While Democrats Do The Fascists' Dirty Work, Attacks on the Left Continue

If beating back authoritarianism is so important, why do so many politicians and pundits work to undermine the very groups leading the fight?

This is what democracy looks like

Why did 48 House Democrats and nearly as many Democratic Senators vote for the Laken Riley Act this past week? Presented as an effort to strengthen federal immigration enforcement and empower states to compel federal action, the bill is in fact a fascistic opening salvo, a congressionally-approved license to detain and deport any immigrant accused of any crime. No due process. No burden of proof. And if the federal government can detain any immigrant for any reason, with no recourse, who’s to stop them from doing the same with any naturalized citizen?

In the wake of Vice President Harris’s narrow loss to President-elect Trump, a tired old narrative found new legs and new language. Despite evidence only to the contrary, everyone from Congressman Tom Suozzi to Matt Yglesias to Senator John Fetterman’s former Senior Advisor Adam Jentleson accused the activist wing of the Democratic coalition of pulling the party so far left that it lost the support of a majority of voters.

According to this view, elected officials’ caved to “the groups” and embraced progressive positions that invited more electoral pain than they were worth. This narrative also projects internal GOP incentives (where the credible threat of primary challenges pulls candidates toward increasingly extremist positions) onto a Democratic party where the opposite power dynamic is at play. This argument assigns a level of power to progressive activists that does not exist, and it paints a false equivalency between the far left and the far right; between those leading the fight against fascism and America’s fascist vanguard.

Again, none of this is new. The racist crusade against “woke,” the backlash to Me Too encapsulated in the obsession with so-called cancel culture, fearmongering (and actual cancellation) in response to Palestinian human rights demonstrations: it’s all the same garbage, which I expect from the right but simply will not tolerate from the left. For all the breathless claims that the term latinx drove voters away, the number of instances in which actual elected Democrats have used the word latinx can be counted on a single, partially amputated hand. These are not serious claims. They are biases and bigotries laundered through the guise of good-faith strategic counsel.

Democrats and pundits tripping over each other to more “authentically” validate concerns about trans people is the most recent example—and among the most shameful—of this disturbing pattern. Laverne Cox and others have labored to explain how participating in the moral panic around the non-issue that is trans athletes only contributes to the dehumanization and othering of trans people writ large. What may seem like a low stakes admission or a “moderate position” builds a permission structure for the erasure of trans people as a whole.

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within…We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics…I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen.” -Donald Trump

Whether the target is trans people, immigrants, or whoever comes next, we should all understand the Laken Riley Act as a five alarm fire. Democrats should be ringing alarm bells. Historically fascist rule has been installed incrementally through democratic means, with the frequent cooperation of a compliant and complicit opposition party. Chillingly, this week 85 Democrats stayed quiet and used their congressional authority to move us one step closer to autocracy.

I don’t want to hear any pundit, any elected official, or any internet numbskull blame “the groups” ever again. Yet in one remarkable essay on January 10, The Bulwark Policy Editor Mona Charen managed to acknowledge the severity of the authoritarian threat and called on Democrats to firmly oppose Trump while simultaneously blaming “the groups” for Democrats’ inability to do so. This logical contortion would be impressive were it not so damned self-defeating.

In one paragraph Charen asserts—again, with no evidence or backup argument—that Democrats should deprioritize the influence of immigration rights groups, then in the very next paragraph scolds Democrats for “focusing on areas in which the two parties can work together [read: immigration] rather than the ones in which they differ.”

Immigration rights groups are not the problem, Mona. You are.

Immigration rights groups perform heroic frontline work, provide crucial legal support, and yes, push policymakers toward more sensible laws aligned with a more perfect union. Immigrant rights, like women’s rights, like trans rights, are human rights. It is beyond morally indefensible to attack immigrant rights groups and lgbtq rights groups. From someone who claims to oppose autocracy, these positions also form a complete and utter strategic trainwreck.

If Mona Charen, Adam Jentleson, Rep Suozzi and Matt Yglesias were serious about confronting the influence of powerful outside groups steering the Democrats into unpopular positions, (as others have well articulated) the obvious first target would be AIPAC and its allies. But they never go there, because this isn’t about strengthening Democrats, and it’s not about beating back Trumpism. It’s about punching down at marginalized groups, and—wittingly or unwittingly—it gives Democratic politicians a permission structure to vote for plainly authoritarian legislation.

“[Most Americans] didn’t sign up for unabashed authoritarianism,” Charen writes, but “they may be okay with [Trump] deporting some illegal aliens.”

Does Mona Charen, with 45-years of political experience, truly not understand that the Democratic-supported Laken Riley Act is the former disguised as the latter? She wants Democrats to “remember what is at stake” and make sure “the American people will understand what is happening.” If this is truly the goal, a good start would be to respect the progressive activists long leading this work and call on the Democratic party to give them more of a voice, not less.