It will be expected when the Democratic establishment retroactively blames an array of forces as the culprits for Kamala Harris defeat and the subsequent harmful measures Trump’s administration implements: from reducing socio-political rights to worsened living standards; as well as becoming another purely sovereign nation-state to join the BRICS coalition who all maintain their own spheres of influence to commit state terror and not be interfered with by the other superpowers. Each to celebrate their own ossified nationalist identity and culture, demonstrated in homogenized local cultural practices.
The Democratic Party consistently bypasses the conditions of the economy and material hardships as the basis of their political program; not addressing the universal grievances of lower class, ordinary people, instead fixating on particular cultural conflicts–greater representation–that revolve around gender, sex, and ethnic/racial identity. By avoiding this haunting specter of class struggle, they increasingly diminish the remaining sectors of the working class who still vote for them. The double-bind in this situation is the mainstream Left’s negation of class mobilization, and their abstaining from proper engagement within the Political as a fierce antagonistic force pitted against their opponent striving for state power.
In light of this, the fetishist disavowal being committed by the liberal establishment is the refusal to take responsibility for their own defeats and their predictable scapegoating of minorities–Hispanic, Black, Arabic–who vote Republican, white workers being racist or sexist or too ignorant, Russian political interference, and Palestinian solidarity backers. The Leftist elite are fundamentally deprived of any self-reflection, yet this shortcoming is done purposefully on account of their disavowal; allowing them to sustain their foundation of identitarian politics.
What hope therefore, can the eroding authentic Western Left–epitomized by Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn–give to the despondent and further disappointed leftwing voter base? I argue for two mutually corresponding stances: the Communist-Leninist dictum of ‘try again, fail again, fail better,’ and the assumption of the Courage of Hopelessness. Both posit the possibility of the emancipatory New precisely in the contexts that seem out of hope; the zero-point to reimagine and reformulate our Cause and the goals set forth to accomplish its aims–all organized around the strong opposition to Far Right populism and the inert Center-Left party hegemony.
Structural transformation is always a long-term process; a death drive with no guarantees but only contingent outcomes for the future. To participate in the progressive legacy of achieving emancipation–inclusive of all its difficult work–through collective participation, a movement which doesn’t betray its loyalty to the Cause despite the many reversals and setbacks and defeats–is why hope still abides. Ergo, the radical leftist dictum spotlighted by Max Horkheimer is more true than ever in our epoch: pessimism in theory, optimism in practice.
It was Lenin who best articulated this standpoint: “Communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve their strength and flexibility ‘to begin from the beginning’ over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed (and in all probability will not perish).”
-Michael Fuentes
