During the 1990s, I began to realize that the American left was increasingly being incorporated into the institutional mainstream, and was becoming entirely co-opted by the ruling class. This was evidenced by, for example, the widespread left-wing support for the US government’s massacre at Waco in 1993, acquiescence in the War on Drugs, sympathy for acts of imperialist aggression in Somalia, Hait, and Kosovo, and the generally “touchy-feely” attitude of the left toward the neoliberal Clinton administration (which many of them now deny but I was there).
Back in the early 2000s, I began to realize that the American right had no future due to demographic, cultural, generational, economic, and technological trends. Even during the height of the neocon-led Bush administration, I recognized that the neocons were a passing phase that would eventually implode and that neoliberalism with its liberal internationalist paradigm was the wave of the ruling class future, which came into fruition during the Obama years. I also came to recognize that as the right-wing continued to lose ground it would become more militant in its approach, which has happened with the rise of Trumpism in the mainstream and tendencies like the Alt-Right on the margins.
It is likely that as the right-wing continues to shrink in size and overall institutional support, it will increasingly come to resemble the “far-right” of Europe, i.e. existing on the margins of the mainstream, and having to “liberalize” its rhetoric in order to maintain any kind of strength (e.g. Marine Le Pen’s purging her father from the National Rally, and claiming to oppose Islamic immigration on liberal/left grounds, by claiming that Muslims are anti-secularist, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and anti-feminist). What is now considered to be mainstream Republicanism, i.e. Dinesh D’Souza’s “Democrats are the real racists” agitprop, Tucker Carlson’s denunciation of the Chinese as “fascist,” Laura Ingraham’s faux civil libertarianism, Ben Shapiro’s Randianism, and the “anti-leftist liberalism” of folks like Dave Rubin and his circle will increasingly be seen as the “far-right” in US politics in the same way that white nationalists are currently seen as the “far-right.” In other words, what is now considered to be mainstream conservatism will be considered a far-right fringe position.
What will be passed off as “conservatism” in the future will be today’s neoliberalism, and what will be passed off as “liberalism” will be today’s supposed “far left.” Imagine a US election where Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer were running on the Republican ticket while claiming Martin Luther King, Jr. as a great conservative icon and gay marriage as a hallmark conservative family value, and you will get an idea of what “conservatism” will look like in the future.
Now, imagine a future Democratic ticket with someone similar to Bernie Sanders as the “liberal” candidate, with many “liberals” lamenting that he/she is far too conservative, and someone like AOC or Ilhan Omar as the running mate, with someone like Ayanna Pressley as the Speaker of the House, with Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris announcing their switch to the Republicans because the Democrats have become “too liberal.”
Meanwhile, on the left-end of Congress, you find a “Social Justice Caucus,” calling for imprisoning clerics who claim homosexuality is in conflict with their religious traditions, issuing fines for “manspreading,” calling for the removing of Eisenhower commemorations because Ike was an anti-immigration xenophobe, renaming the Reagan airport because Reagan was a “fascist,” instituting a National Day of Sorrow for White Privilege, insisting that the military officer corps maintain a quota of women and gays and trans people, banning plastic children’s toys as environmentally-unfriendly, conducting Congressional hearings on the pervasiveness of cultural appropriation, microaggressions, and questioning whether whitesplaining or mansplaining should be considered forms of speech that are protected by the First Amendment.
At this point, the entirety of the supposed “far-left” would largely be co-opted by the system because there would really be nowhere else for them to go. Yes, there would still be some left-over actual commies who were no more significant than the Shakers, some Antifa who insisted that the dire threat of mansplaining can only be dealt with through vigilante violence, and a perhaps a new wave of SJWs who were focused on eradicating African-American white supremacists, patriarchal feminists, or transphobic gay men.
But, clearly, none of this would be an actual “left” is that is oriented toward actually subversive politics of any kind. So where would that leave those of us who actually want to dismantle the state, abolish the empire, or overthrow the ruling class? Clearly, a “New Far-Left” would be (and presently is) sorely needed.
A new revolutionary “far-left,” extending geographically as a “new Non-Aligned Movement” from the “belly of the beast” through the remote corners of the periphery, might be something that could satirically be called the “Goofy Gillis’ Nightmare Party,” a true axis of politically incorrect evil extending from bolo’bolo enthusiasts, municipalists, democratic confederalists, egoists, nihilists, and anarcho-primitivists through panarchists, exitarians, agorists, and national-anarchists to anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-monarchists, and NRx patchwork enthusiasts, with lots of spiritual byways (Christian anarchists, Islamic anarchists, Buddhist anarchists, pagan anarchists, New Age anarchists), scientific and historical heretics, conspiracists, and transhumanists, with all subcultures, counter cultures, lifestyle enthusiasts, aesthetic preferences, political tribes, economic/occupational groups, and ethnic/religious/gender/sexual groups wishing to form stateless communities of their own being welcome.
