They have to do much more than talk about it. We need action. Look at the talk on the campaign trail of Obama and Slick Willie. We need someone like Mamdani who actually walks the walk. Someone like FDR was, not a Clinton or Harris who trot out onstage with the Cheney family.
Thank you. I have been boring my friends and relatives talking about FDR and the “malefactors of great wealth”.FDR was not a coward. He knew that the oligarchs hated him. He said he welcomed their hate. Contrast that with today’s Democrats ,who seem to be more interested in fighting yet another culture war than delivering economic justice.
This is delusional thinking. Since 1992 or before, the Democratic Party aligned itself with the ultra-wealthy and corporations. Clinton’s Third Way was Neo-liberalism for Dummies (er, I mean Democrats). Both he and Obama had a gold-plated entourage of plutocrats as their economic teams. Twice Sanders had a compelling message and growing support and twice the DNC killed his candidacy. Thinking the DNC is going to change course is ridiculous. The fact that Mamdami and AOC are promoting this is a thing reed to grab on to. Have you forgotten than the DNC refused to support Mamdami? Or that Schumer aggressively recruited candidates to run against progressive candidates?
Other than hope, what could possibly allow you to assert that this is a movement?
I think it's funny how whenever the other side wins an election, the lefties write serious pieces about a "democracy crisis."
I also believe that the Democrats are politically incapable of embracing the working class. Their coalition is college-educated single women, government workers, a handful of oligarchs, and the permanent underclass. Which part of that are they willing to give up?
Somewhere, the party brass is meeting and trying to calculate just how much of this FDR stuff they ought to promise voters for optimal results in the next election.
Also on the agenda: how to assure the big donors that none of this FDR stuff will actually be implemented.
I have been trying to make this point. In my most recent post where I analyze Democrats in terms of Stephen Skowronek's Political Time model, I argue that Democrats need to establish a Democratic dispensation, as FDR did and that this has to be formed using economics (social issues WILL NOT WORK--the one time this was tried it led to civil war).
Democrats CANNOT create a new dispensation based on increased welfare benefits (Medicare for all, free college, free childcare etc) layered on top of the existing neoliberal economy (e.g. what Mamdani and Sanders have offered).
Aside from universal health care, Americans don't want handouts. they want an economy what allows ordinary people to get most of what they need on the basis of their own efforts. The New Deals created such an economy after WW II and as long as it lasted, Democrats rode high.
Leftists do understand this need for fundamental economic reform, but their Marxian orientation are doomed to failure because marxism is flatly wrong and doesn't work. They should replace this theoretical basis with economic cultural evolution, the theoretically structure that explains how the New Dealers (unwittingly) were able to create the postwar economy that worked so well for working people.
Trump won a majority of people making >$100K in 2016. Not sure how this economic insecurity argument keeps coming back. The fact is Trump’s most ardent and fascistic supporters aren’t poor or struggling financially. They’re run-of-the-mill white Christians who feel aggrieved because Fox News, rush limbaugh, and right wing internet brainwashed them into thinking their position of hegemonic dominance in the country and culture is receding.
Well I think the analogy is a little stretched. The 1930s with its breadlines and 25% unemployment and the dust bowl is a far cry from the economy under Biden.
And the Left—including AOC has been obsessed with elitist ideology from activist groups on immigration, on trans rights and identitarian causes that divide and undermine the multi racial working class.
I agree with the premise, but AOC is definitely the wrong messenger. She has no credibility with real working people.
Let’s get back to people who never left the trad left.
While I agree about FDR and economic populism, I am unimpressed with AOC. She is shallow and incompetent. She is far too willing to kowtow to the prevailing narrative, and she is a total disaster when talking about foreign policy.
AOC has all the right ideas. She is also a fighter and got to see how Corporatists like Pelosi and Schumer are no longer (if ever) interested in the little guy. AOC has seen, from the inside, what the party has done wrong. Her nationwide tours with Bernie have introduced her to the country, and she is the perfect age to restore faith in government to a nation of young voters who were naive enough to get sucked in by Trump. Fox is already going after her. It’s a good sign.
These are possibilities, David. I've seen for too long the Democrats doing nothing more than acting like controlled opposition. There are maybe 2 or three people in both houses of Congress that speak this way. That's not enough.
If Democrats want to win, they have to win for the rest of us, not just for their friends and family. Not just for the donor class. If they want our votes, they must earn them by unrigging the economy. By changing the structure of the markets to ensure the rest of us have food to eat.
They have to do much more than talk about it. We need action. Look at the talk on the campaign trail of Obama and Slick Willie. We need someone like Mamdani who actually walks the walk. Someone like FDR was, not a Clinton or Harris who trot out onstage with the Cheney family.
Thank you. I have been boring my friends and relatives talking about FDR and the “malefactors of great wealth”.FDR was not a coward. He knew that the oligarchs hated him. He said he welcomed their hate. Contrast that with today’s Democrats ,who seem to be more interested in fighting yet another culture war than delivering economic justice.
This is delusional thinking. Since 1992 or before, the Democratic Party aligned itself with the ultra-wealthy and corporations. Clinton’s Third Way was Neo-liberalism for Dummies (er, I mean Democrats). Both he and Obama had a gold-plated entourage of plutocrats as their economic teams. Twice Sanders had a compelling message and growing support and twice the DNC killed his candidacy. Thinking the DNC is going to change course is ridiculous. The fact that Mamdami and AOC are promoting this is a thing reed to grab on to. Have you forgotten than the DNC refused to support Mamdami? Or that Schumer aggressively recruited candidates to run against progressive candidates?
Other than hope, what could possibly allow you to assert that this is a movement?
I think it's funny how whenever the other side wins an election, the lefties write serious pieces about a "democracy crisis."
I also believe that the Democrats are politically incapable of embracing the working class. Their coalition is college-educated single women, government workers, a handful of oligarchs, and the permanent underclass. Which part of that are they willing to give up?
Somewhere, the party brass is meeting and trying to calculate just how much of this FDR stuff they ought to promise voters for optimal results in the next election.
Also on the agenda: how to assure the big donors that none of this FDR stuff will actually be implemented.
I have been trying to make this point. In my most recent post where I analyze Democrats in terms of Stephen Skowronek's Political Time model, I argue that Democrats need to establish a Democratic dispensation, as FDR did and that this has to be formed using economics (social issues WILL NOT WORK--the one time this was tried it led to civil war).
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/a-structural-take-on-democrats
Democrats CANNOT create a new dispensation based on increased welfare benefits (Medicare for all, free college, free childcare etc) layered on top of the existing neoliberal economy (e.g. what Mamdani and Sanders have offered).
Aside from universal health care, Americans don't want handouts. they want an economy what allows ordinary people to get most of what they need on the basis of their own efforts. The New Deals created such an economy after WW II and as long as it lasted, Democrats rode high.
Leftists do understand this need for fundamental economic reform, but their Marxian orientation are doomed to failure because marxism is flatly wrong and doesn't work. They should replace this theoretical basis with economic cultural evolution, the theoretically structure that explains how the New Dealers (unwittingly) were able to create the postwar economy that worked so well for working people.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/what-should-democrats-and-the-left
Trump won a majority of people making >$100K in 2016. Not sure how this economic insecurity argument keeps coming back. The fact is Trump’s most ardent and fascistic supporters aren’t poor or struggling financially. They’re run-of-the-mill white Christians who feel aggrieved because Fox News, rush limbaugh, and right wing internet brainwashed them into thinking their position of hegemonic dominance in the country and culture is receding.
Bernie's been beating this drum too for a long time, I think?
YES!! And the Dems stole the Presidency from him…twice! 😡
Unfortunately, the democrats strategy to execute this plan is to pretend to their hands are tied and give republicans whatever they want.
Well I think the analogy is a little stretched. The 1930s with its breadlines and 25% unemployment and the dust bowl is a far cry from the economy under Biden.
And the Left—including AOC has been obsessed with elitist ideology from activist groups on immigration, on trans rights and identitarian causes that divide and undermine the multi racial working class.
I agree with the premise, but AOC is definitely the wrong messenger. She has no credibility with real working people.
Let’s get back to people who never left the trad left.
While I agree about FDR and economic populism, I am unimpressed with AOC. She is shallow and incompetent. She is far too willing to kowtow to the prevailing narrative, and she is a total disaster when talking about foreign policy.
AOC has all the right ideas. She is also a fighter and got to see how Corporatists like Pelosi and Schumer are no longer (if ever) interested in the little guy. AOC has seen, from the inside, what the party has done wrong. Her nationwide tours with Bernie have introduced her to the country, and she is the perfect age to restore faith in government to a nation of young voters who were naive enough to get sucked in by Trump. Fox is already going after her. It’s a good sign.
Absolutely excellent piece thank you
‘Bout damn time the politicians listen to the pitchforks economic needs of commoners
So… can we afford to walk the reform tightrope?
We probably cannot afford *not* to attempt reform.
But we cannot pretend reform alone is sufficient.
Reform must be paired with:
• Institutional decentralization that increases agency
• Rebuilding civic infrastructure
• Reducing corporate-state concentration
• Restoring visible accountability
• Creating participatory structures beyond electoral cycles
Otherwise reform becomes maintenance. And maintenance does not reverse gravity.
These are possibilities, David. I've seen for too long the Democrats doing nothing more than acting like controlled opposition. There are maybe 2 or three people in both houses of Congress that speak this way. That's not enough.
If Democrats want to win, they have to win for the rest of us, not just for their friends and family. Not just for the donor class. If they want our votes, they must earn them by unrigging the economy. By changing the structure of the markets to ensure the rest of us have food to eat.