A wild ride into an alternate reality

A fascinating piece for what it reveals.  "Blue No Matter Who" Gets You Sinema by Freddie deBoer.  I have enjoyed deBoer's writings for 2-4 years now.  I don't recall exactly when I first came across him, perhaps even longer ago than that.  He is a self-identified Marxist who has used a capitalist system, specifically Substack, to carve out a financial security which had previously been pretty precarious.  His primary interest is in education but he covers the waterfront.  

He is both refreshingly insightful and quirky but also maddeningly self-contradictory and impervious to some views that are pretty mainstream.  He has had bouts of bi-polar episodes in his writing career which also makes it somewhat challenging to read him - Am I reading a considered piece by him or one which is too strongly affected by his illness?

His argument in this piece is pretty strong.  Hard leftists such as himself are not well served by a voting strategy of Blue No Matter Who.  He argues that from a hard left perspective, the Democratic party is simply too big an ideological tent.  While the DNC gets the voting support of hard leftists, it does not deliver policy outcomes that the hard left seeks.

True enough but I am not sure I would agree that the Democratic Party has been unresponsive to the hard left.  While Obamacare ended up being a costly failure (ideologically, politically and financially) it certainly was a major commitment of the Democratic Party to a central tenant of the hard left; socialized medicine.

Which highlights a nuance.  It seems as if deBoer is complaining that the Democratic Party has been unresponsive to the hard left when in fact I suspect the chief criticism is that the Democratic Party has been unsuccessful at delivering on hard left policies.  Perhaps the blame is with the Democratic Party.  Perhaps it is simply a reality that most hard left policies are not well regarded among the American electorate.

But what I found most fascinating in this piece is the cascade of highly contestable assertions from a smart man which form the basis of his conclusions.  You sort of know that those assumptions are there, but they are out in the open in this piece.  You are left thinking, "How could you think that?"

I think Kyrsten Sinema was sent to earth to illustrate the limits of identity politics. It turns out that quirky bisexuals who serve lewks can also be regressive prima donnas who stand in the way of progress, seemingly for no reason other than pique and ego. Pieces like this, and there have been many, have not aged well.

I have a critique of Democrats that is not uncommon to the radical left. The Democrats are a neoliberal capitalist party that is dedicated to imperialism, militarism, and the ceaseless expansion of market relationships in all things. They are also better on almost all issues than the Republicans, ranging from far better (such as on abortion), to somewhat better (immigration), to barely better (foreign policy). The issue is that “better than the Republicans” is a bar about as low as “better than slowly lowering your genitals into a blender.” The other issue is that the Democrats pursue their agenda with far less zeal, and frequently with worse political strategy, than the Republicans. 

[snip]

There’s an existential bloodlessness to the Democrats, an addiction to procedure and appearing “reasonable” that is very poorly suited for getting into the street fights that Republicans relish. Though it’s typical to call this a “center-right country,” the Democrats enjoy some serious structural advantages, the most obvious of which is that Democratic economic positions are consistently more popular than those of Republicans, and people vote according to their pocketbooks. (I concede, however, that the Senate and the Electoral College are powerful impediments.) But Democrats never seem to pursue their objectives with the same fanatical intent as the GOP. Some will say that it’s that fanatical intent that has made the Republican party a death cult, but one way or the other, there is little percentage in being the more restrained party when restraint is making you lose. I think this is exemplified in the presidency of Barack Obama, who appeared to be doggedly attached to appearing to be more reasonable than Congressional Republicans, never seeming to grasp that there was simply no advantage to having that laurel.

For those of you, like me, less cutting edge and less hip to the slang, a lewk is someone who presents themselves in a manner to draw attention to themselves.  I was unaware Kyrsten Sinema was bisexual, quirky or otherwise, and am not sure I see its relevance other than as a token to the Democratic inclination to obsess over identity.  Or as some sort of oblique intra-ideology dig.

Those paragraphs are just so chock-a-block full of assertions that it is hard to keep track.  So I'll list them out to see if individual assessments change the overall sense of delusion.

The Democrats are a neoliberal capitalist party - Reasonably true.

The Democrats are dedicated to imperialism - Pretty untrue.  Not imperialism per se but international engagement in general and a willingness to deploy military forces expansively.  More than Republicans?  The argument could be made but it is debatable.  Neither, it seems to me hunger for imperialism but both are prone to careless and ineffective use of military adventures.  

The Democrats are dedicated to militarism - Debatable.  Not dealing with nationalists or Prussians here.  Do they use the military inappropriately and carelessly?  Sure.  That scarcely makes them militarists.  Addicted to military spending in their districts.  Sure.  But that doesn't rise to the level of militarist.  

The Democrats are dedicated to the ceaseless expansion of market relationships in all things - Untrue.  Hard to imagine what the evidence is that might support this statement.  Keen enthusiasts for the regulatory state?  Sure.  Enthusiastic about public-private ventures?  Certainly.  But those are definitions of fascism, the usual end-state of Socialism/Marxism.  Keynesians perhaps but certainly not Friedmanites.  

The Democrats pursue their agenda with far less zeal than Republicans - Untrue.  This is the one which really pulled me up short.  There is no Republican analog to Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, Ferguson Riots, Floyd Riots, Court Packing threats, Intent to nuke the filibuster, Intent to "fundamentally remake America", racial identititarianism, etc.  Interestingly, one of the most common self-critiques among Republicans is that they do not exhibit the same energetic zeal and willingness to go to the mat as seen among Democrats.

 The Democrats pursue their agenda with worse political strategy than the Republicans - Debatable.  Any single Democratic policy goal, when polled independently, almost never approaches majority support.  Abortion, climate change policy, energy policy, Obamacare, identitarianism, universal basic income, catch and release, defund the police, sociailism, Marxism, Diversity/Equity/Inclusion, forgivable college loans, etc.  Democrats have advanced all these policies far above their latent popularity among citizens.  They seem to have been pretty effective at playing a losing hand in a winning fashion.  

 

The Democrats suffer an existential bloodlessness - Untrue.  If measured by street protests and abandonment of civic and legislative norms.

 

The Democrats suffer an addiction to procedure - Hard to assess what this even means.

 

The Democrats are addicted to appearing “reasonable” - Untrue.  I watched an interview of Nancy Pelosi last night in which she claimed that an addition of $3.5 trillion to the national debt did not cost anything because it would be paid for through increased taxes.  Hardly an addiction to reasonableness or clarity of language and concepts.  Their commitment to racializing people and segregation at universities, is clearly not readonable.  The list goes on.

 

The Democrats are very poorly suited for getting into the street fights that Republicans relish. Untrue.  Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, the old Acorn - all street fighters.  We have all seen dozens and hundreds of Democrats in street riots, led by Antifa.  Hundreds of buildings burned.  Where is the analog on the Republican side?  The mainstream media keep trying to invoke the idea of legions of neo-Nazis, KKK, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Boys, etc.  However whenever they are announced as having a protest or march, you at most see a few dozen sad figures, and little or no violence (see the recent January 6th march in DC where there were a couple of dozen fringe individuals surrounded by a couple of hundred journalists and a couple of thousand Homeland Security and FBI undercover agents.  It is pretty embarrassing when the only arrest in a heralded protest is an undercover agent of the government. 

 

The Democrats never seem to pursue their objectives with the same fanatical intent as the GOP Untrue.  See above.  The only way I can see this argument being constructed is around constancy.  Democrats do tend to flit from issue to issue over time, fanatical in the moment.  Republicans just keep being persistent (though not always consistent) about their range of issues - free market, civil rights, freedom of speech, property, equality before the law, rule of law, etc.  But I don't think that persistence can be equated with fanaticism.  

 

The Democrats are doggedly attached to appearing to be more reasonable than Congressional Republicans - Untrue.  See above.  The constant claim to be remaking America seems inconsistent with wanting to appear to be reasonable.  

deBoer's arguments do follow somewhat logically from what he believes to be true.  It is just not clear to me that what he appears to believes is actually true.