Is the American Left Adrift?

I'll have think about it. It's not something I have sorted out.

The point about us living in an incresingly fragmented world is of course true.

(FWIW, I am not quite willing to call myself a leftist. I'm more of a left-leaning liberal than a true leftist. But a lot of what the left says makes more sense to me that what I see from any other area of the political spectrum. Not that I am asking to be let off the hook on this issue because of that, but I'm just saying, for the purposes of this thread, I don't think I speak as an American leftist.)

This is true, historically. But seen in retrospect, they both fit in with that broad American liberal tradition I was talking about up above. Which I think is also part of the answer to this identity politics vs. ideological politics problem -- even if the specific interests of, say, reproductive rights activists, queer activists, labor organizers, environmental activists, etc. don't overlap or are even sometimes seemingly at odds, they are all still part of the general movement of democratic liberalism over the past few centuries. But somehow democratic liberalism ends up as everyone's bogeyman -- it didn't do enough, it hasn't done enough, George Washington owned slaves. I think the democratic liberal tradition -- not just political but also intellectual and artistic -- needs some serious defending right now, and it's not getting it. In the United States, at least, a profound ignorance about our own history is allowing conservatives and Christian fundamentalists to more or less rewrite the Constitution after the fact, even without amendments (since who actually reads the Constitution anyway?).

I'm not saying that whatever New Left or Neo-neo-liberalism emerges has to be some kind of back-to-Rousseau movement, but the Renaissance and Enlightenment -- for all their flaws, compromises and betrayed revolutions -- laid some important foundations that are going to start cracking if they're not tended to. I think the left made a mistake in throwing out the Dead White Males. They need to be reclaimed, alongside Ghandi and King and all the other dead men and women of all colors who collectively liberated more people over the past 300 years than any army ever. Or so it seems to me.

so the question is do you want to play that game? it gets very dirty very fast. strangely enough i know of a couple who's marriage is in trouble because of one them working for moveon and is getting scarier and scarier the more entrenched in politics she gets. i like to think of tracer's scenario of people just out there doing it on a personal/community level - no matter who's in power (though of course their work gets easier or harder depending on who is). maybe i'm just more focused on being a good person and doing what you can well instead of doing ugly things that might be for the 'greater good'.

you just can't call defeat because your man doesn't make office. there are a million other things that make up your day.

This is one of the central conundrums of effective left/liberal politics in America right now. If the underlying principles of left/liberalism include humanism and broad distribution of power, then betraying those principles in order to get into office to support those principles is a morally dubious proposition. I've got this recurring metaphor of a football game, where one team wants to win but within the framework of the game -- with rules, referees, etc. -- and the other team comes out with machine guns and shoots everyone on the field and pays off the refs. If part of the argument we're having is about whether we need the rules and referees, then you can only make the case for it by playing by those rules. But how do you do that when you're playing Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, who think rules are for pussies and chumps?

I don't know. I don't think the Democrats have figured it out yet either.

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/07/on-the-politics-of-identity.html

http://jezebel.com/resilience-is-futile-how-well-meaning-nonprofits-perpe-1716461384?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

https://facingrealitycollective.wordpress.com/towards-a-revolutionary-left/

On November 30, 1999, activists shut down the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. The protests were a thrilling moment during bleak times for the socialist left. Now, years of resistance are finally paying off. https://t.co/38i77jMzf4 @DougHenwood

— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) November 30, 2019

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-rage