Reposting with permission this excellent essay on the imperialist Left and what to do about it. I read it on Black Agenda Report, a newsletter from Black Alliance for Peace that is a consistent high quality source of information and analysis about world events. Join me in supporting BAP with a recurring donation to enable them to continue their important work.
Jacqueline Luqman recently delivered these remarks at a webinar hosted by the International Manifesto Group, "Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025 ."
Thank you for having me on this panel today, on this eve of the anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of course, there is something else going on tomorrow that we are marking and why we are here, and that is the inauguration of the next President of the Imperialist States of America, Donald Trump.
A lot of people are angry about the inauguration falling on MLK Day this year, but I actually believe the convergence of dates is auspicious because it gives me the opportunity to bring the issues that Dr. King raised in his speech Beyond Vietnam–Time To Break The Silence to this forum.
In this speech, Dr. King raised the issue of the triple evils plaguing this country and the world: racism, poverty, militarism. What Dr. King was alluding to what we in the Black Alliance for Peace recognize is imperialism, which is why BAP was founded on April 4, 2017, to commemorate this pivotal address, and as a means to pick up the mantle of Dr. King and raise the consciousness of the masses in this country to the issue of imperialism that he spoke of.
It is in the spirit of the struggle against imperialism that I assess the current state of the Left and its efficacy in meeting the challenge laid down by Dr. King. Many people today believe that we are facing a second inauguration of Trump and what many fear will be increasing fascist repression against marginalized groups and expanding war because enough people did not vote for Kamala Harris, or because too many people voted for third parties or did not vote at all in the recent presidential election.
But we in the Black Alliance for Peace understand that we have arrived at this point because the American Left has not been as successful as we needed to have been in advancing Dr. King’s anti-imperialist mantra. If we had, there would be no confusion of the two wings of the bourgeois kleptocracy represented by Democrats as well as Republicans that advance the interests of the dictatorship of finance capital over the people, which I believe is a large part of the real reason we are witnessing what feels like to many a triumph of white supremacist domination domestically that will definitely be exported abroad under a new Trump administration.
This is a grave challenge facing the Left in the US. We are confused about the true nature of the Democrat Party with many believing they truly are the lesser evil of the two major political parties in this country. Many delude themselves into believing in reformism and representational politics in which small gains in limited areas are seen as major victories for the people, but the corporate bosses lose nothing and no power is shifted in the people’s favor; or in representational politics in which voting for a person from a previously under represented group in power - women, Blacks, Indigenous, immigrant - signals a potential for political progress that never actually materializes for the people compelled to vote for these folks in the name of progres.
This confusion on the left was seen most sharply I believe in the recent elections and the frenzied demands that anti-imperialists had to vote for Kamala Harris despite all of her existing evil and the evil she promised to continue were she to be elected, to save us from Trump.
I do not want to dismiss the genuine fear many have of a Trump presidency and all of his evil, violent, racist, psychotic promises to do harm for the good of White Nationalist Christian America coming to bear. I do believe conditions for all of us working class, poor, queer, trans, immigrant, indigenous, African descended people will become more harsh under Trump in some ways, if we can imagine them being harsher than they are. However, it is important for us anti-imperialist Leftists to make clear that the rise of Trump was facilitated not because of the lack of votes for the Democrat candidate, but because of the lack of commitment to advancing a clear and consistent anti-imperialist position to US policy from both major political parties and its surrogates in US media, academia, and other bourgeois institutions. Simply put, the challenge facing the Left under this Trump administration is first admitting that there is confusion about Democrat support of imperialism and inconsistency in confronting them.
Left worker solidarity has been undermined by a labor aristocracy that talks radical labor talk, but capitulates to supporting the very Democrat Party that scuttled major union contract negotiations or did little to support others, such as Railroad workers , Amazon employees . One can certainly argue that Trump is no pro-worker candidate, despite his populist rhetoric. But the same is true of Biden and he has the existing track record to prove it. Regardless, major labor union leaders such as the Teamsters ’ Black Caucus endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, while the union itself issued no endorsement of any candidate, although the president of the union spoke at the Republican National Convention. And workers who are not represented by unions are also sold out by the duopoly, as the federal minimum wage still stands at a far below poverty-level rate of $7.25 per hour, something the Biden administration made no move to change, and we certainly do not expect the Trump Administration to either.
A form of social imperialism has emerged within the Left, with some being clear on the need for social change domestically, but also believing in the need for “American Might” to be used overseas to deal with those they agree with the State Department are “enemies.” These Leftists who are socialists or socialist-leaning in word, but imperialists in deed have spent the last four years expressing Left support of imperialist warmongering against Russia, support of war rhetoric against China, and now support of the imperialist US-backed coup in Syria. This has not only sewn deep division within the Left, but it has obscured Dr. King’s clear condemnation of US militarism and the money that goes to the war machine that destroys working class, poor & peasant peoples around the world, instead of onto the plates of the same class of people here.
There are myriad reasons some on the Left have supported these Democrat acts of imperialist thuggery against sovereign peoples around the world, but whatever those reasons, the outcome is that these Leftists become more like Democrat-light, believing that Democrats are less dangerous in their approach to both imperialist warmongering exported abroad and domestic repression in the working class and poor neighborhoods across the country has created this situation in which Trump is held up to the masses as a figure of singularly unique oppression and some say fascism, but the global toll of destruction, death, and human suffering accumulated over Biden’s four years in office is somehow diminished as they project dire warnings of Trump doing worse than Biden, and with that came the demand that we had to vote for Vice President Kamala Harrais to stop a second Trump presidency.
And now, Trump’s ability to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza, even though his motives for doing so are involve his own neoconservative/settler colonial aspirations for the land and the resources offshore rather than a concern for the humanity of the 8 people, has caused those Leftists to have egg on their faces. Having been proven wrong about Trump making Biden’s genocide worse, they are now faced with reconciling their votes for a Democrat imperialist who lied months ago about fighting tireless toward a ceasefire, when the Republican imperialist merely seemed to have made a phone call to actually get it done when he did not even have the power of the Presidency yet to do it.
As tempting as it may be, this is not the time for gloating in the face of their folly. It is my hope that Leftists who compromised on imperialism for whatever reason they believed they had to these past four years realize now that compromise on anti-imperialist principles believing that Democrats will save us from Republicans.
As much as we know that there is no prospect for peace under Trump, we must be clear that there was no prospect for peace under Biden, even if some among us did not have that clarity then. This is a mistake that the Left cannot afford to make again. Our struggle must not be centered on the personality of Trump, even as he is threatening to invade and colonize Greenland and retake the Panama Canal, or whatever other unhinged threat he may make. Rather, our focus must be on uniting with the working class, poor, peasant, and marginalized people and communities who are the targets of imperialist policies that emanate from the beating heart of imperialism, the United States, no matter which person from either part occupies the White People’s House.
It is our duty as Leftists in the U.S. to the masses around the world struggling against U.S. imperialism to be consistent in our analysis of and resistance to imperialism no matter which party exports it. International solidarity with the working class is the only real prospect for peace that we have Left.
Jacqueline Luqman is a radical activist based in Washington, D.C.; as well as co-founder of Luqman Nation , an independent Black media outlet that can be found on YouTube (here and here ) and Facebook.
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