Parlaimentary Antifascism Yeilds Mixed Results at WISDEMS Convention

The most exciting moment of the WISDEMS convention came with the debate and vote on a floor resolution supporting HR3565, the “Block the Bombs” act. The resolution called for all Wisconsin democrats to join Mark Pocan (WI-D2) in co-sponsoring this bill, which would restrict weapons for Israel’s genocide against the people of Palestine. Milwaukee’s coward representative Gwen Moore refuses to sign on, claiming the bill lacks support. Read on and you’ll see how wrong she is. But first, some background detail.

Jim Carpenter, Heba Mohammad, and Ann Batiza introduced the resolution (read it here). First, they took it to the platform and resolutions committee, who briefly debated recommending its passage or not. A couple genocide apologists, Marcy Hotz (a wealthy suburban Democrat, who has previously opposed Gaza solidarity efforts) and her friend Nancy Miller said the resolution was “overstepping” and would “get the party in trouble”. They also said it is anti-semetic to ask that people no longer be compelled through our tax payments to fund Netanyahu’s cynical, opportunistic, perpetual war strategy and his cabinet’s weird apocalypse-taunting. Other members of the committee fought back, most emphatically, the young members: Alyssa Wahlborg and Kevin Jacobson from college Democrats. None of this mattered because the committee actually could not take a position on it, or anything else. They lacked quorum. Too many committee members either joined most Democrats in not showing up for the convention, or were in the Dells, but skipped the meeting. Maybe too busy being fed snails and getting courted by Devin Remiker. (We heard rumors that Remiker got $100,000 from the CEO of LinkedIn, and based on the mailings and the spread at his events, he spent it!)

The only thing to do was wait for Carpenter to introduce the resolution on the floor. He did, and Heba Mohammad was the first speaker in favor of it. She described herself as the only Palestinian-American in Wisconsin who hasn’t given up on the Democratic Party. Her voice shook as she described her family members being killed by bombs that we pay for. The chair had to tell the crowd to stop applauding her. 

The genocide freaks showed no sympathy. Marcy Hotz claims to not support “what Netanyahu is doing” but still attempted to erode the resolution by amending it to remove line 15: “WHEREAS, the Democratic Party base is overwhelmingly supportive of restricting weapons to Israel”. This removes the resolution’s essential response to Gwen Moore’s craven excuse for not sponsoring HR3565. Then Dustin Klien, a healthcare advocate from Milwaukee’s suburbs, (he ran for Assembly District 24-Germantown back in 2010) proposed an amendment to the amendment, attempting to also strike lines 9-14, leaving the resolution with none of its explanatory language. The meeting chair shot that down as out of order. The discussion included people speaking about the horrors occurring in Gaza and their personal difficulties witnessing and feeling complicit, because we all are. Meanwhile, opponents claimed to support the resolution, but picked at the details with easily refuted false claims. Knowing they couldn’t win outright, they dared only try to weaken its language. After Klien tried every desperate effort to delay and interfere, extending debate, attempting to suspend convention rules to further extend debate, and making the chair hand-count votes that were clearly one-sided, the amendment was defeated and the full resolution went to a vote. The ayes thundered through the room, and the nays were a whisper in comparison, but again, Dustin requested a hand count. It came down 236 in favor of the amendment to only 30 against. 

Effective antifascism does not tolerate genocide denial

As we’ve argued before, people supporting Israel’s genocidal actions are doing the work of fascism. Stopping them requires an effective antifascist response. Despite the current round of liberal whining about protest tactics in LA, or aggressive “peacekeepers” at No Kings events, most serious people know that defeating fascism requires physical confrontation. There is a long history of no platforming, of celebrating nazis getting punched, of crowds turning up to beat down and prevent fascists from gaining power. There is also a long history of fascists winning when they were not physically stopped. To be clear, shooting random people and lighting them on fire is not effective antifascism. Hitting actual fascists with bricks or hammers, chasing them out of town, and no-platforming and exposing them, is. The last time fascism got as close to global domination as they are now, stopping the German and the Japanese fascists took the biggest punches humanity has ever mounted. People who say nonviolence is an effective response to fascism either don’t know their history, or are okay with fascism winning. I’m not sure which category Robert Craig from WI Citizen Action falls into, but this (at 44:25) was pretty disappointing. 

If we lived in a time of effective antifascism, genocide denial would earn you a knuckle sandwich. A swastika-sporting holocaust denier trying to erase resolutions at the Democratic Convention would be lucky to leave the room with all their teeth. The same logic would apply to genocide denier Dustin Klein, but we don’t live in a time of effective antifascism. Instead, we delivered the next best thing. During that vote, Klein got the boring, parliamentary meeting equivalent of a beat down. We can only hope he is as discouraged and unwelcome at future Democrat meetings as a holocaust denier with a fat lip would be. 

Gwen Moore also could not receive a clearer message of how little support she has in her intransigence on genocide. Unfortunately, when it comes to Israel, party leaders and pundits distort reality. In this case, Dan Shafer weirdly describes the debate and vote as “another indication of how divisive this issue has become”. A 236 to 30 vote with desperate, failed attempts to amend (not block) the resolution is not an example of division in the party. The party is overwhelmingly opposed to genocide. There are only a few outliers trying to soften our resolve. They are failing.

Unfortunately, parliamentary antifascism did not fully win the day. Tony Evers is also a fascist enabler. His complicity in Republican attacks on Milwaukee, especially Milwaukeeans incarcerated in his horrific, overcrowded and deadly prisons, are much more direct forms of racially targeted exterminationist violence than the ineffective moves Klien was trying to make. In a fully ethical world Tony Evers also may have spent Monday at the dentist’s office. 

In the race for WISDEMS chair we were unable to deliver any kind of blow to the fascist-collaborating politics of Tony Evers and the WISDEMS establishment. Remiker’s escargot was, apparently, too tasty. Remiker’s victory entrenches Evers' strategy: hand-deliver policy wins to the Republicans as they run our state into the ground.