General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How the extreme left gave us Nixon, Bush and now Trump [View all]forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)The Democrats didn't start appealing to corporates and technocrats because they wanted to per se, they did because they used to have a white working class base but once the party expanded to include black, Hispanic, LGBT and immigrant working class voters, the white working class bolted en masse, starting with the South. Thus, the Dems had to soften on economics and other issues because left wing economics got associated with "welfare queens" and shit like that and occasionally pandering to "LAW AND ORDER" (ie cryptoracism) is better than actually BEING racist.
Basically, as always in America, we can't have nice things because of racism.
The problem is that a lot of progressives misdiagnosed it - they thought the Dems went corporate because "well duh, that's where the money is", except the money was ALWAYS in going corporate, it's not like the malefactors of great wealth went away after the New Deal. But as long as you have a strong working class base, built up by organized labor, you have a counterweight, both in funding an organizing. But if a lot of that base bolts because they didn't want to have solidarity with """"""""those""""""" """""""people"""""""", then it leaves you in the lurch. It also would have helped if the Cold War union leaders didn't get rid of all the Communists, who were the most dedicated and devoted members of the labor movement, as well as being one of the primary forces for racial inclusion among the working class.
Basically if you want a more left leaning, or hell, a social democratic Democratic Party, let alone a Democratic Socialist party, one needs to, instead of refusing to vote for the leftmost person on the ballot:
- Put lots of organizing work into fighting racism, sexism and other bigotry, especially within the movement
- Fight hard for your ideas in the primary, but vote for the winning Democrat while lobbying for them to support your ideals (1 and 3 happened, 2 kinda did but not enough) (Lenin called this democratic centralism)
- Similarly, support mainstream Democrats when they're right, criticize them respectfully when you're wrong, basically engage in good old fashioned engagement with politicians.
- Organize locally to implement what you want to the farthest available point, so that you create working models for leftwing ideas, create more experienced activists and potential politicians, and creates good will among the people you're trying to uplift (your socialist city councilperson or state Rep in 2016 could very well be President, or at least a congresspereson in 2032)
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