Fredrik deBoer

An eye-opening exploration of American policy reform, or lack thereof, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and how the country can do better in the future. In 2020, while the Covid-19 pandemic raged, the United States was hit by a ripple of political discontent the likes of which had not been seen since the 1960s. The spark was the viral video of the horrific police murder of an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. The killing of George Floyd galvanized a nation already reeling from Covid and a toxic political cycle. Tens of thousands poured into the streets to protest. Major corporations and large nonprofit groups—institutions that are usually resolutely apolitical—raced to join in. The fervor for racial justice intersected with the already simmering demands for change from the #MeToo movement and for economic justice from Gen Z. The entire country suddenly seemed to be roaring for change in one voice. Then nothing much happened. In How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement, Fredrik deBoer explores why these passionate movements failed and how they could succeed in the future. In the digital age, social movements flare up but then lose steam through a lack of tangible goals, the inherent moderating effects of our established institutions and political parties, and the lack of any real grassroots movement in contemporary America. Hidden beneath the rhetoric of the oppressed and the symbolism of the downtrodden lies the inconvenient fact that those doing the organizing, messaging, protesting, and campaigning are predominantly drawn from this country’s more upwardly mobile educated classes. Poses are more important than policies. DeBoer lays out an alternative vision for how society’s winners can contribute to social justice movements without taking them over, and how activists and their organizations can become more resistant to the influence of elites, nonprofits, corporations, and political parties. Only by organizing around class rather than empty gestures can we begin the hard work of changing minds and driving policy.

How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement

Rick Powell

"This is the way left politics works now: we respond to tangible horror by clinging tighter and tighter to the intangible." (Fredrik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement)

"But something strange happened over time. The argument changed from being that we did not yet live in a post-racial America—and shouldn’t be fooled into thinking we did—to an argument that the very desire to live in a post-racial America was wicked." (Fredrik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement)

"I don’t want white women to clutch their purses a little tighter when a Black man gets on the subway. I don’t want white people to maintain internal, emotional prejudice against Black people. But when I look at the mess that the modern anti-racist movement has made of its own mission, and I see the deprivation that so many Black people live with as I make my way around Brooklyn, I think of white people quietly harboring impure racial feelings and all I can think is… who cares?" (Fredrik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement)

"Not one of the “Proud Boys,” the laughable proto-fascist organization, could do as much damage in a year as a single Wall Street executive can do in a day." (Fredrik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement)

"What are the lessons for the broader progressive project? The simplest and most powerful is simply this: there is no such thing as an online social movement." (Fredrik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement)

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