(1190 words, part 5 of 7)

I may not have to explain this to all of you, but I definitely need to explain it to some of you. Fascism would have been here under a President Harris as well. Just a more slow-rolling fascism; one a little more focused on pleasantries but fascism nonetheless, not unlike the genteel demeanor of the deep south capital class during slavery. Why? Because the capital/ruling class has class solidarity. Continue reading to figure out what class you’re a part of and start to develop your own solidarity.

We hear the term “complicit” often, and we need to get away from using it, because what Biden-Harris did is more central than complicit. Without them, the Palestinian Holocaust wouldn’t have happened. (Israeli politicians and military officials have openly said this to reporters many times.) Given all this, the U.S. sending weapons to Israel to bomb Gaza—happily granted by Biden-Harris if you trust their public comments on it—is more like partnership in crime. These crimes specifically are punishable by life imprisonment in The Hague.

If you ever told anyone they needed to vote for Harris—let this sink in—you were telling them to vote for someone for whom there was sufficient evidence to send them to life in prison. The same goes for Trump, of course, but unless we realize that we’re all the target of “rotating villain” propaganda, and that both parties’ candidates are capable of disregarding human life to serve whatever moneyed interests they are serving… then we will never *not* have a fascist leader.

Whoever Biden/Harris/Trump are serving have got our neighbors telling us we need to vote for one of them. What a great situation!

We need to start paying attention to what violence our so-called leaders are willing to ignore. When Joe Biden kicked 15 million people off Medicaid? That’s violence. He wasn’t “balancing the budget”; he wasn’t “making hard choices.” At that time he was sending overseas several times more value in the form of bombs than he saved by denying those people medical care. Frankly, it makes sense that so many voters didn’t vote in the 2024 election. (Those who did not vote, if they united, would have won the election in a landslide.) I venture that these people, by and large, understand the two major parties have failed as entities of democracy. If we can help them understand that the reason is the capture by capital, then they will be ready to take another step.

Oh, capital. It has the biggest scheme of violence of them all. It’s called inflation. If someone is found to be skimming a penny here and there from huge swaths of people such that the victims aren’t aware, and that party amasses billions from the scheme, then it’s still theft of billions and prosecutable as such. Inflation is a similar scheme but because it’s hidden behind the genteel workings of the ruling class, AKA “the economy,” it is allowed. Encouraged, even, by U.S. policy. For nearly the entire industrial age, wage growth tracked closely with growth in industrial productivity. That is, until 1971. That year, the U.S. decoupled its financial system from precious metals. At that time precisely, wages froze. Not only did they stop growing with growth in productivity, but real (inflation-adjusted) wages literally haven’t grown since 1971. Since the wage freeze, productivity has increased roughly 250%. It’s not complicated. See this Medium post debunking the various ways think tanks try to obscure the reality: tinyurl.com/s93ha98h

Median U.S. household income is about $80,000 today but if it had kept pace with productivity since 1971, it would be about $131,000 now. What does this do to political power, if one class keeps all productivity gains for 50+ years—effectively two generations? Exactly what’s happening now. Western society now features a bifurcation of class interests so stark that the ruling class barely hides that they now own government and media. They have such complete control that they feel they don’t have to. Trump’s tax plan will suck $1,000 a year out of the poorest households, and hand $380,000 a year to the richest households. It will be the largest wealth transfer in U.S. history, and it’s all out in the open. Your Democratic Party politicians are still voting to confirm this administration’s nominees.

The fascism is bipartisan because both parties serve the capital class. When the public tried to pressure Democrats to do something about the climate, or minimum wage, or voting protections, the Democrats deferred to the Senate Parliamentarian, and said nothing could be done. The Democrats knew the Republicans had a history of ignoring the Parliamentarian; knew that the Republicans had publicly said they would continue ignoring them. But Democrats stuck to their guns and kept pretending they were powerless. This spring—because of course—Republicans ignored the Parliamentarian to boost the revenues of oil companies. It’s clear these parties are both on the same team: team ruling class. They’re simply playing good cop, bad cop. Whether you see one as good and the other as bad at any given time is irrelevant. (Just as many people feel the reverse.) All that matters is that they’ve found a way to trick us into giving them consent. That’s the opposite of democracy. This is how modern fascism works: by and for the ruling class.

I say “ruling class” because they have class solidarity. Folks will tell you “they aren’t one entity,” and that’s right, but in the ways that matter, they act like it. This summer, investors in UnitedHealthCare sued that company when the company stopped denying so many claims in the wake of its CEO’s shooting. That’s right: the investors are suing because the company willingly provided a little more healthcare to people. Suing because they know that healthcare could have, instead, been money in their own pockets. They’re literally suing for damages!

It’s been a bipartisan effort to allow drug makers to sell, for $1,000, cancer pills or insulin that cost 25 cents to make. This is violence. It never would be allowed if the ruling class didn’t have 100% capture over our government and therefore its agencies. Indeed, it’s literally not allowed in almost every other place but here.

The Guardian, an outlet I have written for, showed its own ruling class ownership this month when it published 1,452 words on “Gaza’s children being bombed and starved” and the impact on us—witnesses to this—and not once mentioning who is doing the starving and bombing: i.e. Israel.

The U.S. government just reached a deal allowing Boeing and its executives to avoid any prosecution for its 737 Max crashes. Corporations can literally kill people and suffer no consequences because the state exists to serve corporations, not the people.

“The point of class analysis isn’t to say that your landlord is a bad person,” said a recent social media commentator. “It’s to say that your landlord has class interests that directly oppose your own. They might not treat you like sh*t, but when push comes to shove they will put their income before your wellbeing.”

Brandon Smith has been an elected town official and the youngest winner of the only award for independent journalism. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and In These Times.