How the Left Should Think About Elections
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Whether Democratic Socialists of America’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate is important enough to merit a New York Times op-ed is an open question. I’d probably say not. In fact, one can make an argument that DSA doesn’t need per se to do so, as socialists can have other projects to work on. But given how DSA went all with Bernie instead of working to build up those other projects, it rings pretty hollow to then sulk away. With Jacobin’s leader saying there’s no meaningful difference between Trump and Biden, the message is all the more important. I’m not sure that LGM is exactly the audience that needs to hear this, given there’s more than a little excess dunking on the left that sometimes happens here. But this is where I write and so be it.
However one might fall on the question of DSA and its choices, Mitchell Abidor is absolutely right that sitting this out, as Jacobin (and its newly hired writer David Sirota!, lol) are doing, is in fact a sign of massive privilege that reflects racial and class realities in that these people are not the ones who are going to be most affected by a second trump of the fascist Trump.
And “righteousness” is not too strong a word. Maintaining doctrinal purity is a big reason many leftists are refusing to endorse Mr. Biden. Another Jacobin article argued that having the Democratic Socialists of America support “a lesser evil candidate” would have “major ramifications” for … the Democratic Socialists of America.
Are those the ramifications that American socialists should be worrying about? Jacobin and its readers and members of the Democratic Socialists of America are largely white, largely college educated, largely American citizens. If Mr. Trump is re-elected, they could spend the next four years suffering little more than the pangs of political outrage. But millions of less fortunate people would suffer real consequences.
Taking a principled stand is courageous only when those taking it put themselves at risk. Placing others at risk requires no courage at all. As Mr. Howe wrote in a 1965 article on the New Left that applies to many on the left today, there is “an inclination to make of their radicalism not a politics of common action, which would require the inclusion of saints, sinners, and ordinary folk, but, rather, a gesture of moral rectitude.”
The Democratic Socialists of America and Jacobin claim to be laying a path to socialism, but it is worth bearing in mind George Orwell’s definition of socialism as “justice and common decency.” In pursuing its vision of the former, the new New Left has forsaken the latter.
Sadly, for some this is true.
The point of general elections is not purity. The point is to either consolidate your wins or limit your losses. Every single election is a lesser evil choice because people are corrupted by power and evil resides in all of us. The pure candidate will never arrive, as much as some of these people wanted to read it into Bernie Sanders. Act how you want to in a primary, even though it can be counterproductive, such as attempting to drive Elizabeth Warren out of the race based on the absurd belief that if she was gone, Bernie would get all her voters and then win the nomination with 30 percent of the vote. But when it comes to a general election, the only morally acceptable position is to vote for the lesser evil. Acting otherwise makes you directly culpable for the greater evils that will result from your choice.
And as far as “earning” their vote or whatever, grow up and use your power in an effective manner, rather than taking your toys and running home. The platform is already going to be the farthest left platform in decades and congressional Democrats are already pushing for legislation that would effectively replace everyone’s income for the duration of this hell. You’d think the left would learn something from the extremist right’s conquest of the Republican Party. But too often, that’s not the case.