Nancy Fraser (NF): Yes and no. The problem isn’t the struggle for feminism, LGBTQ-rights and against racism, but the separation of this struggle from the struggle for social justice. [...]
NF: Yes. For around the last three decades, neoliberal forces in the United States have aligned themselves with progressive powers and their struggle for emancipation and diversity. Neoliberalism, in other words, borrowed its progressive charisma from the progressives. It was the same forces, namely the Clintons, who signed over the US economy to Goldman Sachs and who ruthlessly pushed through neoliberal globalization. [...]
NF: Yes, and this has played into the hands of Trump’s reactionary populism. He seemed to come along with a plausible alternative. Finally, someone who would stand up for the ones who are left behind. And with the departure of Sanders, the only choice that was available to people was between the progressive neoliberalism of Clinton and a reactionary populism. An impossible choice. [...]
NF: We have to offer a new, left-wing narrative. A seriously egalitarian social movement has to ally itself with the abandoned working class. It has to explain why the struggles for emancipation and social equality belong together. I have committed myself for example to a feminism of the 99 per cent, which explicitly opposes "glass ceiling feminism".
We are fighting for the (female and male) workers as well as migrants and those who slave away on unpaid care work. This fight can only be fought together. The progressive populism of Bernie Sanders provides a positive example of how to do this. [...]
NF: Perhaps a more precise analysis is helpful. Trump’s voters consist of about three blocks. Most are the traditional voters for the Republicans. They elected Trump while – in many cases – holding their noses. Then there are the "alt-right" people, right-wing extremists, who in my opinion make up only a small part of his electorate. The third part consists also of former trade union members. Here, we don’t find committed racist sentiment, even if there is a certain existing tendency there. These people are reachable.
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