As Shabbas comes in, I reflect this week that Democratic Party leadership has fully failed to understand the revolt that has happened among the activist petite bourgeoisie of the DSA against Democrats. Yes, Graham Platner is out of the race, but while there is a consensus of “Big Names,” and even other Progressives, that he should remain out, there is a genuine tidal wave of posts, tweets, discussions in short form by people that call themselves Progressives, that align with the DSA, explaining why Graham Platner is actually “not that bad,” and “we don’t know the whole story,” and “This is all Zionist propaganda.” And, for the depths of depravity as I have seen from some people, “Even if he were a rapist and had a Nazi tattoo, his victims and minorities by and large should still support him as a Progressive candidate.”
The Democratic Party simply isn’t equipped to handle this betrayal of basic liberal values. In a historically coherent sense, the dismissals and unique politics that this new wave brings to the table are clearly Right-Wing, and clearly represent the frustrations of the petite bourgeoisie that had formerly been restrained by good economics. Now that the USA is economically flagging, both parties suffer from tumors of petite bourgeois frustration—of elites trying to take over society, and accusing specific groups of minorities of being “The Real Problem” while insisting that that’s not what they’re doing.
The problem facing the Democrats is that this Right-Wing revolt by Democrats’ upper-classes is coming from people that simultaneously claim to be Left-Wing and may even mistakenly believe they are Left. Democrats don’t know how to excise rich “Left” people that support Far Right causes all over the world while claiming credit for all the Democratic Party’s liberal successes. The conflation of Left with liberal has tied the Party to these upper-class rebels. Until the Party can figure out how to untie themselves, this problem will only get worse.
- JF
