Who are the least successful Left in the world? I don't know, but the US Left must come pretty close. Of course, there are big structural handicaps in the US at Federal level, with gerrymandering being endemic and all the small Conservative states in the Senate, but you'd expect, I dunno, a few progressives winning city elections, and building impressive public transport. Seems like it ought to be possible to do that, even with establishment money going against you, because turnout is generally wretched. If Ellie Chowns can get North Herefordshire to vote Green, can't a bunch of progressives get a city to vote for them?
Nevertheless, the sort of people who brought you "defund the police", the worst political slogan of all time which was still losing elections 4 years on, keep popping up telling everyone how to do it. And how to do it, incredibly, involves doing it like them, which the Democrats have never thought of.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... feat-trump
Progressive economic reforms – from raising the federal minimum wage and implementing a federal jobs guarantee to expanding social security, taxing the rich, and investing in public goods such as education and infrastructure – are supported not only by Democratic-leaning voters but also by substantial segments of Donald Trump’s base
Infrastructure. Shame nobody suggested that to Joe Biden. Do those Trump voters really care about taxing the rich? They happily vote in people who are very open about doing the absolute opposite. Unlike with Farage here, who's never really had a campaign where his tax positions are to the fore, Trump's positions have been extremely clear. Education is mostly a state thing. Again, politicians who are very clear about doing the opposite to investing regularly romp home.
Expanding social security (what we call pensions) is seriously expensive. Pretty quickly you run against the same problem as here- are the rich really funding all that? Pretty soon, you have to level with the voters, and that's an angle for Republicans. Democrats putting your taxes up.
There follow some cherrypicked examples of people doing it their way and winning. Well, sort of. Exhibit A, Zohran Mamdani hasn't won over any Trump voters yet, because he's only won a Democratic primary in... NYC. Get back to me when someone like him wins a Senate seat in North Carolina. Talking of which, the neither young nor particularly progressively-styled Roy Cooper looks a good bet to do that. I wish both of them luck, but maybe different places are different,
Then there's a second example.
In Nebraska, independent union leader Dan Osborn – a mechanic and labor activist – ran on a tight platform of workers’ rights and corporate accountability and over-performed Kamala Harris by 14 points in a deep-red state.
And indeed he did. But they're also not telling us something. He ran as a social conservative. He supports Trump's wall, and opposes gun control. Again, I wish him luck but different places are different. And what's a "tight platform" anyway? You think Osborn-Trump voters thought Kamala Harris was too rightwing on economics, or they didn't want her coming after their guns and being too nice to illegal immigrants? Surely the latter was also a factor. Again, good luck to Dan Osborn (he's running for the other senate seat in 2026) but let's be honest about what "populism" is and isn't in rural Nebraska and other places.
And some others.
In Pennsylvania’s 17th district, Chris Deluzio, a representative and navy veteran, champions “economic patriotism”, calling out economic elites and damaging trade agreements while pushing to rebuild domestic industry and strengthen labor rights
Rebuilding domestic industry- shit, Joe Biden should have thought of that. The Republicans just lied that they'd been the ones to bring that investment. Navy veteran? Well, it's not like the Democrats haven't run those before.
I find the "America fucked up by trade agreements" narrative no more convincing from Bernie Sanders than Trump. And it seems to go with a bizarre sense that Americans are all living in shacks in Appalachia. Of course, inequality is terrible but that doesn't mean everyone's doing badly. Living standards improved slightly over Biden's term, which had the far from normal Covid hit, and the US is on a long boom overall. The US is doing well, but can't be arsed to solve the problems it has. But as I always say, good luck to this guy he might be a good fit in his district.
In fact, good luck to all these guys, I'd vote for them. I'd also vote for Roy Cooper and the many counter examples of people who won by styling themselves as bipartisan. I just don't think these articles tell us that much.
- By Rosvanian
- By Boiler