Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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the neoliberal New Democrats led by Bill Clinton — much like Tony Blair’s New Labour in Britain’s Labour Party — were able to win the leading position in the party, where they have remained ever since. The “de facto social democratic party based upon the unions and operating within the Democratic Party,” as Michael Harrington described it in his book Socialism, couldn’t muster the forces to push the Democrats’ realignment even further to the left.
✏️ A few highlights that quickly and concisely outline how the democratic and republican parties evolved over the past century into the neoliberal and extreme conservative versions they respectively are now. 🔗 View Highlight
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But the radical right wing of the Republicans did succeed in pushing the GOP even further to the right. While realignment made the parties more ideologically consistent, it tended to hollow out party institutions, thereby opening more space for insurgent candidates to win primary elections — particularly if they could count on funding and foot soldiers.
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realignment was fortuitously timed to coincide with the end of the New Deal order and the postwar economic boom. While the unions and civil rights movement organizations were entering a period of protracted decline, the radical right benefited from the mass mobilization of white evangelical Christians into Republican Party politics.
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Far-right activists also benefit from a structural advantage that their counterparts on the Left simply can’t match: the seemingly endless parade of crackpot capitalists willing to pour vats of cash into their organizations, election campaigns, conferences, and publications. Rich liberals are typically not interested in funding socialists, and there aren’t many rich socialists.
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“The burden of the American left,” as Adam Hilton argues in a brilliant analysis of the Democrats and the Left, “is to build the power of the working class without the assistance of a working-class party. When it comes to translating that power into votes, and votes into seats in government, which is necessarily part of the struggle, we have very few options.” Socialists should come to terms with what this implies, namely the strong unlikelihood of ever having a major labor-based third party
✏️ This is interestingly relatable. How do we build up the power of the working class here knowing we aren’t allowed to have a working-class party? More so, we do have the complication of no voting abilities, so this whole comparison is kinda shallow. 🔗 View Highlight
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If anything, it entails heightening direct conflict with this establishment and its corporate funders — who would like nothing more than for the Left to spend precious time, energy, and resources on “independent” politics instead
✏️ Remember to follow the money. Any neoliberal democrat is basically funded by corporate overlords. You won’t get socialist laws from the democratic party as a whole.. you have to fight as a strong left-wing faction to overcome that handicap. 🔗 View Highlight