broader political context.

[Twitter threads are capped at 25 posts so I can't fit the whole article in one thread. But to conclude...]

The political antidote to fascism is the development of a mass political movement of the working class for socialism.

Workers must reject all efforts to inject into the political situation racial conflict and division, including the claims by Democrats that the fascistic coup is an expression of “whiteness,” rather than the interests of the financial oligarchy.

There can be no progressive way out of this crisis except through the building of a powerful mass movement of the working class, allied with the working class throughout the world, for socialism.

Read the whole perspective here: wsws.org/en/articles/20…