Donald Trump

Why I wish Hillary had won

Distractions of anti-Trump-ism

August 5, 2018 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Presented at the Left Forum 2018 on the panel “Has ‘the Left’ Accommodated Trump (and Putin)? A Debate,” with Ravi Bali, Brendan Cooney, Anne Jaclard, Daphne Lawless and Bill Weinberg, organized by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative at John Jay College in NYC on June 2, 2018. A video recording of the event is available online at: https://youtu.be/tUvBeXO02JY. AS A MARXIST academic professional and a gay man living in a Northern city, married to a nonwhite Muslim immigrant, it would have been beneficial to me for Hillary Clinton to have been elected President of the U. [Read More]

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Marxist Humanists

Not your grandfather's anti-fascism

Challenges facing the anti-fascist movement in the age of Trump

October 1, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

An earlier version of this article is available with full links and citations at cwc.im/antifascism. It is worth taking a moment to review what anarchists and anti-fascists have accomplished since Donald Trump was elected. Despite harassment and attacks from fascists and law enforcement, what was initially a few hundred people without financial resources has grown into the foundation for a massive social movement. After the election, while liberals were immobilized by shock, anarchists immediately went on the offensive in order to destabilize the Trump regime before it could normalize a new level of tyranny. [Read More]

anti-fascism Donald Trump

The Millennial Left is dead

October 1, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Those who demand guarantees in advance should in general renounce revolutionary politics. The causes for the downfall of the Social Democracy and of official Communism must be sought not in Marxist theory and not in the bad qualities of those people who applied it, but in the concrete conditions of the historical process. It is not a question of counterposing abstract principles, but rather of the struggle of living social forces, with its inevitable ups and downs, with the degeneration of organizations, with the passing of entire generations into discard, and with the necessity which therefore arises of mobilizing fresh forces on a new historical stage. [Read More]

Millenials Barack Obama Bernie Sanders Donald Trump Black Lives Matter Occupy Wall Street

Antifascism in the Age of Trump

A Panel Discussion

September 15, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel hosted by Platypus Houston on September 15, 2017. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Gloria Rubac Gus Breslauer Mark Kazanski Bernard Sampson Description Since the Nazi seizure of power eighty years ago anti-fascism has been a component of left-wing politics. In response to the Trump presidency, the politics of anti-fascism, reminiscent of the Popular Front of the 30’s or the Black Bloc politics of the 90s, have – once again – been resurrected by the Left. [Read More]

Anti-Fascism Donald Trump Public Fora Gloria Rubac Gus Breslauer Mark Kazanski Bernard Sampson

Slavoj Žižek, Donald Trump, and the Left

August 29, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Ελληνικά

A CHANNEL 4 NEWS INTERVIEW with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek circulated on the internet during November 2016, just days before the U.S. presidential election. In the video, the leftist philosopher appears in his usual manner – twitchy, repeatedly rubbing his nose – as he answers the question as to who would win his vote if he were American. Without hesitation, Žižek belts out, “Trump!” Then he elaborates: Trump is not the better candidate, or even likable, but Clinton poses the threat of absolute inertia. [Read More]

Donald Trump Liberalism Slavoj Žižek

Marxism in the Age of Trump

July 21, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON APRIL 7, 2017 the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a discussion at its Ninth Annual International Convention in Chicago on the subject of “Marxism in the Age of Trump.” The event’s speakers were Chris Cutrone, President of the Platypus Affiliated Society and teacher of Critical Theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Catherine Liu, Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine and author of The American Idyll: Academic Anti-Elitism as Cultural Critique; and Greg Lucero, a founding member of the Revolutionary Students’ Union and a member of the Chicago chapter of the Socialist Party USA. [Read More]

Marxism Donald Trump Populist Party

Marxism in the Age of Trump

April 7, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Recording of the opening plenary of the 9 Annual International Platypus Convention, at the University of Chicago, April 7, 2017. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element An edited transcript was published in Issue #98 of the Platypus Review Panelists Chris Cutrone, Platypus Affiliated Society Greg Lucero, Socialist Party USA Catherine Liu, University of California Irvine Description The long anticipated outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election — the coronation of Hillary Clinton — was dramatically derailed by the twin “populist” insurgencies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. [Read More]

Donald Trump Marxism

The ironies of Trump's education policy

March 6, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON JANUARY 23, two days after his inauguration, President Trump issued a draft order for visa reform proposing to regulate the H-1B visa, which among other things, allows CEOs in Silicon Valley to hire high-skilled foreign-national engineers who work for less in exchange for visas. This reform could increase wages down the line; it could bring more American workers into the ambit of innovation, and increase the ranks of the skilled; it could bring tech hiring practices into the public awareness. [Read More]

Donald Trump Education

Freedom from progress

Donald Trump, Christopher Lasch, and a Left in fear of America

March 6, 2017 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. —Donald Trump IN CONTRAST TO WHAT THE LIBERAL DOXA would like us to believe, Donald Trump’s victory should not be underestimated on account of the billionaire’s failure to win the popular vote. Trump’s victory should not be thought a surprise, either. It reflects a “structural” tendency of growing political polarization within Western societies over the past four decades. The extremes have been, on the one hand, the multi-cultural or “identity” liberalism/leftism with its origins in the social movements of the 60s, and, on the other hand, right-wing populism’s embrace of irrationality as a response to the excesses of the former. [Read More]

Christopher Lasch Donald Trump

The call to advent

An answer to Chris Cutrone's 'Why not Trump?'

November 8, 2016 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE SHORT ARTICLE “WHY NOT TRUMP?” by Chris Cutrone in Platypus Review #891 is both brilliant and deeply flawed. It is brilliant in its provocative polemic, starting with the title, forcing us to engage with the question in a fresh way. This undeniably is what Cutrone intended, a challenge starting with and finally culminating in “the obvious question that is avoided but must be asked by anyone not too frightened to think. [Read More]

Chris Cutrone Donald Trump /2016 American Presidential Election