THE LOYAL OPPOSITION (X.) by X.

Today’s progressive US Left is mostly known for two types of activities. On the one hand is advocacy for reform with lobbying of the two-party system, the occasional local referenda and long-shot electoral candidacies. On the other hand are the protests such as rare strikes and even rarer large demonstrations, smaller rallies and direct actions at the local level, and isolated acts of vandalism. The partisans of the “protest” and “advocacy” trends often criticize one another bitterly, and yet they fail to recognize that their political approaches –although different in form– are quite similar:

1) Both “protest” and “advocacy” partisans are fragmented into a myriad narrow, issue-based groups and/or isolated sectarian organizations. Neither camp offers concrete or convincing proposals to build a broad-based, nationwide progressive movement that could radically change the system. Both thereby acknowledge an unwillingness and/or inability to organize the great majority of people. In fact, the very nature of their main activities is exclusive of the majority since few people can frequently participate in a meaningful way in protests or advocacy campaigns.

2) Both “protest” and “advocacy” partisans elevate their tactics to the level of a strategy. Their chosen activities become the only means to be considered by the movement to effect change; they are presented as the essence of progressive action under the present system, because they are more “militant” or more “realistic”.

3) Whatever their intent is, both “protest” and “advocacy” partisans implicitly or explicitly recognize and legitimize the system’s authority. Whether they are advocating for the powers-that-be to listen to their recommendations or protesting the decisions of the powers-that-be, it is clear that all decision-making power rests in the hands of the powers-that-be.

The partisans of the advocacy mode and the partisans of the protest mode represent two wings of what Amiri Baraka (riffing off of Lenin) called the Loyal Opposition in discussions with revolutionary democratic organizers going back to the mid-90's. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, both trends end up legitimizing the powers-that-be by recognizing their right and ability to rule. Just as "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" in England, the loyal opposition that dominates the US Left does not fundamentally challenge the system (i.e. capitalism): The advocacy mode because it merely reforms the system, the protest mode because -no matter how militantly- it merely criticizes the system. What must differentiate the new revolutionary democratic movement from the Loyal Opposition is that it will not only challenge the legitimacy of the system, but that it will engage people all over the country to practice democracy as a direct challenge to the ability of the powers-that-be to enforce their illegitimate control of society.