There’s a quote
that I’ve been thinking a lot about when I look at
the U.S. Left’s response to the destruction by
the trump-musk duo: “Don’t let
perfect be the enemy of good”. Despite the
economic tsunami that we know is coming to
working and middle-class communities, there
are too many of us still on the sidelines
critiquing who shouldn’t be leading what,
who we can’t work with, what their
motives are, what said organization did to
them in 1979—and the list goes on. By the time
we go through the cross-out activity, there’s
nobody left but a couple of homies doing
nothing but sitting on their butts and
pontificating on how effed up everything is.
Last week, two
important actions happened that need more analysis
and unpacking. They were mainly led by white
people. One was the Wisconsin voters’
rejection of the Elon Musk
candidate for the state Supreme Court. The
state is 80 percent white. Milwaukee has the
biggest concentration of African Americans.
Yet the voters united to achieve two goals
that weren’t necessarily articulated. One was
to maintain a liberal majority on the High
Court, and two was to send a message to Musk
that the voters aren’t for sale. The high
stakes defeat for the MAGA oligarch was a
political humiliation and a financial
whupping.
The Hands Off
mobilizations happened all over the country
and tens of thousands participated. From the
photos I checked out, the mobes seemed to have
attracted a majority of white people, except
for a few exceptions. This raised both
criticisms and questions about the why.
I have written
several “Dear White People” articles about the
need for them to do their part in opposing the
injustices that are happening in this country.
I amused myself by saying maybe white people
got the memo and now, finally, they are
getting in gear.
In the weeks
prior to the mobilization, memes and videos
started appearing on social media to
discourage Black people from attending. In
this time of right-wing algorithm
manipulations and AI distortions, it was
difficult to tell if they were legit or not.
One defeat will
not be enough to stop the chainsaw to the
government or the looting of the public
coffers. The People will have to confront the
trump-musk oligarchy in big, bold, creative
ways. We will have to hit them at the ballot
box, in the streets, in the marketplace, in
the courts, at the state houses—no tactic
should be dismissed. No group or sector should
be excluded. Our side just does not have that
luxury in the current moment. Our united front
must be broad and inclusive of those who
understand the mission.
The woke people
must continue to organize the disruption of
capital and make the authoritarian government
unworkable. This is what gets the corporate
sector’s attention. Musk lost one third of his
company’s value in the first quarter.
According to the financial reports, this makes
Tesla one of the worst performing stocks in
the S&P 500 this year. It’s too early to
assess how much Target Stores are losing due
to the national boycott but we do know
stock prices fell shortly after its
announcement that it was dumping DEI. Our
impact is real.
We who believe
in the concept of democracy don’t all have to
do everything, but we all have to do something. We may not
always do it together. We may not all rally
behind the same issues at the same time. We
may not always have the most organized plans.
Our actions may not be the most highly
coordinated. What we must do is stop the rise
of fascism in this country by any means
necessary.
