An Enlightened Moderate

Chris Hedges is possibly the gloomiest leftist to darken our political discourse I have yet encountered. I was working on some articles by David Dayen and Matt Stoller to show a better way to look at the Democratic Party establishment than a dismissive hand-waving conspiracy theory when this one from Hedges came to my attention. Subtitled "The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage" this jeremiad from gloomy Chris has every unhelpful far left conspiracy I have yet seen and to top it off, takes Bernie Sanders off the pedestal as barely acceptable in his mind. He starts out decently enough:

...there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the rest of us. The interests of the rich are not our interests. The truths of the rich are not our truths. The lives of the rich are not our lives.

Okay, I'm on board with this sentiment. It is definitely in keeping with this blog's mission of renewing our knowledge of past truths, this one being central to those memories.

 Neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the destruction of labor unions, slashing and even eliminating the taxes of the rich and corporations, free trade, globalization, the surveillance state, endless war and austerity—the ideologies or tools used by the oligarchs to further their own interests — are presented to the public as natural law, the mechanisms for social and economic progress, even as the oligarchs dynamite the foundations of a liberal democracy and exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens to extinguish human life.

Yup, those are really bad things. We should remember how hard our ancestors fought to rein in company towns, Pinkertons, blacklists, monopolies, and their modern equivalents that keep the majority down.

There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other.

Oh, that's where we're going. Okay, please continue, I would like to hear all about how the Democrats launched wars of aggression and tore babies from their mothers while having a beer party to celebrate taking healthcare away from millions of Americans.

Donald Trump may be a narcissist and a con artist, but he savages the oligarchic elite in his long-winded speeches to the delight of his crowds. He, like Bernie Sanders, speaks about the forbidden topic — class. But Trump, though an embarrassment to the oligarchs, does not, like Sanders, pose a genuine threat to them. Trump will, like all demagogues, incite violence against the vulnerable, widen the cultural and social divides and consolidate tyranny, but he will leave the rich alone. It is Sanders whom the oligarchs fear and hate.

Right. No substantial differences. A Democratic president will certainly keep Stephen Miller on to terrorize immigrants and will further dismantle the pandemic response team at the CDC. Consolidating tyranny and inciting violence, those are two qualities I totally ascribe to Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Now Hedges turns to that ultimate of intellectual laziness, quoting himself:

“Sanders’ democratic socialism is essentially that of a New Deal Democrat. His political views would be part of the mainstream in France or Germany, where democratic socialism is an accepted part of the political landscape and is routinely challenged as too accommodationist by communists and radical socialists. Sanders calls for an end to our foreign wars, a reduction of the military budget, for ‘Medicare for All,’ abolishing the death penalty, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and private prisons, a return of Glass-Steagall, raising taxes on the wealthy, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, canceling student debt, eliminating the Electoral College, banning fracking and breaking up agribusinesses. This does not qualify as a revolutionary agenda.”

Nope, no substantial differences there.

...Most importantly, [Sanders] believes, as I do not, that the political system, including the Democratic Party, can be reformed from within. He does not support sustained mass civil disobedience to bring the system down, the only hope we have of halting the climate emergency that threatens to doom the human race. On the political spectrum, he is, at best, an enlightened moderate.” [emphasis mine]

Belief. There's the word I've been waiting for. What else can it be called when you state in no uncertain terms that:

The Democratic Party elites will use any mechanism, no matter how nefarious and undemocratic, to prevent Sanders from obtaining the nomination.

Then cite as your evidence a NYTimes interview with less than one seventh of the superdelegates who stated they would not support Sanders on a theoretical second ballot at the convention if he did not have a majority of pledged delegates. I don't have a subscription to the NYTimes so I can't easily check if that is what the article truly says or not.

Now, just to provide some contrast I wanted to post something Ed Burmilla (the bountiful wisdom of Gin and Tacos and an actual political scientist if such a thing truly exists) wrote about the Democratic Party, and if you've watched any of his social media you know he's no fan of moderates or elites controlling it:

Inevitably, there are already conspiracy theories everywhere. Party coordination is not a devious or underhanded activity, and in fact it is a thing political parties are *supposed to do*. Pete & Klob dropping out together and everyone (including Beto, who I forgot existed) coming out to endorse Biden the day before Super Tuesday is not just a bunch of stuff that happened coincidentally.

I wrote weeks ago that, if the Not Sanders democrats wanted to stop him, they needed to coordinate around one candidate. The problem is I think they picked the worst one to coordinate around, not that Coordinate means Devious Conspiracy to Cheat.

Noel et al "The Party Decides" is a useful and accessible book on this subject. Parties are not obligated to be neutral observers of their own nomination processes. "Some power players apparently decided it's time to throw everything behind Biden and they talked some other candidates into withdrawing" is...not only is it not a conspiracy, it's just kind of what parties try to do.

It is unfortunate that the Democratic Party is just one party that encompasses all legitimate political factions in the United States instead of a coalition of parties representing the center-left to the left as in many parliamentary systems. So there are only so many leadership positions and a lot less jockeying for position as smaller parties would do to coalesce into a governing alliance. But we have to work with what we have, something that seems entirely lost on Hedges. It is the condescending attitude with threadbare evidence to back it up in broad generalizations like this that piss me off:

 The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the defense contractors. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry. The Democrats, along with the Republicans, authorized $738 billion for our bloated military in fiscal 2020. The Democrats, like the Republicans, do not oppose the endless wars in the Middle East. The Democrats, like the Republicans, took from us our civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from wholesale government surveillance, and due process. The Democrats, like the Republicans, legalized unlimited funding from the rich and corporations to transform our electoral process into a system of legalized bribery. The Democrats, like the Republicans, militarized our police and built a system of mass incarceration that has 25% of the world’s prisoners, although the United States has only 5% of the world’s population. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are the political face of the oligarchy.

The leaders of the Democratic Party—the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez—would rather implode the party and the democratic state than surrender their positions of privilege. The Democratic Party is not a bulwark against despotism. It is the guarantor of despotism. It is a full partner in the class project. Its lies, deceit, betrayal of working men and women and empowering of corporate pillage made a demagogue like Trump possible. Any threat to the class project, even the tepid one that would be offered by Sanders as the party’s nominee, will see the Democratic elites unite with the Republicans to keep Trump in power.

 Ugh. I can't even deal with this.

Go buy one will 'ya!

Driftglass and Bluegal actually sell bumper stickers and other merch that says "Both Sides Don't" and spend a considerable amount of time demonstrating this fact. The late Christopher Hitchens developed a theorem often referred to as "Hitchens' Razor" that states "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" so can we dispense with the grand conspiracy theory that "The Democrats, like the Republicans, are the political face of the oligarchy."

I know Hedges has written several books about this stuff, it can basically be boiled down to "both sides are bad". I tried reading American Fascists but it was so obtuse and arrogant while not making a well supported argument that I had to give up on it. Maybe you had a different impression of him.

You have to wonder what kind of candidate Gloomy Chris could support? What sort of thing would make him happy? Apparently only the kind of violent revolutions that went so well in places like Russia and France. No thanks.

I'll stick with the enlightened moderate. If that fails, I'll support whoever makes it to the nomination. Because both sides are not the same.