Kansas + Taiwan + Democrat loserdom

a brief/overview of abortion rights struggle and international b.s. led by the dems

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Kansas voters yesterday voted down a measure introduced by the GOP in that state that would’ve made abortions illegal.

The voting down of such an amendment was overwhelming. It wasn’t even close with over 60 percent of the registered voters, also with a record turnout in recent years, saying no to losing abortion rights. Kansas has a Democrat governor at the moment and isn’t as conservative as other states around it, but nevertheless it’s politics generally skews rightward so this was a monumental victory.

What this victory shows us, if you look past the headlines or past statements (or lack thereof by Democrats), is that the anti-abortion movement is a minoritarian movement. This is similar to rightwing politics in general. Yes, there are states in the south and midwest that are dominated by right wing interests. Yes, there is still significant support for crazy shit like banning queer politics from schools, or repealing abortion access completely in those parts of the country too.

That said, even in a state like Kansas, there are also a significant number of people who aren’t as crazed. This includes, as the NYTimes reports (always be skeptical of their international reporting btw), swing voters in the suburbs, who did go against the anti-abortion amendment in droves.

There is a constituency, a majority constituency, that don’t want the GOP and its white nationalism and nihilist politics. There is a constituency that leans left also on other issues like on the economy. But this constituency has to be stitched together and mobilized, which is what abortion organizers had done in Kansas, knocking on doors, spreading the words, informing people about how bonkers this amendment would be.

There is hope now among mainstream pundits that this victory in Kansas will convince more Democrats to speak up about abortion rights. Which may be true, especially since there are other similar amendments coming up and already, polling leans toward their defeats.

But my worry is this: people lose sight of the fact that the Democrats are as useless as they’ve ever been, and still, the leadership will resist abortion rights activism. Indeed, just like during the leadup to the 2020 presidential election, Democrat leaders will talk about issues like policing reform, say most of the right rings, and then end up ignoring it when in power. This is what Biden did. He spoke during the presidential run as if he would hold law enforcement accountable but once in the White House, not only did he ignore that issue, but he actually went ahead and encouraged local governments to spend even more money on police funding.

The problem has continuously been for leftists and progressives a severe lack of organizational power, which comes from having left groups developing constituencies that are independent of the Democrat party. This is what groups like SNCC and the SCLC had done in their fight against formal Jim Crow. They spent years developing peoples’ political consciousness through trainings and other types of events. They built networks of people who were willing and able to lead months long boycotts of major southern towns and cities. They basically had a significant number of people who were willing to leverage their power as workers too against local governments, regardless of partisan affiliation (at the time, the Democrats were split between racist ass southern politicians and northern ones who were liberal but still wanted civil rights activists to be “patient”).

So long as we don’t have this, we will see Democrat leadership return to the usual, which is condemn the GOP for being antidemocracy (which they are) but ultimately, choose to work with them on major legislation.

Photo by Alejandro Luengo on Unsplash

This brings me to Democrat leader, Nancy Pelosi’s, trip to Taiwan. Such a trip follows in the lane of what the Democrat leadership has been doing since in power, which is very little when it comes to improving the lives of most Americans, and instead, focusing heavily on the typical empire-building tactics abroad. It is worth mentioning here that the Democrats have been appointing more judges across the country, which is important as we’re seeing the mess the Supreme Court has put us in. But once again, such steps will be nothing if peoples’ material lives now are not improved.

Anyways, Taiwan is considered a part of China. Taiwan itself was founded by the Chinese nationalists who fled mainland China and the communists. China, since the 1800s, had become a breeding ground for European and Japanese influence and power. Unlike other Asian countries, China was never formally colonized in that its government was not replaced by Europeans. Still, China had been carved up basically by several European companies and the Japanese later on with each company dominating a certain region, extracting resources, and exploiting labor and peasants. The Qing Dynasty, the last Chinese dynastic family to rule over China would be overthrown in the early 1900s by republican forces, led by Sun Yat Sen. The Republicans included nationalists who were left wing as well as elements that were further right. Regardless, the overthrow of the dynasty was seen by many Chinese as welcome. However, this did leave a power vacuum, and warlords maintained their rule despite the royal family driven underground. Basically, for decades, China would still be ruled by Europeans and Japanese forces, and royal laws and decrees were still in effect.

Such chaos led to the rise of the communists in China, who promised more stability and economic justice and independence for the country overall. What’s worth noting is that Mao and the communists did believe in working with the nationalists (the KMT party), since it did have left wing elements within in. However, the KMT would consistently betray the communists, despite fighting together. This betrayal would include the complete slaughter of communist cadre and those who supported them.

When the Japanese army invaded, the communists against chose to work with the KMT to fight them off, which they did. The KMT were nothing without the communists, who had grown tremendously from the late 1920s up until the 1940s. Once the Japanese were forced to flee, the KMT resumed fighting with the communists but this time, the communists expected this, and defeated them.

The KMT leadership, who after WWII were all rabid right wingers, fled to Taiwan. They would proceed to kill of the indigenous population there and set up a right wing dictatorship funded by the U.S. and its allies.

Generations later, and Taiwan considers itself an independent nation while China, rightfully so, considers it still a part of its territory. Regardless, Pelosi’s visit had once again increased tensions with China, and for what? I don’t think we will have nuclear war but honestly, who knows? All it takes is an angry soldier on both sides to turn the keys and set off global doom.

Also, it is worth mentioning here that I’m actually not a huge fan of Mao. I don’t hate him either. My dad was a Maoist when he was younger, and I like some of his stances against landlords and feudal elements in China. I still think what he did to modernize China (i.e. introduce women’s rights in the countryside) was essential. But his foreign policy was terrible. China, under Mao, supported fascist regimes like Pinochet in Chile, and others, all because they were in a rivalry with the Soviets, while also, ironically, choosing to have relations with the U.S.

Nonetheless, China is not an existential threat and Pelosi’s visit with Taiwan is another example of what the Democrat leadership think about politics. They’re out of step and per usual when it comes to foreign policy, just as right wing as their GOP counterparts.

This makes me more and more convinced that the Democrat leadership will continue on this road, of leaning rightward to compete with the GOP, unless they’re pushed by enough people from below.