Anarchism is cool and good but anarchists themselves are hurting our movement with the incessant purity testing. The constantly disavowal of Tankies does more to divide the left than the establishment could hope for. Refusal to vote for the lesser of two evils or associate with the Democratic Party leaves what little political power we have on the table. The no true Scotsman approach to leftism is crippling progress and with climate change looming, we really don’t have time to split hairs on whether every individual in the entire movement says trans rights or whatever the litmus test of the day is. The right is a diverse bunch that can rally around a single cause because it universally helps all of them to some degree and they can hash out the fine details later. The left doesn’t even run for office because they are too busy explaining why they won’t vote because a Bourgeoisie apologist will win either way.
It's not a European parliamentary party, it's extremely undemocratic and at a certain point they will stop pretending it's not. All they need is a new red scare to put up a barrier to entry saying you must disavow socialism and boom all leftists are forever boxed out of the party.
All they need is a new red scare to put up a barrier to entry saying you must disavow socialism and boom all leftists are forever boxed out of the party.
And if the left wing of the Democratic Party has grown considerably before that happens, can't you see that breaking the party? It'd have been one thing if they shut out Bernie in 2016 and forced him to run as an independent, it'd be one thing if they kicked the squad and similar politicians out right now, but what happens if you get 20-25 Representatives and maybe 1-2 Senators who are roughly where AOC is at? What happens if that wing of the party has a firm hold on anyone under 40? What happens if you see strong left-ish primary challengers affecting an even broader segment of the party?
If at that point the party brings the hammer down and expels that many members it's anyone's guess how that will shake out, especially if that style of politician takes over a few urban areas or a whole state and starts advancing more serious policy changes.
The Blairites successfully infiltrated Labour and have since purged Militant in the '90s and are in the process of purging the Corbynites now, with no alternative party ready to pull in the exiles. And Labour is a traditionally social-democratic party with a "mixed-class" character and actual mass membership, a party which organized labor could theoretically win a tug-of-war against capital to regain control. The Democratic Party is a neoliberal party, 100% controlled by the technocratic wing of capital (effectively a faction of the ruling class), with no mass membership, and completely immunized from attempted hostile takeovers by socialists and social democrats. Democrat entryism has been tried multiple times and will not work. AOC and the Squad will either sell out and concede to the neoliberals who run the party or will eventually be sidelined like Bernie or purged altogether. The US left has to build an external workers' party to fight the Democrats.
completely immunized from attempted hostile takeovers by socialists and social democrats. Democrat entryism has been tried multiple times and will not work.
This is pretty silly, considering Bernie was the frontrunner prior to Super Tuesday and it took unprecedented coordination (and a fair amount of luck) to shut him down. It's also silly considering the current President was a far less serious candidate than Bernie and won the nomination of our other major party by (a) being an outsider in a time when people are broadly fed up with the standard fare and (b) taking advantage of a split field with a wealth of unpopular candidates.
I would point to the ratfuckery as evidence that the Dem leadership won't tolerate any serious attempt at socialist infiltration or entryism. When put in a losing position they will flip the chessboard and toss their own rules out the window. They are allowed to do this, because the Democratic Party is a private organization with no internal democratic accountability. There were no rank-and-file lanyards which Bernie could turn to to help him pressure the neoliberals to play fair. I mentioned the Blairite ratfuckery against Corbyn to illustrate that even in an actual party with that sort of internal democracy, this sort of ratfuckery is still possible. If Corbyn can't win his tug of war against the Blairites, what hope did Bernie have? What hope did Jesse Jackson have? None. Dems will always find a way out of having to concede to this sort of insurgency, no matter how popular. Dem entryism is almost as ridiculous and fruitless for socialists as socialists attempting Republican entryism.
Dems will always find a way out of having to concede to this sort of insurgency, no matter how popular.
The "always" is where I think you're wrong. There are practical limits to what they're able to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that they weren't able to stop Bernie until Super Tuesday and it took a popular former president and a good amount of luck to do it.
They won't always have an Obama-like figure who can swoop in and demand everyone fall in line (Republicans didn't in 2016). They won't always nail the timing; imagine if the pandemic hit the U.S. a little earlier, or if the Tara Reade story had broke a little earlier, or if George Floyd had been murdered a little earlier, etc. A Bernie-like candidate won't always have to build their political infrastructure from scratch. If a Bernie-like candidate wins by a clear majority because we recruit more leftists and centrists continue to lose interest, it might not be close enough to rig.
Democrats didn't kill Bernie by flipping a switch. It took effort and coordination and luck that won't always be on their side.
If Bernie had achieved sufficient momentum to win the primary despite the ratfuckery and despite the superdelegate bullshit, the Dems would have sabotaged his campaign in the general election, just like they did to Sinclair's gubernatorial campaign in the 1930s and like the 1972 McGovern campaign, and similar to the Blairite ratfuckery against Corbyn. Winning the primary wasn't the last hoop Bernie would have had to clear.
the Dems would have sabotaged his campaign in the general election, just like they did to Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign in the 1930s and like the 1972 McGovern campaign, and similar to the Blairite ratfuckery against Corbyn
I don't think any of those other scenarios involved years of "vote blue no matter who" indoctrination of the relevant political base.
You absolutely right about other hurdles -- there really is no last hoop to clear, at least not for decades in the rosiest possible future -- but it's dangerous to read history as if it's a reflection of some divine, unchangeable laws. We have to walk the line between learning from our mistakes and ignoring a relatively easy way to build power because something arguably similar failed in an arguably similar situation generations ago (or across the globe in an entirely different political context).
we really don’t have time to split hairs on whether every individual in the entire movement says trans rights or whatever the litmus test of the day is.
At least in the case of the USA, the Venn Diagram of leftists who don't accept (or do violence against) trans people and organization-killing reactionaries is pretty much a circle.
"We should build mutual aid networks in our community and actually help people and not be overly concerned with leadership and seeking power in an actively hostile political machine" seems way less purity-test-y than "nothing will ever get better until we turn the Democrats into the politburo".
Anarchism is cool and good but anarchists themselves are hurting our movement with the incessant purity testing. The constantly disavowal of Tankies does more to divide the left than the establishment could hope for. Refusal to vote for the lesser of two evils or associate with the Democratic Party leaves what little political power we have on the table. The no true Scotsman approach to leftism is crippling progress and with climate change looming, we really don’t have time to split hairs on whether every individual in the entire movement says trans rights or whatever the litmus test of the day is. The right is a diverse bunch that can rally around a single cause because it universally helps all of them to some degree and they can hash out the fine details later. The left doesn’t even run for office because they are too busy explaining why they won’t vote because a Bourgeoisie apologist will win either way.
the democratic party must be destroyed, if 2016 and 2020 didn't discredit entryism for you I don't know what could
Sure, but that doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. And who's to say leftist entryism isn't what will destroy it?
It's not a European parliamentary party, it's extremely undemocratic and at a certain point they will stop pretending it's not. All they need is a new red scare to put up a barrier to entry saying you must disavow socialism and boom all leftists are forever boxed out of the party.
And if the left wing of the Democratic Party has grown considerably before that happens, can't you see that breaking the party? It'd have been one thing if they shut out Bernie in 2016 and forced him to run as an independent, it'd be one thing if they kicked the squad and similar politicians out right now, but what happens if you get 20-25 Representatives and maybe 1-2 Senators who are roughly where AOC is at? What happens if that wing of the party has a firm hold on anyone under 40? What happens if you see strong left-ish primary challengers affecting an even broader segment of the party?
If at that point the party brings the hammer down and expels that many members it's anyone's guess how that will shake out, especially if that style of politician takes over a few urban areas or a whole state and starts advancing more serious policy changes.
The Blairites successfully infiltrated Labour and have since purged Militant in the '90s and are in the process of purging the Corbynites now, with no alternative party ready to pull in the exiles. And Labour is a traditionally social-democratic party with a "mixed-class" character and actual mass membership, a party which organized labor could theoretically win a tug-of-war against capital to regain control. The Democratic Party is a neoliberal party, 100% controlled by the technocratic wing of capital (effectively a faction of the ruling class), with no mass membership, and completely immunized from attempted hostile takeovers by socialists and social democrats. Democrat entryism has been tried multiple times and will not work. AOC and the Squad will either sell out and concede to the neoliberals who run the party or will eventually be sidelined like Bernie or purged altogether. The US left has to build an external workers' party to fight the Democrats.
This is pretty silly, considering Bernie was the frontrunner prior to Super Tuesday and it took unprecedented coordination (and a fair amount of luck) to shut him down. It's also silly considering the current President was a far less serious candidate than Bernie and won the nomination of our other major party by (a) being an outsider in a time when people are broadly fed up with the standard fare and (b) taking advantage of a split field with a wealth of unpopular candidates.
I would point to the ratfuckery as evidence that the Dem leadership won't tolerate any serious attempt at socialist infiltration or entryism. When put in a losing position they will flip the chessboard and toss their own rules out the window. They are allowed to do this, because the Democratic Party is a private organization with no internal democratic accountability. There were no rank-and-file lanyards which Bernie could turn to to help him pressure the neoliberals to play fair. I mentioned the Blairite ratfuckery against Corbyn to illustrate that even in an actual party with that sort of internal democracy, this sort of ratfuckery is still possible. If Corbyn can't win his tug of war against the Blairites, what hope did Bernie have? What hope did Jesse Jackson have? None. Dems will always find a way out of having to concede to this sort of insurgency, no matter how popular. Dem entryism is almost as ridiculous and fruitless for socialists as socialists attempting Republican entryism.
The "always" is where I think you're wrong. There are practical limits to what they're able to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that they weren't able to stop Bernie until Super Tuesday and it took a popular former president and a good amount of luck to do it.
They won't always have an Obama-like figure who can swoop in and demand everyone fall in line (Republicans didn't in 2016). They won't always nail the timing; imagine if the pandemic hit the U.S. a little earlier, or if the Tara Reade story had broke a little earlier, or if George Floyd had been murdered a little earlier, etc. A Bernie-like candidate won't always have to build their political infrastructure from scratch. If a Bernie-like candidate wins by a clear majority because we recruit more leftists and centrists continue to lose interest, it might not be close enough to rig.
Democrats didn't kill Bernie by flipping a switch. It took effort and coordination and luck that won't always be on their side.
If Bernie had achieved sufficient momentum to win the primary despite the ratfuckery and despite the superdelegate bullshit, the Dems would have sabotaged his campaign in the general election, just like they did to Sinclair's gubernatorial campaign in the 1930s and like the 1972 McGovern campaign, and similar to the Blairite ratfuckery against Corbyn. Winning the primary wasn't the last hoop Bernie would have had to clear.
I don't think any of those other scenarios involved years of "vote blue no matter who" indoctrination of the relevant political base.
You absolutely right about other hurdles -- there really is no last hoop to clear, at least not for decades in the rosiest possible future -- but it's dangerous to read history as if it's a reflection of some divine, unchangeable laws. We have to walk the line between learning from our mistakes and ignoring a relatively easy way to build power because something arguably similar failed in an arguably similar situation generations ago (or across the globe in an entirely different political context).
At least in the case of the USA, the Venn Diagram of leftists who don't accept (or do violence against) trans people and organization-killing reactionaries is pretty much a circle.
"We should build mutual aid networks in our community and actually help people and not be overly concerned with leadership and seeking power in an actively hostile political machine" seems way less purity-test-y than "nothing will ever get better until we turn the Democrats into the politburo".