Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2026
Abstract
The far Right in America has become radical. In the process, it has outmaneuvered the progressives. In the first months of his second mandate, President Trump has mounted a revolution (or counterrevolution) against the liberal democratic state. Steve Bannon said he was Leninist and wanted to “smash the state.” President Trump has done just that. In this essay, I explore the far Right’s embrace of Lenin. I return to the Hegelian roots of Lenin’s politics to explain what he meant by “smashing the state machine.” I then argue that the Left should reclaim Lenin’s dialectics and his call, in the April Theses, for a second wave of social movements to overcome President Trump’s revolution. The time is right. The American people are hungry for a more radical politics — one that is centered on solidarity and cooperation rather than on hate, exclusion, and violence.
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Jurisprudence | Law | Political Theory
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Bernard E. Harcourt,
What Is To Be Done about the Radical Far-Right?,
7(2)
(Des)troços: Rev. de Pensamento Radical
e66443
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4868
Comments
In Portuguese.