Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Taking Back the Streets

Suzi talks to Warren Montag about the danger of the organized and armed far right. He argues in "The Necessity of Taking Back the Streets" in the journal Spectre that the left has not recognized the danger of the far right, and has been outflanked by the right’s strategic advance politically, electorally, and militarily. Warren sees the January 6, 2021 action as a big success for the right—and the left’s inability to respond to the danger encapsulates the political situation today, the actual balance of power. The right’s advance is not just in the streets, but in every level of government as well as law enforcement and all branches of the military. They have not been repudiated by the Republican Party, now a far right party of white supremacy. The Republican Party understands it can only win elections through the ever-increasing exclusion of the majority of the electorate, achieved through legal means as well as a campaign of fear and intimidation against opponents. Montag sees historical precedence both for the organized right’s march to power and the left’s complacency about the scale of the threat. To stop the right will require more than investigations and prosecutions. It will require understanding the danger the right represents, and mass mobilizations to defend democracy.