Towards a New Patriotism: A Critique of Browder’s “Americanism”

by A. Rocha

Ceding history to the right. Flinching at the word "patriotism." Liquidating the story of American class struggle into reactionary or liberal narratives. The socialist left has struggled with the national myth for a century.

But abandoning this terrain is a fatal mistake. In Amiyah's debut piece, the 1930s CPUSA is revisited to dissect the fatal trap of Earl Browder's "Americanism"—and the modern danger of those following in their footsteps. To build a successful anti-fascist front, the Left cannot uncritically celebrate the bourgeois traditions of slaveowners and billionaires. Instead, we must channel America's robust history of independent, working-class patriotism so as to gain material power today.