We Deserve Better. Neoliberal Fascism: Milwaukee and the Republican National Convention
Picture by Nate Gilliam taken 8/22 on the Northwest side of Milwaukee
“And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, or an American. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy.” — Malcolm X
In a little over a year, Milwaukee is slated to host the 2024 Republican National Convention. Milwaukee’s Black Mayor Chevy Johnson and Black County Executive David Crowley both went out of their way to make this a reality. Milwaukee’s Common Council voted unanimously for this. Capitalists, like the owners of the Milwaukee Bucks and leaders of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, are more than excited for this convention to generate profit for them. The MMAC has incredible influence over city and county politics and politicians.
A quick reminder on the current state of the Republican party: they’re a party that is openly fascist, racist, anti-Black, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, anti-science, climate change denying. They’re also the political party that is leading the assault against reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.
Come July 2024, Milwaukee will be certain to find heavily armed white nationalists on our streets. This convention, in a world after January 6th, 2021, should send chills to anyone who cares about justice and human rights.
It’s hard to tell what’s more wild, the recent history of this party or that they were actively courted to our city with little public resistance and lots of silence from people and organizations that promote social justice locally. Just how did this happen?
The Mayor and County Executive have highlighted two major reasons:
- A financial boon for the city and region, citing $200 million in possible revenue for the area.
- Hosting the RNC could garner favor with Wisconsin state Republicans to manage a better working relationship so that Milwaukee could possibly get a better shared revenue deal for the city and maybe pass a sales tax.
On face value those may seem like generally harmless public facing goals. But as fascism grows deeper in the US, violent racist white nationalism grows more confident in its ability to terrorize and harm marginalized groups, this is an incredibly dangerous political move. And even these public facing goals aren’t likely to materialize.
The first reason is fantasy in terms of the financial windfall (an already disproven fantasy) that will impact the city related to the RNC, and the impact will almost certainly never reach the most marginalized residents in Milwaukee. The second reason is another fantasy, as state Republicans have repeatedly shown deep disgust for Milwaukee, and are very far away from bipartisan unity that both Democratic County Executive Crowley and Democratic Mayor Johnson speak of. Even if state Republicans were to make some agreeable movement on share revenue services for Milwaukee City and County, it won’t happen without huge neoliberal capitulation on the part of local Democrats.
The seemingly curious support of Democratic Mayor and County Executive deserves more examination as we approach the Republican National Convention in July 2024.
Fascist Creep and Neoliberal Fascism
“The fascists already have power. The point is that some way must be found to expose them and combat them. An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.” -George Jackson
Many Black Radical fighters, thinkers, and organizers for many years have argued that Black people in the US are always living under fascism. Fascism, especially in the West, has many fluid definitions, but is mostly attributed to Nazi Germany or Franco’s Spain or Mussolini’s Italy. Muted in US history is that Hitler learned from the US and admired how effective fascism was in violently oppressing Indigenous people. The same could be argued for other non-white folks who live in the US. The US is a settler colony and its foundational ethos is racial capitalism. Built on Indigenous genocide and African enslavement, this nation-state has never repaired this history and maintains itself on vestiges of its foundational crimes against humanity. After centuries of mythologizing its own history by sanitizing and erasing its horrors inflicted on many people domestically and internationally, our current socio-political economy rests in this neoliberal era. If you center the most marginalized human beings in this analysis, this is an era of neoliberal fascism.
Lester Spence, professor and author of 2016’s Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics, defines neoliberalism as:
“Neoliberalism is basically the idea that every single institution, every single part of human life should be governed by principles of the free market. And to the extent individuals have to live a certain life by a standard, that standard becomes the entrepreneur.”
This definition helps us understand how we can move into a neoliberal fascist space relatively quickly. Along with the very traditional understanding of neoliberalism of deregulating capital, gutting of governmental programs (mostly social safety nets), and stifling labor rights, this conclusion is clear. Neoliberalism does enjoy bolstering government spending on the carceral state and imperial military while depriving people of housing, healthcare, etc.
Spence goes on the say:
“Under the neoliberal turn, cities and individuals alike are forced to become more and more entrepreneurial, bearing both the responsibility and the risk for a range of actions. Under the neoliberal turn, progressive policies like welfare, public housing and unemployment insurance are either slashed or are attacked as these policies are viewed to make people less entrepreneurial and less responsible for their own choices…With the neoliberal turn, inequality within cities and inequality between cities increased. And race plays a central role in this turn…We see black political officials consistently argue that black populations have this moral obligation to be responsible for their own lives even as they suck municipal resources away from black peoples and then transfer it to corporate and legal stakeholders. We see that time and time again.”
Or in this case, supporting a national convention to a party that openly and clearly despises the majority of the city’s population.
To be fair, Mayor Chevy Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, are just carrying the water for the current ethos of the Democratic Party in the US. This is the work of Black neoliberal politicians in this era. Johnson and Crowley’s representation does not offer liberation for Black Milwaukeeans. Their representation does not offer even a salve for the systemic harms we face. These neoliberal politicians actually exacerbate the harmful conditions we face.
Professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explains:
“The utility of Black elected officials lies in their ability, as members of the community, to scold ordinary Black people in ways that white politicians could never get away with … Black elected officials’ role as interlocutors between the broader Black population and the general American public makes them indispensable in American politics.”
Over the past few years, hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed in for federal relief to try to manage the COVID pandemic, the focus of these leaders have been to buttress the carceral state and plug budgetary shortfalls caused by the carceral state.
Neither the mayor or county executive (nor Governor Tony Evers) have thought to use the funds as direct payments to struggling Wisconsinites, as some other states have. Utilizing funds in a pandemic that Democrats control to not meet the needs of the people is neoliberalism in action, heaping harmful austerity on to the most vulnerable. Both Crowley and Johnson will oversee budgets for 2023 that will spend over 500 million dollars on the carceral state. The city of Milwaukee will spend about $300 million (47% of the general operating budget) on police and the county will spend about 200 million on carceral institutions (jails, detention centers, courts, etc.). This is as residents in Milwaukee are trying to work through a pandemic, inflation, and economic insecurity. This is as the city spends less than 50 million on libraries and public health combined. The county will spend about 72 million on “Parks, Recreation, and Culture”. In addition to all this carceral investment, Milwaukee will get 50 million dollars in money for policing for the RNC, from the federal government.
“A major repercussion of this long-term political-economic crisis has been the state’s systematic withdrawal of social services, leaving public welfare up to private initiative and the whims of the market. There is an inverse correlation between the removal (often via privatization) of social supports and the expansion of police funding: when access to healthcare, housing, and education go down, police budgets go up. The connection between austerity and policing plays out locally and globally. In Winnipeg, where I live, the police budget is significantly larger than that of much-needed social services. Looking abroad, we can see examples of this pattern in Nigeria, with its Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and their practice of everyday terror; in the military occupation of favelas in Brazil; and in countless other expressions of combined state terror and material deprivation around the world. The hollowing-out of public infrastructure has also reinforced reactionary sentiment amongst a portion of the population, eager to defend what remains of their own status against perceived threats to their property and person. The result has been an unmistakable alliance between the police and reactionary far-right movements throughout the world, but especially in the Global North.”
The neoliberal budgeting of Milwaukee city and county is one that is geared toward harm and not care, regardless of the rhetoric from elected officials. In this era of pandemic, climate change, and deadly inflation, this budgeting is fascist. That’s because it thrusts vulnerable populations toward premature death and misery. It consistently erodes whatever privileges and safety most Milwaukeeans think they have.
Anti-Black, Racist, White Nationalist Culture and Policy making in Wisconsin
Wisconsin is structurally and functionally an anti-Black space. Wisconsin liberals, mostly white liberals, love to mythologize Wisconsin as a progressive bastion, but it’s far from the truth if centering on the experiences of Indigenous, Black, and Latine people. “If I ever had to leave Alabama, I’d want to live on the southside of Milwaukee!” Alabama Governor George Wallace exclaimed in 1964 during his presidential campaign. Wisconsin historically, and presently, has deep ties to White Nationalist, Neo-Nazi, fascist movements. The coming RNC will embolden and platform this movement, and even normalize it.
Over 600 Wisconsin residents, including elected officials and law enforcement officers were identified as Oath Keepers, who were key participants of the infamous January 6th insurrection attempt. Wisconsin’s newly elected House representative, Derrick Van Orden, was there that violent day. Responses to the infamous Waukesha tragedy of late 2021, has incited and sensationalized a false “racial motivation” for the incident, that white nationalists (aiming to incite racial violence) and Republican legislators (using legislation as violence) have used to further oppress Black people within the state, specifically in Milwaukee County.
There is a bipartisan effort to create a constitutional amendment that will undermine the human rights of all Wisconsinites related to pre-trial detention and cash bail, but as the carceral state disproportionately impacts Black communities, this policy is anti-Black. For example, Wisconsin’s Black population is 6 percent of the state’s population, yet Black people make up 42 percent of the prison population, this is due to over-policing and criminalizing Black communities in Milwaukee. A racist anti-Black policy continued by a Black police chief. Milwaukee County, which is Wisconsin’s Blackest and most racially diverse county, routinely ranks as one of the worst counties in the state for health outcomes, yet Ozaukee county, bordering Milwaukee county to the north, is routinely the healthiest. The city, county and state’s COVID response also had a disproportionate negative impact on the Black population. The systematic and intentional lack of planning to address the impact of climate change will disproportionately harm Black and poorer neighborhoods in the Milwaukee Metro area.
Intersections of harm and solidarity
This systemic harm that is targeted at Black populations, harms all Wisconsinites. The policies aimed at harming regions of the state that have higher Black populations also have a negative impact on white populations. The refusal to expand Medicare in Wisconsin also harms rural mainly white communities. The expansion of the carceral state, not decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana (as bordering midwestern states already have) fills up prisons and stifles economic development, and destroys communities. Our embarrassing COVID response speaks to harm that is exacted by the state and capitalist interests that impact us all.
Foundations for genuine solidarity and anti-fascist movement building are stifled because of the mythologizing of Wisconsin as a seemingly progressive place. Many white liberals, leftists, radicals, and progressives dismiss the depth of white nationalist, anti-Black, racist, fascist ideas that they themselves have to actively combat. Unintentional and intentional erasure, ignorance, performativity, and tokenism of marginalized populations is normalized, instead of genuinely centering the interconnected issues of folks on the margins, contribute to these problems. It’s not an insurmountable task, but the socio-politico-economic will to address these issues in earnest are prerequisites to genuine solidarity. This is constant work.
Resistance and transforming our conditions
Neoliberal fascism gives cover to and emboldens white nationalist, anti-Black fascism. Folks who call themselves interested in human rights, radicals, progressives, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists of all tendencies, and abolitionists have to challenge fascists consistently. Silence when Democrats forward neoliberal fascist plans has to stop. The “lesser-evil” logic of the past got us here, and serious people, organizations and movements can’t continue to give it space. We see it clearly in budgeting (federal, state, county and municipal); neoliberal fascists and white nationalist fascists believe the state should be an instrument of great violence through imperial endeavors and carceral logics and institutions. Neoliberal fascists (in this case specifically Democrats) performatively admonish violent, garish, fascist acts but will do next to nothing to protect vulnerable populations when they are in charge. They will then use those same terrible acts as reasons to bolster the carceral state, but not genuine safety.
As we face climate crisis, future and ongoing pandemics, violent class war inflation, rising socioeconomic disparity that is racialized, gendered and abled, neoliberal fascism cannot stand.
Our collective, overlapping, interconnected organizing, study, analysis, tactics and strategy need to understand these basic tenets of this era if we want a chance at a humane world.
Milwaukee hosting the Republican National Convention should’ve been stopped long before it ever got to vote in the Common Council, but local radical organizing efforts have yet to find ways to leverage power over neoliberal fascist Democrats. We’ve allowed for these elected officials to use their public relations as cover for more nefarious activity; we’ve allowed Black politicians to use the cover of their connection with Black community “leaders” to obscure criticism of their anti-Black advocacy, budgeting and policy making.
We deserve better than this. It’s time to act, agitate, educate and organize accordingly.