The Elephant In The Room

The C.S.A. is doing something that might strike you as a little odd: obsessively following the upcoming presidential and congressional election. Why would anyone seeking to end electoral politics spend hours at a time hunched over a computer searching for the latest poll from North Dakota? Because the outcome of the election will have a major effect on anarchist organizing.

Fortunately, the C.S.A. is not alone in this thinking. Check out the very good analysis from the interesting but problematic document "Unconventional Futures":

If Obama becomes president, many anarchists and other radicals predict, the euphoria on the part of liberals and progressives will quickly give way to disillusionment as the shining star of the Democrats fails to follow through on his empty promises of hope and change. It’s extremely unlikely that an Obama administration will end the occupation in Iraq, threats against Iran, police repression, anti-immigrant crackdowns, escalating poverty, oil dependence, or any of the other crises facing the US; given this, how will the country respond? One possibility is that the vast liberal/progressive base of Obama’s campaign and the new Democratic Party followers will find themselves disaffected from the two-party path and open to new, increasingly radical directions. In this case, anarchists should be ready to seize the moment with consistent, visible, exciting actions and propaganda, and provide accessible points of entry for people to become involved in anti-political organizing and direct action. On the other hand, another possibility is that large sectors of the US population will respond to the failure of the hope/change rhetoric by moving in a more overtly fascist direction (supporting heavily authoritarian leadership, accelerating imprisonment and police repression, intensified scapegoating of immigrants, etc). In this instance, a solidly functioning network of communication and action will be crucial to anarchist self-defense, to oppose right-wing reaction from the community level and promoting anti-authoritarian analyses of the situation.

It’s also possible that McCain will become president, in which case two distinct trends may emerge with possibilities for anarchists. For one, military involvement abroad and border militarization at home will likely increase even more swiftly, along with social conservative attacks on reproductive rights and queer and transgender people. In all of these areas, direct action will be crucially necessary to stem the tide of militarism and oppression, and the haphazard, disconnected, and sporadic undertakings of these past years won’t be enough. Also, the massive grassroots swell behind Obama will find their hopes frustrated, and many will seek new political outlets for their disappointment. Anarchists demonstrating alternatives in practice to the electoral system can provide a path for this energy away from the two-party black hole and towards direct action.

The C.S.A. quibbles with the use of dramatic words and phrases such as "vast", "large", and "many" to describe the numbers of people that will be disaffected, reactionary, or open to radical ideas, on the grounds that this overstates the case and can lead to unrealistic expectations and/or delusions of grandeur. Other than that though, this is a pretty spot-on analysis of the possible environments in which anarchists will be working for the next four years.

If you accept the descriptions of the various scenarios presented above, it's hard not to arrive at a second conclusion: a Democratic president means we can go on the offensive, while a Republican means we're forced to continue playing defense.

Why? For one, we are far better equipped to take advantage of liberal disillusionment than liberal outrage. The last four years have been a testament to this, with the clearest beneficiaries of outrage being the Democratic party and the authoritarian Left (see: the anti-war movement.) While it's true that anarchists have been building some momentum of late, the Bush years, especially after 9/11, have not been good to us.

Liberal disillusionment has been far kinder to anarchists. The C.S.A. is of the opinion that it is no accident that the surge of anarchist activity in the late '90s overlapped with a Democratic administration in the process of moving to the right. While it has been nearly impossible to break the liberal obsession with the current president's personality and grammar, it was relatively easy to point out that life under a likable Democrat still sucked.

As the Clinton administration abandoned its social democratic agenda--especially in its decisive move towards a neoliberal economic policy--progressive liberals got involved in the anti-globalization movement, which, due to its pluralism, exposed some to anarchists and their propaganda. This is largely what led to the swelling of anarchist ranks at the time and thus allowed for the various dramatic events now immortalized on Hollywood celluloid.

Another reason a Democratic administration favors us is that it forces us into fewer reactionary stances. As stated in the paragraphs quoted above, a Republican administration would likely busy itself with all manner of offensive actions in a continuation of the current administration's agenda--possibly at an accelerated clip--to which anarchists have struggled to effectively respond. Being the militant reaction to Republican offense does not suit anarchists for a variety of reasons, from the demographics of the anarchist milieu to the strengths of the anarchist critique of postmodern life.

Certainly there are grounds for disagreement, especially now, when anarchists seem to be gaining their footing. But the C.S.A., for one, finds the first scenario quoted above far more enticing than the last.

Addendum: Congressional Democrats have apparently begun operating on the assumption of an Obama victory, and in a rare step, are attempting to gain traction for their legislative agenda ahead of the election. To further support the C.S.A.'s comparison of the Clinton years to a likely Obama administration, check out this snippet from a larger piece about the Democrats "economic recovery plan":

Some aides are even floating trade-offs that might sweeten the pot for Senate Republicans and President Bush, including the Colombia free trade agreement, long seen as a possible lame-duck item.