Our national security state is setting a gargantuan trap for those who participate in the anti-ICE protests, especially the ones in the metropolitan areas. This is a trap that we saw U.S. domestic counterinsurgency forces employ in the summer of 2024, when Democratic Party NGO interference steered the anti-ICE resistance in a direction that advantaged state repression. It’s also something we’ve seen many times throughout American history, with another example being the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests; but at this moment, we need to treat these tactics as if they’re highly lethal, because we just saw the state’s violence escalate to a point where ICE murdered a legal observer.
The other difference between what counterinsurgency ops were doing last summer, and what they’re doing now, is that the older tools for misdirection have needed to be replaced. Summer of 2024 was when the Party for Socialism and Liberation held a demonstration in a Latino neighborhood that consequently became a visible target for ICE, exemplifying a larger pattern of careless protest culture which greatly damaged the PSL’s reputation in that moment.
The PSL is still part of demonstrations, but it’s no longer as capable of influencing leftists as it was only a year ago. At this stage, the primary form of dangerous ultra-leftism is the looser, more outwardly adventurist “antifa” groups; the ones that oppose PSL for the few things it does right, namely enforcing a bare minimum of disciplined conduct among the participants in their events.
This even more dangerous kind of ultra-leftism is paralleled in Russia’s Narodniks, who prioritized action for its own sake and rejected a politics that could actually build a mass movement. For us to be able to wage a genuine, popular resistance against the state’s campaign of violence, we will have to avoid the spaces in which these destructive actors operate, and construct a real dual power. One that sustains a presence within our communities by serving the people’s needs, and that has networks which we can fall back on even amid the most intense scenarios of repression.
For a guide on how to build these types of advanced movement security structures, we can look to resources from organizations that have historically operated amid a profound lack of liberties, like the Communist Party of South Africa. And to get a sense for what serious, sustained efforts to serve the masses looks like, a good example is the American Communist Party, which has applied this practice in a way that everyone (ACP members or not) can learn from. When we investigate these past and present examples of dual power-building, we can overcome the greatest practical danger the new ultra-leftism poses; this being to give us false guidance on what self-defense looks like.
If those who seek to fight back against the state only see what the “antifa” Narodniks are doing, any good advice or knowledge that they absorb will not truly be able to help them. For instance, they’ll internalize the (correct) idea that the American masses need to exercise their Second Amendment rights, then engage in foolish behavior that gets their organizing projects avoidably crushed, and makes their firearms activities backfire on them.
Anyone who’s willing to be honest with themselves about what’s best for the interests of the struggle is able to recognize these behaviors. The problem we face is that the ultra-lefts, and the feds who are very often behind them, can easily manipulate others into not trusting their better judgment. When we lack a strong working-class structure, the layer of people who enter into the “activist” spaces will not have the guidance that can keep them away from mindless vandalism and ultraviolence.
Since we don’t have the time to rebuild America's workers movement within a few days, our best way to combat ultra-left sabotage right now is by putting forth a program that can unite Americans in defense against our murderous banking dictatorship. The other side of this counterinsurgency is that the Zionist right—a group that openly supports a government shooting unarmed people dead in cold blood—is getting massively boosted in our discourse. And this effort to push the most shockingly vile statements about the shooting is partly about dividing Americans, with the goal being to convince us to hate and fear our neighbors. In reality, we are fully capable of joining with our neighbors in resistance, if we have a working-class leadership that’s willing to rally Americans as a whole.
The ultra-left ideology tells its adherents to isolate themselves from the bulk of the masses. It views the MAGA base as Nazis, and stays confined to the narrow circles in which ultra-leftism is capable of existing. It also looks upon rural communities with suspicion and dismissal, justifying the strategically backward “antifa” practice of only operating within police-dominated metropolitan centers.
A real working-class movement is one that reaches out to the broad masses in dark moments such as this, and gives them inspiration to work with their neighbors in a shared struggle. It builds a movement that encompasses the countryside, giving this struggle an advantage over the metropolitan elites.
The Trump wing within these elites has worked to capture rural America’s resentments, and this project has been quite effective. But it’s now being confronted with the inherent limits of faux-populism, as we’re seeing with the fracturing of MAGA. The role of working-class leaders in this moment is to rally the betrayed MAGA supporters, and the other proto-revolutionary elements, against the agenda of the Zionist right. When we break out from the insular space in which ultra-leftism operates, and truly apply the concept of proletarian leadership, we become able to mount a resistance which can overcome the state’s terror.
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