Photo by Dado Ruvic/Reuters
Inside the antiwar movement, there’s emerged a new struggle between two ideological camps. Camps which have distinct goals and values, despite them in theory both wanting “peace.” It’s a different disagreement than the one between the pro-Russian anti-imperialists, and the anti-Russian “peace” liberals; whereas that debate is mainly between communists and Democrats, this new debate is moreso between communists and conservatives.
This dispute is centered around the question of how peace can be reached, particularly with Russia and Iran; because it’s these two countries that the Trump administration is seeking to win over into the pro-U.S. camp, which would give U.S. imperialism an advantage over China. With China, there’s no question that Washington will remain in an antagonistic relationship, at least for as long as U.S. imperialism exists. China is ruled by a workers party, one that won’t seriously compromise with imperialism for the foreseeable future. But with the PRC’s two biggest Eurasian strategic partners, there’s less certainty about what will happen, because Russia and Iran have influential capitalist elements. It’s this potential for making “peace” through inter-capitalist partnership that Washington seeks to take advantage of.
Even though it would objectively be a catastrophe if Russia or Iran were to sell out to U.S. monopoly capital, there are plenty of antiwar (or ostensibly antiwar) voices which effectively advocate for this. That’s what it means to uncritically praise Trump’s effort at getting “peace,” while omitting the reality that what Trump really wants is more U.S. client states. All of the biggest conservative “alt” media commentators have promoted this misleading narrative; Russell Brand has done it, Candace Owens has done it, Tucker Carlson has done it.
From Carlson in particular, we’ve seen “pro-peace” arguments on Ukraine which clearly show the ulterior motives behind this type of “peace” plan, which is to harm China. In his conversation with Colonel Daniel Davis, Carlson revealed that one of the reasons he opposes the Ukraine war is that this conflict has driven Russia closer to China, something he hopes Trump will undo. He then observed how much Washington’s unipolar dominance has disappeared in the last thirty years, and lamented this development, saying it’s a bad thing for America.
This is how the narrative managers are selling the Trump White House’s strategic shift: by portraying U.S. imperialism as fundamentally positive, and winning antiwar-minded Americans to that view by pointing out how the Ukraine war has backfired on imperialism. Indeed it has backfired, and this is an extremely good thing.
When you understand what it entails for the U.S. to be the hegemon, and how this necessarily means imperialist wars will continue, the dangerous nature of Carlson’s message becomes apparent. But this psyop that people like Carlson are pushing is highly effective, because it’s able to exploit and redirect the popular desire for change. Their argument is based in the notion that “peace” can come from solidifying American capital’s global control; which is an idealistic view that’s similar to liberal pacifism, except this view has the added element of explicitly pro-capitalist ideology.
These pro-capitalist pacifists sell a certain narrative about how the world works; a narrative that says the United States can end the wars, and revitalize its industrial base, while still being the world’s great capitalist superpower. Which is an idea that’s attractive to many Americans, because within our culture it’s still the default belief that we should take pride in being the epicenter of global business. It’s a way of appealing towards sentiments that came from Cold War-era propaganda, just like Russiagate is.
When “dissident” right-wingers argue that we should make Russia or Iran into client states so the U.S. can become dominant again, they’re doing what Russiagate liberals do, which is try to prove how true they are to the Cold War values of jingoism and anti-communism. How determined they are to restore the former American capitalist strength that our enemies have taken away.
Both the culturally liberal and culturally “traditional” wings of ruling class politics are using this appeal to nostalgia; the difference is that the “trad” wing has managed to build a growing popular support base for its goals. With the discrediting of the Democratic Party in the minds of most Americans, and the widespread dissatisfaction with liberal wokeism, the anti-woke psyop has gained serious cultural sway. To combat this psyop, we’ll need to bring the real story of our country to the USA’s people. We’ll have to counter the narrative which says that America has tragically lost its former power, and must now fight to get it back. The real story is one of the United States becoming captured by monopoly finance capital. Which has let the monopolists use our country as a vessel for exporting their destructive ventures, while de-industrializing the United States itself.
The U.S. imperialist mythology, in which we as Americans are bringing the rest of the world into our great project, is a corruption of the actual story of America; a story that’s inextricably connected to working-class history, and to popular movements where Americans have found solidarity.
This country wouldn’t exist in its unified form if not for the struggle that its people fought against slavery. Its people would now be living in much worse conditions if not for the worker struggles that followed, where the country’s proletarians were able to reach great unity across racial barriers. These efforts are a continuation of the 1776 revolution, where a mass struggle emerged to defeat British colonialism. And every real achievement by the country’s people since then has been due to the struggles against the capitalist order, which represents a continuation of the anti-democratic system Americans fought during that revolution.
When pro-imperialists say we need to restore U.S. hegemony for the sake of our country, they’re trying to pass themselves off as defenders of these past revolutionary gains. They’re alluding to national accomplishments which came about through class struggle, and saying the way to uphold these accomplishments is by uniting with monopoly capital in attacking China’s workers state. This is our ruling class co-opting what we as workers have created, thereby tacitly admitting that it’s the workers and the other revolutionary forces which have actually driven our society forward.
The monopolists and their lackeys are stealing from our rich proletarian cultural traditions, attempting to take credit for the things we’ve built. By definition, the workers have built everything in our society; our ruling class has only accumulated the wealth from our labor. The capitalists have used their imperial system to create a sense of false solidarity between between themselves and the U.S. workers, but the workers here would gain infinitely more from ending imperialism than from letting it continue.
We must show Americans the reality of their country: that what you take pride in as Americans comes from the class struggle. Your rulers are trying to dissuade you from the class struggle, and from real anti-imperialist solidarity, by presenting global monopolist expansion as the thing that can defend America’s achievements. If you want to defend America, join with the class struggle, and join with the globe’s anti-imperialist forces in overthrowing the parasitic empire.
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