Comment by text0404
8 months ago
to clarify: the leftmost bloc eschews identity politics because they are first and foremost anti-capitalist and believe that identity politics are a wedge issue designed to distract from class struggle (which is to say, they still address issues like systemic racism/misogyny/bigotry/etc which perpetuate wide-scale societal inequality but care less about politics which center individual identity). because they are anti-capitalist, they also focus on wages and are heavily pro-worker and pro-union (pro-labor). in foreign policy, they advocate for liberation movements which they believe are part of a global class struggle.
the second bloc is liberals, which are more center-right as they frequently side with conservative policies and are pro-capitalist. in recent years, this has come to include DSA (AOC) and other progressives like Bernie Sanders, who believe that the current system of politics under capitalism can be reformed instead of abolished. these people are very much for identity politics because they believe idpol will bring the leftmost bloc into the fold (it won't). this bloc sometimes supports leftmost causes but will abandon them when it is politically expedient (AOC, Bernie).
the third bloc is just right-wing. Bush Jr-era neocons. the party has always catered to these folks but more recently has come to embrace them as it moves rightward. this bloc will continue to grow as we see more of a rightward shift as more Democrats embrace the far right because they believe it will lead to electoral gains (Gavin Newsom, Chuck Shumer, etc) - once again, it won't.
the first bloc absolutely is not part of the Democratic party, and in fact despise the Democrats. they largely do not participate in federal electoral politics.
> the leftmost bloc eschews identity politics because they are first and foremost anti-capitalist and believe that identity politics are a wedge issue designed to distract from class struggle
This is a very narrow slice of urban leftists. When it comes to electioneering, the messaging is almost always about identity politics and anti-corporatism more than class-struggle politics.
> they largely do not participate in federal electoral politics
Then it isn’t a bloc. Non-voter non-donors are politically irrelevant.
yeah fair, the leftmost folks are not really involved in party-level messaging at all.
i disagree that they're a narrow slice and aren't a bloc, though. in federal politics sure but in local politics they're more active and there's much more alignment with Democratic politicians (and more pragmatism).
Anti-corporatocracy, not anti-corporatism. A fair chunk of the left, if not the majority, is very much in favor of Corporatism (Tripartism and/or social corporatism like the Nordic model).
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You can legitimately shade a multidimensional object to a single dimension without being untrue nor even biased. The point is such a cross-cultural comparison is mostly useless. Identify themes and interests versus unobservable beliefs.
american liberals are for neoliberal markets which alone puts them to the right of their global counterparts. besides hollow support for socialized healthcare, they've put forward no meaningful reforms which would lead to it (besides the ACA which is dismantled more and more every year), they take large donations from corporate donors and are largely aligned with capital (see weakening of Dodd-Frank, Gramm-Leach-Bliley), they frequently support military interventions and large amounts of defense spending (see Iraq war, interventions in Yemen, Libya, Syria), give lipservice to pro-immigration but in action are largely anti-immigrant (see deportations under Obama and Biden), and compromise on core issues like abortion and LGBT rights. that's just a few examples.
do you have anything of substance to share, or is this what passes for intellectual discourse on HN these days?