The Power of Organizing in the Face of Rising Fascism: Insights from Joshua P. Hill
The failure of the Democrats and the rise of the far right underscores one thing: no one in power will save us; we have to save ourselves.
In a time of political upheaval and rising authoritarianism, the need for grassroots organizing and class consciousness has never been more urgent. The recent inauguration of Donald Trump for his second term has sparked widespread concern, particularly given the normalization of far-right rhetoric and the growing influence of tech billionaires in shaping political narratives. These are things that I have reflected on often with musicians, activists, and commentators for the past several years under the Biden administration, and luckily I was fortunate enough to sit down with Joshua P. Hill, a writer and political commentator known for his incisive analysis through his newsletter New Means, for a conversation on these developments and a look into the urgent need for working-class solidarity and resistance.
A Surreal Inauguration and the Normalization of Extremism
The inauguration of Donald Trump was marked by surreal and unsettling moments, including Elon Musk’s now-infamous Nazi salute during a post-inauguration address. This gesture, described as “out and out a Nazi salute,” underscored the growing boldness of far-right figures and the dangers of complacency in the face of such rhetoric.
Joshua P. Hill: “Strange day, weird day. I’m fresh off seeing Elon Musk do what looks like a Nazi salute at the inauguration. So glad we’re talking about fighting back and stuff today.”
Brandon Durden: “Yeah, I didn’t watch most of the after-inauguration speeches, except for Trump’s, where it really seemed like he was just incoherently going off, like your grandpa after three brandies at Christmas or something. But when I saw your post about Musk, I went and looked at the clip. It’s out and out a Nazi salute.”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, it’s painful to see. The Democrats, especially centrist Democrats, are bending to Trump’s rhetoric. They’re deferential, they’re willing to move this legislation forward. My fear is that this is just a sign of things to come.”
The Capitulation of the Center: Democrats and the Laken Riley Act
One of the most troubling aspects of the current political landscape is the rapid capitulation of centrist Democrats to Trump’s agenda. Figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, who had previously positioned themselves as anti-Trump, now appear eager to align with his administration.
Brandon Durden: “What did you think of the inauguration in general? What were some takeaways you had from it?”
Joshua P. Hill: “I couldn’t watch most of it. I feel like we know what we’re in for, better than last time because of his first term, but also because he’s coming in on a different tone. There are people bowing to him that refused to do that the first time. But then there’s also this sort of long-term vision with the Heritage Foundation and people who, unlike him, have a long-term vision. I don’t think he’s really a long-term guy, but he’s now surrounded by people who are.”
Brandon Durden: “Yeah, as you said in your piece, it’s got to be a marathon. People need to not fall for every single evil, fucked-up, horrendous thing they see from the Trump administration. Because once you do that, you’re going to start going bald at about five seconds.”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, yeah. I think it’s more of the mechanisms around everything around this administration that will be the most troubling, not to downplay Trump as an individual. But one thing for me is watching through it, it’s like, God, this guy, we kind of talked about this a lot with Biden. If you’d watched like a video from the 2020 primary to now, just completely different energies. Obviously not the same person. We all saw the downfall of that cognitively. Like Trump’s a different element of this, but watching it, felt like he was falling asleep and just kind of putting out some talking points that like ChatGPT would put out for his address.”
The Gaza Genocide and the Bipartisan Support for Israel
The ongoing genocide in Gaza has laid bare the complicity of both Republican and Democratic leadership in enabling Israel’s brutal policies. Under the Biden administration, the Democratic Party wanted to both pretend to care for international law and human rights while simultaneously supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza as well as the ramped up ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and violence in the West Bank through rhetoric, finances, intelligence, and deference. The United States has long been a staunch ally of Israel, providing billions of dollars in military aid annually and consistently shielding it from international condemnation. With the new Trump administration both curating a very fragile “ceasefire” deal and promising to “end the war” through mass ethnic cleansing of the entire Gaza Strip, it paints a bleak reality that there is no lesser of two evils when it comes to mass slaughter.
Brandon Durden: “What did you think of the ceasefire deal that came into effect in Gaza? You wrote about it in your piece, ‘Things Fall Apart, the Center Cannot Hold.’ Can you talk about that?”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, I think there’s a parallel to the TikTok situation where the conventional logic in DC, on one issue it’s anti-China this, anti-China that, on the other issue it’s pro-Israel everything all the time, except for, you know, five members of Congress or whatever. And then you have Trump. Well, so one story that went sort of viral during the period of this genocide that was often discussed was how Reagan made a phone call in, I wish I remembered which year, 82, 86, whatever it was. Israel was attacking Lebanon at the time. And I forget if Reagan’s motives were electoral or otherwise, but he basically made a phone call. It was over.”
Brandon Durden: “Then 82. I was just looking it up for context. 82, yes, yes.”
Joshua P. Hill: “82, yeah. Yeah. And lefties essentially, anti-Zionists, you know, we were told that we were delusional and sort of, you know, that’s not how these things work. Biden couldn’t just make a phone call, yada yada. At the same time, the logistics of who is supplying the bombs, who keeps sending millions, billions of dollars. In terms of the pure like brass tacks, where are these bombs coming from? If they stop coming, will they stop falling? It’s hard to argue. And then, so then you have this ceasefire deal, thank God. And one of these stories that, you know, not reported in like outlets like NBC, PBS, you know, not some fringe story is that a source in the Biden administration in the State Department says that Trump’s envoy, who obviously would not have been part of previous negotiations, but who was sent this time, along with the Biden State Department, Trump’s envoy on Saturday on the Shabbos, which pissed off some Israelis, said, I am going to meet with Netanyahu one-on-one. This is, I represent America. There was one state standing with Israel and it happens to be the world’s biggest power. I am going to do what Biden administration could have done the whole time, which is dictate terms. I’m going to meet with you, Netanyahu one-on-one, and we are going to tell you how this ceasefire is going to happen. Now there is a ceasefire. Now people in the Palestinians in Gaza are returning to their bombed-out homes. The scenes of joy in Gaza are to step out of the doom and gloom for a second. They’re beautiful. There are celebrations, people marching through the streets, people returning to their homes, prisoners finally being released, hostages on both sides finally being released, you know, hundreds in Israeli prisons.”
Brandon Durden: “Yeah, I think this is the, like, especially being able to read through your piece where you kind of broke down, you know, the inauguration and then two other, you know, these two other issues pretty succinctly was, it’s just another stark reminder of how liberals set up the place for a right-wing fascist, you know, anti-rights of so many different things for so many different marginalized groups. They opened that space up for this to happen. The bar was through the floor to do anything substantial in Gaza as an example, as one simple example, not simple, but in some way simple example of one thing he could, I just pulled this up article for kind of context on Gaza and on Israel-Palestine for Reagan who, allowed not only did the phone call but allowed 21 UN resolutions that directly or indirectly condemned Israel behavior during his administration. Like, we’re not talking and that’s not saying you got to give it to Ronald Reagan. The point is that we you know, we have routinely seen from Democrats specifically of this last administration, just a complete capitulation to to fascism in some ways themselves when when you look at like that maybe not in in principle intellectually, but on the ground materially. And that sets up a place where, you know, even for me, when I would see things like like the, you know, Trump working with TikTok for it to come back or more importantly, the ceasefire deal in Gaza, it makes my own head who someone who reads all this stuff all the time, it made my own head feel like cross and there was like a screw loose, you know, because because you feel like you know, I don’t agree with this person’s ideology, not that I do with a lot of the liberals and the Democrats. certainly don’t, but they’re, you know, at least they, you know, used to be as far as rhetoric would be better. Right. And, and, and then yet you see this, you see them trying to do a got you on a, on a far right border bill that now just set it up for Trump to have that and more as he comes into office. And we see this over and over again, right. We saw this, including with the drone war and and the border with Obama. Like this is not just a Biden issue, but he should certainly rank things up specifically with Gaza, but just opens up the space for the far right to take these and seem to like a less political person like you were talking about earlier, maybe somebody that’s a little more tapped out or you’re not sure what they would say about either party. It opens up the space for them to be like, well, what can you say but that he’s doing better things? You know I mean? And that’s where it can become very terrifying kind of put people in this space where it’s like, well, he might say some horrific things or he might be doing some things I don’t agree with, but look at these three things he did that were good and I haven’t seen it from the other side. You know I mean? And it’s like, this is nothing new, but it certainly feels like it’s cranked up to 11 now. You know what I mean?”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, I think it has been cranked up and I think Gaza is a huge part of the reason. It’s so painful and so, I mean, the images are so horrifying, the videos, you like you said, it’s a live stream genocide that I don’t think has ever happened before. And yeah, the access we have through our phones and through just like the constant, you know, posting on social media, you know, Palestinians are very aware of the power of that tool and we’re very, you know, determined the journalists in Gaza, we’re obviously heroic and determined to document everything. And so I think it’s very difficult for people to not say, fuck the Democrats, if, who’s funding this? Who’s arming this? Who’s enabling this and participating in it? And in some ways, I mean, when you said if there are complexities to the US relationship with Israel, et cetera, but some of it is simple, like who blocked the UN resolutions condemning Israel, Biden’s envoy, I mean, Biden’s ambassador to the UN. There was one vote. One person on the Security Council was doing that and it was the US ambassador. And I think the other thing or one other thing the Democrats have done is, especially in the Trump era, you know, the last decade, they’ve hammered this Blue no matter who, blue no matter who, two parties. The only way to do politics is to vote. The only thing you can do is vote for us. That’s the only option. vote blue, vote blue. And the truth is that politics extends way beyond the borders of one election every four years, every two years, whatever. The politics extends into my job. I’m in the union. That’s a political thing. I’ve been in another union before, it wasn’t as good as this union. I see the differences. I see like, you know, I’m engaging in politics every time. I live in New York, the fucking subway. Every day, every day I’m experiencing the shittiness of the democratic politics in New York that has allowed this subway to deteriorate and instead puts 5,000 cops in the tunnels and whatever. So I’m experiencing that every day and Democrats have said no. No, that’s not how you do politics. You give us five bucks when we send you an email, or Nancy Pelosi is going to ask me for 25 bucks or whatever. And that’s how you do politics. You give us money and you vote for us and that’s it. And so obviously people are opting out of that and pissed at that. And to bring it back to what you were talking about, if those are the two options, Democratic Party or Trump, and the Democrats keep getting shittier, Their analysis of politics, their analysis that it’s us or him. A lot of people say, okay, so it’s him. So it’s not you guys anymore. You guys are sucking. You guys are enabling genocide, participating, funding, arming genocide. You guys are banning my favorite app. You you guys are deporting people too. You guys are doing a lot of actually a hell of a lot of deportations and saying the same shit. And now you’re saying the same stuff, you know, drugs, gangs, but like you’re talking about migrants. You know the same way Trump was six years ago or so. So what’s the other option? Okay, I’ll try Trump. See what happens. Now we won the election. And I do think in three months people will be pissed at him too because we always hate the incumbent in this country because we blame them for everything. And partially we blame them for everything because we don’t... I mean growing up I was told that politics is just voting, you know, that’s it. And so it takes, you know, I think we have to learn that it’s, it extends so far beyond that. And people will get there. It just takes time and painful lessons. Yeah.”
The Role of Tech Billionaires in Exacerbating Inequality
The growing influence of tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg has exacerbated inequality and undermined democracy. These figures, who have amassed unprecedented wealth and power, have increasingly aligned themselves with Trump’s administration where both Bezos and Zuckerberg had feigned defiance or outrage to his rhetoric and (if you can call it one) vision for the country in previous years leading up to Trump’s second term.
Brandon Durden: “What do you think about the role of tech billionaires in all of this? It feels like they’re just capitulating to Trump’s agenda now.”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, I think there’s a little bit of a mix. You said, Musk might be different than some of these other guys. White South African grandpa might’ve been a Nazi or had the beliefs, wasn’t German, but wish he was. Yeah, so he might be a little different, like you said. I’m not trying to hand it to Biden, but I think part of the story is that Biden appointed a handful of good people. Part of it was Biden maybe conceding to the Bernie wing of the party a little bit with Lena Conn at the FTC and the Julie Sue labor secretary. There’s like three or four people. It happens that all of the good people were in these corporate regulation, union labor type roles. When you say like the most progressive FTC since FDR, part of what you’re saying is that the bar is in hell. The bar is that we haven’t had a single good person since FDR. So what exactly do we mean by good? We mean a slight willingness to check corporate power, a slight reversal of what everybody has done since Obama, Clinton, whatever. These guys, they didn’t actually have a progressive bone in their bodies. And so corporations and Wall Street and Silicon Valley, you know, ran rampant, ran wild over all of us. And so Bezos, I mean, Meta, Amazon, these people were actually being sued by the government, like for the first time. And that’s obviously out the window with Trump. So they, I think they basically are like, okay. Are my options an alliance with Trump or a little check to my unlimited power, not even what you’re going to make 45 billion instead of 50 billion. You know, that’s what they were dealing with. Nobody’s going to do actual trust busting or actual hardcore progressivism. Nobody’s going to say it is very unlikely that anybody in the Biden administration would have been like, all right, Amazon. Now you have to split into six separate companies because you have a monopoly on the online marketplace. That’s probably not going to, you know, That was not in the cards, it seems like to me. What you have is a slight check on unlimited power versus slightly limited power. And so all of that, I think it’s basically all them being like, hell yeah, let’s go. Let’s have unlimited power deregulation. I don’t have to worry about fact checking. I don’t have to worry about lawsuits from any department in the federal government, Department of Justice, SEC, all that’s out the window.”
Brandon Durden: “Don’t even have to worry about like basic inclusion practices. You know, yeah, yeah.”
Joshua P. Hill: “No, yeah, yeah. God, don’t have to worry about hiring non-YP[white people]. I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s the guys who have, it comes back to the guys of everything wanting more. You know, the guys, Zuckerberg has his hundreds of acres in Hawaii. Bezos has his $500 million yacht. Like what the hell, what the hell more could you possibly want? For these guys, I mean, I think in their sick little brains, it’s like, Ooh, am I number one or am I number three? Am I number two in the what? On the richest guys in the world, the richest guys of all time. Like, yeah, yeah, exactly. At the except like, if you gave me a billion dollars, you would never see me again, probably. I mean, I mean, yeah, like I like to think I would keep fighting the good fight. But like, well, the good news is you don’t have to worry about that because I’m never gonna, you know, none of us are ever gonna get that. But yeah, like what? What is up with these guys? I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s sort of like a sociopathy of capitalism, partially. Who gets rewarded in this system? It’s, yes, it’s these sociopaths. But yeah, I think they found their alliance. They found like, you know, might as well go all in because if I’m half out, maybe I will get threatened by Trump. If I’m one foot in, one foot out, am I going to get, you know, his followers, are they going to be pissed at me? Are they going to use Truth Social instead of Facebook, maybe. So might as well, let’s go all in. Yeah. Yeah.”
The Need for Class Consciousness and Grassroots Organizing
In the face of these challenges, the importance of building power outside of electoral politics cannot be overstated. Recent labor strikes at Amazon, Starbucks, and UPS have demonstrated the potential for working-class resistance.
Brandon Durden: “What do you think about the need for class consciousness and grassroots organizing in all of this?”
Joshua P. Hill: “Yeah, I think it’s a great question because I think I approach it largely as like, this is the foundation of a lot of my politics to begin with. I think the key line is the ruling class and the working class. But I really like the framing of why now? Why now? And I think they’re making it clear. I think the Trumps, he’s like, now he has a crypto scam. He’s got billions of dollars more because he’s scamming his followers again. Um, but then you got, yeah, you literally Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg, got the CEO of Google, CEO of TikTok up on the stage with the elected officials. I mean, they’re, they’re making it clear that it’s a small club and we’re not in it. Um, so I think they’re making class warfare relevant in 2025. Um, I hope we bring the fire too. You know, we ended 2024 with this, uh, historic Amazon strike. But you know, had hundreds of Starbucks stores and workers going on strike. Obviously not that long ago, was a big auto worker strike. There’s a Hollywood strike, huge fights at UPS. Costco workers might strike in two weeks. What’s today, the 20th? In 10 days. February 1st, I think they might strike. So workers are bringing the heat too. You know, Amazon workers are a classic example just because we know about pissing in bottles and we know about crazy quotas and delivery drivers, guys in warehouses. I’m proud that I didn’t have much to do with it, but proud of the workers in New York who unionized the first warehouse. I think it is coming from both sides, but I think for the people who are less political, they might not see the worker organizing in the same way that people who are more tapped into some of this, you know, labor notes, more perfect union, some of this media, some of it goes mainstream. Obviously Hollywood and auto workers and Amazon goes mainstream too. But I think what everybody is seeing is Elon Musk up there on the fucking, you know, speaking at the inauguration, you know, number one donor of this election cycle, richest guy on earth, Nazi, fascist, whatever you want to call it. And it’s all accurate. Bezos embracing MAGA Zuckerberg. I think what everybody is seeing is how the guys at the top are making themselves clear. There was a line, I wish I could find it. How can I find it really quick? There was a line from an article in The Guardian that I think said it really well. And I’m not gonna be able to find it, but it’s something like, we are not seeing the blood and soil fascism of like Hitler or whatever exactly. We are seeing a fascism that is purely about profit. Basically, we are seeing the ruling class, the oligarchs, the tech guys. Are they racist? Probably. Are they transphobic? Probably. They probably have all that shit, but they really just cold calculating bastards who want that money. And they want power. They want power too. Elon wants to change the government of like England and Germany now and say he these guys, there’s no such thing as enough for them. There’s no such thing as enough. And that’s always been true for the ruling class to some degree. But these guys are just they used to be a little smarter. They used to know how to hide. Let’s pull the strings in the background. We’ll buy an election here, buy an election there quietly. Now they’re just he doesn’t give a because he wants you to worship him too. So that means you have to do it out in the open. Let’s bow down and he wants you to make memes about him. What? I mean, he’s a fucking loser. Um, part that’s part. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s part of the equation too. Just dude, make AI images of me because for, don’t know why you like go, go buy an Island and enjoy yourself, dude. Stop being a fucking weirdo. But, um, all that is to say they are making the class warfare crystal clear and it’s our turn to respond.”
Brandon Durden: “Yeah, I think that’s a sound point that it ultimately, I don’t know, sometimes people will dive into whether or not they think certain people really believe in things or they’re just kind of capitulating or they’re just trying to kind of feel the winds of change and what can, you know, whatever the case may be, but it’s more about like the material of what the end result is going to be. And it doesn’t matter if you’re placating sort of a reactionary, you know, racist fan base or certain groups, or if you believe it yourself, you’re leading to the same end results. And it is, I would say funny if we were looking at this from some TV show universe or something. So funny is maybe not the right word, but kind of what you said earlier of just like, it’s never enough for these people. Whether it’s Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, all these different people who, completely, I think it’s right to say, maybe not in the case of Musk with these other guys that, that it could be that they just have no, they have no ideology. ideology is money. The ideology is hoarding, right? And it’s just whatever it’s gonna be. That’s why they were, you know, that’s why at least Zuckerberg specifically, or you could say like Jack from Twitter, though he’s like less relevant now, it wasn’t really a part of this. You could kind of throw him in that equation of that kind of mindset where these people would just sort of do what they thought would maybe earn them, you know, the earn their shareholders the biggest, you know, the most shareholder value for that given quarter or whatever the case may be, whether that was adding fact checking, which had problems of its own, any of us that were sharing things about about Gaza’s know that very harshly with with, you know, meta platforms, or whether it was, you know, people saying crazy stuff that wasn’t true, you know, they flipped that on its head, the second they realize it’s it’s advantageous for them, right.”
Joshua P. Hill: “Ha ha ha. Yeah. 100%.”
We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
Despite the challenges ahead, there is reason for hope. The veil has been lifted, and more people are seeing the true nature of the forces arrayed against them. The failures of Democratic leadership, the capitulation of centrist figures, and the growing influence of tech billionaires have made it clear that the power to create change lies in the hands of the people.
Joshua P. Hill: “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. It’s on us to fight like hell, but I think we’ve got this. The veil has been lifted, and more people are seeing what’s really going on. It’s on us to build the power we need to fight back.”
Brandon Durden: “No one else can, it’s us. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, absolutely.”
Joshua P. Hill’s Substack, New Means, can be found here. For more insightful commentary on politics, foreign policy, and social issues, subscribe to his work.
Readers can watch the unabridged conversation and interview with Joshua P. Hill below.