THE ATLANTIC LEFTS
Differing Trajectories
It’s been a decade since Bernie Sanders’ and Jeremy Corbyn’s campaigns for political change galvanised politics in the US and the UK. Their demands, well to the left of the corrupt and visionless Democratic Party and Labour leaderships, excited the imaginations of young people many of whom had become alienated from mainstream politics and politicians. And for good reason; a series of never-ending wars coupled with non-stop pandering to the needs of global oligarchs had reduced democratic functioning to a meaningless ritual in both countries. Hyper-corporatized media excluded any meaningful debate as a seemingly permanent economic crisis, exacerbated by years of unpopular and unwinnable wars, forged increasingly alienated and angry populations. US Senator Bernie Sanders’ primary presidential campaign and Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for Party leadership in 2015 introduced an alternative to the corporate politics that had dominated the century up to that point. Both figures began to attract huge crowds in city after city, a message of hope to the many watching in various parts of the two very different countries, one an imperial power, the other its willing satrapy.
What happened next is well known. The Democratic Party leadership closed ranks to render impotent Sanders’ primary campaign in favour of Hilary Clinton, who then lost the presidential campaign to Donald Trump, inaugurating a new era of US politics. In the UK, Corbyn won the leadership of the Labour Party by a large majority in 2015, but was driven out before the decade’s end by a well-orchestrated, generously-funded campaign, devised and executed by a majority of Labour parliamentarians and helped along by the State and the liberal and conservative media. Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, then expelled him from the party. The Left movements of the two countries have since diverged considerably in organization, power, and influence. While the Democratic Socialists of America are successfully contesting the Democratic Party’s mainstream candidates in vicious primaries and sending growing numbers to Washington, the UK Left today remains adrift.
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Establishment leaders of the Democratic Party are in a total state. They simply can’t believe what’s going on in this year’s Democratic primaries. As the Economist put it, ‘America’s Democratic Socialists are having the summer of their lives.’ In June, the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter dominated the state’s most contested races, defeating powerful incumbents in NYC’s 13th and 7th congressional districts and emerging from the primary with 9 victories across federal, state and local primaries. After DSA’s success in New York, a lot was riding on the Senate primary in Michigan last week. The DSA-supported candidate, Dr Abdul El-Sayed, had united the entire establishment against him. The state’s officials from the Governor downwards were backing his opponent, Haley Stevens. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the pro-genocide lobby, AIPAC, pledged their commitment to Stevens’ campaign in the form of a $30 million gift. This amounted to only half of her campaign’s spending. Excremental ads slandering El-Sayed flooded the political landscape. Despite the hysteria and Islamophobia, the good doctor won, albeit by a narrow margin. The New York Times reported his triumph in their usual objective and calm fashion, describing him a ‘a progressive firebrand’ unlikely to win in November.
Distinguished party elders like James Carville and Hilary Clinton have emerged from the depths of defeat and political irrelevance to express their distaste for El-Sayed. Carville is advocating for a ‘schism’, hoping to excommunicate the DSA and its members – a structural impossibility under the US party system – until they’ve learned to respect sacred principles like imperial wars and corporate capture. Meanwhile, Clinton has helped to reinforce Republican talking points, warning that ‘the Republican messaging is ‘communist, socialist’ which is ‘going to be a very effective attack.’ Those of us in our 80s could be forgiven for forgetting that the Soviet Union ceased to exist 35 years ago. The minds of most people under the age of 40 are happily unpolluted by the ‘threat’ of Communism. They have known only a rapacious capitalist system, helmed by the United States, the growth of which depends on forever wars and ecological demise. America’s warmongering ‘moderates’ would do well to take note of the changing tides. There have been similar triumphs to those in New York and Michigan in Seattle, Colorado, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, just to name a few. It isn’t over. DSA activists throughout the country are confident that DSA member Francesca Hong will win tomorrow’s Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin. It’s no mystery why they’re making history. The antiwar, pro-social welfare reforms such as free Medicare for All are popular amongst Democratic voters and they’re fed up with not being represented.
Republicans recognise that their candidate, Mike Rogers, might not be able to defeat El-Sayed. Ronna McDaniel, a former Republican National Committee chair, admitted that he ‘really does have a true movement and a momentum’ and for that reason: ‘Republicans can’t just stand back and say, “Oh, he’s a socialist.” We have to define what he is and what this actually means.’ Voters just might like what they hear.
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American radicals and socialists are now way ahead of their peers this side of the Atlantic. The new DSA manifesto published this month is a spirited document that is antiwar abroad and wants big changes at home. The core of its domestic policies is summarised by the following conceptions:
The political and economic system under which we live is built on private ownership and profit at all costs. As capitalism fails to solve problems of its own making, it turns to right-wing authoritarianism. Big business makes deals with the government to line their pockets, and politicians stoke hatred between working people. Instead of offering real solutions to unemployment and the cost of living, they attack immigrants, communities of color, and trans people. Rather than fixing our broken healthcare system, they push snake oil and circulate conspiracy theories. The Republicans are in on it, the Democratic Party is asleep at the wheel, and both are funded by the same criminal class of billionaires and war profiteers.
The Left parties in Britain are simply a busted flush. For many, hope now resides with the Greens, who have become the new targets of the Labour Party and Reform, as well as the mainstream media. The Greens have had some triumphs but a panicking Labour Party hurriedly removed Tweedledum Starmer from office and replaced him with Tweedledee Burnham as Prime Minister. The mood music is different, but very little has changed. The British media has now switched over to targeting the Green leader Zack Polanski. Last week the Economist, tacky beyond belief, devoted an entire Bagehot column denouncing Polanski in tabloid terms. His politics were those of ‘eternal adolescence’, ‘he is 43’, ‘an arrested development incarnate’ he may turn out to be a ‘moment rather than the start of a movement.’, etc. No mention of the other ‘moments’ in British politics: former Prime Ministers, Sunak, Truss, Starmer. And then there is an obligatory quote from a New Left Review essayist, Anton Jaeger, who is not attacking Mamdani or El-Sayed or Polanski but the mainstream politicians and their cohorts, when he refers to the world they have created dominated by ‘low-commitment, low-cost and too-often low-value politics.’ Remove ‘low-cost’ and it could apply just as easily to Bagehot of the Economist.