‘Peaceful’ Anti-War Movements Are Bullshit

You want real peace? Fight for it

by ANDREW DOBBS

In the hours following U.S. president Donald Trump’s bellicose and hateful inaugural address, praise came from expected quarters. “We did it!” Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said. He “couldn’t have asked for more” from the speech, Duke added.

The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website called the inauguration “victory day.” “It’s actually happening,” the site breathed.

White nationalist ideologue Jared Taylor had VIP seating and expressed hope that “men close to [Trump] — Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller — who may have a clearer understanding of race,” will “see their influence grow” in the new administration.

The California and Southwest Division of the American Nazi Party — which appears to be just one dude who calls himself “Dan 88” — was more skeptical, but still optimistic. Trump “will backslide to a certain degree,” Dan commented, “but let’s hope it won’t be too much.”

Alongside these fascists, however, was a word of praise from a source that surprised many. Former Congressman, presidential candidate and self-identified UFO contactee Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat. “GREAT #inauguration speech! Donald Trump’s message of unity is critical at this moment,” the one-time icon of the pacifist left wrote on Facebook. “Let’s give him and ourselves a chance.”

In 2004, Kucinich ran for president from the fringes of the anti-war movement on a platform of immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, single-payer health care and instituting a federal “department of peace.”

He ran again in 2008 as the farthest-left candidate in the race, garnering so little support that he was ultimately excluded from televised debates and compelled to drop out after the Iowa and New Hampshire contests.

How, then, does such a left-wing figure end up with a political position indistinguishable from that of Nazis and Klansmen? What would make him praise the most reactionary president in U.S. history?

The answer has a lot to do with the way that fuzzy thinking degrades progressive movements. Indeed, few things have benefited reactionary politics as much as the muddling of radicalism with mysticism.