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Sanders Slams 'Big Money Interests' and Consultants That Control Democratic Party After Loss to Trump
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Or he's a pragmatist who is concerned with both harm reduction and the likely reality that the only takeaway that Democrats will ever have from losing an election to someone right wing is that Democrats need to go even further to the right to win.
If leftists give the impression that nothing will ever be good enough for them then
I personally believe that if the Democrats had taken on a progressive populist anti-genocide platform they would have won the election handsomely, but I am left with no way to empirically prove that to anyone because so many leftists opt out of voting entirely.
It's not pragmatic to lose, for what it's worth. We know that reform is impossible, and Bernie likely knows too. You're correct that had the Democrats run on a progressive anti-genocide Social Democratic platform, they would have won, but that's not what their donors want and need.
Marxism is vindicated by the passage of time.
The "reform is impossible" is a self-fulfilling prophesy because it leads leftists to never try to get involved in the party, which means they'll never get a seat at the table, which means they'll never be able to steer the party.
I certainly can't prove that the influence of big money can ever be overcome within the party by grassroots organization, but you also can't prove that it's impossible (you can only prove that it's difficult, which is something I certainly won't dispute).
You certainly can't prove that a true socialist movement will ever gain traction in America. It seems like the general public is so brainwashed they would rather be indentured servants of large corporations than lift a single finger to seize the means of production.
So we're left with two unprovable paths to consider, and here's the thing: the two paths are not mutually exclusive. Leftists can try both at the same time with neither being disruptive to the other. So this is the pragmatism: consider all possibilities and put the eggs into more than one basket.
Leftists cannot practice Entryism in the Democratic Party, due to its structure. The DNC is a machine used to filter out radicals and protect pro-establishment politicians that secure the funding from donors the DNC needs to exist. It is not a Leftist Party, and cannot be a Leftist Party.
Secondly, the concept of "brainwashing" is flawed. The ideas people find acceptable are determined by their social consciousness, as Capitalism deteriorates and Imperialism begins to crack, workers are increasingly turned towards organization and revolutionary Socialism.
I highly recommend reading Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, she put to pen why reform is a sisyphean task. Reading theory really needs to be taken more seriously.
It is not harm reduction to support genocidal neoliberals. It is not pragmatic to contradict all of your stated ideals to go to bat for them, give them your donor lists for a song and fail to do any movement building whatsoever.
Stop defending these losers.
I think a lot of people are irrationally scared of "socialism" and "handouts". If a party was like "we're going to take some of the ultra wealthy's stuff and use it to build free housing, health care, transit, and public spaces" they'd be like "no that's communism I'd rather live in a box eating lead paint than get a government handout"