Mailbag 02.27.24

You Ask, I Answer

It’s been a little while since we did a mailbag, so here we go! If you’d like to ask a question for a future mailbag, please either respond to the email or leave a question in the comment section.

I’m also very happy to announce that When The Clock Broke got its first review, if you want to check that out. Perhaps it will encourage you to pre-order the book…

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Hi John,

I have a mailbag question for you. It's been some time since we've heard from you regarding the war in Ukraine. We've just marked the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion, and the mood this year is much gloomier than it was last year. Where do you see this all going, particularly the US domestic politics of Ukraine amid the presidential campaign, going over the rest of 2024?

Thanks for your work, keep it up!

Chris Maisano

Hi Chris,

Gloomier seems correct. From what I can understand, the situation in Ukraine appears grim and challenging, but not entirely hopeless. War is highly contingent and things can change suddenly, but, as Orwell said, “Whoever is winning in the moment will always seem invincible.” We thought Russia would easily win, then Ukraine, and now Russia perhaps again. The truth of the matter is the war holds real material difficulties for both sides. Let’s look at this recent Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka. On the one hand, this is a clear defeat for Ukraine. On the other, Russia experienced heavy losses in taking it: spending perhaps as much as an army’s worth of armored vehicles in the effort. When the tanks were shot away, they went in with grinding infantry assaults and experienced heavy losses there. There’s a tendency among boosters on the Ukrainian side to try to portray Avdiivka as a tactical loss but a strategic victory for Ukraine: after all, the city was a salient, a kind of pocket, in Russia’s territory, and they spent an enormous amount of material and manpower to just smooth out their line. But the reality is that the Russian military was able to overcome one of the most heavily fortified areas on the front. This is very hard to do, as Ukraine’s counter-offensive made clear. Behind Avdiivka are not the same kind of heavy defensive lines. This means that if Russia is able to make another push they could be looking at much easier going. Many Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian sources—like this Twitter account which purports to be a Ukrainian intel officer and is fairly reliable—are clear and frank that Ukraine’s static defenses are not up to snuff:

Ukraine also has serious challenges with both equipment and manpower. Russia’s mobilization and defense production are outstripping Ukraine’s. The sanctions regime has largely failed to do the job and may have even contributed to the national integration of Russia’s economy. There are also political difficulties in Ukraine with the issue of calling up more men to fight. This is understandable: how many families really want to sacrifice their young sons? At the beginning of the war, I thought that the more democratic character of Ukraine and the West gave them the advantage: they could quickly mobilize and generate a great deal of popular enthusiasm. Now the downsides of democracy are more evident: Zelensky and Western leaders have to deal with internal pressures and dissension that Putin can just sweep aside. Westerners are growing bored and cynical, as is their wont. I don’t think the bloody spectacle of Israel’s destruction of Gaza helps the cause of “democracy against the authoritarian menace” much either: it makes the West’s talk of liberalism and democracy look hypocritical and empty. This brings me to the main emphasis of your question. I think the heroic phase of the war is over and with it a lot of Western interest. As the Financial Times reports, support for Ukraine has declined in the United States, especially among Republicans. Public support is also waning in Europe. If Trump is re-elected, I believe this would obviously be disastrous for Ukraine. This is because of Trump’s desire to be friendly with Putin, but also just his total lack of focus and diplomatic skills or ability to think to think strategically. Even if for some reason someone in his circle briefly talks him into Ukrainian support, he will rapidly change his mind. He will squander strengths and opportunities just by growing bored or listening to someone else. We can debate the nature of Trump’s ideological predilections in so far as he has any, but the clearest thing about him is that he’s incompetent. Obviously, without arms and other assistance from the West, Ukraine’s hopes would rapidly dim. I’m not sure what Ukrainian political leadership defines as victory anymore, either for their own purposes or to the public. In polling, the Ukrainian people still expresses a desire for maximalist war aims, including retaking of the Eastern regions and Crimea. Frankly, this is unrealistic, particularly when that same public public is also squeamish about total mobilization and after the fizzle out of the Ukrainian counter-offensive last year. Still, a lot can change very quickly. Even experts have been repeatedly surprised.

Here’s what I hope will happen: Ukraine gets more support, delivers several sharp blows that reverse some of Russia’s recent gains, and makes them essentially give up further territorial aims in Ukraine. Then, both sides realize they need to reach a diplomatic solution that will hopefully make a subsequent war unthinkable through the integration of Ukraine into a Western security arrangement. The idea of an aggressive war being rewarded in any way is revolting, but I also can’t in good conscience sit here and say, “Yes, let’s just shed ever more blood.” First, I just hope it ends soon for the sake of the people involved. Second, I hope Russia pays a serious price for what it did.

Hey John,

Thanks so much for your indispensable work.

I have a question for your mailbag post. I've always understood there to be a causal relationship between the neoliberal turn that started in the 1980s and the resurgent fascism we face today. More and more money is consolidated at the top, government is captured by corporations and finance, the power of organized labor is hobbled, social welfare programs are hollowed out, full-time positions with benefits become contingent part-time jobs, college and home ownership become increasingly unaffordable, and the experience of economic vulnerability and precarity widens to larger and larger swaths of society. I've always seen these as the preconditions that create the widespread sense of cynicism and betrayal, the desire for a strongman who will come in and clean house, that allows fascism to become a viable political force again.

And yet, the authoritarian right and Qanon-type conspiratorial fantasy are taking off across the world right now, including in countries (Germany, Scandinavia) where workers seem to have more power and there is a strong social welfare state. So my question is, how do you understand the relationship between capitalist exploitation and fascism? To what extent would you rate economic immiseration as a central cause of authoritarian politics?

Thanks again,

best,

Lech

Hi Lech,

Thank you!

This is a difficult and interesting question that I will not be able to answer fully in the space allotted here. First of all, not to be pedantic, but some of these European movements and parties probably can’t be labeled fascist if we’re being precise. This does not mean they aren’t bad, just that they don’t have the features we normally associate with fascist movements: they don’t have a charismatic leader or extra-parliamentary squads, nor do they seek to overthrow liberal democracy. Second, all politics is local: every country has particular its own issues. Although, I agree there is something going on across the board with the rise of all these far-right populists movements, one has to pay attention to local conditions. In the Scandinavian countries, the main issue is immigration. But this too is connected to the changes in the economy. The vaunted Nordic Model is not quite the social democratic paradise we think of. Welfare states and worker power in Nordic countries may not have undergone the dramatic changes, but they have been reduced and altered. In addition, these economies, particularly Sweden, have also experienced deindustrialization. You have an economy that needs high-skill, high-education workers and then immigrants who, at least in the early generations, have trouble immediately filling those roles. Then you have populations that want to defend what they have or once had, their very generous and successful social systems, from “outsiders” who look different and whom they don’t view as making a productive contribution to society.

In Germany, the far right has been very successful in the East, which is economically less developed than the West. For instance, the per capita GDP of the states that were part of the old GDR still lags quite far behind those regions that were always part of the Bundesrepublik. This gap seemed to be narrowing in recent years, but now Germany appears to be undergoing its own form of deindustrialization. The transition to a market and globalized economy has not been easy for people in the East: they once had things taken more or less care of and now things are more and difficult precarious. Then enter the foreigners, as either competitors for jobs or as perceived social parasites. It’s interesting to reflect that in both Scandinavia and Germany, the socialist past is the “good old days” that reactionaries conjure up in their demagogic appeals.

I think immiseration as such is usually not the issue—that’s always relative to the economic conditions of the country in question—but a sense of crisis brought on by the breakdown of the previous social deal, so to speak. This has both economic and ideological components. The old leadership of the country appears no longer able to provide leadership to steer out of the crisis, which, of course, they had a hand in creating in the first place, and this opens the gap for “men of destiny” and other political outliers that offer easy solutions to the crisis. Fascism is one very extreme and virulent possibility, and it may surprise you to hear this from me, but I don’t think it’s fully made its reappearance anywhere yet: most of what we see now are fascistoid or proto-fascist movements in my opinion.