In our country’s coming long fight with the Violent Right, democracy’s best weapon is economic justice.

The roots of the radical right are as old as the American colonies founded on genocide and slavery evolving into a culture of domination and a national doctrine of Manifest Destiny.

But under the immediate ex-president the Violent Right has experienced an upsurge.  

When about a hundred of us joined local community activists in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia to hold a BLACK LIVES MATTER rally; we were drowned out, shouted down, all but shut down by more than 400 right-wing bikers, armed and aggressive veterans, and old fashioned peckerwoods. Many of them tried to pick fights or create a riot of violence against us. Law enforcement was dangerously lax and uninterested. I was shocked at how many the right-wing could turn out in a rural community. This all happened only about 100 miles from Washington, D.C.

The fight is real, ongoing, and it must be won. Winning will require a mix of strategies including active engagement of the Department of Justice to pursue and investigate every police shooting, investigate ALL illegal activities of the Violent Right, and take advantage of every opportunity to interrupt their activities. Hell, just investigating active threats would require major investigations. 

But that will yield only a long domestic and dangerous guerilla war without eliminating the cause of the of the rise of the Violent Right.

America hasn’t worked for the working class for 40 years, since Ronald Reagan very effectively declared war on working people, breaking unions, privatizing, de-industrializing the heartland, ripping regulations, gutting labor law.  In those 40 years Reagan’s war has produced stagnant wages, a labor movement weaker than before the Great Depression, and exploding healthcare costs.

Far from being “Morning in America”, it has been the dimming of the American Dream.

If we want to defeat domestic terrorism, hamstring the authoritarian impulse, and strengthen democracy; we must address income inequality and economic injustice.

America must re-create an American Dream of financial security, adequate income, worker rights, worker power in labor markets and the broader economy, and retirement, free from fear, with dignity and comfort.

This is a real test for Democrats, and they can’t afford to lose. The party must welcome any breaks with the financial elite and corporations that put excessive profits and wealth above the good of the country.

And such an economic program, if structured correctly, will cut across all American demographics to improve our quality of life and promote the old ephemeral unity so hard to achieve.

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