A reader has asked World-Outlook for our view on “the state of consciousness” of the U.S. working class today. This “Discussion with our readers” column includes his letter, in response to the December 15, 2022, article “What Do U.S. Midterm Elections Reveal?,” and our reply.
In two letters to the editor a reader asked World-Outlook to clarify our use of the term “Bonapartism” in the December 15, 2022, article “What Do U.S. Midterm Elections Reveal?” This “Discussion with our readers” column includes the letters and our reply.
December 15, 2022— The U.S. midterm elections unfolded last month in the not-so-faint shadow of January 6, 2021. That day, a rightist mob of thousands, instigated by then President Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Congress. It was a bloody but unsuccessful attempt — unprecedented in more than a century — to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. Trump and his allies endorsed, financed, and campaigned for hundreds of candidates, including many outspoken ultra-rightists who beat moderate Republicans in the primaries and represented the GOP in the November general election. A majority of these “election deniers” lost their bids for office in competitive races. This was a blow — at least temporarily — to those who promote or condone a form of dictatorial rule in which a “savior” is anointed to “rescue the nation” in perilous times. Such a regime, as World-Outlook has explained, would accurately be described as Bonapartist.
Congressional hearings on the January 6, 2021, right-wing mob attack on the U.S. Capitol are ongoing. The public debate around these hearings has made one fact clear: The number of Republican office holders and nominees for the upcoming midterm elections who embrace the outlandish lie of a “stolen election” in 2020 has grown in the last 18 months. As recently as last month, the Republican Party of Texas — the second largest state — declared at its convention that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected.” Republican office holders across the country echo this falsehood. A week after the 2021 attack on the Capitol, World Outlook noted in its inaugural article that “a not insignificant minority of the privileged classes” backed Trump’s big lie aimed at subverting the popular vote and installing an anti-democratic regime. A few weeks later, we documented the extent of financial support among a number of wealthy ruling families for that fateful assault in an article we are republishing here in two parts, the second of which follows.
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Congressional hearings on the January 6, 2021, right-wing mob attack on the U.S. Capitol are ongoing. The public debate around these hearings has made one fact clear: The number of Republican office holders and nominees for the upcoming midterm elections who embrace the outlandish lie of a “stolen election” in 2020 has grown in the last 18 months. As recently as last month, the Republican Party of Texas — the second largest state — declared at its convention that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected.” Republican office holders across the country echo this falsehood. A week after the 2021 attack on the Capitol, World Outlook noted in its inaugural article that “a not insignificant minority of the privileged classes” backed Trump’s big lie aimed at subverting the popular vote and installing an anti-democratic regime. A few weeks later, we documented the extent of financial support among a number of wealthy ruling families for that fateful assault in an article we are republishing here in two parts, the first of which follows.
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Public hearings on the January 6, 2021, ultra-rightist mob attack on the U.S. Congress are now underway. The facts presented at these hearings offer a reminder that the effort Donald Trump led to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was far outside the previous norms of U.S. bourgeois politics. For this reason, World-Outlook is republishing its inaugural article posted that fateful January. That analysis largely stands up to the test of time. It outlines the stakes for working people in those events. The issues involved go well beyond establishing historical accuracy. It is still likely that Trump will run again for president in 2024. His unfounded and conspiracy-laden claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” still holds sway among the base of the Republican Party and Republican office holders at the federal, state, and local levels. Trump remains the most authoritative leader of the GOP. What is important to working people is what unfolded after the 2020 election. It begins with recognizing the “big lie” of the “stolen election” and the lengths to which its proponents were willing to go to enforce it. This is the second of two parts.
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Public hearings on the January 6, 2021, ultra-rightist mob attack on the U.S. Congress are now underway. The facts presented at these hearings offer a reminder that the effort Donald Trump led to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was far outside the previous norms of U.S. bourgeois politics. For this reason, World-Outlook is republishing its inaugural article posted that fateful January. That analysis largely stands up to the test of time. It outlines the stakes for working people in those events. The issues involved go well beyond establishing historical accuracy. It is still likely that Trump will run again for president in 2024. His unfounded and conspiracy-laden claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” still holds sway among the base of the Republican Party and Republican office holders at the federal, state, and local levels. Trump remains the most authoritative leader of the GOP. What is important to working people is what unfolded after the 2020 election. It begins with recognizing the “big lie” of the “stolen election” and the lengths to which its proponents were willing to go to enforce it. This is the first of two parts.
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Haymarket Books has just published “Under the Socialist Banner: Resolutions of the Second International, 1889-1912.”
This review, introduced by the book’s editor Mike Taber, takes up questions such as: Should socialists accept positions as ministers in capitalist governments? What stance should they take toward bourgeois parties?
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