The conclusion that Donald Trump is a fascist has gone mainstream, gaining wide publicity and affirmation in recent weeks. Such a deal is a problem for Trump and his supporters. At the same time, potentially crucial in this close election, a small proportion of people who consider themselves progressives still say that any difference between Trump and Kamala Harris are not significant enough to vote for Harris in swing states.

Opposition to fascism has long been a guiding light in anti-racism and social justice movements.

Speaking at an African National Congress conference in 1951, Nelson Mandela warned that “South African capitalism has developed (into) monopoly and is now reaching the final stage of monopoly capitalism gone mad, namely fascism”.

Before Fred Hampton was KILLED by the local police colliding with the FBI in 1969, the visionary young leader of the Black Panther Party in Illinois said“Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”

But now, for some who claim to be on the left, stopping fascism is not a priority. Disconnected from the magnitude of this fateful moment, the danger of a fascist president leading a fanatical movement becomes an abstraction.

A persuasive critic of capitalism concluded a column in mid-October thus: “Pick your poison. Destruction by corporate power or destruction by oligarchy. The end result is the same. That is what the two ruling parties offer in November. Nothing else.”

Is the difference between a woman’s right to an abortion versus the fact that abortion is illegal nothing?

“The end result is the same” – so it shouldn’t matter to us if Trump becomes president after a continuous campaign. dam against immigrants, calling them “parasites”, “stone cold killers” and “animals”, while warning against the “bad genes” of non-white immigrants and raising bigoted alarms about the immigration of “thirty bloodthirsty criminals” who “prey on innocent American citizens” and “will cut your throat”?

If “the bottom line is the same,” a mix of ideology and fatalism can override the predictable results of a Republican Party winning control of the federal government in 2024. platform which pledges to “conduct the largest deportation operation in American history.” Or that Trump’s second term after his first allowed him to send three right-wing extremists to the Supreme Court.

It will be the same end result if Trump gets his way apparent threat to deploy the US military against his political opponents, whom he describes as “radical left-wing lunatics” and the “enemy within”?

The ability to protect civil liberties matters. So are savage Republican cuts to minimal health care programs, nutrition and other vital aspects of a damaged social safety net. But these reductions are less likely to matter to polemicists who will not experience institutionalized cruelties firsthand.

Rather than being for personal absolution, voting is a tool in the political toolbox—if the goal is to avoid the worst and improve the chances of building a future worthy of humanity.

Trump has pledged to be even more directly complicit in the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza than President Biden was. No wonder, like the Washington Post rEPORTSPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “showed a clear preference for Trump in this election.” During a call this month, Trump told Netanyahu, “Do what you have to do.”

Palestinians, Muslim leaders and other activists in the swing state of Arizona issued a open letter a few days ago, that justifies Trump’s defeat. “We know that many in our communities are resistant to voting for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in genocide,” the letter said. “We understand that feeling. Many of us have felt this way, even until recently. Some of us lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply cannot vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that killed their loved ones.”

The letter continues:

However, as we carefully consider the entire situation, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and for all of our communities. We know some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in a dire situation where only wrong choices are available.

In our view, it is abundantly clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become president again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump victory would be extremely dangerous to Muslims in our country, to all immigrants, and to the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our entire planet.

To exercise consciousness in the most human sense is not to feel personal virtue. It’s about concern for the impact on other people’s well-being. It is about collective solidarity.

The consequences of refusing to help stop fascism are not limited to the individual voter. In the process, large numbers of people may pay the price for individuals’ self-centered concept of consciousness.

Last week, insightful article “7 Strategic Axioms for the Anxious Progressive Voter” offered a perceptive way to put this presidential election into future context: “Vote for the candidate you want to organize against!”

Do we want to organize against a fascist militarist President Trump with no realistic hope of changing policies? . . or against a neoliberal militarist President Harris with the ability to change policies?

For the left, the answer should be clear.