I'LL HUFF, AND I'LL PUFF, AND I'LL BLOW YOUR TYRANNY DOWN.

Doomsday environmentalist C. J. Polychroniou is spoiling for a fight.  "Practicing Civility in the Face of Fascism Is Like Signing One's Own Death Warrant."  The problem is, there aren't a lot of street brawlers among the vanguardists these days.  His opening paragraphs are hysterical, coming to a call to action.

At this point, the key question is this: what can be done to defeat right-wing extremism? In the U.S., defending democratic values and the rights of people from Trump’s neo-fascist politics, especially with the return of white supremacy to mainstream politics, a philosophy of resistance and rebellion needs to operate mainly outside the confines of the liberal political establishment. It is crystal clear that the Democratic Party is incapable of fighting Trump. The sight of Congressional Democrats to Trump’s joint address to Congress holding pathetic little signs and appearing in pink as signs of protest should speak volumes of the devastating failure of the Democratic Party to stop the rise of Trumpism, let alone of coming up now with a fight back strategy against the Führer.

There's an ongoing feud among the Democrats over whether they lost the presidency and a Senate majority for being excessively leftist or not leftist enough, and there are serious thinkers, that is, by the standards of court intellectuals for politicians, grappling with that.  But ole' C.J. is pure comic relief.

It is obvious that a new style of political action is needed in the United States today. The balance of de jure power has shifted dramatically toward an elite characterized by the fusion of wealth and power in the political system that plain resistance alone is not enough. What is needed, even beyond anti-fascism strategies and tactics, is the adoption of new ways to democracy and citizenship.

Indeed, anti-fascist organizing is only useful if it carries within it a vision of a post-capitalist alternative order since fascism has always been a reaction to capitalist crises. After all, fascism does not oppose the logic or the principles of capitalism. In fact, fascism has always been a particular way of “managing capitalism.”

Fascism, state capitalism, government of the rent-seekers for the rent-seekers, for arbitrary values of rent-seeking.  If only C.J. could come to the logical conclusion.

First, in the fight against fascism, the concept of democracy needs to be reimagined beyond elections and identified, in turn, with self-government and bold ideas to restructure the economy. The Democratic Party of the past 30 years has shown that it is simply incapable of undertaking this mission as it is itself a byproduct of a system in which the few set the terms under which the economy and society operate at large. The notion that a few progressive elected officials can tilt the party to the left in a radical way is a democratic fantasy.

Instead, we have to hope for a miracle.

We need economic democracy—institutions, organizations and practices that break away from the destructive and oligarchical tendencies of the current system and are geared in turn towards meeting workers’ needs, who are the backbone of the economy. Economic democracy starts with dismantling corporate power and extends to nearly every part of the economy—from the workplace to housing and from health to education. Public ownership is key to the idea of economic democracy as a way of transforming economic practices. Hence, we’re talking about forging a radical economic democracy project that can challenge the economic rationality of capital and private appropriation of labor, land and nature.

Working with the liberal political establishment to accomplish this mission is yet another democratic fantasy. In fact, progressives keen not only on anti-Trump resistance but also willing to embrace a postcapitalist alternative to oligarchy should make their voices heard in every way possible by letting their elected representatives know that while they despise the Republican Party for what it stands for and what it is doing to the country under Trump-Musk, they do not trust the Democrats when it comes to fighting back and making the right choices for a more humane and just socio-economic order. They should let them know that democracy is much more than elections and surely not about serving special interests. It is about giving political power to ordinary citizens.

Likewise, the project of economic democracy mandates the reconceptualization of citizenship.

I've heard that sort of talk before.  I'm not impressed, and there's something in that "mandates the reconceptualization of citizenship" that conceptualizes a ditch and a machine-gun.  Not that it matters, because, as I noted earlier, C. J. is hoping for a miracle.

One does not fight fascism with props as a form of protest. Or unjust wars and invasions by releasing doves. Practicing civility towards fascism is like signing one’s own death. One confronts fascism head-on and based on solidarity and from a position of strength. Yes, confronting fascism requires also courage and not concerns with whether someone’s name is going to end up on a list of “radical leftists” by some reactionary watchdog.

In sum, a transformative vision for a world beyond capitalism should be an integral component of the fight against Trump’s policies. The left needs to make a clean break with the mindset of political compromise that characterizes the Democratic Party. The rise of Trumpism was based not simply on lies and propaganda but on the strategic use of the politics of confrontation and by capturing what was actually happening on the ground. In this context, reimaging democracy and reinventing citizenship could be powerful tools in the fight against Trump’s assault on civil society and his vision of a dog-eat-dog world.

There's an awful lot missing from that "reimagining and reinventing," and I have a pretty good idea how it will turn out.