01.04.24.

Protests have hit a wall.

It seemed clear, nearly three months ago, that if American protestors could simply demonstrate a certain threshold of support for their cause, then the U.S. war machine would finally end its unconditional support for Israeli aggression. This time is different, we thought. Thousands marched through financial districts and flooded the offices of congressmen, a display of broad public support for the Palestinians which was unimaginable until now.

Of course, the bombs have not slowed down.

What exactly is different with this round of terror? The scale and the intensity? The collective agreement within polite society that it was no longer permissible, on a personal level, to unconditionally support Israel after two years of “Standing with Ukraine”? All of this is true, and it is shocking to see such large crowds in the West waving Palestinian flags.

But the nature of these protests was always about as impotent as the (dare I say Stalinist) demonstrations of American support for the Ukrainian people: the U.S. state will always do its best to manufacture consent when conducting business abroad, but, in the end, it fundamentally does not care about our approval because it does not need it. In 2022, protestors gathered in ritual support for the Ukrainians–protesting who? The Russian state? Our country was already sending billions of dollars to the Ukrainians, with or without our charade of a solidarity movement. And in 2023, protestors (myself among them) shouted till hoarse for three months about our President’s hypocrisy and complicity as our war treasury flowed unimpeded to the Israeli apparatus. Our moral protests–whether in support of Ukraine or in contempt of Israel–do not matter to the U.S. state.

We are completely out of ideas and so our political strategy remains unchanged. Our shouts become more desperate as the political situation, too, remains unchanged.

Unsurprisingly, our era’s political rhetoric is also desperate, circular, ineffective again and again. We propose political alternatives as moral necessities–what is just. And understandably so. We should never lose this moral drive, but if the whole of our political negotiation takes place on this level, we will continue to be unheard.

Worse still, we so often lie to ourselves about where our moral impetus comes from. In a summary of “Woke” and “Anti-Woke” culture wars from the last 60 or so years, Geoff Shullenberger writes,

“As Americans compete over the diminishing returns of a decadent, hollowed-out empire, in which the super-rich seem to be the only clear winners, some have found it made good sense to pursue their interests not as citizens seeking their share of the American Dream, but as members of the identity groups into which they have been divided up by law. Doing so could allow the tokens of moral grievance to be cashed in for favors dispensed by oligarchs and politicians. Even those without the right identity credentials have found they could function well enough as brokers and middlemen in this arrangement.”

At best, our generation’s moral protests are noble but naive. In 2020, our vision for a just alternative to American racial politics was easily co-opted by consumerism and tokenism. At “worst,” we can trace our politics directly back to our own self-interest, as a class. It’s no coincidence that those most concerned with the politics of language and etiquette embraced by mealy-mouthed corporations belong to the professional managerial class and cultural literati–those with the most to gain. As Schullenberger puts it: “Those who capitalized on these trends weren’t countercultural outsiders, but the stakeholders of leading cultural, political, and economic institutions.” It is true that we need a green transition, but those most vocal about the Green New Deal belong to industries like the tech sector which will benefit the most from these sorts of policies.

What is striking to me, about our moral rhetoric, is this self-deception. Of course we will demand for our own welfare–what is politics other than self-interest? Grafters like Ibram X. Kendi are the most sincere political actors! We are unable to admit this to ourselves, that we are materially invested in our own well-being.

It must be said that there is an enormous difference between a genuine peace movement and a series of middle-class demonstrations calling for trainings and inclusive language. Nevertheless, these protests share the same rhetoric because they share the same misguided notion that we are fighting for an alternative political landscape, and a morally distinct one at that. We should dispel this notion because, quite frankly, this is the political landscape: there are those who hold power and there are those protesting. We in the streets may hold moral power, but this form of capital is not recognized by those who hold political power. In my view, to believe otherwise is to concede defeat. If we lose our moral drive, we will be lost–but political negotiation does not take place on these terms. So long as we restrict ourselves to moral language, we can either delude ourselves into believing the moral justifications of our leaders’ concessions (“Even though we asked for you to stop killing people, the incorporation of DEI language was a ‘win’”) or we can hold onto our moral convictions and remain in the streets indefinitely and unsuccessfully.

My humble suggestion, from an American with “no skin in the game”: stop thinking morally. Let’s look at things as they really are for a moment: if we are truly political actors, we should consider our own well-being and our own power. Our power as Americans does not lie in moral arbitration between us and the state; our power lies in our stake in the state.

The U.S. will engineer popular support among its citizenry for its wars abroad–but if the calculations necessitate, the war machine will continue unmasked and without democratic support, as it has with Israel. Why? For the same reason a state conducts any war–its own benefit, its own interests. So why would a moral appeal reach these ears?

If, on the other hand, the U.S. state had political interests in peace, its military funding would act accordingly. To be pulled into a wider regional war with Iran and Yemen–is this really in the U.S. state’s best interest? Is our pact with Israel really worth it? If we are really "using" Israel so that we can ‘Pivot to Asia’ to maintain our global pole position, perhaps it is time to reevaluate that strategic partnership. Even if we let go of our moral logic and adopt the political logic of the state, our relationship with Israel is doing more harm than good. Quite clearly.

There is no moral dimension. We should of course be disgusted by this state of affairs, but to repress our role in it is irresponsible and even part of the deadlock. To stop the war machine, we need to speak to the state on its own terms. We must accept that

1) we are already part of the state

2) the state will only act according to its own interests

We can only impact the state’s decision-making if we accept this reality. And then, only from here, we might slowly begin to change its interests. As Americans, our lot is to behave like potatoes in a sack. To become a sack of potatoes, to become class conscious, is first to understand and negotiate where we belong within the U.S. state. If we really want to aid the rest of the world’s toiling masses, our job begins here.

Once we see these battlelines for what they are, our rhetoric may begin to incorporate the following sentiments: Israel is not worth it; they take our money; they use us. This is the language of power.

All my life, I have witnessed the same methods of protest fail over and over again. Even so, I admit that it seems ridiculous to use anything other than a moral language of protest when I see the images from Gaza. But what is more unacceptable to me is to continue throwing the same cards on the table time after time and hoping for a different response from the powers I am petitioning. It’s time to take stock of ourselves: we have a stake.

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