We just passed the 34th anniversary of one of the greatest days in the post-World War II world- the death of the Soviet Union. A bunch of hyper-ambitious morons decided to create a government on a theory and a myth, and ended up creating a failed shit hole of a state, an authoritarian, corrupt, awful nightmare of a state. As with most Socialist nations in our world, it turned into a cult of personality towards it’s leaders, complete with rampant corruption and “black markets,” poverty, and all kinds of human rights violations. The world is better off for not having the Soviet Union around today, whatever you think of the governments in the republics that replaced it.
Sure, there are Russians and others from the old empire that miss the power they had at that time. Even so, they’re not desperate to return to the system of government they had. Meanwhile, socialism has failed pretty much everywhere else- North Korea is a hellhole, China basically abandoned the system, Cuba is on the verge of collapse, Venezuela has literal pirates off their coast, Yugoslavia collapsed into a state of war and ethnic cleansing, the rest of Eastern Europe threw out their dictators, East Germany had to build a wall to keep people from leaving, and Bolivia’s economy is now in ruins. Socialism just doesn’t work anywhere. Even countries that didn’t end up in violent chaos ended up turning away from the failed system.
So why do progressives in the Western World, who are actually just old European Social Democrats (a very generous government “safety net.”) want to brand themselves as far leftist nuts? To be clear, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Graham Platner, Bob Brooks, and others are not calling for the government to “seize the means of production.” They don’t want a “First National Energy Company,” and even their “Medicare for All” is just covering everyone under Medicare- which is generally administered by private companies. Why are they associating the policies of a full social safety net with a failed economic and political system that allowed Joseph Stalin to kill millions and millions of his own people? How is this good politics?
Americans are generally smart enough to know that these people are idiots, which is why they don’t win elections outside of comfortably Democratic jurisdictions where primaries decide the winners. It’s one thing to want a generous Social Security program or a higher minimum wage, it’s another altogether to brand yourself a part of a murderous, failed political system. Somehow, a lot of Democrats want to turn to these people to turn their 2024 fate around. It’s a foolish strategy.
I’ve been around long enough to remember the Bush Republican Party. It was an awful institution, an institution that ruined our standing in the world with their post-9/11 foreign policy, created permanent deficits with their tax cuts, wars, and unfunded mandates, wrecked public education, put the architects of repealing Roe v. Wade on the bench, ran a Presidential campaign in 2004 based on gay baiting and homophobia, weakened environmental laws, and deregulated housing and Wall Street to the point of an economic collapse in 2008. In short, the reason I am a Democrat today is that the Bush Republican Party was an incredibly damaging group of people and was full of completely repugnant people, from Dennis Hastert to Dick Cheney. We should not opine the moral superiority of “those good ole’ days.” There was nothing good about them.
What followed the Bush Republican Party was not an improvement. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the rise of people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul was not some return of moral leadership to the Party of Lincoln. Those folks gave rise to Trumpism, and Trump has been the revolution. Our government is largely no longer functional, and that’s what many folks who supported him want. “Norms” are no longer normal, there is no discussion of common ground. The current pathway is simply a regression to the desired conservative mean, a natural outcome of the algorithm billionaires and conservative culture warriors wanted. The destruction of this moment cannot be understated.
The problem of course is that as dumb as Trump truly is, there was a decent argument that a 20th century government and political culture was no longer working for America. The large, bulky government we had put together after World War II, and it’s technocratic wonkiness, had become a hinderance to the desires of the public. Our society was not, and by the way is still not, meeting our needs.
I won’t draw a comparison between the party of Obama/Clinton/Biden and the Bush GOP, because let’s be honest, they gave us things like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and an infrastructure bill. If you want to argue they didn’t go far enough, fine, but they were good things. However, the Democratic Party had become the defenders of systems and institutions that were not, and are not, popular. We were arguing the economy was fine because of market growth and job numbers, while housing and costs in general were rising. We were arguing that Israel was right to attack Hamas, because they were, but were giving ourselves no room to criticize Netanyahu’s incompetence and total disinterest in getting to a sustainable outcome, even as he criticized and attacked us. We were right to bail out Wall Street, the auto industry, and the health care industry after 2008, but also not only didn’t make them pay for their bad choices, we sort of got stuck defending why America “needed” them. Basically, we got stuck keeping our systems working, because it was the best thing for society, and then also got stuck defending the institutions on which we had always been the only check. We started to look like the kids serving as hall monitors in high school, the wet blankets.
The correct response to this is not to start yielding to anti-semitism and white men with Nazi tattoos, that much I know. Globalizing the Intifada is still a very, very bad idea, even if you think Netanyahu is an abject criminal. Sure, Democrats should never have conceded to the data nerds and embraced a “base only” approach to politics, but the answer to that is not to embrace the very worst human beings one can find. The 2010 Republican Party conceded power to the Tea Party, and within a few years they were embracing Pizza Gate, Charlottesville, chem trail theorists, and “white replacement theory.” So much for Milton Friedman economics and “real politic” foreign policy. They were overrun with an unmanageable caucus in both houses of Congress and a Presidential candidate who was completely self motivated and transactional. What could go wrong? Well, everything. And now it’s the Democrats turn. We are on the verge of accepting anti-semitism, grifters, and crackpot conspiracy theorists. They are defending political violence against Jews. And before you say, it’s just one of them, no it’s the whole Alt-Left movement. As DSA calls murder okay, they organize for Mamdani. That would be Zohran Mamdani, who last year was a part of the uncommitted movement over, yes, Gaza. Up on stage at their DSA rally he had AOC, a proponent of the “defund the police” movement. Seriously. She didn’t just want changes to policing, she wanted it defunded. She meant it too. And then there was Bernie up there with them. Bernie, who ran and lost for President twice, the second time much worse, who never misses a chance to attack Democrats. Not on stage with them was Bernie’s heart throb in Maine, Graham Platner, a loud progressive who also thinks the Democratic Party sucks, and also has Nazi tattoos. Of course, the Alt-Left loves him and thinks they “might have found our Trump.” They also didn’t bring their old buddy John Fetterman around, because he’s sort of problematic right now, but he was Mamdani and Platner before they were.
There are Democratic leaders, from Martin Heinrich to Chris Murphy, maybe to even Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul, ready to concede to these folks. They are ready to concede the Democratic Party to self avowed socialists, conspiracy theories, and nuts. It’s about to happen here in the Lehigh Valley too. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks in the 7th Congressional district primary. Just like he did for Fetterman. That would be Crooksy who stiffed his mother-in-law, but lives in a state of denial that people won’t care about stealing $55k, defending political violence, sharing racist memes, and being a religious radical. Of course Bernie is for this, he was for Fetterman too. And like Bernie and Fetterman, Crooksy lectures the Democrats about “not supporting the working class,” which for Crooksy just means they let the Black lady talk to Black people, which he definitely hates. Sadly, it sounds like Governor Shapiro is going to join the PA Dems in conceding the Democratic Party to the most vile, terrible elements of the left for political expediency. This is no profile in courage moment. Our leaders are letting us down. They are allowing anti-semites, conspiracy theorists, and socialists to be our future. This is our Tea Party Moment. We are failing it.
Apocalypse Vibes 