The Great Misalignment

the great misalignment
Fundamentally the American “left” does not know what it is. This is the result of decades of having no meaningful left-wing component to our political debates. Our conception is simply mis-calibrated; we lack the numbers to split into meaningful splinter groups and thus do not have the arguments that reveal extremity on the left-right axis. Most leftists I know are willing to embrace anyone who adopts the term because the political wilderness leaves us desperate for anyone to cling to.

Meanwhile the conservative movement has for decades weaponized symbols of self-identification among their political rivals, which led to the widespread abandonment of the term “liberal.” That insistence that anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan is necessarily a socialist has badly scarred the generation of Democrat-aligned pundits who are just a bit older than I am. So they react violently when accused of being on the right; “I’ve spent my life being called a socialist, and now you attack me from the left?” But fundamentally, in any historical or international context, they fall on the right hand side of the great ideological dividing line.

A left-wing debate is, like, a debate between syndicalists and Marxists, you get me?

Neera Tanden is a moderate Republican in every way that matters. Josh Marshall is a center-right figure. Jon Chait is a center-right figure. Joan Walsh is a center-right figure. Kevin Drum is a center-right figure. I could go on. All of the braying Democrat discourse police are. They are profoundly aggrieved when you say that, but the simple fact of the matter is that 50 years ago they’d be Rockefeller Republicans.

Of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has washed her hands of left-wing associations; she is not left-wing. She is a centrist, period. By any rational measure. She followed Obama, the ur-centrist, in marrying a vague language of uplift and revolution to a purely centrist policy agenda, embracing the trappings of radicalism without feeling beholden to any actually-existing radical agenda at all. She showed up to Washington with a lot of big rhetoric and then discovered that Joe Manchin is nice. So she’s joined that side. It was inevitable; that’s what the Democratic party does. That’s the party’s function. It exists to protect the interests of the wealthy and corporations by absorbing left-wing populist energy and slowly suffocating it to death in committees. She too is fulfilling her function.

Joe Biden said of his proposed presidency, “nothing will fundamentally change” when he is in charge – to a crowd of wealthy sponsors, naturally. Therefore anyone who supports him supports the maintenance of the status quo, by definition. And those who defend the status quo are conservatives. You want to tell me that you feel forced by circumstance to vote for him, knock yourself out – you’re embracing conservatism. That’s a fact.

There are people on “left” Twitter who like to festoon themselves with hammers and sickles but who are fundamental creatures of the center-right. If you’re someone who wants everybody to have health care and who doesn’t mind taxing the rich a bit more, but you’re a fan of “compromise” and think markets are the best tools for raising people out of poverty, congratulations, you’re just a member of the technocratic soft right. Embracing LGBTQ people and putting a BlackLivesMatter in your window does not make you left-wing if you think that Washington can solve our problems and that capitalism can be reformed. You are not “progressive” or any such thing.

We have a generation of people whose political reading consists entirely of Tumblr and tweets; of course their politics are incoherent. Ask yourself: do I actually know the history of international socialism, its internal debates, its revolutionary and electoral successes, and how it has changed after time? (Do you know who Michael Harrington was, rose emojis?) If you don’t, then take time and ask yourself, am I sure I’m on the left at all? How would I know, other than that I try to align myself with left people on social media because it’s cool?

I have great respect and personal regard for Bernie. But the notion that he’s the cutting edge of radicalism is absurd. He’s a soft-left soc dem. He’ll tell you he is. He’s facing all the problems electoral social democracy always does – the difficulty inherent in trying to win within a system that has the express purpose of making sure someone with his politics never wins. Yes, I understand why people get mad at those who posture about Bernie from his left. But everybody who is interested in fundamental change has to ask themselves: if not now, when? What conditions would have to occur before this country or its parties moved to their left? Joe Biden’s platform is indistinguishable from Bill Clinton’s in 1996. And you tell me the Democrats have changed.

Unlike the social democrats there is not even a hint of my preferred politics in mainstream political life. But I know what I am.

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