RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 307 Bill Fletcher Jr. The Election and Strategies for Change
Episode 307 of RevolutionZ has Bill Fletcher Jr. applying lessons from his extensive labor and general activist organizing to discuss the real origins of Trumpism, conflicting approaches to the coming election, diverse broader strategies for change, how to address critics and who to not address at all, and much more. The exchange is passionate and also pointed at times. It emphasizes what is at stake in our current world and what people might most usefully do to make serious progress in these difficult times.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 307th episode and our guest this time is yet another good friend of mine, bill Fletcher Jr. Bill has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college, he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years, he has been active in workplace and community struggles, as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions, in addition to serving as a senior staff person in the National AFL-CIO.
Speaker 1:Bill is also a former president of TransAfrica Forum, a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and in the leadership of several other projects Policy Studies and in the leadership of several other projects. And he is the co-author, with Peter Agard, of the Indispensable Ally Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations 1934 to 1941. The co-author with Dr Fernando Gapison of Solidarity Divided, the Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice, and the author of they're Bankrupting Us and 20 Other Myths About Unions. So, bill, welcome back to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Michael, it's very good to be on board.
Speaker 1:It's now what I think for those listening, probably around two weeks, to the US presidential election. We're recording it, you know a little longer, maybe almost three weeks ahead of it. I know you have concerned yourself greatly with it, as have I, and so perhaps we should get right into that Before addressing choices people might yet make. I wonder how you explain that the election is still as close as it is, which is also to say why choices people make now are extremely important.
Speaker 2:So I think what we're dealing with and the reality is that there is a significant segment of the population that has embraced a semi-fascist, if not fascist, message.
Speaker 2:And one of the problems, michael, is that many of us on the left have sought to explain away right-wing mass sentiment by laying it on the Democratic Party, on what the Democratic Party has done, has not done, etc.
Speaker 2:You hear it a lot in the labor movement where people will say if the Democrats hadn't been embracing neoliberalism, then people wouldn't be turning to the Republicans, which seems to me to be ahistorical and strange, white people leaving the Democratic Party in the 1960s in response to the 64th Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. This is way before neoliberalism. And then, when you get to the 1980s, the real neoliberal offensive was driven by Republicans, not driven by Democrats. The Democrats were more late to the table on that and particularly represented by Bill Clinton, who takes over in 92. So there's something very odd about that explanation and I think that many people on the left have desperately tried to say have desperately tried to say if it had not been for the Democrats' embrace of neoliberalism, we wouldn't be looking at this, and I think that that's a wrong analysis, I think that the Democratic Party's embrace of neoliberalism has been profoundly problematic and has contributed to a disengagement, but it doesn't explain the origins of this movement that we're looking at.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't disagree with that. I have a slightly different take that I wonder how you react to, which is, you know, finding fault with the system, with the thing that we're all opposed to and the things that we're all opposed to and the things that we're all opposed to. It's relatively easy, relatively comfortable, and people on the left, of course, are adept at it, which is not a bad thing. We should be adept at analyzing the causes and the roots of injustice, and so on. But for me, the emergence of MAGA and not alone the emergence of MAGA also owes to 50 years of the left, not just of liberals and Republicans. Efforts over such a long haul wound up in a place where significant numbers of working people are supporting a lunatic billionaire with fascist inclinations. Why haven't we done better on that? And we could spend this whole time, I suppose, talking about that, and maybe let's return to it. I suppose talking about that and maybe let's return to it.
Speaker 1:But because the election is so close, I also want to hear what you think about, well, the choice that people face in three weeks of what to do in the election. So, not so much the broader analysis, not because it's not important it is, obviously, but the actual choice that people confront. Because a lot of people are confronting that choice and saying and I know you're encountering this as I am they're saying look, I'm so upset about Palestine, I'm so upset about the nature of the society I'm so upset about, and then a long list of things I'm so upset about, and then a long list of things, and I'm so upset about the fact that the Democrats aren't going to solve all those things that I don't want to reward Harris. I don't want to vote for Harris. I'm going to do something else. I'm going to vote for Stein or I'm going to vote for whoever. I'm not going to vote at all and, on the face of it, okay, why? Why does that matter? Does that upset you and, if so, why?
Speaker 2:It definitely upsets me, because I think that there's a failure to recognize that the election is not fundamentally between two individuals. It's basically us against Project 2025. 2025. And I think that people that try to avoid the Project 2025 question including the Jill Steins, the Cornel West in quite a long time, and so this idea that it doesn't matter is ridiculous. But the other part of it, which actually relates to something you were saying earlier, is that I would argue that we're in this mess in part because much of the left has refrained from constructing a strategy to win, a strategy for power.
Speaker 2:If you look at the 1970s, profound sectarianism within the radical left and as well as abstention from electoral work and a lot of oppositional work sometimes very good oppositional work, you know, defending this, stopping that, etc. But very little from much of the left that was really seeking to construct a strategy to win. So we got so used to being on the defensive. And the right, on the other hand, the people like the Richard Vigories and the Paul Weyrichs they were constructing a strategy to win. Now, clearly, they have more resources than we do, but the oppressor always has more resources than the oppressed, so we can't leave the argument there, and so I think that, yes, outrage, but not the politics of winning. It's actually, Michael, truth be told, the politics of defeat. The people that are saying what they're saying to you and me are basically saying, Michael, there's nothing we can do. So shit happens, and I'm prepared to live with that, because they're not understanding the profound challenges that we'll have under another Trump administration.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I agree very much with the politics of defeat as compared to the politics of trying to win, and it is sort of nauseating that the right wing understands this better than the left in many respects. But I want to go back because I'm sure people would feel this. I don't, but people would feel this. They might say to you and I wonder how you'd answer. They might say to you but Bill, I agree with you on the importance of a strategy to win, and that's what's wrong with voting for Harris, or even for voting against Trump, or even for voting against Project 2025. It's a defensive strategy, they would say, and what we need to do instead is to start engaging to win. We ought to start engaging with an eye on how does this thing unfold in a manner that actually changes the system? Good question, that's the way they would ask the question I think yeah, certainly People will say that Most of the time.
Speaker 2:I'd say they're actually quite disingenuous, because most of the people that are articulating this aren't doing a damn thing on off years, right? So if you look at the Jill Steins or the Cornel West, are they building something at the base? The answer is no. Are they building local political parties that really have a mass base? The answer is no. So we come every four years and it's the same lunatic practice of you know. Every four years we talk about how bad the Democrats are, but little is done in between. And I'm tired of hearing people say to me well, bill, you say this every four years. That's right, because you nutcases aren't doing anything in the other three years. So don't put it on me.
Speaker 2:See, the thing is that the Democrats are who they are. They are an alliance. That's part of the strategic problem, michael, that many of our friends on the left don't recognize. The Democratic Party is not a political party, it is an alliance. The right wing people like the Vigories and Weyriches they understood this about the party system and that's why I find it really fascinating studying what they did. These are guys that came out of the Goldwater campaign, were disgusted with the Republican Party and they chose to make an alliance in 1968 with Richard Nixon, a guy that they despised, but they understood the value of the alliance in terms of what they could potentially gain out of a Nixon administration while they still did their independent work.
Speaker 2:I would say that our practice, as articulated by groups like the Working Families Party and a lot of organizations around the country New Virginia Majority, et cetera is that you've got to be walking on two legs.
Speaker 2:This is an inside-outside thing, but many of our friends on the left who are basically saying, ah, it doesn't matter, a are underestimating repression and B, during the other three years, really aren't doing very much outside of maybe you know, posting on Facebook, x, instagram and shaking their hands. Let me give you one more example, then I'll shut up. So I have been really concerned when I've watched over the last several years these right-wingers show up at school board meetings demanding the books be removed, and they're there and they're creating, they're intimidating these school boards and school committees. So where are our friends, these people on the left that are saying no, no, something's got to be done? Where are they? I know where they are, michael. They are sending text messages, they're tweeting, they're posting on Facebook and they're shaking their hands and talking about how horrible the situation is and somebody needs to do something, but they themselves are not doing anything to match what the right is doing. Adam second.
Speaker 1:You're tired of hearing this. Yeah, I sometimes say the right is playing chess and the left isn't even playing checkers. That's right, and you know I don't like saying it, but there's an element of truth to it. But let me give you another reaction that I think would come not from me but, from others, and in this case I don't know how you pronounce her name. Is the K silent in Sawant's name? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, yeah, Schwant, Sawant. Yeah, it's. Oh God, I'm blanking on it, Sawant. Anyway, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Anyway, what I'm talking about is the person who was on the city council in Seattle and who for 10, 12 years and who represented one of the most successful candidates with a left perspective in the country. I think candidates with a left perspective in the country, I think, if not the most other than say, well, they would contest this, but other than say somebody like Sanders or the squad and so on, but certainly incredibly effective. She's been on the right side of issue after issue. You know you don't have to like every commitment she has or every view she has, but she's significant and accomplished and worthy of respect, I think.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and worthy of respect, I think.
Speaker 1:But just recently she went to Michigan to campaign for Jill Stein on a stage with Stein and she was forthright and I suppose that's admirable too and she said look, we can't win this election, we're not going to win this election, but there is something very important we can do, and we should be clear about what we can do and what we should do. We can defeat Harris. We can not stop Trump, but stop Harris. And in that way and she would say in response to this issue of strategy, in that way she would say, I assume, and she did say we can undercut and even destroy the Democratic Party, which is the first step to doing anything worthwhile and successful in the United States. So successful in the United States. So, um, I hate to keep hitting you with things that I know are not going to be. You know, I'm going to just angry. I mean, it angers me. What's your reaction to that?
Speaker 2:So so want is her last name, and, uh, I would say, first of all, I think that you were very generous in your compliments of her. I would say that she has not support Democrats, no matter whether they're left-wingers or not, for elections, but she will accept, in fact demand, that Democrats support her. So my view, Michael, is that if you really think Democrats are that bad, why would you want their support? Why would you insist on it? Why wouldn't you just tell them to go to hell? So that, to me, demonstrates that there's a little let's say, let's call it an ethical problem on her part right, let me fire back for her.
Speaker 1:I don't agree with her again, but let me fire back for her. Bill, come on, I don't understand. I am a socialist. I am representing things we believe in. Of course, I want Democrats to vote for me, I want everybody to vote for me, but they are representing things that we reject.
Speaker 2:Corporate power et cetera, et cetera. No, but you want them to vote for you Because these are the people that could contaminate your purism, these are the people that could interfere with your agenda. Why don't you tell them to stand back? You see, the problem is, her line for Trotskyists is ironic, because it's basically third period Stalinism, right.
Speaker 2:The idea of the social Democrats as social fascists I mean, that's basically her politics and the politics that said in 1928 that the social Democrats were more dangerous than the Nazis and that what the communists needed to do was obliterate the social Democrats and then we'd all be off to utopia. It's the same ridiculous politics, and so her stance in Michigan is not at all surprising, because it's a sort of apocalyptic vision of the left that basically the only thing standing in the way between us and the great future are the Democrats and that when we obliterate the Democrats, we can just go forward. I sometimes describe it as the surfer's view of socialism. It's the idea that you paddle out on your surfboard and you wait for that great wave of the masses, and then you get on that wave and that wave will bring us into power. Hallelujah, right. And it's ridiculous. It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with Marxism, but there are people that believe that what she's doing is not only destructive, it is completely ignoring the actual situation we are in.
Speaker 2:And this is the thing about I would say to her I mean, she's a Trotskyist, which means that she's supposed to appreciate Lenin is that there are certain moments when the radical left is nowhere near the possibilities of winning power, and in those situations you have to make tactical decisions. So she doesn't get it. There's no point in arguing with her. I was once at a gathering. I was speaking at a gathering in Seattle, and when the question-answer period came up, she stepped forward. Of course had no question, but was there basically to give another speech? That level of arrogance is Wait, you mean?
Speaker 1:from the audience From the audience. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:From the audience. That's why I'm saying I think that you are overappreciating her contributions. Sure, she's had a good stand on certain things, but we have to understand that there are a lot of people that might have a good stand on things but are really very destructive when you see their role in the broader world.
Speaker 1:I obviously didn't have the proximity to her or the awareness of her that you do by a long shot, but I still think. We're back to the question. November 5th arrives, joe Sal, whoever is confronted with the question of what to do, what are the options? Vote Stein, vote West, vote somebody else. I think there were some other third-party candidates. Don't vote or vote Harris, in particular in swing states where the small number of votes could sway the election and yield Trump as president again and they would, I guess, say yes, but that small number of votes could also be the final. I don't. It's hard for me to the final nail in the coffin of the Democrats, as if that was true and won't make much difference anyway, because there's not that much difference between what Trump would do and what Harris would do.
Speaker 1:And so they opt for one of those things that, other than vote for Harris to stop Trump?
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, the problem is that there is a difference. Project 2025 is the difference. The Inflation Reduction Act is the difference. Court appointments is the difference. The Supreme Court is the difference. The NLRB is the difference. The FLRA is the difference. The NLRB is the difference, the FLRA is the difference. The abortion is the difference. So those that say that there is no difference, again it's delusional. Now, that doesn't mean— what's the delusion?
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait. What's the—obviously it's wrong, or I would agree it's wrong. Right, but what causes it? These are not horrible people. We're talking about people who are going to vote and who are outraged at Palestine, et cetera, et cetera. What causes them to say there is no difference, despite the fact that that is ludicrous, the fact that that is ludicrous?
Speaker 2:Because, like flat worlders, they want to believe that the earth is shaped differently than their imagination drives them, that there are people that are very nice, people that believe all kinds of very strange things, and they do it because it reinforces, sort of, their view of the world and what makes them comfortable.
Speaker 2:You know, if you basically conclude that there is no difference between the Harris and Trump, then that relieves you of a lot of responsibility, michael. You can basically just throw up your hands and just smoke, dope, vote however you want. It won't make any difference and you don't have to do anything. See, for those of us that are saying that we need to back Harris, there's a great obligation on us, because what we have to make sure is that not only that she gets elected, but we do what we didn't do as a group when Obama got elected, that we actually keep, that we are building the organization, that in fact, we do what the Vigories and the Weyriches did in the late 60s, early 70s building independent organizations, building up our base and pushing forward. So there is a lot of obligation on us. For those that say that it makes no difference, like Sawant, you basically just go back to building your own sect and hoping, which I would guess, because she's not stupid hoping that the repression will not be bad enough to lock you up.
Speaker 2:But when you know it's like. It's like interesting when you see what, what Trump was talking about the other day. Interesting when you see what Trump was talking about the other day about using the military right. He is quite serious about this, although many of our friends on the left and also many Trump supporters really don't take him seriously. They think that it's bluster and that's part of the problem also that people, much like with Hitler, think that it's all about rhetoric, that nothing really that bad will be done. So all of these are contributing factors, michael.
Speaker 1:And that last has an implication. It says among Trump's voters, there are a great many I think probably a considerable majority who are not wedded to fascism, who are not even wedded to, let's call it, extreme racism. I'm not so sure about misogyny, but probably not even wedded to extreme misogyny, but could be reached. And the left approach to that is who cares? I don't want to talk to them. They're deplorable in the words of not a leftist but a Democrat, and it's not our task to communicate with people we disagree with, which is incredible and goes back to this question of winning or not winning as compared to politics of defeatism. And just one last thing about that, which I find sort of ironic.
Speaker 1:also, you know, I have nothing much good to say about Harris, other than that she's there in the way of project 2025 and Trump and so on, but I have noticed one thing that is striking, which, at least as far as I can tell and as far as reports have suggested, harris is sending campaign workers into rural areas to knock on doors and talk to people. I'm not sure that the left would do that, but that's because Harris is thinking. I imagine maybe I'm giving her too much credit, I don't know, but she's thinking not only of winning the election but of, after the election, diffusing elements of MAGA and producing the possibility of pursuing whatever she wants to pursue. And of course, it's our job to make sure pressure causes her to pursue better than worse things. I'm wondering how you feel about that.
Speaker 2:Well, there's two things there Working backwards. There are forces on the left that are doing rural work. There's a group in the Northwest called the Rural Organizing Project that's undertaking that, and there are others. But I think that your general point there is correct. But I actually want to come to. I want to speak in favor of the notion of deplorables.
Speaker 1:Of what?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry Of deplorables. Oh, you talked about Hillary Clinton's reference, right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Oh, you talked about Hillary Clinton's reference, right, and and I think that here again there's much of the left that does not want to of hers, but her comment was misconstrued by many people on the left. She didn't say all of Trump's people were deplorables at all, bad, and are people that are completely comfortable with misogyny, with making fun of people with disabilities, who are the people that are embracing this notion that Haitians are eating cats and dogs and ducks, right? So I think that what we have to do is look very carefully at that base and we have to make a distinction, a distinction, I'd say, between the zombies and the humans.
Speaker 1:The zombies and the.
Speaker 2:Humans, humans, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right Humans.
Speaker 2:Humans. Yeah Right that. The zombies are people who cannot be won back to humanity. They have lost their humanity, they've lost their sense of empathy, they're gone. We should ignore them. They are not coming back.
Speaker 2:It's the people that are conflicted, sincerely conflicted. I don't mean the people that are BSing us about. Oh, I don't know, I haven't heard enough about Harris's point of view blah, blah, blah. Well, it's like Harris's point of view, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's like, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:Unless you are completely illiterate, computer wise, you can look Harris up if you want more information. But one thing you do know is about January 6th, and that should actually settle the question. So you have to look at people that are actually conflicted and distinguish them from the people who are not. And there are many of us on the left that actually want to believe. There's only a small number of very bad people out there. You know there's the Trumps, there's the Musks, there's people like that, but that all of these Trump people, they're just confused.
Speaker 2:And then what they'll do, what some of our friends on the left will do, is that they'll turn their attention and say the Democratic Party should be doing more to convince them, and it's like whoa, let's stop for a second. Let's look at January 6th. Let's compare that with the Inflation Reduction Act. Let's talk about pulling the country out of economic collapse. Let's talk about judge appointments, right, I mean. So let's not act like nothing has been done in the last four years.
Speaker 2:Now. Maybe you know Biden and his administration haven't talked enough about what they were doing, and maybe we on the left haven't talked enough about some of this, but let's not act like none of this is happening, and that level of insincerity from some of our friends on the left is really a problem here. Friends on the left is really a problem here. So I think that when Hillary talked about deplorables, I was surprised at some of the responses, because when you look at these Trump rallies and you see Trump making fun of disabled people and saying the most ridiculous things about Haitians, and people are applauding, you're damn right. These people are deplorable, right? Unless they came there completely losing their mind and thinking that they were at some comedy routine. They are deplorable and they are not people that we should be spending any amount of time trying to win over. We need to spend our time on the majority of people in this country who have not lost their minds.
Speaker 1:Here I think we disagree some first place in the discussion. Not that there are a subset of people who are lost agree but that the way to proceed successfully at defusing and then altering the orientation of Trump voters let's call it is enhanced by using language and whatever accompanies it that is incredibly hostile to them. Now, I don't know if it would work I'd be all for it, but I don't think it works. I think what it does is it backs them up and causes them to feel even more so that Trump's on their side and everybody else hates them, and hates not just what the most extreme things, or even the extreme things that Trump is saying but hates their very existence as working people.
Speaker 1:As working people, I think what they heard Clinton saying and I'm not at all sure it wasn't exactly what Clinton was saying was you're a bunch of dumb fuckers and you know, screw you. And that has the impact. It has a dysfunctional impact. I think If I thought telling them you know, look, you're out of your fucking minds would cause them to think twice, as compared to causing them to back up and defend the position even more, okay, fine, then. Tactically, you know, it'd be a sensible thing to do.
Speaker 1:I guess, but I don't see that, I really don't. Fine, then, tactically it would be a sensible thing to do, I guess, but I don't see that, I really don't. Bill.
Speaker 2:Michael, it was one statement that Clinton made. It wasn't like her address before the Democratic Convention.
Speaker 1:It was one statement, yeah, but I think it's her whole tone and her manner and the way she carries it.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about Trump's tone.
Speaker 1:See the reason I'm— All right, terrible, I agree with you.
Speaker 2:No, it's not just terrible. It's not just terrible. That's my point. I didn't say it's terrible. He's talking about Haitians, right, the way he's doing it, and people are embracing it. You're damn right. They're deplorable. I don't want to hear this about. Oh, they're misunderstood. Oh man, life is really rough for them.
Speaker 1:But that's not what I'm saying. No, I'm saying Wait a minute, Bill. That's not what I said.
Speaker 2:We cannot. If people, these people that were so upset about Clinton right, what are they saying? What were they saying when he was making fun of disabled people? When they're saying they're laughing at this, what are we supposed to say? Oh, they're just misunderstood, we just need to reach out to them. There's a lesson from union organizing.
Speaker 2:The lesson from union organizing is that when you go into a non-union place, you look at the workers in terms of ones, twos, threes and fours. The fours are the anti-union people. They are people you're not going to be able to win over. You ignore them. I'm saying, Michael, I'm not into denouncing, I don't give a damn about them. Right, I'm saying I am not paying attention to the people that I know that are anti-union, the people that I know that are consolidated Trumpers.
Speaker 1:But Trump's going to get roughly half the voting, those who vote their votes, he's going to get roughly half the votes, right, okay. So how do you determine which of that 50% of the population to try to communicate with and which to not try to communicate with? And to not only not try to communicate with, but what I'm suggesting is to to become, to to be so, uh, angered by as to attack in a manner that may cause the rest of the 50 to become more entrenched in the wrong conceptions that they have and in the, you know it's like okay, let me give you a completely different example. Somebody goes to Cuba a long time ago, comes back and is critical, and the left lambastes the person, and the person doesn't all of a sudden reconsider some of it, but they become more aggressive about it. You know what I'm saying, as compared to trying to communicate with the person, and maybe the person comes around.
Speaker 2:See, the thing is that what I'm saying is something different. I'm saying that I'm not going to spend any time with them. I didn't ask you. That I'm not is something different. I'm saying that I'm not going to spend any time with them.
Speaker 1:I didn't ask you, I'm not saying okay.
Speaker 2:But most people see. The thing is that what bothered me about what happened around Clinton is that it was one line in a speech. I don't know anybody that is spending their time blasting Trump supporters as being whatever. I'm saying that. What has happened, however, is that in blasting Trump, many of his supporters become defensive. I have seen this. Right, sure, and they basically say we are being disrespectful Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:And so the problem is that when we try to nuance this, to nuance this, then, but when Trump goes on and is as offensive and misogynistic, et cetera, and his supporters say nothing, see, that to me is a test, that's part of the test.
Speaker 1:It's horrible. We're not disagreeing that that's bad. Of course it's bad, it's horrible, but the roots of it are consequential and you can't just write off half the population and say, for example, that I'm on a path to try and change the society and I don't need that 50%. That's not the case. We do Right. It's over half of women. In the election he won, he had over 50% of women. Well, we're not going to just write off over 50% of women. So you're saying, or you might say yeah, but there's a subset of women in there who you might say yeah, but there's a subset of women in there who are gone.
Speaker 1:You know, they just they're so far down a rabbit hole, or they so believe what they're saying, right that we can't reach them. Okay, but then there comes the question how do you deal in such a way that you ignore them if you will, but you reach the rest? Or you try to reach the rest by organizing To not even try.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think that that's true. I don't know anyone that's not trying. In fact, part of the problem is that there's a lot of people that are trying a little bit too hard and spending a lot of time trying to convince Trumpsters to come to our side of the force. I think it's about basic organizing. It's also about message, about a number of things. I think that the basic organizing is that you talk to people, you listen to what they have to say and then you make a cold assessment, right. And if, like when you're doing union organizing, you discover that somebody is really backward, right, you leave them alone. Now they may, down the road, change their mind, and that's fine, and God hopes that I mean God, you know.
Speaker 1:Hopefully God intervenes there, right, but in the meantime you leave them alone and you concentrate on— I'm not contesting that you do have to apportion your energies and your time, and you do that intelligently.
Speaker 2:I just don't disagree. I don't disagree. They may be all over the place and that's fine. Those are people that you try to identify and work with. A lot of that is going to probably end up being underground and a lot of the work is not going to be able to be done very openly because people will face all kinds of intimidation and retaliation.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We'll have to figure out how to identify these folks right.
Speaker 1:Let me give you another example that may be a little bit closer to this. I was in Venezuelaenezuela talking to organizers, right and um, we were talking about basically what they do, you know what, what they orient themselves to doing, and they were talking about how they they try and work with the, the local committees, and with the uh assemblies and so on, and in every case it was working with ones that were Chavista. This is well before Chavez died, right.
Speaker 1:And so in every case they were going to ones that were pro-Chavez. There's nothing wrong with doing that. But I asked well, what happens when you go to neighborhoods or communities or even campus groups that don't agree with you already? And they said we don't. And I was floored. I said wait, you don't go where the opposition is, you don't go to try and reach people who don't agree with you yet. And they said no, it's a waste of time.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not saying you would do that, but you can see how it's an extreme version of what you're suggesting. It's an extreme version of saying there's a set of people who we can communicate with effectively and there's another set of people gone. Well, that other set of people who were gone became very, very consequential in causing the internal dynamics of Venezuela to not be what Chavez, let's say, would have liked. And I'm saying something similar. You know we may have a difference about percentages or something I don't think we know very well, but I mean what if the person who says you know the organizer says to the person Trump's going to what's the word? Normalize the Justice Department and use it to go after people? And this person says back what are you talking about? The Justice Department is being used to go after people. And this person says back what are you talking about? The justice department is being used to go after Trump. Now, he really believes that. He thinks it looks like, he knows it looks like that because it does look like that on the surface Right, and so he, he buys that. Well, that you're calling that confusion? Fine, I'll call that confusion also, but it's confusion that can be addressed. And if he says you know, trump is going to fight for the working people and he's going to fight for me, he's with us, that can be addressed.
Speaker 1:If the person says you know, women should be in the home and subservient, and you know, and says that you know blacks are subhuman, that's a different person. I agree and I agree with you. Maybe sometime down the road they'll have a revelation, but it's probably not worth our time to spend any time on them or to worry much about them. But I think it's mostly the other. I think it's mostly people who are. They're on a team, team Trump, and it's insane.
Speaker 1:But I even this this might even irritate a little more I was thinking about, okay, the cats and dogs stuff, you know, the, the, the stuff about the Trump says, and I'm thinking to myself okay, what he's saying is insane, he knows it's insane, he's not stupid, he's not as dumb as everybody makes believe. He knows it's stupid, vance knows it's stupid. They know it's not true. So why are they saying it?
Speaker 1:And, of course, one explanation is well, it resonates with racism. It resonates with that part of the constituency of community may be under siege by an influx of a large number of people who have a different way of living and a different set of holidays and beliefs and so on, and they don't necessarily have to be racist toward that other group to feel like that other group is threatening something that they want to hang on to. Now, I'm not saying that's right, I'm not saying the behavior is good, nothing like that. But it is really different than the part, the sector of that group who you want to say okay, we shouldn't waste much time on these rabid racists, but I'm not sure what percentage of Trump's vote is them.
Speaker 1:I don't think people voted for Obama and then voted for Trump because they suddenly became, you know, rabidly racist. That just doesn't resonate. It doesn't make sense to me. I think there are other factors at work and those other factors could be addressed. There are factors at work and those other factors could be addressed. Of course, none of this bears much upon voting on November 5th and being willing to vote for Harris to stop Trump. That's a trivial issue that ought to be decided by every leftist to be simple and easy to act on.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to the example about Venezuela and I would say that the decision to go into those villages, the question to me is whether it was a tactical or a strategic decision of not going in. So in other words, if there are certain communities, like if I'm doing electoral work, I may make a tactical decision that because of limited resources, there's no point right, that's different from saying that these folks are hopelessly lost. So the question is whether it was tactical or strategic. Helplessly lost. So the question is whether it was tactical or strategic.
Speaker 1:So I would say that the way you uncover whether Let me just answer that one for a second. I don't think it was either. Honestly, I think it was exactly what you were talking about earlier. One is comfortable to do, it's even fun to do, it has positive feedback all the time to do it, and the other is hard to do, discomforting to do, et cetera.
Speaker 2:I think it was that. If that's the case, if that's the case, then it was problematic. Yeah, right, but I would say that the the issue of like assessment, voter assessment, happens through dialogue, so that these people you're talking about, about the cats and dogs Basically, you're talking about revanchism. That's really what you're talking about, that you're talking about a segment of the population that believes that something is being taken from them or has been taken from them. Now, the question of whether someone is prepared to move away from that is, to me, the decisive question. I have a relative who's a Trumpster, very nice guy, very smart, but there's absolutely no point in having a political discussion with him Because, as nice and as charming as he is, nothing and I mean nothing I say will shake any part. 25 to 30 percent of the US electorate has regularly supported reactionary candidates. Those are the people that are zombies. Those are the people that are zombies. They are not being won over, michael. Now, that means that we have probably about 75% of the population that really is legitimately competitive.
Speaker 2:That's where my optimism lies, right that we need to be focused on those 75%. And so in our organizing, just like we were doing in the union organizing, you're going to talk to people. You're not going to talk at them, You're going to talk with people to really make an assessment. Where do they really stand? And is there anything that we can do or say that can convince them? There was a guy that I, years ago, I took my car into the shop. I had a Saturn. I took the car into the shop and there was this very nice technician there and we would always speak.
Speaker 2:And this was right after Al Gore's film came out the Inconvenient Truth and so he told me he had seen it and he said, yeah, it was pretty good, but the situation isn't that bad. And I said what do you mean? It's not that bad? He said no, no, it's not that bad. I said, well, no, what do you mean by that? He said it can't be that bad. I said, well, actually the situation is worse. Someone like that I look at as potentially someone that could be won over, but he is fearful of all of the implications of the situation being as bad as Al Gore laid out Now. It might be the case that we can win him over, or it might be the case that he is in a bubble and he really can't come out of that. But I won't know, based on just one conversation, and that's the way I look at it in terms of elections.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's the question of the reasoning that you're describing, right, and then there's the question of okay, what are the facts of the situation? The reasoning I don't think we disagree about that is to say you know, you don't randomly apportion your time in useless ways. You and Fed try to apportion your time intelligently so that it will have a positive effect and positive consequences. There we agree for sure. I'm not so sure about the assessment of where everybody is at. Is it 25%? Who are what you're calling zombies, or is it 12.5%? What is it?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I'm just looking at volume. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But let me give you another example, which I don't think is so far, which may say something about the dynamics. On the one side, there's this rabbit hole, dynamics, and we see those dynamics. You get more and more into this position and you defend the position and your identity becomes attached to the position and pretty soon you're on Team Trump and et cetera, et cetera. Right, I often tell this story. I went to a campus, uh, state college, pennsylvania, a long time ago. That's where, um, uh, who's the who was the coach of the football team. So you're gonna know, and I can't remember pater name, paterno, yeah, so Paterno is the coach of the football team. The football games on Saturdays have 60,000 people in the stadium. The town has a population of about 50,000. So, basically, football is the life of the area on weekends.
Speaker 1:And I'm on that campus. I'm in a room, I was talking to about 400 people and in that room, before the sort of proper I don't know proper discussion started, I asked how many people had been to a football game on the campus and two or three hands went up, literally among 400 people. I don't think there's a constituency on that campus, mm-hmm, the left on the campus, right. So then, on the way to the talk, I passed this uh sports bar, this huge and you know, camera TVs all over the place, et cetera, et cetera. So the next question I asked was how many of you have gone into the sports bar now? They were laughing, it wasn't a hand, they were literally laughing at the at the thought of doing that, and I was shook up by this. You know you're trying to organize a left movement on your campus and you're telling me that you don't want to talk to 90% of the campus. How does that make any sense?
Speaker 2:So the thing about what you were describing, I would agree that that has been a problem. I'm not disagreeing with that and I'm not suggesting that we is something different, michael. I'm saying that we have to acknowledge that there's a large number of people in this country that are not redeemable. They will not. That we have to stop acting like there isn't a mass movement out there that is very dangerous. That it's not just Trump.
Speaker 1:We don't disagree.
Speaker 2:Right, that's my point. And so, when it comes to organizing, any organizer is inevitably going to go into a situation where there is some level of hostility, where there's pushback, where there is some level of hostility, where there's pushback, and you have to make an assessment in those situations whether or not it makes sense to spend your time there or not. It's a tactical assessment. So I'm making that distinction. That's all I want to be very clear on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I said. We sort of agree on the reasoning and it's not clear. You know where the reasoning cuts in. You could imagine somebody saying, in that school situation, the exact same thing and then saying well, it makes no sense to spend my time, to spend any time, for any of us to spend any time trying to talk to, you know, the quarterback of the football team and if I went on the campus, the first person I would want to talk to on the campus is the quarterback of the football team. If I could possibly get in there to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, you're right, this is an element of wishful thinking in it. I feel an element of wishful thinking in me that that group isn that that unreachable group, isn't too big. I definitely feel that. All right, we're on for an hour and I know you said earlier that you had to get off around then. So if that's the case, is there anything you want to say before we conclude?
Speaker 2:No, just my thanks. I appreciate this. I appreciate the dialogue, as always.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do too, and it's a pleasure, even though our tempers got up a little bit. It's a pleasure to be in a situation where, in talking about the election and all the rest of it, I feel so positive toward and respectful toward the views of the person I'm talking with, as compared to as too often is the case feeling not that way toward the views of the person I'm talking to. I feel exactly the same way.
Speaker 2:And my temper had nothing to do with you. No, I understand that. It's nothing personal. I understand that. So it's nothing personal.
Speaker 1:I understand that I didn't think it that way. Okay, so all that said this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z, and hopefully before too long we'll have Bill back again.