A crowd rallies in downtown Oakland in solidarity with victims of an attack
on protesters of a white nationalism march in Charlottesville, Virginia.
(photo: Leak Mills/SF Chronicle)
Burying the Lie of the "Alt-Left"
By Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
18 August 17
It's time to stop pretending that the same people fighting white
supremacists are somehow exactly like them.
There's far too much to say about an event like Charlottesville.
There's the sorrow we all feel for the family of Heather Heyer, a young
woman whose only crime was giving enough of a damn to risk her safety
standing up to armed neo-Nazis. There's the anger at an administration that
has once again winkingly refused to condemn a white supremacist mob. There's
the frustration at the police, which is ever-ready to roll out tanks and
dystopian armored warriors when it's black people protesting against being
murdered, but apparently stands on the sidelines whistling when armed
racists rally in a public square. And there's the fact that mainstream
conservatives have been defending this exact type of violence for months.
Gallons of ink will continue to be justifiably spilled on these and other
topics in the weeks to come. And the battle to defeat the far right -
through political organizing, mobilization, and the elimination of the
social and political conditions that allow it to gestate and thrive - will
be long and ongoing.
But if there's one thing the events of Charlottesville should immediately
accomplish, in a world with even a semblance of reason and sense, it's to
once and for all bury the ugly lie that is the "alt-left."
For months now, as part of the ongoing battle over the future of progressive
politics in the United States, members of the liberal center have been
warning about what they called the "alt-left," the alt-right's supposed
mirror image. The term was first used in a Vanity Fair piece by James
Walcott in March, in which he claimed there was a "kinship" between the two
groups, and proceeded to rattle off a list of its supposed members, all of
whom (bar Susan Sarandon) were men.
It should go without saying that the label refers to something that doesn't
exist. This very publication, for instance, was cited by Walcott as one of
the alt-left's "outlets," despite the fact that we routinely spend our time
criticizing Trump and his cronies and are rooted in a longstanding
democratic socialist tradition.
The term was always intellectually lazy and dishonest, but veracity was
never its point. Rather, it was an evolution of the "Bernie Bro" slur, a way
to dismiss left-wing critiques of centrist Democrats by claiming those
espousing them were racist, misogynistic, white men, even when they were
people of color, women, or both. The insertion of the "alt" label was key -
without needing to say a thing, the term drew up an affinity and connection
between modern, rebranded white supremacists and those campaigning for
universal health care and a higher minimum wage.
In the months that ensued, the epithet and the idea that underwrote it were
picked up and used by members of the liberal center as a cudgel against
socialists, right up until the events in Charlottesville.
"If the Bernie Bros wanted to make a show of force on behalf of progressive
values, Saturday in Charlottesville would be a good time," wrote Mieke
Eoyang, former Ted Kennedy staffer and vice president of the National
Security Program at Third Way, a centrist think tank.
One popular liberal Twitter account compared the tiki torch-wielding mob of
racists to Bernie Sanders supporters.
Well, the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville took place, and the same people
who some have spent months dismissing as closet racists were on the front
line, risking bodily harm to stand up against white supremacy. The
International Socialist Organization (ISO) and Democratic Socialists of
America (DSA) were part of the counter-protest, and their flags flew high
after the alt-right marchers had gone. The DSA started a fundraiser to cover
the injuries sustained by those attacked at the event, which has raised
$138,000 as of the time of writing. Two of its members were injured in the
attack on the protests. So were the family members of a staffer at Truthout,
a publication that was critical of Clinton during the 2016 election, and one
of whose journalists has featured on the "Trumpian Leftism" Tumblr as a
"Bernie Bro" and alt-left member.
Or let's look at Heather Heyer, the murdered young woman who is so far the
only casualty of Saturday's right-wing attack. Heyer was a committed civil
rights activist, whose mother, Susan Bro, said "always had a very strong
sense of right and wrong." She was also a Bernie Sanders supporter.
This is hardly a new development. DSA and other left-wing organizations have
been involved in anti-Trump protests, including those against the
implementation of Trump's travel ban. Socialists have been playing important
roles in recent protests against police violence. If you go further back,
you can find leftists organizing and defeating racists in places like
Dubuque, Iowa during the nineties and in other campaigns for over a century.
It is neither tenable or acceptable to smear leftists and progressives who
oppose corporate Democrats as analogous to neo-Nazis. While those of us on
the Left will continue to battle against the policies of the center -
policies we think not only cause harm in the here and now but will do
nothing to stem the rise of the Right - we should stand united with those
liberals who want to stand with us against racism and hatred.
There are some who are nonetheless clinging to a divisive and false
narrative about the Left. The day after the incident, Daily Kos founder
Markos Moulitsas wondered if anyone "outside of the alt-left" was "still
pretending that "last year's election was about economic anxiety." A Daily
Kos contributing editor blamed the neo-Nazi march on the "alt-Left," who "in
their drive to smear the 'impurity' of Clinton on economic justice issues,
excused the racism and bigotry that is Trumpism," which was "stinging very
hard now." Others made a similar point.
This has to stop. Heyer and those who were injured at Charlottesville are
neither the first nor the last left-wing activists who will be hurt at
events like this, particularly as radicals are often on the front lines of
such confrontations. They deserve better than this.
The Left are neither supporters of white supremacy, nor supporters of Trump,
and they never have been. But if liberals join the Left, they can help take
the fight to the far right and end the seemingly neverending string of
political violence committed by white supremacists. Uniting around this
issue is a moral imperative.
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