This is so excellent and tragically true. Deepest gratitude, as always, to Henry Giroux. There are those who have been shining bright light on America's shadow ― and how to radically transform our shadow side ― for decades. And Henry is certainly among them. May more and more of us listen and respond out of our growing connection with the heart of wisdom and love within ourselves and the consciousness of a highest good for us all. ― Molly
Hyper-capitalism is the death knell of democracy. It reduces everything to a commodity, monetizing and pathologizing every aspect of life. The blind faith in markets and unfettered individualism has dismantled the social state, eroded collective struggle, and fueled staggering inequality. By divorcing economic activity from its social costs, liberals have obliterated civic culture, creating a vacuum filled by despair and alienation. Into that vacuum emerged a band of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, radical Christian nationalists, and a cruel band of misogynists and neoliberal fascists.
Yet let's be clear. Liberals never escaped from the shadow of Reagan and Milton Friedman. They accelerated the war on Black women, expanded the carceral state, destroyed much of the working class with NAFTA, and in Obama's case cozied up to the bankers while millions lost their jobs and homes as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. Liberals bear a heavy share of the blame for the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement. Their complicity lies not only in failing to challenge the “manufactured ignorance” churned out daily by the totalitarian digital disimagination machines but also in their refusal to engage with how youth, people of color, and the displaced experience and name their realities. Instead, liberals clung to the isolating ethos of individualism and a myopic fixation on winning at all costs, ignoring the loneliness and isolation of millions of working-class people who yearned for community. In their neglect, these people turned to Trump’s haven of hate—a fraudulent offer of belonging that masked its swindle in the language of shared struggle.
What is unforgivable is the liberal retreat into the mythic fantasy of an America that never existed. Historical amnesia has become a form of domestic terrorism. This denial left the path wide open for a regime that embodies the darkest truths about the nation’s past and present. Now, we are left with a pedagogy of terror and ignorance—a cultural framework that normalizes violence and enshrines cruelty, allows the planet to destruct, accelerates the war on people of color and women's reproductive rights. This is the "Third Reich of Dreams" Charlotte Beradt warned about, where the nightmare is both lived and embraced.
Yet, no nightmare endures without resistance. The weight of oppression always bears the seeds of struggle. This generation is well aware of Frederick Douglass statement, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." Resistance today is more complex, but I believe this generation will find a way forward. They will craft a new language of struggle, solidarity, and hope. For the sake of our future, that reckoning must come soon. Time is short, but the possibilities remain alive.
― Henry Giroux
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