Can the left take organizational lessons (or lack thereof) from "Trumpism"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Can the left take organizational lessons (or lack thereof) from "Trumpism" over the course of the candidate's initial declaration to the media statements of his becoming the presumptive GOP nominee?

[Rafiq]

Absolutely not.

What Trump represents is precisely the opposite of real political organization, which must inevitably entail political education. There is no such thing as a 'Trumpist cadre'. There is no such thing as educational and organizational discipline as it concerns reaction, as ironic as that may seem. That is because Trump's success lies in his ability to appeal to the already existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people. The role of socialists, conversely, is through means of mass education to direct the discontent of working people towards direct consciousness of not only their social position but consciousness of the entire social totality, the social antagonism. The role of socialists is for the dissemination of scientific consciousness (Lassalle), so that this discontent can be articulated by working people in a scientific way.

This inevitably must exclude so-called 'Trumpist' tactics, tactics which as even Bernie Sanders points out mislead ordinary people to think that an external source of guarantee can 'do it all' for them. The reason they work is precisely because they do not confront ordinary people the responsibility of engaging in politics themselves. What Trump's supporters are doing is not embodying political agency (they are, but indirectly), but precisely like vast swaths of peasants rallying for their king, loudly proclaiming and asserting their own fear of their own freedom and political responsibility.

Trump as we know gives nicknames to rivaling candidates. You know what Bernie's is? "Crazy Bernie". Now why is that? It is for no other reason than because Trump represents a loud and assertive call for normalcy: They can, with minimal expenditure of energy, back Trump, and trust that he's going to 'do it all'. But Bernie directly states that even if he is elected, millions will have to become engaged in the political process. As Socialists we must also be 'crazy': It is either this, or we must renounce our pretense to socialism all together. There is no basis for a proletarian dictatorship outside of this, outside of the dissemination of scientific consciousness among the broad masses there is no socialism. That is all socialism is, it is social self-consciousness. We must be frank and honest in our political discourse: We offer no guarantee outside of the actual will of those who are actually and precisely necessary for the victory of socialism.

The question of Trump's success and perseverance is not one of directly discernible political tactics and organizational skills, it is a question for ideological criticism (ideology in the strictly Althusserian sense). It is important that we remember this. And now that you mention it, this is exactly what is problematic with 'democracy' today (or its destruction): Why do we have candidates asserting that their success is guaranteed, beforehand? It is paradoxical. We are told a candidate will win this or that, to instill confidence in the same voters who are the only concrete factor in their success in the first place. Is this not a paradox? That voters will back candidates because they are confident that candidate has a better chance of winning, even though this 'chance' is for all intended purposes dependent on their will alone. If it was not, then it would not be used as a means to woo them.

This is a tendency we must fight against, or we must consign ourselves from questions of organization and struggle all together.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

That is because Trump's success lies in his ability to appeal to the already existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people.

I agree with much of what you posted Rafiq, but I think the working class support for Trump is being overstated, and his petty bourgeois support is being understated. In a way, by overstating his working class support, we are just repeating a false narrative being sold to us by a bourgeois media which wants to sell us a narrative of the ignorant white working class. I don't say this to dismiss the notion that Trump *does* have support from a mostly white sector of the working class, but to highlight the fact that this "Trumpist" movement is grounded as much in the concerns of small business nativists as it is white workers.

[Rafiq]

I agree with much of what you posted Rafiq, but I think the working class support for Trump is being overstated, and his petty bourgeois support is being understated. In a way, by overstating his working class support, we are just repeating a false narrative being sold to us by a bourgeois media which wants to sell us a narrative of the ignorant white working class. I don't say this to dismiss the notion that Trump *does* have support from a mostly white sector of the working class, but to highlight the fact that this "Trumpist" movement is grounded as much in the concerns of small business nativists as it is white workers.

If Trump's support primarily derived from the petite bourgeoisie, or the small-business owners, his would not be a mass phenomena. Understanding Trump as a phenomena is important: His phenomenal significance IS that he appeals to a discontent which in its relevant sense is proletarian. But as we know, proletarian discontent is organically channeled into trailing behind the discontent of other discontented actual classes (remember: The proletariat is not a class as such).

The nature of the 'plebian' discontent is petty bourgeois, but that does not mean its composition is primarily of the petty bourgeoisie. As far as that 'narrative' goes, anyone with a semblance of interaction and experience with the white working class knows: They are overwhelmingly ignorant, just as ignorant as any other section of the working class.

The reason the 'Trump' movement can be so all-encompassing is because the concerns of the business-nativists finds expression in the ordinary working masses themselves. Remember that actual business owners constitute only around 7% of the American population, to my knowledge. Working class concerns don't become working class concerns until there exists organization, education and self-discipline. That is because the working class is not actually a class, but the class of people who go about their lives thinking they will enter the ranks of actual classes some day (or even in the US, oscillate between doing so).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Absolutely not.

What Trump represents is precisely the opposite of real political organization, which must inevitably entail political education.

I totally agree with you, comrade. On the aspects of political education and institution-building-oriented organization, "Trumpism" falls woefully short.

That is because Trump's success lies in his ability to appeal to the already existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people. The role of socialists, conversely, is through means of mass education to direct the discontent of working people towards direct consciousness of not only their social position but consciousness of the entire social totality, the social antagonism. The role of socialists is for the dissemination of scientific consciousness (Lassalle), so that this discontent can be articulated by working people in a scientific way.

But here's my counter-question: Wasn't Ferdinand Lassalle the worker-class movement's Donald Trump in a way?

"Lassalleanism" agitated so effectively in ways that Trotskyists, Sorelians, and Bakuninists could only dream of. To quote you, it "appealed to the already-existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people."

This inevitably must exclude so-called 'Trumpist' tactics

Why? If comrades here focus this discussion simply on agitation (in "Educate! Agitate! Organize!"), what can't be learned?

The reason they work is precisely because they do not confront ordinary people the responsibility of engaging in politics themselves. What Trump's supporters are doing is not embodying political agency (they are, but indirectly), but precisely like vast swaths of peasants rallying for their king, loudly proclaiming and asserting their own fear of their own freedom and political responsibility.

So what about CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's own criticism of the ADAV's "labour monarchy" stuff?

http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/918...-of-criticism/
http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/17...-quot-strawman

The ADAV was, contrary to Macnair's opinion, very well-structured for the purposes of 19th-century political agitation.

Marx may have criticized "one reactionary mass" from an educational standpoint (and that idea is certainly wrong), but... strictly for the purposes of agitation, why can't we see parallels between this and the "Trumpist" definition of its In-Group and of its Out-Group (from group psychology)? Marx may have criticized Lassalle's political flirtation with Bismarck from an organizational standpoint, but... strictly for the purposes of agitation, why can't we see a commonality between this and today: well-placed hostility towards liberalization, liberalism, liberal politicians and activists, etc.?

[Rafiq]

*edit, forgot a part

But here's my counter-question: Wasn't Ferdinand Lassalle the worker-class movement's Donald Trump in a way?

"Lassalleanism" agitated so effectively in ways that Trotskyists, Sorelians, and Bakuninists could only dream of. To quote you, it "appealed to the already-existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people."

He was not. He was a figure who may have appeared as another 'master', but only insofar as he embodied the ability for workers to be without one. Just yesterday I wrote extensively on the necessity of such a figure, but a key point should be made about the kind of 'master' the Left needs: The kind that represents the dissolution of all masters as such, or figures that people place a sense of guarantee upon, as a substitute for their own political engagement. This figure precisely must serve as the bridge: between organic, spontaneous consciousness and class consciousness.

Toward this end, Bernie Sanders is the one we can learn from at this level: The kind of 'leader' Bernie is, is precisely the kind that can force people to be politically engaged themselves. To paraphrase Zizek, we need a 'master' which confronts the masses with the abyss of their own freedom, meaning, which directly confronts them with their own ability to act. Of course, the limitations with Bernie specifically are obvious: Bernie lacks the necessary fighting spirit, though the potential for it is present in his momentum.

Finally there is a difference between appealing to and respecting the existence of the ready-made consciousness and sentiments of discontented working people. Discontented working people are overwhelmingly reactionary, to appeal to the specific spontaneous means of how they articulate their discontent, is precisely the opposite of political organization and education. The point is not that we ought not to appeal to the discontent itself, but we must combat the particular means by which this discontent is articulated. At the same time, against a certain taboo, this means engaging in a basic dialogue with working people as they exist - while at the same time not compromising it, to engage in a dialogue with working people (as a political mass, i.e. of course not individuals as such) no matter how reactionary they are.

Why? If comrades here focus this discussion simply on agitation (in "Educate! Agitate! Organize!"), what can't be learned?

Such tactics stand precisely in the place of real movement-building, that is the point. In other words, they exist only so that political engagement on part of ordinary people is replaced - that is the point. We should be careful here, and notice the significance of Trump as a 'leader': He represents an anti-politics itself.

We must clarify what we mean here by his tactics. In terms of his vulgarity, we have nothing to learn here: Or more precisely, there is nothing wrong with 'bullying' enemies, but we must do so in a way that is too strong to be vulgar. The problem with this kind of vulgarity is that again, it fortifies and sanctifies the philistinism of the masses. In terms of announcing that he will win before he has, for reasons I covered before we must be bitterly opposed to this kind of 'tactic'.

but... strictly for the purposes of agitation, why can't we see parallels between this and the "Trumpist" definition of its In-Group and of its Out-Group (from group psychology)?

If this is referring to the sense of engaged partisanship, i.e. "you're either with us or you're not", I would question how this is unique to Trump at all. Of course what predominant politics shares is that it tries to avoid this (i.e. 'let's come together and compromise' attitude), we should recognize that Trump is an even more heightened variation of this anti-politics. In other words, if the kind of agitation you are talking about is engaged partisanship, we should take things far farther than Trump.

We should also pay keen attention to the actual social and political meaning of Trumpist 'partisanship' those who are 'in' are those who loudly proclaim they have had enough of all of that 'politics' and want to simply 'get things done'. They are another particular group which in their mind stand for the common interests of all of society (i.e. 'making America better' at the expense of that old 'political nonsense').

why can't we see a commonality between this and today: well-placed hostility towards liberalization, liberalism, liberal politicians and activists, etc.?

For no other reason than because we must remember Kautsky: Contrary to the petite-bourgeois opposition to liberalism, the opposition to liberalism by the socialists is from the position that presupposes and sublates its achievements. The petty bourgeoisie conversely oppose liberalism as reactionaries.

It is also in bad taste in consideration of the rising tide of 'illiberal' politics, which simply represents a rising anti-democratic politics. It is important to understand the precise nature of this illiberalism or anti-liberalism: It is fundamentally reactionary, and rather than standing inversely proportional to the interests of capital, it perfectly aligns with them: Don't you know, that mass political engagement (democracy) even in the most limited forms has become a threat to capital.

We ought to be very careful here, as the situation today is incomparable to before: We face a threat to achievements gained that our predecessors could not have even dreamed of having gained.

[Antiochus]

A bit off topic but I think this is the perfect time to say "I told you so", not to anyone in particular but to alot of people, both in real life and in this forum, that saw Trump's campaign as a 'bad joke' that could never win. I think we are witnessing the total and complete dissolution of American bourgeois politics, replaced with something that I can't really place anywhere. Many people are calling it "surreal".

So, I'll call it right now: Trump will defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 General Election. What that means for us is up to us and will have to be confronted sooner rather than later. I came to that conclusion a few months ago, when the outcome of the primary was in question anyway. It sounds corny but I was driving on the 91 freeway in California, surprisingly there wasn't a shitload of traffic so I was a bit aloof and noticed that some of the yellow markers that divide the carpool lane and the other lanes had "Make America Great" again stickers and posters. Now, whoever put those 20+ stickers/posters (it wasn't there the day before, no construction took place etc...) had to literally dodge traffic (there are a fair bit of cars even at like 4am) to put them there. And that is when I realized that the liberal and conservative liberal politicians like Hillary and Romney and Bush etc... could not beat Trump, why he has said the most idiotic things and he still is up in the polls. And so it didn't even matter if back then the polls said he was "20 points below Hillary", because the momentum of fascism is pushing him, and like always fascism has made a mockery of the liberals that tried to oppose it using "conventional" tactics.

[Heretek]

A bit off topic but I think this is the perfect time to say "I told you so", not to anyone in particular but to alot of people, both in real life and in this forum, that saw Trump's campaign as a 'bad joke' that could never win. I think we are witnessing the total and complete dissolution of American bourgeois politics, replaced with something that I can't really place anywhere. Many people are calling it "surreal".

So, I'll call it right now: Trump will defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 General Election. What that means for us is up to us and will have to be confronted sooner rather than later. I came to that conclusion a few months ago, when the outcome of the primary was in question anyway. It sounds corny but I was driving on the 91 freeway in California, surprisingly there wasn't a shitload of traffic so I was a bit aloof and noticed that some of the yellow markers that divide the carpool lane and the other lanes had "Make America Great" again stickers and posters. Now, whoever put those 20+ stickers/posters (it wasn't there the day before, no construction took place etc...) had to literally dodge traffic (there are a fair bit of cars even at like 4am) to put them there. And that is when I realized that the liberal and conservative liberal politicians like Hillary and Romney and Bush etc... could not beat Trump, why he has said the most idiotic things and he still is up in the polls. And so it didn't even matter if back then the polls said he was "20 points below Hillary", because the momentum of fascism is pushing him, and like always fascism has made a mockery of the liberals that tried to oppose it using "conventional" tactics.

The US electoral system is set up in a way that allows unfavorable candidates to be bypassed even if they win the general election. Plus he's one of the most unfavorable candidates to the American public, higher than Clinton even. The problem with partyism and the primaries (other than the whole bourgeois theater it puts on) is they don't represent the interests of the population. They represent the interests of small elites from each side. The general public then votes for the least despicable, or doesn't show up

[Rafiq]

Earlier I predicted that Trump is going to have to be 'supplemented' by elements of a ruling class if he does manage to become and endure being president. We may already be seeing this right now with Peter Thiel's show of support for Trump.

[John Nada]

I agree with much of what you posted Rafiq, but I think the working class support for Trump is being overstated, and his petty bourgeois support is being understated. In a way, by overstating his working class support, we are just repeating a false narrative being sold to us by a bourgeois media which wants to sell us a narrative of the ignorant white working class. I don't say this to dismiss the notion that Trump *does* have support from a mostly white sector of the working class, but to highlight the fact that this "Trumpist" movement is grounded as much in the concerns of small business nativists as it is white workers.

If Trump's support primarily derived from the petite bourgeoisie, or the small-business owners, his would not be a mass phenomena. Understanding Trump as a phenomena is important: His phenomenal significance IS that he appeals to a discontent which in its relevant sense is proletarian. But as we know, proletarian discontent is organically channeled into trailing behind the discontent of other discontented actual classes (remember: The proletariat is not a class as such).

According to this(is the title an allusion to Sakai's Mythology of the White Proletariat? ) Trump's voters have above average income and percentage of college degrees, as does most primary voters(exposing the class bias of the bourgeois dictatorship). Both Democrats also had higher than average but less than any Republicans. His supporters were on average less affluent than other Republican candidates' supporters, but still above most white Americans.

At least with much of the primaries according to that link, it isn't the the middle or precarious proletariat that's driving his support. Yeah, class isn't just education and income(upper proletariat in the US might earn more than some members of the exploiter classes). It's the labor aristocracy and petit-bourgeoisie, though a significant number of proletarians likely support him(real life experience shows they're not all revolutionary angels, hence capitalism's continued existence). Plus you got factor in that the proletariat disproportionately doesn't vote, especially in a Republican primary.

[ckaihatsu]

We offer no guarantee outside of the actual will of those who are actually and precisely necessary for the victory of socialism.

This is an interesting point in that we can't necessarily depend on *everyone* to 'sign up' for full class-interest participation, as for a full-blown insurrectionary revolution.

In other words most people probably see 'government' and 'politics' as a socially necessary function, one that's crucially important, but not really *desirable*.

And -- democratic / anti-substitutionist sentiments / principles aside, are we saying that socialism can only be realized if everyone becomes ready to march arm-in-arm -- so-to-speak -- on the front lines against bourgeois state power -- ?

What I'm getting at is that more-serious revolutionaries *should* be able to give some kind of 'guarantee', that people can simply consider and sign-off-on, as with any other kind of social policy. Perhaps in our present time of Bernie's visibility, we *are* seeing more mass reflection on political matters, in the direction of a social self-consciousness, due to the faltering of the bourgeois economic system, worldwide.

Substitutionism is certainly a gray-area, so I'm suggesting that the more pulled-together we can be in our ideas and proposals, the more *cohesive* and *decisive* we'll be in the larger political arena, perhaps to where bourgeois electoralism itself becomes widely discarded in favor of 'movers-and-shakers' in the *revolutionary* direction, for all matters of social policy and mass production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is an interesting point in that we can't necessarily depend on *everyone* to 'sign up' for full class-interest participation, as for a full-blown insurrectionary revolution.

In all my posts I've made on revolutionary strategy, comrade, I didn't say that everyone should sign up. I did stress the point of majority political support from the working class, which is not the same as majority electoral support overall (which requires less working-class participation and which allows for 50%+1 without majority political support from the working class), majority constitutional support (60%, two-thirds, and three-fourths shenanigans), or the extreme scenario you presented.

Substitutionism is certainly a gray-area

Based on my supportive engagement with orthodox Marxist strategy / revolutionary centrism, critical engagement with various ultra-left tendencies, and opposition to various coalitionist tendencies, I would say that I'd call myself a proud "substitutionist" (using spontaneist phraseology), but only in this sense: The emancipation of the working class is the task of the class movement itself.

As long as "class movement" is defined very properly, I don't see substitutionism to be a problem. However, I only expect those spontaneist types who know my P-word definition of "class movement" to express horror.

[Strannik]

Trump's success lies in his ability to appeal to the already existing, ready-made consciousnesses and sentiments of discontented working people. The role of socialists, conversely, is through means of mass education to direct the discontent of working people towards direct consciousness of not only their social position but consciousness of the entire social totality, the social antagonism.

I think this statement perfectly captures the difference between bourgeois and socialist appeals to working class. National socialists, trade unions, social democrats are addressing the concerns of the working class with the perspective of them remaining the working class. Revolutionary movement must address the concerns of the working class with the perspective of them overcoming the class society, and that means end of the working class as well.

[ckaihatsu]

In all my posts I've made on revolutionary strategy, comrade, I didn't say that everyone should sign up. I did stress the point of majority political support from the working class, which is not the same as majority electoral support overall (which requires less working-class participation and which allows for 50%+1 without majority political support from the working class), majority constitutional support (60%, two-thirds, and three-fourths shenanigans), or the extreme scenario you presented.



Based on my supportive engagement with orthodox Marxist strategy / revolutionary centrism, critical engagement with various ultra-left tendencies, and opposition to various coalitionist tendencies, I would say that I'd call myself a proud "substitutionist" (using spontaneist phraseology), but only in this sense: The emancipation of the working class is the task of the class movement itself.

As long as "class movement" is defined very properly, I don't see substitutionism to be a problem. However, I only expect those spontaneist types who know my P-word definition of "class movement" to express horror.

For all of this we'd see the empirical results in *policy*, as in a radical-reformist nationalization of any given country's economy, for example -- a bureaucratization prelude to the state's *full* takeover by the working class, internationally, as one scenario.

Anything 'less' than manifested policy is necessarily a matter of social *logistics*, as you're addressing -- depicted in the following framework:


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

---

[I] would say that I'd call myself a proud "substitutionist" (using spontaneist phraseology), but only in this sense: The emancipation of the working class is the task of the class movement itself.

Well this is the crux of the topic -- on a range from '100% political' (some explicit political involvement / tasks from everyone, every day), to '0% political' (*no one* addresses social matters explicitly, with everyone preferring to let human social developments only 'emerge' indirectly), where would 'working class self-emancipation' (revolution) fall on this continuum -- ?

In other words to what degree would an emancipatory class movement involve proactive mass participation -- ? Much would depend on actual real-world conditions, of course, for a 'threshold' of effectiveness, but I think that some ratio of 'substitutionism' would be inevitable.

The bourgeois "democracy" is *highly* substitutionist, to the extent of implicitly claiming that a state apparatus of elitist wealth owners is sufficient for adequately representing *proletarian* class interests, which is ludicrous, of course.

I'm wondering out loud to what extent a revolution *could* be substitutionist, if a correct policy-regime is the result, with whatever levels of mass participation / involvement.