Centrist politicians once based their whole pitch on the claim to possess “electability,” but now they can’t offer a sustainable formula for beating an increasingly militant right. They only develop a sense of urgency for the fight against the Left.
  • themeatbridge
    40•1 day ago

    Because, surprise, the center is a lie. It’s all narcissism and kleptocracy.

    • @EldritchEnglish
      15•24 hours ago

      It’s not a lie. But a very fundamentally flawed compromise. Many people simply do not acknowledge or even understand how we got here.

      Since the 1980s the Democrats have had two masters with conflicting goals. Before the 1980s. Democratic War chests were largely filled with labor union support and money. I wonder how many people understand why that changed. And no it wasn’t because Democrats abandoned labor unions.

      Rather it was because labor unions abandoned democrats. Many of their own members as part of a wave election the United States had not seen in centuries. Overwhelmingly elected a folksy fascist. Who immediately turned around to attack unions. Destroying Union power. Leaving them irrelevant. And to this day wondering why they don’t get catered to. Why the party spends more time going where the resources and money are.

      If we want the Democratic party to focus on social issues, to focus on labor issues, and go against the wealthy. We need to find a way to replace all the money and resources the wealthy give them.

      Democrats need labor support and generally broad popular support. In order to get that support, to reach our ignorant, disengaged, apathetic voter base. They need access to mass media owned now by the fascists. And it’s not cheap.

      If we want Democrats to be a staunch left wing labor party. Then we need to do one of two simple sounding things. Either replace all traditional mass media for more than three quarters of Americans. With something democratized and accountable. Simple right?

      Or, barring that. We organize a mass awakening and organization. Raising multiple times the amount Democrats raise every presidential election, every year. To fund education, outreach and organization. That shouldn’t be an issue right?

  • @[email protected]English
    15•23 hours ago

    The most insightful line is here:

    The reelection of Trump, once seen as a hostile insurgent within the Republican Party but now its unquestioned master, sums up the collapse of the boundary fence that once separated the mainstream right from politicians like Le Pen or Farage. If the political mainstream on both sides of the Atlantic has proved far more accommodating to the far right than the radical left — even when the latter forces have been calling for reforms that were the standard fare of social democracy a few decades ago — there is a simple reason for that.

    It is relatively easy to satisfy the far right by targeting a vulnerable minority, from immigrants to trans people. Taking up even a fairly modest left-wing policy proposal, on the other hand, will soon bring you into conflict with powerful corporate interests and lobbies. That is why it is now Donald Trump’s Republican Party, but not the Democratic Party of Bernie Sanders. It is also why governments dominated by Giorgia Meloni and Geert Wilders can hold power in two of the European Union’s founding states, while parties of the radical left have been marginalized or subordinated.

    To put it another way, it’s not that right’s base wants to target minorities (and indeed, they use their fervent belief they are not racists as a contrarian point to demonstrate how the left doesn’t “get” them). It’s that they are satisfied with framing the issue as a need to oppress some marginalized group. There is little else needed, they just need an excuse to “fall in line” and immigration etc provides that ably. Similarly, because the right already favors corporations and has built it into their “small government” ethos, they face no pushback and indeed corporations are gleefully obsequiousness to right-wing leaders.

    The left on the other hand both has higher standards (i.e., the need to “fall in love”) and is also in policy friction with businesses. Even businesses that view their culture as progressive will fight reform that decreases profits, so support is never truly aligned. The “neoliberal” left feels they can reconcile that friction either by Bernaysian PR, self-interest game theory (which infuriated quite a few here during the election), or soft-walking anti-corporate reform. But they are playing with the deck stacked against them, so it’s no doubt they lose.