The Left is Back!
WALTER L. HIXSON
02/25/2020
Reddit
Akron, OH (Special to Informed Comment) - It's official: the American left
is back! Whether Bernie Sanders goes on to win the Democratic nomination,
which appears increasingly likely, the left has risen and it is not likely
to recede anytime soon.
Virtually destroyed by World War II and the Cold War, the left attempted a
revival in the 1960s, but the new left was too narrowly focused, too
divided, and too immature to have staying power. The Reagan Cold War
revival, Clinton centrism, the global war on terror, and right-wing populist
demagoguery have all worked to keep the left on the sidelines.
It is now back, albeit as a politics pumping precariously through the veins
and cardiac stents of a steady Vermont warhorse who has had the temerity to
call himself a democratic socialist.
The demonization of that term and of Sanders himself of course will
continue. The Cold War cast a long shadow over American culture and politics
and it has not yet fully receded. President Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg
and many others have already invoked the proverbial specter of communism in
relation to Sanders.
One lesson Trump should have taught us by now, however, is that many
Americans do not like labels, being told how to think, and that certain
candidates are too far out of the mainstream to be elected president. At
this point both political parties are so discredited-and rightfully so-that
alternatives on the far right are being challenged by the revivified left.
Centrists like Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden whine that
Sanders is too far to the left, but none of them has excited a base. Clinton
centrism is dead and they are its residue. Democrats may have no choice but
to move to the left, to get on the Bernie bandwagon, if they are serious not
only about defeating Trump but about having a political future of their own.
In 2016 an electoral college-driven outcome produced a white nationalist
demagogue obsessed with the outgoing black president and nurtured by daily
doses of Fox News. Americans may now get a second chance and a more genuine
alternative to Trump than the uninspiring Hillary Clinton, who secured the
nomination through a corrupted Democratic Party machine.
If Democrats move to the left, if they shed the discredited Clinton
centrism, they can win the 2020 election. If Trump tries to dodge
presidential debates, he will pay a price politically. If he accedes to
them, Sanders will destroy him. One man is tempestuous, imperious, and bound
to a record of climate denial, impeachment, ripping immigrant children from
their parents' arms, tax cuts for the rich, and efforts to undermine
Medicaid and Social Security.
Sanders, by contrast, champions taxation of the super-rich, a green
revolution, corporate regulation, universal health care, free education, and
higher wages for working people.
If it pits Trump against Sanders the 2020 election will offer meaningful
alternatives for minority groups. The results in Nevada, the excitement in
Texas, suggest that Hispanics will continue rally in high numbers around
Sanders. African-Americans, feminists, LGBTQ-hard to believe they won't join
in large numbers the millennials already on the Bernie bandwagon. That
leaves the mainstream white folks, male and female-both of which turned out
majority votes for Trump over Clinton in 2016-but many of them may by now
have now seen enough.
Finally, American Jews, a small minority but known for their high turnout,
can help elect the son of a Polish Jewish immigrant whose family was
victimized by the Holocaust. That heritage underscores something very
important about Bernie Sanders: his honesty, integrity, and issue-orientated
approach to policymaking. Because alone among the candidates Sanders has had
the political courage to condemn Israeli racism and repression of
Palestinians, he will confront AIPAC and the right-wing Zionist lobby with a
choice of supporting vicious authoritarians, Trump and Netanyahu, or backing
a progressive more aligned with traditional American Jewish liberal values.
Nine months is an eternity in politics and many things can and will happen.
But whatever happens, the American left is back in mainstream politics-and
perhaps for good, in more ways than one.
Featured photo: Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a
rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. 8 November 2019, 18:54. Credit: Matt A.J..
H/t
