The Democratic Socialists of America pulled its endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York this week, accusing the progressive congresswoman of being insufficiently supportive of the Palestinian cause and efforts to end the war in Gaza…
Her approach has increasingly strained her relationship with some of the left’s most strident critics of Israel. When she rallied last month in the Bronx with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Jamaal Bowman, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators angry over her endorsement of Mr. Biden chanted “You’re a fraud, A.O.C.”
That’s not exactly what I said, I said pragmatism is a methodology that can be used to achieve a goal. There’s no reason why you couldn’t take a pragmatic approach to achieving an idealistic goal. It’s simply a matter of finding strategies that get you nearer to your goal and disregarding strategies that get you further from your goal. Several years ago, DSA was able to have a lot of success by putting forward an idealistic vision. Yes, I agree with that. However, since then the success of that strategy has waned significantly. Perhaps selling a kind of idealistic vision for America is still an effective strategy on the far right, but I think its effectiveness has declined dramatically among centrists and moderates, as well as progressives. Maybe it’s still an effective strategy in AOC’s district specifically (although, it seems she has become less idealistic and yet remains popular in her district, as far as I know), but that doesn’t mean idealism is an effective strategy in America, generally.
I just don’t agree with this. The DNC has been waging a war against idealism and against progressives since it began in earnest in 2015. Idealism is the only thing that can save the Democrats right now, but core DNC, pro-business, neo-liberal Democrats don’t get their power from it, so they opposed it with more energy than they’ve ever been able to muster against the actual “right” in this country. This is them having “flipped” AOC from that which got her into power to that which gets them into power.
Bernie was polling at +15 to Trump in 2016. That was the power of idealism. Take this clip of Adam Smith from his recent CNN interview (timestamp 3:00). Adam Smith, one of the most corporate of the corporate Democrats making the point that they basically had to rat-fuck the primary to stop Bernie Sanders from winning. This is the quiet part outloud. Idealism works on the left. It takes the entire institution of the DNC working against an idealistic candidate to stop them.
Idealsim works and I see little to no evidence that middle path, pragmatic approaches to electoral-ism are effective on the left or the right ( for the period starting very early at 2008, getting its footing strongly in 2016, at least before 2024). Pragmatism is a weak political strategy in this political climate and I see no evidence to the contrary.
What you see from AOC is her capitulating to the party structure and internal party politics. This started in 2021 when she capitulated on internal party reform with Pelosi post DJT. AOC’s power has shifted from being primarily based in grass-roots organizing to being primarily based on the structure of the party. Any one who’s power extends from party structure is always going to tilt towards strategies that keep that structure in place. If you have data showing that moderation is winning elections (left or right), happy to discuss.
Well, there’s the fact that Clinton won the primaries in 2016, and that Biden won the primaries (over Bernie), and the general, in 2020. If Congress or state legislatures have become more progressive, I’m not aware of it.
Did you even click the link?
Adam Smith. On record basically stating that party insiders rigged the nomination against Bernie because he was clearly running away with it in 2020. 2016, we have a literal supreme court decision telling us that the DNC rigged the 2016 primary against Bernie, and that its ok for parties to rig their nominations. He was polling at +15 against DJT and the DNC chose “middle path” pragmatism to their loss. You put idealistic candidates out there and you win elections.
The burden of evidence is on you at this point.
Yeah, they did lose, but then they did essentially the exact same thing in 2020 and won, so I remain unconvinced. I’ll concede that idealistic candidates can win some elections, but I don’t think it’s nearly as many as you’re claiming.