AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,
The War and Peace Report.
I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue with Part
2 of our conversation with Kali Akuno, co-founder
and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, a
network of worker cooperatives in Jackson,
Mississippi, longtime organizer with the Malcolm
X Grassroots Movement.
His new book, Jackson Rising: The Struggle
for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination
in Jackson, Mississippi.
So, you’ve just come up from Jackson, and
you’re going back home to Jackson, Mississippi.
We were just speaking with Chokwe Lumumba,
the mayor of Jackson, about the opening of
the Civil Rights Museum, about President Trump
being invited by the governor of Mississippi,
which led to boycotts of so many black leaders
of the very museum that they so supported,
but since Trump was there—can you tell us
actually what happened in that week, the same
week of the special election that was taking
place in Alabama that led to Doug Jones’s
victory over the accused child molester, Roy
Moore?
KALI AKUNO: Well, I think, to really put that
in context, we’ve got to talk about Phil
Bryant a little bit.
Phil Bryant is the governor of the great state
of Mississippi.
He’s a tea party member, ultraconservative,
you know, libertarian, very much believes
in TINA—”there is no alternative”—and
is doing everything he can to, also stealing
that phrase, to drown the state government
in the bathtub—right?—to make it that
small.
But he’s also one of the most, I think,
strategic thinkers in this new era of kind
of white supremacist politicians.
We call them “neo-Confederates,” right?
And he’s made a habit, over the last several
years, if folks want to go back and look at
it—he’s made a habit of doing what he
just did with Trump.
And that habit is typically doing—you know,
every year, there’s some kind of state invocation
of Black History Month.
And almost at every single occasion when there’s
Black History Month, he always announces Confederate
History Month, right?
He takes the opportunity to announce that
in February, during Black History Month programs.
AMY GOODMAN: And it’s called Confederate
History Month?
KALI AKUNO: Confederate.
There’s Confederate History Day, and then
there’s Confederate History Month.
And he always announces this, almost every
single year.
So, for those of us who live in Mississippi,
who are familiar with that, his announcing
and inviting of Trump, you know, to this ceremony
was no surprise.
It’s part of his MO.
It’s part of his strategy.
It’s part of his game plan.
AMY GOODMAN: This ceremony that would open
the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
KALI AKUNO: This Mississippi museum.
So, just to put that in context.
And I think it also should be known to the
audience that he had extended an invitation
to Trump, you know, to come to Mississippi
on several different occasions.
And as far as we know, he actually extended
the invitation for him to come to the museum.
Now, it just didn’t break national kind
of news until Trump actually accepted it,
right?
And he accepted while he was doing kind of
his tour in support of Ray [sic] Moore, and
so it was like—
AMY GOODMAN: Roy Moore.
KALI AKUNO: Roy Moore.
He accepted that, to come on down and to try
to offer some statements, to kind of issue
some clarity.
And that just erupted, as it rightfully should,
in a major pushback, in a major protest and
boycott, in many sectors, you know, of Trump,
not of the museum—so folks are clear—not
of the history, but of Trump really going
there and desecrating the very memory of those
who made the sacrifices that we were supposed
to be honoring on that particular day of this
historic opening.
So, we’ve got to give some context to it
so folks know.
And I think it’s important, because if you
don’t understand people like, you know,
Phil Bryant, it’s then hard to, I think,
understand the movement that Trump comes from
and what emanates and who his base is and
what they’re planning on doing and how they’re
executing, you know, all these draconian measures
on state levels, not just on the federal level.
AMY GOODMAN: Phil Bryant, the governor of
Mississippi, being a longtime supporter of
Trump.
KALI AKUNO: Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He was running around earlier this year, like
in January, and the end of last year, when
Trump got elected, saying that he might leave
the state of Mississippi and go work for number
45.
And he was kind of using that really as like
political bait, in the sense of like, “Well,
y’all don’t want me to leave, really.”
Then some of us were like, “Yeah, please
go.
Just get out of our hair.”
But, no, they’ve been—they’ve been allies,
more probably strategic, of like within the
last 18 months than, I think, you know, prior,
because Phil Bryant was on the record in the
early days of saying he liked Donald Trump,
but he wasn’t sure that Donald Trump was
truly committed to the neoliberal agenda that
the tea party and others like him had.
So there was a lot of questions, and he had
to do a lot of things over the course of 2016
to really prove that he was on the team.
And so, once he made some key moves, particularly
once he got connected with Breitbart and Bannon,
who Phil Bryant and some of his forces are
allied with, that was, I think, a critical
turning point, where Bryant jumped on the
team, gave his endorsement and really started
doing a lot of groundwork for Donald Trump
in the state of Mississippi.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Bannon was playing
a key role in the Roy Moore race—
KALI AKUNO: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: —came down several times, pushed
Trump to support him.
You know, Trump had originally supported Luther
Strange, of course.
KALI AKUNO: Yeah, right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the Civil Rights Museum,
you had Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of
Medgar Evers.
The gun is in the museum, that was used to
kill Medgar Evers, this remarkable civil rights
leader.
She ended up coming, because she didn’t
want to desecrate—
KALI AKUNO: Right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —that she wanted to honor this
place, that had been built after so many years,
but wouldn’t be seen together with Donald
Trump.
KALI AKUNO: Right, with Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: And he spoke inside rather than
outside?
KALI AKUNO: He spoke inside.
He spoke at a small, private engagement, with
a list that was primarily composed of Governor
Phil Bryant’s kind of invites, largely kind
of campaign contributors and donors.
And I think—as we were talking earlier,
I thought that that was one of the more strategic
moves that they could have made.
I think they did some calculus that if they
would have allowed Donald Trump to just be
himself and speak off the cuff, he actually
would have incited black voters in Alabama
to turn out in even stronger, you know, numbers
than I think was anticipated.
They had done some calculus that was starting
to look like, “Hey, we might lose this thing
if this voter turnout winds up being high.”
So, rather than incite people, I think they
strategically just backed off and said, “You
know, let’s just—we’re here.
That says enough.
They can’t make you leave, as you’re the
president of the United States.
So just chill out.
Let them have their demonstration.
Let them have their protest.”
AMY GOODMAN: Outside.
KALI AKUNO: Outside.
AMY GOODMAN: Where a thousand people were.
KALI AKUNO: Yeah.
“And then, you know, we’ll get out of
this unscathed, and you can go on, and you
can support Roy Moore.”
Right?
So I think that was a critical thing.
And that doesn’t—and I’m not trying
to diminish in any way or fashion the response
of, you know, our people in Mississippi.
I thought it was on point.
I thought it was necessary.
But we always have to look at the larger implications
of strategy of both our side of the equation
and the other side of the equation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, before we talk about what’s
happening in Jackson, I want to talk about
Doug Jones’s victory, because something
very interesting happened, the Democrat winning.
I mean, you hadn’t had a Democrat winning
in a quarter of a century—
KALI AKUNO: Right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —before Shelby, when he was
a Democrat, ran in 1992, then switched a few
years later to become a Republican, Senator
Shelby.
But it seems that Doug Jones made a calculation
at the end not to go for the maybe Trump-leaning
undecided voters, but to go for the African-American
vote—
KALI AKUNO: Right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —to really do a get-out-the-vote
campaign, which is what activists have been
saying all over the country: You’re biggest
enemy are the people who just—enemy to democracy
is the people who just stay home, and you
have to galvanize people just to get out to
the polls.
KALI AKUNO: Right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: You don’t always have to win
over the other side.
So, major black leaders came down to Alabama,
and Doug Jones went all over with them.
And then he quotes Dr. Martin Luther King
in his victory speech.
But now we see, on Sunday night, the senator-elect,
Doug Jones, saying he will, of course, consider
voting with Republicans on certain issues,
once he’s sworn in to the upper chamber,
also pledged to look for areas where he can
work across the aisle, raising—leading many
people to say, “Would he even vote possibly
for the tax bill?”
But what about these strategies and what it
takes, you think, to form coalitions, what
Doug Jones did well and what you’re concerned
about?
KALI AKUNO: Well, I mean, those of us who
were doing some homework knew that he already
had leaned towards the Blue Dog Democrat orientation
and tradition, right?
Which many of us call Dixiecrats.
So, in—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, he was the prosecutor
in the 1963—
KALI AKUNO: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —Birmingham bombing case, the
bombing of the Birmingham church, where four
little girls were killed.
He ultimately prosecuted those Ku Klux Klansmen,
decades later.
KALI AKUNO: Right.
Well, I mean, it’s not to say he doesn’t
have any sense, not to say he doesn’t have
any humanity.
But I think we’ve got to look at political
calculus again.
And his comments on CNN yesterday clearly
indicate he’s thinking down the road towards
re-election.
And he’s trying to position himself—you
know, trying to be fair to him—he’s trying
to position himself in such a way that he
could win the bloc of voters that he thinks
are going to be those most likely and most
consistently to turn out.
And he’s really appealing to that evangelical
base in Alabama.
The thing that I think we were hoping that
he was kind of coming to an understanding
is, A, number one, on pure ideological grounds,
that base is never going to vote for him.
It’s just not going to happen.
I don’t care how much he panders to their
issues or their agenda.
They just fundamentally don’t trust him.
Right?
Or anybody with his background and his history.
But he sees that this is the most consistent
voter, voting bloc, and I have to play to
it.
But what it speaks to is, I think, a deeper
lack of strategy, particularly on the side
of the Democrats and progressives, which says,
we have to turn out folks, and we have to
reach folks, you know, the new kind of silent
majority who don’t vote, who don’t see
anything to vote for, because nobody’s speaking
directly to their issues, to their material
interests and concerns.
And if you just keep playing the middle, you’re
going to keep alienating those folks, and
they just see, in their day-to-day reality,
Democrat or Republican, I’m still feeling
the burden of there not being any jobs, there
not being any social services, there not being
much by way of educational access for my children
or for the future, so why should I turn out?
It’s just the same thing over and over and
over again.
And I think his statements on Sunday negate
all of the statements, to a certain extent,
that he had made just the Friday—the previous
Friday.
And I think the thing that folks have to be
deeply concerned about is it just plays itself
again as politics as usual.
Right?
And this is the same old thing.
And particularly in the black community, you
can already hear our narrative: We turned
out for him, and we’re abandoned by him,
yet again.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it was 98 percent of
African-American women voters voted for Doug
Jones.
Sixty-three percent of white women voters
voted for Roy Moore, even with the, you know,
child molestation accusations against him.
KALI AKUNO: Right, right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: Sixty-three percent, actually
the same number nationally of white women
who voted for Donald Trump.
KALI AKUNO: Right.
Well, I mean, it’s going to take a lot of
work, I think, to move the white women who
are voting in these elections, because they’re
voting on the basis of some particular interests.
They do not necessarily represent the vast
majority of white women in the country, because,
again, that’s also a population that’s
just basically staying at home, not voting.
So what is going to reach them?
Right?
And this is something even in the local situation
with us in Jackson, we’ve been trying to
aim at for the last couple of years of seeing,
you know, typically, in our—just on the
local level, doing our calculus, it’s about
40,000 to 50,000 people who vote consistently,
year in, year out, but there’s 80,000 people
who are technically registered to vote, who
don’t show up.
And so, how do we reach those 80,000 people?
And what we’ve been arguing for, you don’t
reach them by just doing the same old same-old.
You have to reach them by actually trying
to develop a program that speaks to their
direct interests and will put them as the
central actors in the transformation and the
change of what’s going on.
And that’s easier said than done, but I
think it speaks to an orientation that we
would like to see, you know, new forces on
the political scene take up throughout this
country.
And I think it will lead to some profoundly
different results of what we’ve gotten the
last 16 years.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about that,
Jackson Rising.
First, talk about how the tax bill, Trump’s
tax bill, while he says it’s a Christmas
gift to the middle class, what it will actually
do—it is an historic bill, there’s no
question about that—and then what you’re
doing in Jackson.
KALI AKUNO: Well, I mean, starting with not
just the Trump-GOP tax bill, I think, if we
can, to step back a little bit further.
And I think we have to see this all as a fulfillment
of the neoliberal dream strategy, which is
actually not over yet.
I think they’re just really revving up for
it, and I think they feel 2018 is really their
year to make some profound changes before
either the House or the Senate makes some
major, you know, adjustments.
But if you look at the whole strategy and
how they’ve been setting this thing up,
so, just speaking about one particular issue,
around healthcare, we know they did several
votes this year that basically failed, to
repeal the Affordable [Care] Act.
Trump has been very clear, very obviously,
that “If I can’t defeat it legislatively,
I’m going to kill it by eliminating all
of the different subsidies that the federal
government, you know, is responsible for,”
which actually make it affordable.
Right?
So he’s been cutting those, left and right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how would it affect you,
for example?
KALI AKUNO: Oh, well, for me, I mean, it already
affects me.
I, unfortunately, have a heart condition,
which requires me to be on a couple of different
medications probably the remainder of my life.
And that puts me in a pre-existing condition
category, which they’ve been, just straight
up, trying to eliminate.
And in the state of Mississippi, we went from,
the beginning of the healthcare markets, I
think, if my memory serves me correctly, five
healthcare providers that were in the market;
four years later, it’s down to one.
So, I am now stuck with one option.
I basically have no other place to go, other
than to move.
And once I just recently—you know, for me
and my family, we just applied throughout
the—throughout this year, 2017, we were
paying roughly $900 a month, you know, for
healthcare and some additional, I think, $150
a month for dental.
Under this new calculation, without the subsidies,
and in my limited income, which is not, you
know, that great, and our family’s income
not that—combined income is not that great,
we are now being charged—we’re paying
$2,000 a month.
AMY GOODMAN: From?
KALI AKUNO: From the new healthcare provider.
AMY GOODMAN: From what you had before.
KALI AKUNO: From what we had before.
So, it’s—
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you have?
What were you paying before?
KALI AKUNO: Nine hundred dollars a month.
AMY GOODMAN: So more than double.
KALI AKUNO: More than double, which means,
on my family’s limited income, which is
roughly about $5,000 a month, you know, which,
for a lot of people in Mississippi, that would
be well, to a certain extent—let that sink
in.
So, I’m roughly paying one-third of my income,
my monthly income, in healthcare, if I follow
through on this plan.
And I’m a bit better off, in a bit better
position than a vast majority of black folks
in the state of Mississippi.
So, if this is how it’s going to impact
me, imagine what it’s going to do with folks
who only have one income or folks who, you
know, in some of the poorer regions, say,
up in the Delta and some other places, who
have no incomes, right?
It’s going to be devastating.
And there is—then you have to add that to,
over the last three years, the tea party has
basically defunded the state of Mississippi,
with all the tax cuts that it has been implementing,
that the state of Mississippi is already now
deeply in a debt hole that it is trying to
kind of crawl itself out of.
So there’s no support on the local level
or on the state level coming to provide any
additional subsidies for the healthcare markets
or any other tax breaks.
So, you’re compounding, you know, layers
and levels of just forced austerity.
Like this is really what’s going to happen
in Mississippi in the next couple of months,
in the next couple of years.
And Mississippi is just one of many places.
I mean, I can speak to it because that’s
where I live, but same in Alabama, same in
Tennessee.
And I would argue it’s probably the same
here in the rural parts of New York.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what is Jackson Rising?
What are you doing in Jackson?
How are you going to take on the starvation
of the cities and states, forcing these cities
and states to cut back on government spending,
on important programs that support people?
KALI AKUNO: Well, that’s a good question,
Amy.
I can tell you what our aims and objectives
have been over, you know, a course of time.
And the overall kind of political project
and strategy that we’ve been working on
is—we call it the Jackson-Kush Plan.
And the ideal piece of that is taking, at
least in the western part of the state, the
numeric majority of the black population in
several counties, using that as a form of
political leverage and, over time and through
work of building up the solidarity economy,
transforming Mississippi’s economy, starting
in Jackson, but transforming from the inside
out.
That was the long-term strategy.
And with that, we had made some very clear
calculations that we need to recruit and ally
ourselves with a certain number of white progressives
in the state that we hope to, you know, nurture
and develop.
And with that calculus, we saw, maybe within
the span of 10 years—this is going back
to 2006, 2007—that, by 2025, a new progressive
alliance could take over the state of Mississippi.
Now, that was the projection.
I still think a lot of that is very possible,
very viable.
But the other side of the equation have done
some things to make it far more challenging.
And then we did not anticipate—because you
can’t see everything—we did not anticipate
a Trump emerging on the scene.
Right?
We anticipate things moving further to the
right, but there are degrees of how that rolls
out, and I think Trump is the worst of the
kind of the Goldwater revolution coming to
fruition, which is deeply racist, you know,
deeply misogynist, deeply xenophobic and neoliberal
to the core.
And you add all that up, it’s a very vicious
mix, which we’re now—and dangerous, I
should add, that we’re now, you know, living
through.
So, on the local level now, honestly, there
is a period of kind of recalculation that
we’re trying to figure out and go through.
You know, as you had Chokwe Antar Lumumba
on the show—I think twice—here recently—
AMY GOODMAN: Right around the time he was—he
became mayor.
He was inaugurated July 4th weekend.
Right before that, he had spoken in Chicago—
KALI AKUNO: Right, right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: —at a big People’s Summit,
and then, now, talking about the museum—
KALI AKUNO: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —and his boycott.
KALI AKUNO: Well, he is in a—he is in an
unenvious position, you know, because the
terms and conditions that I think he is going
to have to battle and navigate from his position
as mayor are far worse than what his father
had to deal with.
The conditions in Jackson and the conditions
in the state have deteriorated.
Like I said, the state is in deep debt.
The city is barely out of debt.
And if you look at kind of the long-term infrastructure
projects that we have to comply with, both
with the EPA for our water delivery system
and then there’s other ones which are within
the wings, we have some major challenges we’re
going to have to figure out.
Now, from my vantage point, you know, I don’t
have the burden of having to administer and
having to be in government.
I’m on the social movement side of the equation
this time.
AMY GOODMAN: You run Cooperation Jackson.
KALI AKUNO: I’m one of the—I’m one of
the people.
It’s a collective, but one of the co-founders
of it.
On our end, we have, I think, a bit more freedom
to experiment.
But we have the challenge of where do we—you
know, how do we access resources to do the
development projects that we’re trying to
do?
So, we’ve been very clear that, first and
foremost, we’re trying to draw existing
resources within the community, first and
foremost, for us to pay our own way, because
we don’t have, you know, progressive philanthropies
in Jackson that are willing to support working-class
black folks doing almost anything.
And there’s not a lot of capital wealth.
But there is a tremendous amount of talent.
There’s a tremendous amount of energy.
So, it’s like, how do we balance our assets?
And so, trying to organize folks to do autonomous
development, starting with the basic skills
that we have, first around agriculture and
around, you know, other food, but we’re
also trying to be as forward-looking as possible
and getting into digital fabrication, what
we call community production, and really trying
to link those two to be able to create, as
much as possible, a solidarity economy, which
can be mediated as much through mutual exchange
and trade as it is by cash.
And that is a very important element for us,
in a place where it’s a cash-starved economy,
but there’s also a thriving solidarity economy
that already exists, that we don’t have
to organize.
The question is: How do we formalize some
of those relationships that we’re working
on?
And how do we build them and extend them so
that they’re not just little pockets of
people who are helping themselves, but how
can we build the scale so that we’re doing
this citywide.
We haven’t figured it all out, but we’re
working on it.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this issue of solidarity
economy, I don’t think most people have
heard that term.
Explain what you mean.
KALI AKUNO: Solidarity economy, you’ll probably
hear different definitions of that.
But, for us, what it means is trying to develop
relationships that are not mediated by the
logic of capital.
Now, what does that mean, a bunch of fancy
words?
What does that mean?
It means, first and foremost, I don’t view
my engagement with you or anyone else as purely
transactional, that both of us have, when
we come to the table, some intrinsic value,
and we should find ways to exchange as equals
within that relationship.
So I don’t reduce everything down to how
much money you have in your pocket or how
much money I have in my pocket, but I try
to create a dynamic where we’re sharing,
and we continue a process of sharing.
We’re continuing a process of being in solidarity
with each other to meet both of our individual
needs, but, more importantly, a communal need.
And, for us, we think this is important, just
given the history of the black working-class
population that we’re trying to organize
with, to try to move people out of long-term
exploitative relationships, of which they’re
never going to really, you know, get ahead
of, trying to compete in the market, which
is so unfair, so uneven, and you’re so disadvantaged,
from the day you were born almost to the day
you die, no matter what you do, how much education
you receive, you know, how many social benefits
you might receive, if they’re even available,
you know, from the struggles that we have
amassed to, to get ourselves to a point where
the government is trying to take care of some
things socially.
So, doing that.
And so, for us, what we’re trying to do,
Amy, is, in a place where it’s been deindustrialized,
you know, some 30, 40 years ago, we know where
capitalism is at right now.
It’s not aiming to produce any new jobs.
If anything, automation is accelerating in
such a way that there’s going to be fewer
and fewer jobs.
So we’re starting with: What are the things
that we can do, within our own community,
within the resources that exist, to improve
the quality of life?
And that starts with, first, organizing ourselves
to understand there’s—you know, if we
don’t help ourselves, no one else is really
coming.
There’s no great savior that’s coming.
So, how do we take resources we have, pool
them together and create a new system?
You know, and that’s what we’re doing.
And right now, what we’ve been really concentrating
on is really trying to create somewhat of
a closed loop.
So, for us, we’ve started, very intentionally,
on doing urban farming, doing some minor food
production with the cafe and catering co-op,
and doing some regenerative work in terms
of recycling, composting and lawn care.
And those three are the kind of the basis
or the anchor of our kind of revolving network,
where they support each other with waste being
transformed into organic matter, which helps
to stimulate the food production, and they’re
all sharing in common resources, in common
income, in such a way that boosts that particular
economy and creates some jobs.
AMY GOODMAN: And you’re talking about them
being organized as co-ops, as worker co-ops.
KALI AKUNO: As co-ops, yeah, as worker co-ops.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what that means as a
model.
KALI AKUNO: As a model, what it means is a
group of individuals come together, they pool
their resources to start a small business
or a large-scale business, depending on how
many come together, but they pool their resources,
number one, together.
And then they create a democratic structure
by which they manage the enterprises together.
So there’s no boss, other than themselves,
acting collectively, telling them what to
do, what their hours are, you know, what their
working conditions are.
These are things that they determine themselves.
That’s the central, core component of it.
It’s collective ownership and collective
decision-making that makes it a real workers’
cooperative.
AMY GOODMAN: And do you see this as part of
a national and international movement?
KALI AKUNO: We do.
We also see ourselves as trying to be a force
trying to stimulate that in other communities.
Like here in New York, there’s already a
thriving kind of cooperative model.
I think, for us, for like in New York and
other places, what we’re trying to do is
not just do business for business’ sake,
but to have it have a very explicit social
mission, which is about liberating people.
And so, there’s an infusion of politics
that we’ve been very intentional about trying
to, you know, put at the center of our process
and politics within the Jackson model.
And it’s not necessarily—it’s not ideologically
neutral.
Let me be clear with everybody on that.
But it’s not—as we say, it’s not monolithic.
And, for us, what we’ve been telling folks
is that, you know, we are—Cooperation Jackson,
if you want to break it down, is a collection
of anarchists, socialists and liberation theologists,
you know, trying to figure out how to work
with each other in a democratic manner.
That’s really what we are.
And we’ve got all the bumps and bruises
to prove it.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, as you said, you
were surprised, could not predict the rise
of Donald Trump, which, as you describe it,
racist, xenophobic, neoliberal, misogynist,
and what that means, from the protests in
Charlottesville against the white supremacists
who marched there and Donald Trump siding
with them, talking about the fine people on
both sides.
KALI AKUNO: In Charlottesville.
AMY GOODMAN: In Charlottesville.
What this has unleashed in the country and
how it affects your work?
KALI AKUNO: Well, again, stepping back, I
think we have to look at the evolution of
this.
And this has been a long progression, that
I think took a qualitative turn during Obama’s
presidency.
And we should not forget, you know, all those
demonstrations that happened by the tea party
and other right-wing forces, that had, you
know, Michelle looking like a gorilla, that
had Obama in effigy, with him being hanged,
and all the history of that association.
And that had been building up over time.
And to a certain extent, you know, if you
look at CNN and some of these, in particular,
they were giving audience to this, even though
some of those demonstrations might have only
had 40 people.
But we went through four years where they
were giving tremendous amount of free press
to that whole development and really, in a
certain sense, legitimizing it as a rational
form of opposition to Obama, when, on the
other side of the equation, we would have
gatherings, that were more left of center,
if you would, or progressive, that would hardly
break, you know, any news.
I remember when I was at the Social Forum
in Detroit, and it was over 10,000 people
there.
We got like this amount of coverage on CNN.
But then there was like two whole weeks of
maybe a few hundred people demonstrating here
or there for the tea party, and it was all
over the news.
And I think the large impact is that that
wound up rationalizing and justifying and
normalizing the racism that we now see apparent
under Donald Trump.
And I think Donald Trump’s brilliance—and
I have to—you know, I hate to say that,
but I think his brilliance, during his campaign,
was recognizing the shift and playing to the
shift.
And so, he altered the rules of saying, “I
know the tune and the music, and I hear it
out there, and it’s clamoring for some simple
rationalizations on why, in particular, the
standard of living of the white working class
is declining.”
Right?
So he was, I think, at least honest enough
to recognize that, but then came with these
xenophobic and nationalist solutions, which
are not going to work.
He knows they’re not going to work.
And that wasn’t the point.
His point was: How do I galvanize all this
anger, all of this energy, to get me to a
certain particular place—i.e. the presidency—where
I can then just move both my own personal
agenda—which is continuing to get rich,
very clearly, but then also he allied himself
with the religious right and the most hardcore
of the neoliberals to form a new coalition
that’s going to just ramrod their agenda
on all of us, right?
Because—and I say all of us, because the
white working-class base, which may or may
not have supported him—I think that too
much has been made of that, and it was really
a lot of middle-class forces that elected
him, I think, truth be told, but the white
working class right now is kind of getting
the blame for that.
But to the extent that there are supporters
amongst that core group of people who are
Donald Trump supporters, within the next six
months to a year, as they start feeling the
pain of not having access to healthcare, of
seeing their taxes actually increase because
they are, you know, the bracket that they’re
in, social services getting cut, I think many
of them are going to wake up to a new reality,
that, “Hey, this agenda is not working for
me, and we need to try something different,
something new.”
The question is, from my vantage point—this
is a longer question, a longer dialogue: Are
radical and progressive forces going to be
organized enough, prepared enough, to offer
a real alternative when the opportunity passes?
AMY GOODMAN: Kali Akuno is the co-founder
and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, network
of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi,
longtime organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement.
His new book is titled Jackson Rising: The
Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black
Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi.
He is speaking about the book on Tuesday at
6 p.m. at Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn.
That’s Tuesday, December 19th, at 6 p.m.
This is Democracy Now!
To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org.
I’m Amy Goodman.
Thanks for joining us.
