The War For The Soul Of The American Leftist Movement
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In an article praised by Josh Kraushaar as "worth the read", a New York Times Op/Ed written by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein bears the headline "Back To The Center, Democrats!" Not only was this a headline in the New York Times, it was echoed, with articles being written elsewhere about the fact that it had been written. The article states that Democrats should reject the "siren calls" of the progressive movement, whos "policies and ideas have weakened the party". The 2nd paragraph of the article begins the slow trickle of neoliberal propaganda. The third sentence begins "The leftward drift of the Democratic Party..." which, before we go any farther, is fundamentally not true. It is historically inaccurate and demonstrably false to pretend as thought the party is farther to the left now than it was in the 80's. It took a certain beloved Arkansas Governor to force right-wing policies down the throats of the party's base. The Clintons very much helped to birth American neoliberalism, and benefit centrism by making American imperialism appealing to the nominal "left". Corporatism, though it existed in various forms before, began to flower in this "age of Clinton", and the party in fact moved right. The party has become the party of Wall St., corporatism, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The usage of the mainstream media as the propaganda arm of the establishment is, of course, nothing new. The Washington Post, the largest digital media organization in the country, attacked Jimmy Dore, a progressive leftist, when he rattled the corporate cage. Likewise, the New York Times drew swords against revolutionary leftist comedian Lee Camp when he dared speak out against the establishment.
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More recently, the Washington Post published an article claiming that the Democratic Party is ready to "push back" against its "liberal wing", but I think that warrants a serious question. When the Republican Party split resulted in the "tea party", how did the Republican Party keep those members? By immediately moving to the right. The same logic apparently does not apply with the left, especially when your leftist challengers are calling for the destruction of an economic system currently lining your pockets.
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Articles resembling the one in "Vanity Fair" which attack the growing number of individuals, and particularly young prospective voters, who are to the left of the Democratic Party, abound. The article dubs such disenfranchised anti-capitalists, progressives, and "Bernie-Bros" as the "Alt-Left", stating that they "are a problem, too". Even the Huffington Post jumps on board, in one article claiming that "In short, the Alt-Left comprises, at present, a gaggle of far-flung metamodern political activists".
There is a reason to think of us as "far-flung", or, as The Guardian labeled French leftist leader Jean Luc Melenchon, "hard-left rebels". The political landscape is changing, and with a leftist movement that is exponentially larger than it has been in several decades, they are beginning to get desperate.
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I would like to end this "public service announcement" with a warning. A warning given to us by none other than the Washington Post, who called out the problems plaguing the Clinton campaign in the 2016 general election, and advised in a subsection of the article that "... it is possible, and likely a good frame for 2018 and 2020, to noisily reject financial industry money", a statement which should be construed as sound advise, but is directly preceded by a statement that "It would be impossible to fund Democratic campaigns without most of the people who backed Clinton". A suppose they never took notice of the Sanders campaign. At any rate, this should sound off as a warning to leftists in particular; Be cautious about supporting a candidate just because they do not (or claim that they do not) take Wall St. subsidies. It may be "a good frame" for the next election cycle, but a "good frame" only to grace the despicable image of more corporate neoliberalism.