Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Partisan Politics (Page 18 of 21)

electability allende

The Electability Dilemma

November 11, 2019 /

Let’s start with an argument. It’s a general argument about electability, but that’s no fun. Instead, I’ll use the more provocative case of Bernie Sanders. The motivating claim is that electability stands in tension with systemic change. Or, to put it differently, that not being a threat to the capitalist system is a prerequisite to attaining electability. Replace ‘Bernie Sanders’ with any other candidate and it works roughly the same. With other candidates, it’s usually so obvious it approaches triviality.

Here’s the argument.

1. Either Bernie Sanders is electable or he isn’t.
2. If Bernie Sanders is electable, his presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.
3. If Bernie Sanders isn’t electable, his presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.
4. Therefore, a Bernie Sanders presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.

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social democracy and taxes monopoly card

Social Democracy and Taxes

October 28, 2019 /

So, social democracy and taxes? I’m going to approach this topic from a couple of angles. First, I’ve made some efforts in the past to distinguish between progressivism, social democracy, and socialism. But I want to say more about this. I think these terms, albeit unsettled, pick out importantly different political philosophies. Taxation forms an entry-point to thinking about these differences.

Second, Elizabeth Warren recently worked her way into a bit of a jam. She’s struggling with how to pay for Medicare for All, a set of bills proposed by Pramila Jayapal and Bernie Sanders that would create a robust, comprehensive, world-class single-payer health insurance system. Warren worked her way into this jam, I’ll argue, because she’s a progressive who backed her way in to endorsing a social democratic idea. The news endlessly covers the entire kerfuffle, but I think the press sees this less as a philosophical problem than a policy problem. On the contrary, I think it’s primarily a philosophical problem opening up over the topic of taxes.

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gender-identitarianism gillibrand

Gillibrand’s Gender-Identitarianism

August 29, 2019 /

Kirsten Gillibrand isn’t going to win the Democratic nomination in 2020. And she probably won’t even win a single delegate. Even former staffers are calling her campaign ‘obnoxious and performative’ and asking her to quit the race. As a result, my own guidelines might suggest I shouldn’t write a post about her campaign. But I’m going to write about it anyway. I’m going to do it because I think she’s centering her campaign on an idea no one else has ever taken up for a major national campaign. That idea is gender-identitarianism.

Let’s explore this in more depth.

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Drop Out Sanders Warren

Should Sanders or Warren Drop Out?

August 1, 2019 /

The press covers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as if they were the same. Or at least close enough to be part of the same ‘lane‘ or ‘wing‘ of the Democratic Party. This assumption forms the background to discussion of the issue of whether one or the other should drop out of the race. The idea seems to be that both of them want to move the US much further to the left. Maybe there are superficial differences. And maybe, as Jacobin writers argue, there are differences of political method and approach. But there’s an underlying closeness.

For the record, I think this assumption is false. I think the differences between the two candidates are rather large. But let’s roll with it for a bit. For purposes of this post, I’ll accept that Sanders and Warren are very similar. Where does that take us?

I think for a lot of people in the broader ‘progressive’ arena, it means they need to unite to prevent a more conservative candidate like Biden, Buttigieg, or Harris from winning the nomination. Typically Biden. Maybe one of them should drop out to help make this happen. Typically Sanders.

What should we make of this? Should Sanders drop out? Should Warren? Would it help take down Biden, the worst candidate?

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