Part of what I see with 50501/Hands Off protests is that they have a theme of “defending the Constitution” from Trump. This is really a somewhat conservative position and doesn’t have much historical rigor to it.
Prof. Aziz Rana of Boston College Law School is having a moment on Jacobin Radio right now. His basic thesis is that the Constitutional order is so deeply antidemocratic that the left argued with itself and the liberals over whether to focus efforts on challenging it in the early 20th Century. In the broad sweep of history since then, Americans have come to view the Constitution as a sacred text, but in fact, that order is part of what gives the Republicans and the far right their advantages despite losing the popular vote.
The shorter interview: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S250424 (April 24, 2025)
The 4-part long interview: https://thedigradio.com/archive/ (see the Aziz Rana episodes starting in April 2025) - Part 4 isn’t up yet.
So why should we venerate the Constitution, when it holds us back from real, direct democracy? I think part of what our liberal friends and family hold onto is a trust in the Constitution and the framers. They weren’t geniuses, they were landowners worried about kings taking their property. Use these interviews, or Prof. Rana’s book, to handle those arguments.
There’s nothing inherent to libertarian socialism that makes it especially vulnerable to military opposition. It was just a fact of that particular political/military moment that multiple well-armed and well-financed enemies were highly motivated to destroy them. Any political system can be destroyed if you throw enough tanks at it! That said, the Spanish anarchist forces were known for being very effective and might have won if not for fascist support of their enemies and soviet desires to replace them with bolshevik communism. In Mexico, the Zapatistas are still around, have successfully fought off both cartel and state forces (working together!) in the past.
I’m glad you’re here for a real convo. Sorry if I came off as combative in the OP – I thought that by posting it in this topic that I’d be talking to socialists and that those socialists would already be on board with heavy left critiques of the american constitutional system. I don’t mean to condescend to liberals – shouldn’t have used “libs” I guess – but I think of them, in the US, as primarily just trying to get the democrats back into power and then mostly disengage. The most outspoken of them tend to have much more energy to fight universal healthcare and other the social democratic reforms of a Bernie Sanders rather than actually take aim at the capitalist, state, and other hierarchies making our lives worse. As a result, I don’t believe they can be effective against right wing and fascist elements in the US and feel the need to recruit them to the socialist and anarchist cause.