BLM; The American Left doesn't exist in national politics. It exists in the streets, and to think a Bernie-style run could save us is to delude yourself on the declining rate of profit under neoliberalism. It's either capitalist healthcare and everything else, or revolution. It's not the 30s, profits aren't high enough that we can have a president (FDR) who acts like a mediator between the ruling and working classes. No war but class war
Right, but the issue isn't the viability within the discourse, it's the larger macroeconomic forces at play. The US has failed to breach more than 3% growth while the 30% of GDP is public spending, most of which is funneled into health insurance and big pharma to keep these firms profitable. That being said, the financial sector of the US constitutes 40% of its GDP, and those speculative markets are based on the assumed long-term stability of these debt-based markets and heavy administrative/bureaucratic load associated with billing. If you were to nationalize healthcare and wipe student/medical debt, this would trigger a cascading effect since healthcare alone accts for 20% of the US's total GDP. Since Big Tech is also based on the idea that endless profits can be realized from datamining consumer spending habits (many startups worth billions have never turned a profit), a strong hit in professional managerial class aggregate demand, which constitutes the majority of US consumerism, from de-bureacratization of these sectors of the capitalist economy would then kill the viability of Big Tech. Similar effects would occur with the war economy, which is why the Lincoln Project has been shilling for a war with Russia/Iran/VZ, to stimulate GDP growth one last time before capitalism's collapse.
What I'm saying is that although these ideas are popular now, restructuring the US economy to fit them would require such drastic change that we might as well estabish a fully socialist state, as it would take around the same amount of effort. Nontheless, Bernie primed the population for this. BLM's goals are essentially his policies, but proletarian instead of socialdemocratic.
Bernie never was and never will be the American left. He was a useful lib. I’d say the gaps have firmly been filled in by literally rioting every single night against the fascist state. The American left hasn’t been this active or healthy in the last 15 years
I think the DSA, the Greens, and PSL need to form an American Labor party.
The Greens no doubt have the best party infrastructure - the DSA has mass organizing, at least as much as can be had with 50-80k members (not sure actual membership at the moment.
Not sure what PSL brings to the table, but they seem to have an outsized level of clout on the US left, given their size and actual influence.
Only issue with just saying "Lets just all join the Green party" is the green party is seen as just an environmental party.... because of their name and the fact that most Americans are dumb (like me).
I am not sure what needs to happen to make this actually happen, but until the Dems have actual pressure - shit ain't gonna change on the electoral front.
