There is this now somewhat buried but nevertheless enduring and corrosive factional conflict amongst Dems going back to the 2016 primaries (at least). It is between Bernie Sanders leftists/democratic socialists and Hilary Clinton's moderate/centrist corporate elites. In its most caricature form, back when I was on Facebook/Twitter, Bernie Bros vs HRC's "Me Too" Pussyhats. Now it's Bernie/Warren/AOC, "stop the genocide in Gaza," progressive Dems vs corporate DNC septuagenarian plus pro-crypto Dems. My sympathies have always been more with the good gov "dirtbag left" (read: poor or in sympathy with the multicultural working poor) Berniecrats but I voted for HRC in '16 without hesitation.
And some of this partisan circular firing squad stuff is probably inescapable after a electoral loss but nevertheless it drives me nuts how much of a self-defeating distraction it becomes when the contest that unites us is violent bigot fascism and monstrously corrupt corporate oligarchy. So I tend to avoid these squabbles like the plague. But looking up something about Thomas Piketty (my favorite academic economist) I found this story from 2018. Some reporting from Salon's Keith A. Spencer's about Piketty's take on this enduring factional Dem debate. In brief:
"Left" parties — e.g. the Democrats in the United States, Labour in the U.K. or the Socialist Party in France — have lost the constituencies they once supported [working class people] and now appeal to the [educated and wealthy] elites, leaving a vast underclass politically unrepresented and rudderless," and, I might add, easy prey to reactionary bigots hating on whatever cultural scapegoats they are hating on this year, and violent crackdown style law and order made-for-TV bullshit.
But do I really think Bernie could have beat Trump in 2016? I doubt it. But do I think the Dem leadership's on and off hostility towards the progressive left wing of the party was/is, basically, proxy for the DNC's resistance to taking clear progressive positions on working class priorities like living wages, health care for all, and other basic cost of living measures because their big corporate billionaire donors don't want them to? Absolutely.
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