constituency needs, interests, and identities.”129 Each component of the assemblage would contest the dominant political alliances and institutional structures that oppose the values of inclusion, egalitarianism, and rule by the people. Although this opposition would emerge from different subject positions, Connolly maintains that it is necessary for this pluralism to coalesce into a larger assemblage. He argues, “Hegemony thus can be resisted by a variety of tactics; but it can be overcome only if it is countered by an opposing coalition establishing a degree of hegemony through alternative articulations of identity, interests, freedom, equality, and the human relation to the earth.”130 The history of the left in the twentieth century offers a cautionary tale about the failure of various identity groups—labor, environmentalists, feminists, civil rights advocates, anticapitalists, LGBTQ advocates, antiwar activists—to form an organized bloc of power.
Connolly specifically highlights the need for the left to attract a significant segment of the white working class away from the right’s new authoritarianism. Where both the right and the left have failed to offer economic policies that ameliorate the social suffering of this population, the right has appealed to the cultural and religious sensibilities of this constituency in order to draw it into the assemblage on the right.131 Some members of this constituency have embraced the authoritarianism of the populism on the right and, in all likelihood, cannot be convinced to join other political assemblages. Others in this constituency could abandon the populist turn on the right if they come to see that Trump has not delivered on his economic agenda and if they hear from other political blocs that speak convincingly to their grievances.132 Connolly concludes that “a social democratic agenda is now an essential preliminary to any more transformative practices because the Left can go nowhere until the pluralizing Left and the working class have been drawn closer together. Had such programs been actively pursued earlier there would have been no turn to the radical right by a large section of the white working class.”133 As with other thinkers on the left (Stuart Hall, Chantal Mouffe, Nancy Fraser, Wendy Brown), Connolly rejects any attempt to dichotomize struggles for recognition and efforts to build a more egalitarian economic order. The divide between those on the left who prioritize various recognition claims (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and those focused on pursuing a class-based strategy should be eliminated so that the left can push forward with a pluralist project that draws links between distinctive social movements. Connolly observes, “The idea is to call out expressions of racism, militarism, climate denialism, and misogyny whenever you encounter them as you simultaneously support positive responses to real working-class grievances and point out how reasonable solutions to them are compatible with a pluralizing, more egalitarian culture.”134
This chapter has argued that in order to comprehend the emergent political assemblage on the right, it is necessary to examine the political formation that preceded it: the neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony. We have explored how this hegemony has undermined democracy and amplified political projects of economic disempowerment and belligerent nationalism. We also have examined its link to cultural politics of dog-whistle racism, an anti-feminist gender politics, and Christian conservatism. The emergent political formation on the right departs in subtle ways from the standard neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony while pushing forward its plutocratic and militarist elements and its cultural politics of overt xenophobia, racism, and misogyny. In conclusion, we described the broad contours of a politics that serves as a radical democratic alternative both to neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony and its mutation into authoritarian populism. In the next chapter we explore this alternative in greater detail.
31. We use the term “empire” here in a manner consistent with its use by the Christian thinkers examined in chapters 3–6. While they differ with regard to particulars, West, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ellacuría/Sobrino, and Hauerwas all approach empire as the exercise of American power as figured by neoliberal globalization, US militarism, and a conservative cultural politics. The broader literature on “empire” and “imperialism” is extensive. Generally, there exist four streams of analysis of empire: the New Left, cultural, Marxist, and postcolonial. For historiographical overviews of these trajectories, see Kramer, “Power and Connection”; Wolfe, “History and Imperialism”; and Cooper, “Decolonizing Situations.”
32. See, for instance, Barkan, “The Fascism to Come.”
33. Some of this discussion of neoliberalism is taken from my book on the topic, coauthored by Peter Fritz, titled Send Lazarus.
34. Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste.
35. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 151.
36. As Wendy Brown describes the process, “Law was mobilized to privatize state industries, seduce foreign ownership and investment, secure profit retention, and reduce trade restrictions. On the other hand, popular assemblies and Left parties were outlawed, strikes were criminalized, unions banned.” One exception is the way in which neoliberalism spread in response to natural and human-made disasters. See Klein, The Shock Doctrine.
37. The autonomist Marxism of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri—which will be examined below—is a third approach that combines Marxism with features of Foucault’s and Deleuze’s work.
38. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 19.
39. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 2.
40. Harvey, “Neoliberalism Is a Political Project.”
41. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 39.
42. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 40.
43. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 21.
44. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 44.
45. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 40.
46. Quoted in Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 23.
47. This is the central thesis of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. See also Loewenstein, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe.
48. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 39.
49. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 7.
50. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 6.
