In late 2014 I undertook a project of self-radicalization.
I had just worked on an anti-Corey Gardner campaign (lost) that happened to be the first full Dem (or Dem orbit) campaign that I’d worked since discovering Marx. The one two punch of “you can’t even call him a liar to save yourselves” with “and what would you do even if you saved yourselves–HSA tax credits for Pell Grant recipients?” basically turned me away from the party (for a few months, until April 2015) and turned me toward Jacobin and Verso Books.
In the process of that self-radicalization, though, I learned some fun little facts about Actually Existing American Socialists and Socialism. The funnest fact(s) to me? Colorado was one of the homes of American socialism. Like, I’d learned that the WFM was a big deal and did things in Colorado in APUSH (in 2007-08, mind), but 1) that was tainted by typical American anti-labor bullshit and 2) it was woefully incomplete and framed as a conflict of personalities as opposed to… yanno… class conflict. Anyway, there’s a whole piece on this that I wrote comparing the potential for socialism out here as opposed to the coasts, so I don’t need to rehash some of the old material. Here’s the important lines, I guess:
8ish years ago, I left Colorado thinking something pathological about the character of the state and I know now that there’s no pathology here save what the coasts gave us. We always had it right, and goddammit we just need to remember why and how we got it right.
We had actually existing socialists here. El Paso County’s government was run by Reds. Now, today, it is run by reds (derogatory). So, what changed and how can we go back?
This is not a piece that will answer that question. In fact, I don’t know if there is an answer beyond “the Left in America never recovered from the Palmer Raids, let alone the HUAC sequel, and the extractive industries that made for robust trade unionism are not there anymore.” In fact, that might be the answer! The material conditions changed, the people made by the material conditions consequently changed, and the places made by those people changed, too. Bing bang boom. Done. Title of the piece: answered. That’s how it went from the right kind of red (socialist) to the wrong (James Dobson dicksuckers).
But there’s still something haunting me about it, the notion that El Paso can go from a socialist-run One Party County to the headquarters of Focus on the Family in less than my great grandmother’s lifespan–much less. I can drive around the mountains west of the county, in the Teller county goldfields and practically feel the phantoms of the Martyrs of the 40 Hour Week judging my complacency and comfort. I live in the bones of the last time workers stood up and died for shit we take for granted, and knowledge of this makes me nauseous.
Frankly, this title, this piece is a draft from 2018. I intended to map out a strategy to take El Paso county from “the wrong kind of red to the right,” arrogant little prick I was. Understand, though, in 2018, this felt… possible, somehow. The Dems were in disarray, the Sanders movement seemed to be in the catbird’s seat to take over, and the GOP was enacting its policies (and alienating regular people in the process). Sound familiar, lol?
Now, it’s over. Bernie lost in 2020, and that was really the last safe, legal offramp before Climate Fascist Hell. What the fuck does the county with Colorado Springs and the USOC matter anymore, beyond a cautionary tale of what can happen when you replace your miners with Air Force Academy rapists and megachurch-owning meth and rentboy enthusiasts.
I dunno. I just needed to get rid of this draft. A nagging draft poking around since 2018… just needed to be exorcised.
So, answer? No answers, just pain. Just more work, neverending work. Best if you don’t think about it, I suppose.