All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point. Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this. But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned. Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even basic steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future. Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development. The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital. And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative. So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
Jason Hickel
I agree with one caveat. "Converting" the Democratic party shouldn't be the goal, but taking it damn well can be. There is an existing apparatus of power concentration, funding accumulation, and organizing. And if you have enough coordinated organization to build a new party, you have enough organizational capacity to get a reward multiplier by systemically gain positions of power in local Democrat power structures and use them to your own organizational goals. Local arms of open political organizations are extremely vulnerable to small groups concentrating numbers on a target, coming in with a small majority, and overruling the existing members.
Take over a small local chapter, get appointments to treasury and outreach positions and then just ignore commands from on high. Use the outreach for socialist organizing instead, refuse to funnel donations to pro genocide primary candidates and support their opponents. The worst that can happen is the party cutting of its own limb to disavow you. At which point, well. They're down a local limb and you still have the mailing lists, the logistical structure, and the personal relationships and canvassers which grassroots funding flows from.
All that outreach and funding and logistical work has to be done either way, but take it instead of building it from scratch. This isn't me saying to change the party from the inside, this is me saying to fucking cannibalize it.
The fascists did it with the Republican party and it worked out well for them.
As a strategy, I think this is good, but what are the potential roadblocks from the establishment people? Also, knowing that every district is different, what’s transferable and what isn’t? (IE what works for AOC may not work in Georgia)
This is what I intend to figure out where I live, with every single person I can get on board.
It's gonna be hard, but the good thing is this: If the institutional roadblocks are too extreme, you can always use the organizing groundwork it took to get people together for this and just go form an independent organization. Except now anybody who may have been willing to join in on "oust Democrat establishment figured", but not "fully fuck the party" will have firsthand experience of Democrat institutional resistance to change and probably be much more willing to sign on with a more radical gameplay.
I don't like defending the Democratic Party, but I think in this case against these arguments it has some value. I agree that establishment Democrats are annoying as hell and made a lot of really bad choices in this election, but I feel focusing on destroying them is maybe misplaced effort.
Democratic presidential candidates have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 elections, so it's hard to argue their policies are unpopular. Because of the Electoral College only a few states' votes matter, and they're centrist voters or they wouldn't be swing states, so we're going to get mostly centrist polices until the country as a whole moves left or we switch to the popular vote. I wish that wasn't the case and that we were more progressive, but we've been fighting that battle with the conservative media outlets for as long as this country has existed.
And, the fascists have been trying to take over the conservative party also for most of this countries' history. McCarthy made some progress, Reagan kind of succeeded, but the Tea Party didn't, nor did Trump in his first term. "Taking over" the Democratic party could take at least as long.
Finally, we, as progressives, have a long established habit of in-fighting. Rather than attack the Democratic party, who are bad-to-imperfect allies, maybe try to work through your disagreements with them to focus on an actual enemy, the Republican party. It's harder and less satisfying, but that's how the government sausage actually gets made.
I do think your methods are mostly good. We need local and state leaders, who the Republicans have been gobbling up for more than 50 years, who can do things like redraw districting lines and appoint honest election officials. And we need a crop of experienced, inspiring figures who can take over as existing Democrats leave office. I recently found out about these folks, who seem pretty legit: https://leaderswedeserve.com/
The Texas Democratic Party chair resigned Nov. 8, days after blaming election losses on his party's support of transgender and immigrant rig
Embedded in their autopsies was their own unstated faith that they could have done better.
I really, really, really wish there was a cooperative alternative here.
But I genuinely do not believe the Democratic politicians and officials in charge of the party are capable of understanding what drives their losses.
Sorry, I'm confused by how those articles support your argument.
The first one is about a conservative incumbent winning in Texas, and Texas going to Trump/The Republicans. Those are just normal things that happen every election. Then the loser said some crap about the transgender community, and was forced to resign over it. Doesn't that show that the Democratic leadership supports trans rights, which I thought was the kind of "radical far-left policy" you said you wanted.
The second one was behind a paywall, so I only got the first few paragraphs in, but I guess Biden maybe thinks he could have won, and Democratic leadership doesn't want him to say that. Also Democratic leadership is maybe upset that Harris positioned herself as insufficiently anti-big-business? That's where I got cut off.
I'm not just being argumentative, I'm just trying to understand your position.
I think I owe you something of an apology for letting some of my own biases affect me, and not acknowledging that a lot of people are in a harder place than I am, so it might be harder to extend the Democrats the benefit of the doubt.
I just watched a very good interview, Jon Stewart on Trump’s Win and What’s Next w/ Heather Cox Richardson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7cKOaBdFWo). Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian, and did an excellent job articulating why people are feeling let down by their government, as well as providing some very insightful context. So, sorry about that.
