March 21, 2025

Fight the Power

Why I went back to my proletariat roots

For the past few weeks I’ve struggled with my writing. That’s not to say that I’ve hit the proverbial writers’ block. I did write a few thousand words on my perspective on the who really is in charge of all the havoc being unleashed on the world (hint, I am not writing about Putin), as well as a few thousand words on my feelings and emotions as a Jew over the last couple of months. I am not ready to finish either of those two essays. Perhaps I am just not ready to share them with the world. Yet, I feel the need to write something that I could share and receive feedback on.

Writing is a very lonely affair if you do it alone.

As luck would have it, earlier this week, Karen Attiah asked for stories about people who moved on the political spectrum further to the left:

I could not help myself, and responded to her with: “I'm one of those stories. I went from a normie neoliberal Democrat, all the way back to my lefty proletariat roots.”

Serendipitously, on Monday while on the train to the city to get to the office, I tried writing about the very same topic. My thoughts earlier this week were that I've always found myself lost and confused in the left vs. liberal discourse. I'm sure some of it is due to the years of brainwashing I've received growing in the USSR: you can take a boy out of the Soviet Union; you can't take the Marxist class struggle out of a boy.

No matter what the socioeconomic status of my family might be - whether back when I was a child or now when I have my own teenager - I have firmly believed to be a faithful child of the proletariat. Ostensibly, I grew up in what was considered “intelligentsia” family in the already crumbling Soviet Union. My father was a highly positioned administrator in one of the local colleges; while my mother was a music teacher. My paternal grandfather was a scientist. My maternal great-grandfather was a rabbi.

Leave a comment

Yet, I never felt or thought that my family growing up was any different than those whose parents were working factory or Navy Yards jobs. The other day I've nitpicked someone for saying "working class" instead of “the proletariat.” Yes, in the US the term working class has been perverted to largely mean bearded white dudes doing manual labor. Not being indoctrinated into this particular propaganda I've always focused on the "exploited for wages” part of the definition, which is more than just the blue collar folks. That's a bold lie. Most white collar folks in my experience, from doctors to lawyers to s/w developers, to accountants, are still exploited for wages by those who control the means.

The proletariat is the proverbial 99%.

We often forget it.

When I was writing on this topic earlier this week, I thought of My Much Better Half as a prime example. She grew up in a family of artists and entrepreneurs. I've spent years joking that her bourgeoisie background must constantly struggle with my proletariat roots. As we learned later, when exploring our past and our families, she is actually a blue blood. Yes, as in actual fucking nobility. Her great great whatever times grandfather was a bloody cavalier guard to the Romanovs.

I am a white looking cis male who often enough received the privileges. However, in this historical moment it does not matter what your social standing or economic status might be.

As I am writing this, I am aware of likely millions who are already impacted by actions of the Nazi junta. I shudder inside at the thought of how many more will be impacted, hurt, bullied, displaced, injured, dead. Fascism is not about greed. Well, it is, but it is primarily about hatred. Hatred for the proverbial other. The vermin like me.

Once again, I digressed.

It took me a few days to understand the discourse I felt. Yes, we do, indeed need the most broad anti-fascist coalition we can assemble. In the current political climate, the infighting between the centrists and the progressive are insane considering the issue at hand. We need the true coalition of the willing that spans from far left to the center right consisting of those who believe in the rule of law, in decency, in empathy, in humanity to oppose the evil of fascism.

That does not mean that we must fully accept those who are essentially the oppressors or their corroborators. There will be time to hold Liz Cheney accountable for her vile politics, but in this moment in time, she is an ally over someone like Chuck Schumer who simply abdicated is responsibility, his oath and his humanity by basically giddily enabling fascism in the name of saving the norms.

Perhaps because I have been consciously trying to shed away any remnants of Sovok or Marxism-Leninism in me, I’ve always been trying to oppose the far left, which in my experience, too often idolized Soviet Union and the “socialism” it has built. This is precisely why I was easily conned into being a neoliberal. The Sovietized far left overly critical of the US throughout the history as an imperialistic force. They were and still are completely blind to the imperialism of Russia and Soviet Union. More importantly, I have always optimistically seen the US as the policing force around the globe. Just like any policing force, I blindly believed that it was naturally for the best even if there were clear examples of abuse of the system and the power that comes with it.

I bought in into the American Exceptionalism and will always be deeply ashamed to admit that in the wake of 9/11 while saying that the best option is to do nothing and not retaliate, I did say that I understand the position of wanting to do so and entertained the idea of using nuclear threats to bring those responsible to justice. I was young, stupid, and absolutely wrong.

Leave a comment

There should be a global policing force ready to intervene and prevent genocides like Srebenica, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Nogorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Gaza, and I am sure I am forgetting many others that happened in our lifetimes. However, such force should truly be global and not under a whim of a single country, a single likely sinister person and their agenda. It should not be the US as the lone protector of the world. We should recognize that American Exceptionalism has always been a lie. The history of American Exceptionalism is a history of exploiting workers and resources to gradually develop an authoritarian state. When I say workers, I mean every single person who lives paycheck-to-paycheck, every single person who is imprisoned in the 9 to 5 hell whether it be in a sweatshop or an office.

We think that our parties represent us, our interests. Last week clearly demonstrated the fallacy in that belief. Chuck Schumer’s heel turn should have been expected and seen from a proverbial mile away. Both parties, are owned by the wealthy and serve the interests of the wealthy. The only difference is that until recently, one of the two parties at the very least pretended to give a shit and try to represent the working class. Now, the comfortable, sated, and bored center is willing to throw the left under the bus to preserve their comfort and boredom.

This is a hard pill to swallow for some, but it’s necessary. The Democratic Party isn’t going to save us. If after this past week you are going to donate even a single dollar to the Democratic party, you are basically aligning yourself with the wealth class, with the fascism.

Our institutions are not going to save us. I believed that they would the first time around. To some degree they did, but we never held anyone responsible and here were, with literal Nazis in power and millions under the threat of death.

We have to save ourselves.

Before the election and even now, a large chunk of the electorate believes Democrats have moved “far to the left.” On the immigration. On transrights. On women rights. It’s complete nonsense.

For many years I have consistently said that the US does not really have a left political representation. I never thought of Bernie Sanders as a far-left socialist. I never thought of AOC as a far-left revolutionary. Democratic party has been slightly right of center party and the right simply demonized Obama and Hillary who happily accepted the mantle of the progressive politics. Nonsense.

If you look at the facts, the party as the whole and especially it’s Establishment has gradually kept shifting to the right. Chuck Schumer’s surrender to Trump should not be a surprise, as I stated, rather it is a logical conclusion of radicalization of the Democratic party, which now is no different than the old far-right Reagan’s Republican party.

Subscribe now

Both, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have implemented a number of truly progressive actions and laws, but both were and still are right-of center neoliberals who drink the same Kissinger Kool-Aid that I’ve drank for decades. I’ve written repeatedly that Clinton (Bill) and Blair (Tony) are very much responsible for the shift in political spectrum as both, happily assumed the mantle of progressives while being nothing more than a socially acceptable version of Reagan and Thatcher.

The two Senators that represent New Jersey, the state where I reside, Andy Kim and Cory Booker, both have a reputation of progressives and are known for some fiery commentary in the past.

Yet, both voted plenty of times for Trump nominations this year. More importantly, neither is willing to challenge Schumer for his cowardice. Every day I’ve been asking both of my Senators whether they would call for the Minority Leader to step down and if not, explain why not. The answer has been crickets.

Elise Slotkin’s response to Trump’s State of the Union clearly demonstrated that the current iteration of the democratic party, with some notable exceptions, is now, the standard-bearer for the Reagan’s Shining City ideology.

Gavin Newsom was often seen as another rising progressive star. I remember reading plenty of pundits arguing that he should be the one replacing Biden on the ballot. Well, Mr. Newsom’s recent podcast is a menagerie for fascists and white supremacists. Those of us who oppose fascism do NOT agree with Nazis on transphobic rhetoric and policies. Those of us who oppose white supremacy, do NOT invite Steve Bannon’s to platform them. Once you decide that some people don’t deserve human rights, the size of your “tent” becomes irrelevant because you are not helping build the gas chambers.

Leave a comment

Every day I see at least a few skeets on Bluesky from both the Left and the normie libs accusing each other of all possible mortal sins. This in-fighting is stupid and counterproductive no matter which side of it you might be on. There is a far more evil enemy facing all of us and we should focus on that rather than the silly finger-pointing. First of all, both "liberal" and "left" have the same issue in that they're horribly imprecise, people use them to describe a wide spectrum of vastly different and often opposing things.

When I saw that the current junta in power are Nazis, I am not implying that they are working on recreating a mirror image of the Third Reich, rather than they embrace the same hate-filled rhetoric, use the same dominance and violence tactics and are ready to exterminate as many people as it takes to achieve their goals. If you don’t believe me, listen to them. They no longer pretend or obfuscate, they openly admit it all now. Elon Must recently said that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” He may not be Nietzsche but the meaning is absolutely Hitlerian.

The first firing squad execution in South Carolina history was recently carried out. If you have any doubts, this is to normalize firing squads again.

Elad Nehorai writes, “to move toward true democracy, we need a broad coalition with many views. This makes it both broader and more narrow: Broader to include all who believe in preserving democracy, narrower because not all in similar movements truly support democracy. E.g., some Democrats align with fascism.”

Just like Stephen Miller, Chuck Schumer can be Jewish and still be a part of fascist junta. Those are not mutually exclusive. A lot of the appeal of fascism is that it proposes a world where the scary complex forces that they don't really understand can be easily reduced to primal factors that are simple. Explains a lot of the running like a chicken with it’s head cutoff from Schumer and the Democrats.

Trump feels he has the right to determine whether Schumer is or is not Jewish and yet Chuck is defending Trump against anti-Semitism allegations. Josh Marshall is absolutely right, saying “I’m sorry for the morbid analogy but I think of those Chernobyl scenes with people who’ve already been irradiated by don’t realize it yet. They think they’re fine. But they’re not. They’ll find out in a few days."

2016 was the first time I voted for a Democrat in the Presidential elections. Ever since I became a naturalized citizen in the 90s I have consistently voted for 3rd party candidates with a naive hope to get them to the magical threshold of 5%. Living in a very blue NJ has given me the privilege to do so. Nine years ago was the first time I had to make a choice and voted for Hillary, not because I completely agreed with her agenda or what she stood for, but because the other choice was fascism. I said it back at that time. I happily voted for Biden because after 4 years of chaos and despair he promised some semblance of hope.

Meanwhile, in all other elections I have always consistently voted for any candidate who had a (D) next to their name. The other day when speaking at the Department of Justice, President Trump said "I believe that CNN and MSNDC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal." For the first time, I did not feel the immediate need to defend the Dem party. Does it mean I agree with Trump? FUCK NO!

However, it does not mean that I have to support those who are throwing people like me under the proverbial bus in a vain attempt to prevent the inevitable. It is inevitable, from Trump openly saying that judges who disagree with him are “enemies of the people” and that American citizens who protest Tesla can be deported into literal slave camps in El Salvador.

I am going to a #TeslaTakedown protest tomorrow. One of the very first things My Much Better Half told me today was that she is worried about me doing it. I understand her worry. But unlike Duncan Jones, we haven’t sat down to have a serious conversation about what she needs to do and who she need to call if I disappear.

We really should as we are at a point where on a whim any one of us, legal or not, citizen or not, can be whisked away and disappeared simply because we have enough courage to stand up to the Nazis.

Almost daily I see people wondering whether we would even have elections in 2026 or 2028. While the fascist onslaught has been moving with the speed of light so far, I am not sure that they will have consolidated the power enough to simply cancel the elections. Some say that it is a hysterical overreaction. Perhaps, but what has taken place since the Inauguration tells me that expecting free, fair, and competitive is becoming more and more optimistic. Of course there WILL BE elections in 2026 and 2028, but it would be more akin how President Putin keeps winning 115% of the vote in some districts or just about how the last elections in Venezuela went.

The current Nazi junta in charge of the United States is basically trying to strip down America to the bare bones from replacing as many white-collar jobs with AI; destroying the entire system of education (as dysfunctional as it may be); sending people to literal concentration and slave prison camps, trying to force women back into the kitchen with no rights to vote or own anything.

The recent EO illegally cancelling the Department of Education demonstrates that education scares them, it helps people acquire knowledge and understanding, learn history and critical thinking and in the end reject patriarchy, misogyny, theocracy. Education gives people power.

Misogyny, ignorance, and racism are the foundation of fascism.

The other day historian Erik Loomis wrote a thread about the Kronstadt Revolt in 1921. A direct ancestor of My Much Better Half died during uprising. When we discussed which socioeconomic class we belong to, My Much Better Half spoke of the family history or repressions and dekulaknization. The Bolsheviks and then Stalin’s fascists were the ones who repressed her family. When I was taught “history” in middle school, I was taught that the “rebels” were agents of the capitalism and fascism. I know better now.

If I was alive then, I hope I would have had enough courage to stand up with them, no matter the fate ahead. We are alive now and unless we all get enough courage, it may be too late.

The Democrats, the liberals (neo or not), the quislings show us again and again that they lack the courage, the conviction, the belief on stand up to fascism. My Much Better Half asked me to not do anything stupid tomorrow. I won’t. I know better. I also know that at this rate, just like in that poem, one day they will come for all us… and I rather start building the barricades (and guillotines) now, along with the rest of the proletariat.