Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
The DSA recently interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). And then the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) criticized AOC from the left. Note for the curious: the WSWS is a small Trotskyist news site. As we’ll see, the WSWS offered less an informed critique than a string of informal fallacies.
But that comes later. For now, let’s take a look at AOC and her politics. What can we learn from the DSA interview and WSWS response?
Political parties in the U.S. are huge. They put together large coalitions with enormous platforms. As a result, they take on many popular issues and a few unpopular ones. Given these facts, we might think each party has a worst political issue. You know, something that drags them down and prevents them from building larger coalitions.
That’s what I’ll look at in this post. What’s the worst political issue for each party? I think the question has an answer, and I’ll defend one for both Republicans and Democrats.
After winning the Nevada caucuses – his third win in a row – it looked like Bernie Sanders was well on his way to securing the 2020 Democratic nomination. He built a winning coalition. He did really well in the early states among voters of color – especially Latinx voters. And he polled really well in the Super Tuesday states.
In short, everything looked great for Bernie.
But it didn’t happen for him, as everyone knows. After a big win in South Carolina, Joe Biden nudged Sanders out of the lead on Super Tuesday and defeated him handily in the later states.
What happened, and what lessons should the electoral left learn?
Let’s follow up on one of those lessons from the Trump Administration. The Lincoln Project – a group of Republican ‘Never Trumpers‘ – ran a ton of anti-Trump ads during the 2020 campaign. Specifically, let’s look at how the Lincoln Project might influence the future of the Democratic Party.
Many mainstream Democrats believe they won in 2018 and/or 2020 because they won those mythical suburban, college-educated white voters who just love squishy, bipartisan moderates. We see this in, among other sources, the public words of Nancy Pelosi. We also see it in local candidates like Abby Finkenauer and national ones like Joe Biden.
Some exciting news: Today I’ve released a new eBook! It’s called Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon: Elizabeth Warren and the Progressive Movement. And so, click the link to purchase on Kindle for a very accessible and affordable 99 cents.
Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon covers the Elizabeth Warren 2020 campaign and what it means for leftists. In short, I think the Warren campaign revealed differences on the left many of us hadn’t previously noticed. As leftists, it’s our job to put together a broad coalition of workers and tenants. The Warren campaign, by contrast, focused on highly educated progressives. And leftists have a complex relationship with that group that we should think about.
Having both the Warren and Sanders campaigns revealed some big differences on the left. We can and should learn from all this. In this eBook, I build on some of my past posts on Warren.
To read: Capitalism’s Heart Surgeon.
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