To find the route that Marxists need to take at the present juncture in order to best advance the class struggle, look at the state of our discourse and ask: what ideas are the ruling class primarily utilizing in order to prevent proletarian consciousness from rising? The answer is the ideas put forth by the “left” side within America’s bourgeois partisan spectrum, the ideas that supposedly aid the struggles of marginalized groups yet truly let the ruling class exploit these groups for the sake of fighting against Marxism.
Comrade, the bottom line for me is the question, "so are working-class Euro/Americans organized against racism or not?" The answer is 'no' at present, which makes the high-energy accusations against Horne's class collaboration thesis more of a distraction to the point of self-deception, even if true. The value of dissecting Horne's work is microscopic, compared to American socialism's centuries-old elephantine contradiction, which is core to his thesis: that progressive forces among working-class Euro/Americans have not been able to successfully organize among their race, despite acknowledging that capitalism uses race to control them as much as it does other racialized groups.
"A final word: progressive, white Americans must succeed in overturning their own racism, in theory and practice, if a successful revolution can be achieved in this country, which will in the process write the final page on Black underdevelopment. Nothing short of a commitment to racial equality and Black freedom such as that exhibited by the militant abolitionist John Brown will be sufficient. Nothing less than the political recognition that white racism is an essential and primary component in the continued exploitation of all American people will be enough to defeat the capitalist class." -- Manning Marable, "How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America"
Critiquing a Black historian's work on class-collaboration will have more credibility when working-class Euro/American centuries-long social and political practices no longer support his thesis.
I’m a gay man, far left and strongly influenced by radical feminism. Have you watched “What is a Woman”?
Trans ideology is a reactionary reification of sex role stereotypes. It is biologically impossible to change sex and sex is observed, not assigned. There is no way to define gender identity outside of sexist stereotypes. Walsh may be conservative and I don’t share his conservative take on gender, but sex is fixed and immutable and what trans ideology is doing is medicating and cutting up gender nonconforming young people.
It is maddening to see so many on the left embrace this uncritically. The illiberalism that trans activists display with their “no debate” rhetoric, shutting down discussions and presentations, slandering everyone who disagrees as a reactionary or a bigot, is narcissistic self righteousness that betrays any ostensible commitment to tolerance and opposition to hate. JK Rowling gets rape and death threats for standing up for women.
Trans is a right wing Trojan horse to roll back gay and women’s liberation and if you can’t see that or aren’t brave enough to stand up and speak it, how can you claim any sort of revolutionary coherence or credibility? They are sterilizing children and mutilating and amputating healthy tissue. This is the most aggressive gay bashing to date and it will be seen in the future as something akin to lobotomy.
Where is the material basis for “self identity” being a coherent “class”? Gender is a social construct, just like race, but no one would accept someone calling themselves “trans-racial”.
Redefining “woman” to include self identity is an erosion of the material, legal, gains women have fought for.
Transgenderism reenforces gender norms and is reactionary.
I find the argument that horn is wrong about saying white working class vote against their class interest and support fascists to be questionable. You say “Even though data has shown Trump voters are disproportionately not in the working class, Horne has talked about this Manhattan example in isolation to imply that the working class makes up the core of Trump’s supporters.” Yet the article you cite says point blank that “A related assertion, however, was true: of white working-class voters, most (about 60 percent) did indeed support Trump.”
So while the majority of trumps voters are not white working class no one denies that as a whole across the nation the white working class did vote for trump as born suggested. While the majority of his base might not be working class it’s damn true that the majority of white working class voters did in fact vote for trump. Which is what horn was saying. In fact the article goes on to points out that “Moreover, the white working class has been increasingly voting Republican since 1992, and 2016 support for Trump was in line with that trend.” Which seems to validate horns claims as well. And finally that article seems kinda disingenuous in saying the “white working-class voters didn’t swing certain states to Trump” as they admit the claim couldn’t be “validated empirically in many cases, due to small sample sizes” which means they didn’t have to data to disprove the claim either. And then they go on to argue that “multiple demographics of Trump supporters (not just the white working class) were large enough to “swing” certain states in his favor.” Which appears to be them admitting that his support among white work class voters was so great they did swing the election for him, they just weren’t the only demographic that had the power to swing it in his favor. But no where in their refutation of the claim do they say trump would have still won any state without them. It then goes on to argue that “Where a state’s sample size did allow for empirical analysis of the claim, Lupu and Carnes found that Trump commanded similar levels of white working-class support in both swing and non-swing states.” This seems to agree with horns claim that the white working class across the board voted for him. Which makes sense since the majority 60% of them voted for him. And their final argument against the white working class swinging the vote for him falls apart with the assertion that “in states won by Trump, the percentage of Trump supporters who were white working class generally tracked with the overall percentage of voters in that demographic.” Which means that the white working class voters who could vote voted for trump. Nothing in the article says they didn’t support him or help him win in fact it seems to say the exact opposite. I’d say any analysis that omits the particularly high concentration of white working class voters within the right’s supporting demographics in order to discredit horn as anti working class or some sort of anti Bourgeoisie propagandist for the democrats is disingenuous and ridiculous. I also find the argument that somehow when the white working class votes for democrats instead of republicans that is not still Euro-Americans voting across class lines for fascists faux billionaires. Which is what horn said they do in the quote you used. He clearly states white working class vote for the right not republicans specifically. The right often includes democrats as much as trump and republicans. The Republican Party does not have a monopoly on being a party of the ultra wealthy fascists, right wing politics, or even shiting on the working class. The Democratic Party loves all that stuff too. And it’s not like the majority of white working class that didn’t vote for trump didn’t vote for democrats and instead voted for a liberation/socialist candidate/party. Which means horn is 100% in his claims that most “Euro-Americans vote across class lines for faux billionaires”…
Comrade, the bottom line for me is the question, "so are working-class Euro/Americans organized against racism or not?" The answer is 'no' at present, which makes the high-energy accusations against Horne's class collaboration thesis more of a distraction to the point of self-deception, even if true. The value of dissecting Horne's work is microscopic, compared to American socialism's centuries-old elephantine contradiction, which is core to his thesis: that progressive forces among working-class Euro/Americans have not been able to successfully organize among their race, despite acknowledging that capitalism uses race to control them as much as it does other racialized groups.
"A final word: progressive, white Americans must succeed in overturning their own racism, in theory and practice, if a successful revolution can be achieved in this country, which will in the process write the final page on Black underdevelopment. Nothing short of a commitment to racial equality and Black freedom such as that exhibited by the militant abolitionist John Brown will be sufficient. Nothing less than the political recognition that white racism is an essential and primary component in the continued exploitation of all American people will be enough to defeat the capitalist class." -- Manning Marable, "How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America"
Critiquing a Black historian's work on class-collaboration will have more credibility when working-class Euro/American centuries-long social and political practices no longer support his thesis.
I’m a gay man, far left and strongly influenced by radical feminism. Have you watched “What is a Woman”?
Trans ideology is a reactionary reification of sex role stereotypes. It is biologically impossible to change sex and sex is observed, not assigned. There is no way to define gender identity outside of sexist stereotypes. Walsh may be conservative and I don’t share his conservative take on gender, but sex is fixed and immutable and what trans ideology is doing is medicating and cutting up gender nonconforming young people.
It is maddening to see so many on the left embrace this uncritically. The illiberalism that trans activists display with their “no debate” rhetoric, shutting down discussions and presentations, slandering everyone who disagrees as a reactionary or a bigot, is narcissistic self righteousness that betrays any ostensible commitment to tolerance and opposition to hate. JK Rowling gets rape and death threats for standing up for women.
Trans is a right wing Trojan horse to roll back gay and women’s liberation and if you can’t see that or aren’t brave enough to stand up and speak it, how can you claim any sort of revolutionary coherence or credibility? They are sterilizing children and mutilating and amputating healthy tissue. This is the most aggressive gay bashing to date and it will be seen in the future as something akin to lobotomy.
This is a sloppy second hand analysis.
Where is the material basis for “self identity” being a coherent “class”? Gender is a social construct, just like race, but no one would accept someone calling themselves “trans-racial”.
Redefining “woman” to include self identity is an erosion of the material, legal, gains women have fought for.
Transgenderism reenforces gender norms and is reactionary.
I find the argument that horn is wrong about saying white working class vote against their class interest and support fascists to be questionable. You say “Even though data has shown Trump voters are disproportionately not in the working class, Horne has talked about this Manhattan example in isolation to imply that the working class makes up the core of Trump’s supporters.” Yet the article you cite says point blank that “A related assertion, however, was true: of white working-class voters, most (about 60 percent) did indeed support Trump.”
So while the majority of trumps voters are not white working class no one denies that as a whole across the nation the white working class did vote for trump as born suggested. While the majority of his base might not be working class it’s damn true that the majority of white working class voters did in fact vote for trump. Which is what horn was saying. In fact the article goes on to points out that “Moreover, the white working class has been increasingly voting Republican since 1992, and 2016 support for Trump was in line with that trend.” Which seems to validate horns claims as well. And finally that article seems kinda disingenuous in saying the “white working-class voters didn’t swing certain states to Trump” as they admit the claim couldn’t be “validated empirically in many cases, due to small sample sizes” which means they didn’t have to data to disprove the claim either. And then they go on to argue that “multiple demographics of Trump supporters (not just the white working class) were large enough to “swing” certain states in his favor.” Which appears to be them admitting that his support among white work class voters was so great they did swing the election for him, they just weren’t the only demographic that had the power to swing it in his favor. But no where in their refutation of the claim do they say trump would have still won any state without them. It then goes on to argue that “Where a state’s sample size did allow for empirical analysis of the claim, Lupu and Carnes found that Trump commanded similar levels of white working-class support in both swing and non-swing states.” This seems to agree with horns claim that the white working class across the board voted for him. Which makes sense since the majority 60% of them voted for him. And their final argument against the white working class swinging the vote for him falls apart with the assertion that “in states won by Trump, the percentage of Trump supporters who were white working class generally tracked with the overall percentage of voters in that demographic.” Which means that the white working class voters who could vote voted for trump. Nothing in the article says they didn’t support him or help him win in fact it seems to say the exact opposite. I’d say any analysis that omits the particularly high concentration of white working class voters within the right’s supporting demographics in order to discredit horn as anti working class or some sort of anti Bourgeoisie propagandist for the democrats is disingenuous and ridiculous. I also find the argument that somehow when the white working class votes for democrats instead of republicans that is not still Euro-Americans voting across class lines for fascists faux billionaires. Which is what horn said they do in the quote you used. He clearly states white working class vote for the right not republicans specifically. The right often includes democrats as much as trump and republicans. The Republican Party does not have a monopoly on being a party of the ultra wealthy fascists, right wing politics, or even shiting on the working class. The Democratic Party loves all that stuff too. And it’s not like the majority of white working class that didn’t vote for trump didn’t vote for democrats and instead voted for a liberation/socialist candidate/party. Which means horn is 100% in his claims that most “Euro-Americans vote across class lines for faux billionaires”…