Progressive Democrats’ recent primary victories threw many of their “moderate” counterparts into a tizzy. Thirteen Democratic members of Congress issued a “Promise to America” proclaiming “We are capitalists, not socialists”. James Carville, who as Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign strategist coined the winning battle cry, “It’s the economy, stupid”, denounced the primary winners, calling them “f***ing idiots” for dividing the Democratic Party and compares them to a similar wave of progressivism that he claims cost the Dems the 2016 election. Actually, despite the popular vote, it was Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the collection of clueless consultants that gave Donald Trump the victory in key swing states. It is the disintegration of Democrats before the onslaught of Trump and his handlers, including the unforgivable support of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, that led to this “insurgency. I feel Carville needs a gentle reminder: “It’s the economy and democracy, stupid.”
A number of the progressives call themselves Socialists; in return, Carville and others have said if you want to be a Socialist, you aren’t a Democrat. However the 13’s “Promise to America” states that they want “an economy that rewards hard work, lowers costs, and expands opportunity rather than favoring those at the top.” Sounds like goals Mayor Mamdani, Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and most other progressive Democrats already support. The progressive solutions, however, challenge entrenched power interests in a way centrist Democrats will not or cannot because they fear disturbing the entwined financial, corporate, and political interests that periodically find it useful to accommodate neo-liberal Democratic success. There should be room in the Democratic Party for both groups and the goodwill to negotiate solutions. Sure beats the alternative.
These counter-productive attacks bring to mind the Biblical account [I Kings 3.16-28] of two prostitutes who approached King Solomon, each claiming to have given birth to the same baby (long story). Solomon resolved the dispute by calling for a sword and proposing to cut the baby in two and give half to each. One eagerly accepted the offer, the other was horrified and offered to give up the baby to her rival. Solomon, with an insight that somehow secured his reputation for wisdom, awarded the baby to the woman who sought to protect its life. Many moderate Democrats are acting with neither Solomonian nor maternal wisdom. They are the pretender, willing to cut their party in half.
Describing oneself as a Socialist does not exclude one from being a Democrat. Bernie Sanders serves as a Socialist senator from Vermont; his victory was a powerful statement that Socialism has been and is a part of the American vision. That his road to the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination had to be sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee is proof enough that being a Socialist did not put him beyond the pale of the Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt, one of our three greatest presidents, was accused of being a socialist; top Republicans even planned a full-blown coup to remove him from office. Today’s (often self-labeled) Socialists fit comfortably alongside Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders, equivalent to the Social Democrats who have governed many European nations over the years. Nor is Socialism another word for Communism. There is no Soviet Union to which secret Communist cells can pledge allegiance. The only American politician we know of now who has sworn fealty to Russia is Donald Trump.
For decades American extremists have waged a propaganda war against any program or policy that might benefit anyone other than their wealthy backers, abetted by the docility of mainstream media. Their attacks on liberalism morphed into strident denunciations of the legitimacy of the federal government. From there they attacked and defunded science and led by Trump wound up denying that facts matter or even that they exist other than as a sound bite from a lunatic’s lips.
Ever since Reagan’s 1981 election turned American politics into an exercise in regression and greed, the Democratic Party has been unable to mount a sustained run of progressive policy-making. The conclusion Democrats drew from their frustration was to become more Republican, more “centrist”. This delusion has been an absolute failure. Millions of voters, including many who vote Democratic, now equate the Party with moral equivocation, lack of a coherent vision for the future, and an unhealthy tendency to concede to and conciliate a Republican Party that has, frankly, become openly racist and fascist.
Whether the emerging progressives call themselves Socialist, Democrat, or Social Democrat, they are addressing bread-and-butter issues while framing a vision of social justice and reform that, in an era of unbridled corporate and political corruption, resonates with people. Voters tend to take note of the issues but feel the “intangibles”: the projection of moral leadership, (relatively) selfless service, and the competence to implement policies that improve our lives.
In reality, the entire linear Left-Center-Right scheme, while a convenient shorthand, is misleading and should not be at the center of political debate. Decrying a candidate because they are one or the other is absurd. I don’t loathe MAGA politicians because they are “right wing”, I loathe them for the brutality, incompetence, and malice that drives their policies on all fronts. If labels matter so much to a voter or a politician, it means they haven’t really examined the issues.
The progressives’ focus on housing, food, education, health care, protection from police agencies, and a fair tax policy are not on a spectrum. Kicking the rich onto the street qualifies as “radically left wing”, but progressive calls for a steeper tax on billionaires doesn’t quite make the grade. It’s more a return to tax rates that prevailed under Republicans and Democrats from the 1930s to the mid 1980s. Nor is it so unthinkably leftist to close the gaping tax loopholes available to the wealthy, although many moderates avoid that issue too. Often the “middle” is a way of absolving its adherents from confronting the unpleasant realities of our system, a convenience of political discourse that can be quite misleading.
Progressives would be naive to claim the role of party standard-bearers but then no single bloc should view itself as such. One can’t please all the people all the time. Meanwhile, Democratic attacks on the primary winners are doing the Republicans’ job for them. Who needs Fox News when the Democrats wax hysterical over NYC primary winner Danializa Avila Chevalier’s scatter-shot, grandstanding rhetoric? They don’t have to love or even respect her. Their job as fellow-Democrats is to keep the seat. And the “moderates” are using Graham Platner’s departure from the Maine Senate race to push for a “centrist” as his replacement. Platner’s failings were personal, not political, and his replacement should reflect the 72% of Maine Democrats who voted for his politics.
The Democratic Party missed a golden opportunity to build on the momentum generated by recent progressive victories. They could have set the tone with a statement along these lines:
“We congratulate the winners of the recent primaries in New York and other states. The Democratic Party shares their passionate concern for the issues that concern Americans the most: housing, education, employment, medical care. We all may not agree on precisely how we will address these issues, but political parties in America have always represented different approaches and solutions. What we are all committed to, however, and where we all stand united, is in restoring basic dignity, honesty, and concern for all the citizens of this great country.”
Is that so hard? This is the most important midterm election in American history. If the Democratic Party leadership splits the party and the Republicans win, Democrats will go the way of the Whig and the Tory. America needs rescuing. Democracy needs rescuing. Social and economic justice and the environment need rescuing. Many Americans need rescuing from the terrorist tactics of I.C.E. The prospects for an honest election this November require attention. Yet instead of uniting and creating a shared vision, party “leaders” fire broadsides at their duly elected cohorts. By doing so they are serving the authoritarian, theocratic cabal of hyper-wealthy trolls and religious fanatics willing to use force against their own people to fulfill their dream of a one-party state. Before moderate Democrats serve up the election to MAGA, I’d like to remind them: It’s not just the economy, it’s the democracy, stupid.
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