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Frances Fox Piven has a warning for America. Don’t get too relaxed, there could be worse to come.
“I don’t think this fight over elemental democracy is over, by any means,” she said. “The United States was well on the road to becoming a fascist country – and it still can become a fascist country.”
The revered sociologist and battle-tested activist – an inspirational figure to those on the left, a bogeywoman for the hard right – is sharing with the Guardian her postmortem of the 2022 midterm elections and Donald Trump’s announcement of a 2024 presidential run. While many observers have breathed a sigh of relief over the rout of extreme election deniers endorsed by Trump, and his seemingly deflated campaign launch, Piven has a more sombre analysis.
All the main elements are now in place, she said, for America to take a turn to the dark side. “There is the crazy mob, Maga; an elite that is oblivious to what is required for political stability; and a grab-it-and-run mentality that is very strong, very dangerous. I was very frightened about what would happen in the election, and it could still happen.”
That Piven is cautioning against a false sense of security in the wake of the midterms would not surprise her many students and admirers. The co-author, with her late husband Richard Cloward, of the progressive bible, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, has for decades sounded the alarm.
She has raised red flags over the vulnerabilities of the country’s democracy, the inequalities baked into its electoral and judicial systems, and how poor Americans, especially those of colour, are forced to resort to defiance and disruption to get their voices heard. Now, with the Republicans having taken the House of Representatives, she foresees ugly times ahead.
“There’s going to be a lot of vengeance politics, a lot of efforts to get back at Joe Biden, idiot stuff. And that will rile up a lot of people. The Maga mob is not a majority of the American population by any stretch of the imagination, but the fascist mob don’t have to be the majority to set in motion the kinds of policies that crush democracy.”
To say that Piven has come to such a perspective through years of experience as a sociologist and anti-poverty warrior would be an understatement. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday, and her earliest political memories go back to the 1930s.
Her first is from 1939. It was prompted by the Russo-Finnish war which, though thousands of miles away, spilled out on to the streets of her neighborhood. She was brought up in the New York borough of Queens by Jewish immigrant parents from Uzliany, in what is now Belarus.
“I was seven, so perfectly equipped to have a position on this issue,” she recalls. “Tutored by my father, I took the side of the Russians and fought with all the kids on the block.”
Her next vivid recollection relates to the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. “When FDR died, the whole street was bereft, almost sobbing. And these were people who didn’t talk much about politics, immigrants whose perspective was very narrow, getting by for another day, another week.”
Piven said she thought a lot about that communal mourning for FDR in the aftermath of the midterms with all their discord and rancor. “The thing about FDR was much bigger than partisan politics, anywhere,” she said.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-still-become-fascist-country-080022585.html
“I don’t think this fight over elemental democracy is over, by any means,” she said. “The United States was well on the road to becoming a fascist country – and it still can become a fascist country.”
The revered sociologist and battle-tested activist – an inspirational figure to those on the left, a bogeywoman for the hard right – is sharing with the Guardian her postmortem of the 2022 midterm elections and Donald Trump’s announcement of a 2024 presidential run. While many observers have breathed a sigh of relief over the rout of extreme election deniers endorsed by Trump, and his seemingly deflated campaign launch, Piven has a more sombre analysis.
All the main elements are now in place, she said, for America to take a turn to the dark side. “There is the crazy mob, Maga; an elite that is oblivious to what is required for political stability; and a grab-it-and-run mentality that is very strong, very dangerous. I was very frightened about what would happen in the election, and it could still happen.”
That Piven is cautioning against a false sense of security in the wake of the midterms would not surprise her many students and admirers. The co-author, with her late husband Richard Cloward, of the progressive bible, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, has for decades sounded the alarm.
She has raised red flags over the vulnerabilities of the country’s democracy, the inequalities baked into its electoral and judicial systems, and how poor Americans, especially those of colour, are forced to resort to defiance and disruption to get their voices heard. Now, with the Republicans having taken the House of Representatives, she foresees ugly times ahead.
“There’s going to be a lot of vengeance politics, a lot of efforts to get back at Joe Biden, idiot stuff. And that will rile up a lot of people. The Maga mob is not a majority of the American population by any stretch of the imagination, but the fascist mob don’t have to be the majority to set in motion the kinds of policies that crush democracy.”
To say that Piven has come to such a perspective through years of experience as a sociologist and anti-poverty warrior would be an understatement. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday, and her earliest political memories go back to the 1930s.
Her first is from 1939. It was prompted by the Russo-Finnish war which, though thousands of miles away, spilled out on to the streets of her neighborhood. She was brought up in the New York borough of Queens by Jewish immigrant parents from Uzliany, in what is now Belarus.
“I was seven, so perfectly equipped to have a position on this issue,” she recalls. “Tutored by my father, I took the side of the Russians and fought with all the kids on the block.”
Her next vivid recollection relates to the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. “When FDR died, the whole street was bereft, almost sobbing. And these were people who didn’t talk much about politics, immigrants whose perspective was very narrow, getting by for another day, another week.”
Piven said she thought a lot about that communal mourning for FDR in the aftermath of the midterms with all their discord and rancor. “The thing about FDR was much bigger than partisan politics, anywhere,” she said.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-still-become-fascist-country-080022585.html
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