I went live to carry on with our discussion of the parallels of the Gilded Age, and because I couldn’t let the latest wave of liberal merch slide without breaking it open. You’ve seen the shirts, the mugs, the “original Antifa since 1941” tagline slapped on the Iwo Jima flag-raising photo.
And it hit me: people actually believe that AMERICA — the same America that invaded and stole land, rounded up humans and placed them in cages, enslaved and trafficked bodies, built forced breeding camps and boarding schools, created the school-to-prison pipeline, waged a war on drugs, and continues to keep people in cages — is somehow a representation of antifascism.
Let me break the news to you: America has never been antifascist. The Gilded Age was capitalism’s greatest cover story — railroads, skyscrapers, robber barons cloaked in gilded shine. But behind the veneer was debt slavery for Black sharecroppers, land theft from Indigenous people, and immigrant labor crushed in unsafe factories. That same playbook is alive today.
Whiteness is a marketing system. It convinces poor white folks that they are “displaced millionaires” instead of part of the exploited class. It redirects rage: instead of striking at billionaires and corporations, it tells you to blame Black neighbors, immigrants, welfare queens, trans kids, etc.
And then comes the merch. Liberal white America will make merch before it makes a plan. Which brings us back to that Iwo Jima photo, now plastered on t-shirts with a slogan about antifascism. Yes, it’s iconic. Yes, it’s beautiful. But…
Is it truly a representation of anti-fascism?
3 Key Takeaways
Capitalism thrives on cover stories. From the Gilded Age to today, wealth and progress are marketed while exploitation and dispossession are erased.
Whiteness sells amnesia. Liberal merch turns resistance into branding, creating a false sense of solidarity while avoiding risk or real change.
The real Antifa has always been Black and Indigenous. Since 1492, survival itself has been an antifascist act. To ignore this is to stay trapped in the myth of American exceptionalism.
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