Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Category: Partisan Politics (Page 1 of 15)

Purity Politics and the 2024 Election

March 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

A photo of Joe Biden with a confused look on his face. Intended as a representation of a discussion of purity politics and the 2024 election.

As leftists, many of us spent 2020 engaged in handwringing over whether we should vote for Joe Biden. I evaluated the arguments and concluded there wasn’t much of a case for doing so. Biden wasn’t interested in winning our votes, and I wasn’t interested in giving one to him.

Why?

Biden built an electoral coalition around moderates, centrists, and the suburbs. He won the votes of those who found Trump and his impact on U.S. politics distasteful. But his voters didn’t necessarily have major policy objections. Furthermore, progressives never showed much interest in genuinely holding Biden accountable or pushing him to the left.

But what about 2024? Should we vote for Biden? Under what conditions?

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A collage of Jacobin magazine covers.

Jacobin Study, Part 2: We’re Not Ready for Electoral Politics

August 7, 2023 /

A couple years ago, Jacobin commissioned a study of working-class voters. I took a close look at the study in an earlier post, and in many ways the study went quite well for Jacobin. While it didn’t necessarily support the mag’s focus on elections and the national political narrative, it did suggest that working-class voters are attracted to a progressive, populist political message.

Jacobin continued the study with a second part, and so I’ll continue with a second post. Readers can check out the mag’s intro to the study here. And they can check out the full study here. While the first study provided social democrats with reason for optimism, the second study paints a much more challenging landscape.

Let’s talk about why.

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epicureanism public office

Epicureanism and Public Office

April 13, 2023 /

Thanks to foodies, Epicureanism has been having a moment. We’ve got the Food Network, endless new restaurants serving up every flavor of hipster food, thoughtful reflection upon food, and a resurgence of everything from retro diners to creative new options for the wealthy elite.

It’s a great time to love food! And many of those who talk about food do so in terms of gustatory pleasure.

Thus enters the philosophy of Epicurus and Epicureanism.

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MTG and MLD

MTG and MLD

March 9, 2023 /

The Atlantic recently wrote a profile of Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG). At the beginning, it offered a brief bio.

MTG’s father grew up in a working-class family, born to a factory worker. He got into home construction first as a worker and contractor, and then as the owner of a small construction company. MTG grew up in a more rural part of a red state in an area with a deep history of racism. That history left the area with almost no black population. Her parents raised her Catholic, but she later left the church.

MTG attended the major public university in her state and became the first college graduate in her family. And as she got older, she saw something deeply wrong with the world.

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Dealignment and Posting Alone

February 20, 2023 /

dealignment posting alone

From the sectarian left to mainstream socialists, many U.S. leftists put forward dealignment to explain politics today. Jacobin recently dropped an issue on the topic. As long time readers surely know, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the mag. Its founder has done some good work. As has the mag itself. But the mag has its faults, which I’ve also discussed in a few posts.

But I’m not here just to talk about a magazine. I’m here to talk about dealignment, especially as it concerns class. And especially a recent article on it – ‘From Bowling Alone to Posting Alone,’ by Anton Jäger.

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