Home Bernie Sanders Left Anti-Social Left vs Anti-Economic Left
Home Bernie Sanders Left Anti-Social Left vs Anti-Economic Left

Anti-Social Left vs Anti-Economic Left

The Democrats have ended their unity tour more divided than ever. Unlike Republican quarrels, their war is mostly ignored by the media. And yet it will define what the left and its plan to take over the country will look like.

When Hillary lost, she didn’t just lose the White House. She also lost the DNC. Her loyalists, already discredited for their brazen tampering to disenfranchise Sanders supporters, had to make way for Obama’s people. The Clinton legacy is over. The Dems belong to Obama now. Or do they?

When Obama inherited the DNC from the Clintons, he also inherited their bitter enemy.

Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders are the leaders of the two sides in the Dem civil war. The shots are already being fired. As usual, they are coming from the insurgent Sandernistas.

Keith Ellison, Bernie’s man to take over the DNC, fired the first shot, blaming Barack for Dem losses.

"Obama could have been a better party leader, and I think that the fact that he wasn’t, has put his legacy in jeopardy," he charged. "We lost a lot of state House seats, governorships, secretaries of states… he can’t say that he wasn’t part of those losses. I mean, who else?”

Who else indeed? It’s an obvious question that can’t be asked in Dem circles. Obama is the only truly national figure that the party has. And he has used the fall of the Clintons to take over the DNC.

If Obama is really responsible for Democrat losses, then the party and its donors just bought first class seats on the Titanic. That’s why Democrat autopsies of the defeat remain so explosive. Blame can be apportioned to white people, to racism, Islamophobia and to Global Warming, but not to Barack Obama.

Keith Ellison was the best messenger Sanders had to take a shot at Barry. Black loyalty to Obama is still the third rail of politics. And Ellison is one of the few black people in the Sanders inner circle. Obama’s pricey Wall Street speech offered the opportunity for a more direct attack from Bernie Sanders.

“I just think it is distasteful,” Bernie slurred on CNN. “At a time when we have so much income and wealth inequality … it just does not look good.”

The attack went to the heart of his differences with Obama. Unlike the Clinton era, the split is no longer between the left and the radical left. Obama and Sanders are both representatives of the radical left.

But they don’t represent the same radical left.

Bernie embodies the old left. Its mantra is class warfare. There is a great deal of talk about billionaires, working people and the ruling class. Obama pays lip service to that same rhetoric, but his is the program of the intersectional left. The intersectional left is far more interested in identity than class. It defines its organization around a coalition of racial, sexual and other minorities. Where Bernie wants to talk to the working class, the intersectional left wants to hear from transgender Muslim women of color.

The differences aren’t just intellectual. They define the tactics and agenda of the Democrats.

When Tom Perez, Obama’s DNC boss, recently read pro-life Democrats out of the party, he was following the Obama blueprint. Bernie meanwhile went on campaigning for a somewhat pro-life Dem. Bernie does not really care about abortion, gay rights, transgender bathrooms and the social issues of the intersectional left. The old Socialist follows the older slogan of the hard left. No war, but class war.

Bernie Sanders has been repeatedly dismissive of identity politics. “It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” he had sneered.

“One of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics,” he had insisted.

“Whether its gay rights, women’s rights, civil rights, you are talking about people fighting for liberation in a particular way,” Bernie said in an interview. “This… is a more generalized resistance… it is moving in the direction of a class based way… you aren’t seeing this just in this country, but all over the world.”

Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your granfalloons and artificial divisions.

Democrats and the left had long ago replaced pure class warfare with identity politics warfare. Intersectionality entirely displaced and demonized the old Dem white working class base.

And the Dems paid the price.

Obama’s reign torched most of the last of that white working class base. Trump’s victories would not have been possible if the Dems had not become a party of wealthy bicoastal urban and suburban elites who were out of touch with the South and the Rust Belt. And who were proud to be out of touch with a bunch of “ignorant racist, sexist homophobes” still “clinging to their guns and religion”.

The clash between Bernie and Obama is also over the autopsy of Hillary’s defeat. Did the Dems lose because they failed to turn out the base as effectively as Obama had or because former Obama voters had come out for Trump? Should the Dems try to appeal to working class whites with a class warfare pitch or work harder to turn out the intersectional coalitions of minority voters?

Bernie and Obama learned very different lessons from their political experiences. Vermont is a largely white state. If you can’t appeal to white voters, you can’t appeal to anyone. Obama won in Illinois with large totals in Cook County while disregarding Wayne County. The white conservative Protestants who voted for his opponent could be largely ignored. They were swept away in the landslide.

Even though Illinois went mostly red, Cook County did deliver Illinois for Hillary. But Chicago isn’t America. That’s what Obama still doesn’t understand. And so the Dems don’t get it either.

The Democrats are caught in a civil war over two kinds of ideological purity.

The Bernie faction would purge what they view as the corporate wing; that comfortable alliance of the wealthy urban social left with its minority coalitions and obsessions with abortion and gun control. And then refocus the party on class warfare to unite minorities and white working class voters.

The change to the Dems would be almost incomprehensible. And most of Bernie’s college hipster supporters who get triggered by stray gusts of wind don’t even understand that this is the agenda.

The Obama faction wants to purge conservative deviations from their social line on abortion and gun control. This ideological consolidation would shift the party further toward urban and suburban coastal elites while continuing to alienate white working class voters. The intersectional left remain convinced that these voters will be replaced by a new majority of immigrants, domestic minorities and college whites. Alienating these voters is a calculated strategy to force the Dems to accelerate the new majority.

This internecine warfare on the left parallels the debates on the right between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. The social lefties and fiscal conservatives are urban and suburban creatures. But the social conservatives and fiscal lefties are more likely to thrive in more rural areas. Fiscal conservatives cede social issues to the left while fiscal lefties would cede some social issues to the right.

The Bernie faction argues that a 50 state strategy is impossible without the white working class. But it’s hard to think of any worse messengers to the white working class than Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison. The Obama faction is convinced that increasing minority turnout without sacrificing a single social dogma is possible in every state. Class warfare can be funded by Wall Street donations. White voters in Nebraska will learn to cheer Black Lives Matter protests. And it will all end in a beautiful synthesis.

It’s not just about strategy. It’s about what both factions envision America should look like.

The left’s utopian visions are inversions. They take what the left hates about a country and inverts that into an ideal society. These visions appear outwardly positive, but are deeply negative.

The two lefts hate different aspects of America most.

The old left is anti-economic. It hates free enterprise most of all. It is motivated by an endless spite aimed at the middle class and upper class for their success. Its ideal society inverts all that independent economic activity into a system in which resources are “fairly” administered by the state.

The intersectional left is anti-social. It hates white people, men and women living normal lives. It obsessively seeks to deconstruct all of society by attacking its norms as supremacism and oppression. Its ideal society is an intersectional caste system with white people and married couples at the bottom.

The left embodies both an anti-economic and anti-social agenda. The debate is over what comes first.

Both believe that inverting what they believe is the existing power structure and ruling class will undo the oppression that is responsible for all the ills of the world. The old left wants to ‘overthrow’ the middle class and the rich. The intersectional left wants to ‘overthrow’ white people and heterosexuals.

The old left insists that social differences will fade away under Socialism. The intersectional left believes that without social deconstruction, Socialism will just mean white supremacy and hetero-cis power.

The old left believes that the true enemies are the billionaires and that working class white men must be enlisted to fight them. The intersectional left will take money from billionaires to fight working class white men who are the real enemy.

That is the Bernie and Obama split in a nutshell.

Obama will take money from Wall Street to fight white men. Bernie wants white men to fight Wall Street.

Both factions of the left are utterly deranged. Their ideologies are built on hatred and can only cause misery. And they are now fighting each other for control of the left, the Dems and the country.






Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

  1. D.D.Mao10/5/17

    A very insightful and accurate piece. However you neglected to mention the one factor that has the ability to bridge both Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama in the Democratic party..........Elizabeth Warren. Her identity politics appealed to Democrat women while her anti Wall Street rhetoric also appealed to the class faction of the party which Bernie attracted. My guess (and keep in mind this is 4 years away) is she will ignore trying to attract the middle class vote and tweek her message to bring back the large percentage of Obama voters who voted for Trump during this past election cycle. Her message of giving government back to the people through redistribution of wealth and constantly demonizing the Trump administration will resonate with both sides of her party.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Infidel10/5/17

    Thanks, excellent article, very insightful. Far too many good and important points to address them all.

    I got to see the struggle between Progressives and old-school Democrats up close in my old NCal city. The old-school Dems I knew personally were best described as well-intentioned classical liberals. The Progressives were best described as Stalinist, at least that's the word that comes to mind to describe their tactics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10/5/17

    So, the Lefties are Anti... something. The Right is Conserv..., which I take as continuing to follow the Constitution. This confirms my experience. Righties seem like calm problem solvers and Lefties are usually angry (envious, immediate gratification; not heroic).

    The Comintern of 1919 portrayed workers as victims of the Bourgeoisie. This appeal fell flat in America because the workers knew they were already well off. Reagan countered the Leftie envy appeal again, and hopefully Trump opportunity and inclusiveness can pull it off again.

    ABSJ1136

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am surprised there hasnt been violence over these issues. The enforcers of these anti-white male ideologies are mostly white women who have a big heart and wanted to save the world. They own the world and dole out goodies to the races as they see fit.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Y. Ben-David11/5/17

    Very interesting piece. What we are seeing is the disintegration of the old "liberal" line of the Democratic Party, which was exemplified by people like Adlai Stevenson, JFK, LBJ and Bill Clinton, and its replacement by class war or race war. Historian Robert Dallek referred to the old Democratic ideology as "liberal nationalism"...American patriotism, national unity and working for advancement of the poor and civil rights. They supported economic advancement of the poor, NOT because of feelings of jealousy towards those who have, but rather the need for those who have to help those in difficulty, both because it is right, but also because it is in the self-interest of the wealthier classes to ensure social stability.

    Today, we are seeing the international Left become more and more radical, because they have lost their moral bearings. A good example is the British Labour Party. After being in power for a long period of time, they decided to commit suicide and have put in leaders whose goal seems to be to tear down British society, create class and race war at one and the same time , with a strong dose of classical antisemitism.
    It seems the American Democratic Party is moving in the same direction. One symptom, besides the rise of Bernie Sanders class war sector, was the attempt to put Keith Ellison, an extremely divisive figure into a position of power within the party, instead of trying to reach out to the more conservative elements that remain in the party.

    The interesting question is why is the international Left going in this direction. My theory is that large parts of the public that support them seem to be generally unhappy, frustrated people who feel resentment to those who are, particularly traditionally religiously-inclined people. Demographically, they tend to be either unmarried or if they are they have few children. They are at the forefront of movements like the militant homosexuals and transgenders to have the state oversee the breakup of the traditional family. They seem to consume themselves with jealousy against those who are better off then them, even if they themselves are not poor. They also tend to be much less religiously inclined, and have a very pessimistic view of the future of the US and mankind in general-recall Obama's comment that conservatives (you know, the "primitives" who "cling to their guns and religion" unlike Obama-like "progressives").

    Much of this leads to a complete intolerance of those who disagree with them. Obama's remark about the religious is one example, another is the hysteria over the supposed "Global Warming" threat is a good example, leading to the inability of many on the Left to have a rational discussion about it, with them dismissing those who have questions as being ignorant fanatics.

    Where is all of this leading? On the one hand, more traditionalist elements are demographically healthier than these "progressive" warriors, but they always seem to be on the defensive and are afraid to stand up for what they believe. The campuses, which are where the future leaders are being educated are becoming like those in the decaying, proto-National Socialist German Weimar Republic where anti-Nazis were hounded off campus, and learned discussions were held asking the question of whether Jews were Aryans or not..the modern version being the ranting about "white privilege" or "intersectionality" and anti-Zionism.
    It seems that the once seemingly extremist views of totalitarians like Judith Butler and Angela Davis have become mainstream in the Democratic Party, as when the candidate who ran against Hillary in the D primaries was forced to back down when he said ALL lives matter instead of just Black lives matter.
    A pretty sad situation, all-in-all. I am not optimistic about how the US, and Western civilization is going.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Left in all of its factions embraces the ugliest part of human nature, the need to always have an object of hatred as a rallying call.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11/5/17

    Good read as usual.
    Y Ben David in the last comment posed the question, "why is the International Left heading in this direction". He offered a theory based on the fact the Left is made up people full of hate and bitterness.
    Another possible theory is, Western civilization has become predominately secular and atheistic. Morals, structure, family, and anything with a value attached to it has become very unpopular. We see this materializing even from the Pope in his loosening stance on many topics.
    We also see this clearly in the Lefts militant fight to make man, woman, and animal all equal as one. If one would see differences through a hierarchy, eventually the existence of a god would be realized. Therefore the Left's war is one of equal rights. In essence its a fight for man to be as one without the responsibility to answer to a higher being.
    Once man is in charge, the idea of a Utopian world can only be realized through the Left's "Elite", because only they have the ability to carry it out. Hence the reason why the Lefts ideology is based on Globalization through open borders, Global warming, and etc.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous11/5/17

    Another dirty secret: after eight years cozying up to Barry because of his color, they can finally attack POTUS. Trump hasn't dark skin. Man, after eght years with a monkey on the back, this is glory! Leftists can justifiably be as mean as they want to. Like an islamist pretending to have a reason for his blind rage...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous11/5/17

    'Another possible theory is, Western civilization has become predominately secular and atheistic. Morals, structure, family, and anything with a value attached to it has become very unpopular.'

    bingo.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Y. Ben-David12/5/17

    Anonymous 5/11-
    I pointed out that militant homomsexuals and transgenders are seeking to overturn the traditional family unit, which I think agrees with your point about destroying hierarchies and natural differences between men and women and animals. The Butler-Davis types will say that traditional families are patriarchal and thus supposedly promote "militarism and capitalism" which are bugaboos of the 'progressives'. That is why people who oppose the very ideal of marriage as "putting women in bondage" and "institutional rape" suddenly demand the right of homosexuals to "marry". They really don't care about homosexuals, they want to see the whole institution of marriage lose any real meaning and thus destroy it.

    A similar type of process is underway with the demand that women be put in combat units in the military, even if women, as a group, are unfit for combat. George Will once pointed out that a country's degree of civilization was measured by how well it protected women and children. Not any more. But the real idea behind it not to be sensitive to women's rights (is putting women in to a tank where they might, G-d forbid, be incinerated advancing their status and rights?) but the real intention is to destroy the army entirely. I heard one advocate of putting women into combat roles in the military say the real intention is to remove the militaristic tendencies of men, and by being around women soldiers, the male soldiers will be "feminized" and not want to fight at all.
    I think it is wise of those who are "uncomfortable" with the modern "progressive" program to clearly think out where their agenda is leading and to realize that this can only mean destruction (no less!) of modern civilization. It is unfortunate that in the US, the churches and other institutions who oppose these trends are so frightened that they have almost completely withdrawn from the public arena.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous12/5/17

    "Did the Dems lose because they failed to turn out the base as effectively as Obama had or because former Obama voters had come out for Trump?"

    To quote the InstaProf: "Embrace the healing power of 'and'."

    The Old Sarge

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12/5/17

    Wow. Just wow. Daniel has that rare ability to tie all of my jumbled thoughts together in a cohesive, organized fashion, and present them in such a way that I just want to scream out....YES! EXACTLY!!! Really good comments here as well. I feel so threatened right now by the Democrat party, and am having challenges to raising my teenage kids that my parents never had 40-50 years ago. As homosexuality has gone from morally wrong, to tolerance, to acceptance, to celebrated, my 14 year daughter is living in a world where she is actually pressured to be gay, because those are the cool kids. The only refuge we as parents have is church. Oops, not there either. We had to leave our Methodist church after 20 years because they are in the middle of a progressive takeover as well. It stopped being about worship, and became about pushing a radical progressive agenda. Our last day there was when they pulled the children out of their Sunday school classes to see a guest speaker transgender man dressed up like a woman preach from the pulpit. Like Daniel said - complete, utter destruction of morals, structure, family, values. Its no longer "just politics". I've shed myself of my democrat friends because we have ZERO in common, and all I can think of is how they are contributing to the destruction of our culture and country. So sad to see this happening.

    ReplyDelete
  13. epochehusserl12/5/17

    Here is a description of radical feminism and where it is leading us. It was made up of Gramscian Marxists. Where do you think the phrase “women and minorities” comes from?
    From http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/Minogue.htm

    All of this might be construed (as it was by radical feminists themselves) as a massive access of confidence among women, but it might also signify a complete collapse of the feminine in the face of a wider and more ambiguous project using women to create a totally androgynous (and manipulable) world. In such a world, men and women would become virtually indistinguishable.

    Here then was nothing less than an attempt to destroy not merely an existing structure of power, but also the civilization that it sustained. In Ibn Khaldun’s terms, it was an attempt to conquer the West from within, not by directly attacking its power (for no one doubted that the men had all the power needed to repel such an attack), but by exploiting certain features in its culture.
    ————————-
    the features that the marxists have exploited in our culture to turn the tables against are our fairness, chivalry, concern for women’s well being, high trust and high empathy society. Who wants to come out as “discriminating” against women or minorities after all? Gramsci spelled out his battle plan as creating a new proletariat (women and minorities) that must be put on top as opposed to throwing out the capitalists. Marcuse added homosexuals and transgender to the new proletariat.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Daniel gives an almost entertaining account of how the DNC is imploding and its principal operatives are the master of implosive ceremonies. I laughed, and laughed, and turned to watch an episode of The Walking Dead.

    ReplyDelete
  15. D.D.Mao13/5/17

    Unfortunately American politics has reached a point where NEITHER party has the answers nor the inclination to accomplish anything. It has developed into tribal factions that have no intentions of holding their elected representatives to their promises nor any tangible achievements. Nor as shown with the Trump alt-right and Obama Progressive supporters do they have any mind to discuss their differences. It would seem rhetoric, denial and name calling have taken the place of ideas and accomplishments. As Jonah Goldberg at NRO said about the low bar comparison of saying "Trump is better than Hillary is like saying my car is better than a Yugo. A pair of roller skates are better than a Yugo !"

    ReplyDelete
  16. Sultan, the Dems do have a point about inequality. For the past 40 years there has been a wealth transfer from the bottom 80% to the top 20%. Wages have stagnated or fallen for decades. The Paul Ryan's of the republican party are open in their hatred for the working class, particularly the whites. The old bargain that some small scraps would be shared with the working class in exchange for supporting the ruling elite has been chipped away at until the elite again has everything and the workers toil at slave wages. Sure the Democrats are waging war against their own people but so are many republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous14/5/17

    I think you hit the nail on the head.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous15/5/17

    All varieties of "The Left" have one thing in common: Their policies and agendas all end up with leftists in permanent and totalitarian control of the society.

    And when you cut through all the analysis and classifications, that's actually the only goal they have.

    North Korea isn't a failed socialist state, it's a perfected one.

    ReplyDelete
  19. David in Virginia16/5/17

    Daniel,

    Another brilliant and terrifying essay...

    "The intersectional left remain convinced that these voters will be replaced by a new majority of immigrants, domestic minorities and college whites." This is particularly chilling thought. They truly are planning to take away our children and use them against us. Public education has always been a battlefield and based on the news, it seems like they are winning... Sad...

    Also amongst the many brilliant comments, D.D.Mao's point about the feckless Republicans deserves much thought as well. Personally I became a registered Independent sometime around 2012. We the People deserve far better than we are getting... Sigh...

    Please keep writing. Be well.

    ReplyDelete
  20. AesopFan20/5/17

    North Korea isn't a failed socialist state, it's a perfected one.

    15/5/17

    Anonymous is very profound.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You May Also Like