What’s Left for the Left?

“I don’t want another 2016.” That’s what I kept repeating, in the weeks and days up to the election. I didn’t think I could handle another loss to Donald Trump. I was afraid to have hope, something I felt like I’d never lived with, because it seemed as if he had been running for President since the beginning of my political consciousness.

Well, 2016 came to pass again. The worst part was that when the world comes crashing down, it doesn’t go all at once but makes you watch slowly, in horror and paralysis, as you realize that it has actually been crashing for quite some time, even since before you have been alive. As you realize that there is no end until the final one, that you are condemned to believe that the decline is unstoppable and still must try to stop it, like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill again and again.

The night of November 5th, I kept waiting for the blue to show up. Despite everything, I’d decided to let myself dream. It didn’t happen, though. It felt like dreaming, and the news anchors started to look more and more despondent, as they kept echoing again and again: “It’s just like 2016.” It’s been eight years since, and still nobody can ignore the night that has irreparably changed and damaged America. What lessons have the Democratic Party actually learned since then? I remember, as well, the relief after the election of 2020. Four glorious years in the future. And after January 6th, well, it seemed as if Donald Trump was finished. Done. We could wash our hands of him, and maybe the Republican Party could go back to normal.

But what’s normal, anyway? It’s been a little over a century since women gained the right to vote in this country. Only around sixty years ago was segregation outlawed. And it hasn’t been ten years since gay marriage was legalized. We have made a lot of progress. We’ve lost some (see: the overturning of Roe v. Wade, June 2022) So who can say what normal is?

The commentariat, predictably, has turned to playing the blame game. We attack each other in search for excuses, explanations, and a way forward. I’d like to concentrate on the accusation that the Democratic Party has focused too much on the campaigns of activist and leftist groups. A few Dems have even tossed transgender people under the bus. They say that we have alienated moderate America, that our views have grown too radical even for our own party. But Kamala Harris’ platform was more moderate than Biden’s. I’ve read that the standard Democrat party line would have seemed incredibly extreme to the party of Obama’s 2008 campaign, and that that’s an issue. But what sort of argument is that? I mean, the Dems are the progressive party, right? The Republicans are the conservatives for a reason. You don’t gain the label ‘progressive’ without trying to push for constant social change. By the time you’ve had success with your cause, it’s time to move on. This is the reason marginalized groups have even managed to come up in this country in the last century. When Betty Friedan was writing The Feminine Mystique, she didn’t stop and think, ‘Well, maybe the patriarchal structure of the nation and the sexual subjugation of women isn’t such a big deal. I mean, at least we can vote now, so I guess we got what we wanted.’ No. She published her book and sparked off Second Wave Feminism. That’s progress: constant change persevering.

Instead, as many Democrats and leftists have argued, let’s take a step back. Donald Trump and the GOP have largely succeeded due to populism. They’ve taken aim at an easy target and used immigrants as a scapegoat for all of our economic problems. They’re wrong, but there really are economic problems. Despite our lauded record economic growth, wealth inequality is rising and the middle class is being squeezed to death. The current wealth gap is comparable to the Gilded Age (which was followed by the Great Depression); 30.9% of wealth in the US is held by the top 1%, while 2.6% is held by the bottom 50% of our country. There is no scenario where we can just sit down and let this continue. What happened to the American Dream?

Let’s look to the politically entrenched influence of big-corp interests, lobbyists, and oligarchs (see, recently: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel). We’re fighting a culture war in the dirt while the richest continue to siphon money away from our lifeblood. It’s hard to blame people for voting for the candidate that they thought would improve the economy (though economists hold a consensus that his protectionist policies will damage the economy and raise prices). We can even take a step back and look at the bigger picture: the election as a result of American individualism and isolation on the rise. There’s something poisoning the well, and it’s not just Russian cyber-warfare or Donald Trump’s bigoted rhetoric. We all want change. There is the persisting sense, one that must reside in everybody in this country, that things cannot keep going on the way that they have.

During and after the election, my immediate reaction was despair, and then anger. My anger felt like relief: letting go and blaming the whole country, or at least half of it; damning them as idiots and bigots. But my anger wasn’t important. In the words of Kamala Harris, in her concession speech:

“On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win. But here's the thing, here's the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn't mean we won't win. That doesn't mean we won't win. The important thing is don't ever give up. Don't ever give up. Don't ever stop trying to make the world a better place. You have power. You have power. And don't you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.”

Vice President Kamala Harris was very far from the perfect candidate. Those don’t exist. Her ideology is very different from mine. We might not be part of the same political party, in another country. She was what we had, though, which wasn’t good enough. There were stances that she should’ve taken, and didn’t. She should’ve been more populist. There were also things she couldn’t escape. The lasting legacy of the Biden administration (inflation), the genocide in Gaza, and the worldwide anti-establishment and anti incumbent shift, among others. Still, she was right about many things, and this, she is right about. I truly believed that her platform that celebrated joy, democracy, national unity, and hard work could defeat Donald Trump’s division and hatred. What she gave us was electricity. Which was something the Democratic Party had not had in a long time.

Another thing I’d said a lot leading up to November 5th: “If she loses, I’m going radical.” This was the Democrats’ last chance before they lost me for a second time. Seeing people’s despair, in the hours, days, and weeks after the election, made me think differently. Every time I saw somebody trash the Democratic Party, the political system, society as a whole, there was a gut feeling in my stomach that this was wrong. There is so much that is sick and twisted about those things. Even so, it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t stop thinking about that concession speech.

“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here's the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”

We truly are entering a dark time. The media is not being dramatic when they call Donald Trump a fascist. Yes, he made a speech inciting his supporters before they stormed the Capitol on January 6th. But this was a direct result of a calculated plan to replace legitimate electors in swing states with alternates slates in order to steal the election from under the people’s feet. The insurrectionists did not come up with their ideas on their own. Donald Trump decided to refuse the results of the 2020 election, and collude with the members of his administration to stay in power against the will of the people. January 6th was the culmination of relentless propaganda, digital echo chambers, and, perhaps most significantly, precise backstage political maneuvers. If this doesn’t spell authoritarianism and fascism, what does? Vice President Mike Pence refused to go along with the plot, and his career in the GOP might as well be dead in the water; Pence’s bid for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination was a total failure and he currently teaches at Grove City College. In English Lit, we’re studying The Handmaid’s Tale. Here’s a quote that’s been on my mind: “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” I’m afraid that by the time Americans fully realize who we have voted into office, the history books will already be written. But ofttimes, the Left loses first to the Right, and then to itself. Internal division is the final blow. In a system where the further-left’s voice is not heard, when the Democratic Party can be seen as frustratingly moderate, when there’s no clear path forward, it looks like the only solution is to destroy the whole thing. That’s probably how the alt-right felt, too. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they changed the Republican Party from the inside. And look how it’s worked out for them.

While the Left is busy arguing between ourselves, the Right is unanimous in hate. When the Left does not unite, when it sits down and tries to lick our wounds honorably, fascism wins.

During the Spanish Civil War, major world powers like Great Britain and the US signed an agreement refusing to provide military aid to the Spanish government. Meanwhile, General Franco received it from Hitler and Mussolini, and ended up overthrowing the democratic government. In Weimar Germany, the Left was split between the SPD and the KPD, and didn’t manage to join together to stop Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. And kind of political extremism will come whenever there is economic unrest and instability. Our job is not only to fight hatred, but also to fix our economic problems.

I read an article the other week about the Justice Democrats. Their strategy is to shift the Overton Window (the idea that politicians only act within an accepted range of ideology, which can be moved by those promoting policies outside of such a range) by running many grassroots, sparsely-funded campaigns in solid blue districts, making more traditional Dems run against more progressive and radical ones. This way, there was no risk of flipping a seat to the red. They ran many campaigns and the few candidates that were successful are now very, very well known (i.e. AOC, Ilhan Omar).

In order to promote populist economic policies that win and that benefit the people without sacrificing the cause of equal rights for all, leftists and liberals must stop squabbling and focus. We cannot keep accusing each other of being too progressive or not progressive enough. Under these circumstances, it’s not a luxury we have anymore. There is no retribution or revenge to be had, even against the other side. We have to stand united and hold each other up against bigotry, moral decay, and hatred, because democracy has never been guaranteed. If you think about it, it’s just been a blip in our long human history. At the same time, we can volunteer for local causes and campaign for the midterms to try to curb Donald Trump’s power.

Once we accomplish this, we can then look inwards. The solution is not to pander to moderates by sacrificing marginalized groups. Those on the economic left have the opportunity to shift the Overton Window not by abandoning the Democratic Party or politics altogether (the two-party system is not going away anytime soon), but by staying resolute in our beliefs and connecting with voters through authenticity, understanding, and a platform that stands for significant structural change. We cannot lose hope. We won’t, as long as we dust ourselves off, take a long look in the mirror, and keep walking forwards. Look at what Donald Trump has transformed his party into since 2016.

The Democratic Party, too, can have a metamorphosis.