The Time Has Come For Us To Divest From Harmful Systems By Devoting The Majority Our Political Energy To Building Dual Power

I’ve plugged it before, I’ll plug it again. On my instagram account, I posted an intervention trying to give shape to some ways that voting state, local and downballot can block the worst violence of Project 2025, even as the spectacle and pageantry of the US presidential election distracts us and manufactures our consent for the violent harms of American imperialism such as the current genocide in Gaza.

I continue to promote the piece in case the information found within would be helpful for even one person as they consider different choices they can make to push back against the p2025 agenda.

But the utility of electoralism should not be overstated.

I clearly just fell out of a coconut tree, because right on cue, the anti-electoralists were vindicated over and over again this week as liberals did what they do best, cozying up to fascists and shunning the left.

Let’s review.

The left and the liberals collaborated in the recent French election to block far right nationalists from taking over, but wouldn’t you know it, Macron stabbed them in the back by meeting with fascist Le Pen and refusing to select a prime minister from a leftist party. This happened even though it’s customary that the president choses the prime minister from the party that has the most votes.

Kamala Harris is positioning herself as “stronger on immigration” than Donald Trump, proving that there’s more than a little validity to the theory of the ratchet effect, aptly summarized by political activist and gadfly D.J Byrnes.

The strength of the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrats forced the DNC to center populist rhetoric that is popular with the left, with AOC and UAW president Shawn Fain’s fiery speeches stealing the show on the first night of the convention.

Whether this left wing focus at the DNC will prove to be more than aesthetic will remain to be seen. I’m not holding my breath considering that the Tennessee Three were taken off the docket of speeches at the DNC because there “wasn’t enough time.”

The DNC also couldn’t spare five minutes to do the bare minimum and allow Palestinian-American democrats to plead the case for their own humanity.

There was, however plenty of time for republicans and cops to speak at the DNC!

Perhaps I really was naive. Perhaps when you try to subvert the system from within, it will always be easier for you to be subverted by power than it will be for you to subvert power.

Please know that I will make sure that I tell the story of the Tenessee Three anyway. When I do, I hope it will be more clear why I was feeling so much deep nuance around this conversation.

My point on local elections and popular referendums still stands as long as project 2025 remains a threat, but we must move forward . We must acknowledge that in order for any concrete progress to be made on the problems plaguing society, we will have to stop playing defense (harm reduction) and start playing offense (building a new world).

The time has come for us to divest from harmful systems by devoting the majority of our political energy to building dual power.

To quote Walter Smolarek, the author of the article linked above on dual power, “with the theory of dual power is a dual strategy of public resistance to oppression (counter-power) and building cooperative alternatives (counter-institutions). Public resistance to oppression encompasses all of the direct action and protest movements that fight authoritarianism, capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the other institutionalized oppressions. Building cooperative alternatives recreates the social and economic relationships of society to replace competitive with cooperative structures.”

Building dual power is precisely what the Black Panther Party did, and it is one of the reasons they were so successful and considered so dangerous by the state.

I don’t claim to be so wise and enlightened that I know exactly what building dual power will look like in the United States, although this database from the DSA provides some comprehensve resources. I can safely say that the concerns of indigenous nations and disenfranchised black communities will need to be at the forefront. Due to this necessity and the fact that they have never been served by current power structures, these are also the communities that have the most experience building dual power.

May all of this function as some food for thought, nourishing the soil so that new seedlings of hope can spring.