By Joe Simonson
Friday, January 13, 2017
Throughout the primaries and general election, the media
subjected us to endless stories about “the Republican civil war.” Yet it’s
Democrats who are facing an ideological schism that is arguably far greater. It
that might look familiar to students of 20th-century history.
The self-described “dirtbag
Left” is a group of leftist writers and Internet personalities most
famously known for their podcast Chapo
Trap House. It’s entertaining, and its edginess stands out in this era of
stuffy and scripted politics.
But make no mistake, the Chapo Trap House hosts and the
leftist milieu in which they operate are old wine in a new, digital bottle.
They preach a kind of leftism that would be more at home in Paris during the
1968 May uprisings than at the New York
Times. They reject technocratic liberalism favored by “wonks” and academic
economists, preferring traditional, class-based revolution that’s materialist
and vaguely existential in its goals.
If you were to drop in on Chapo Trap House cohost Felix
Biederman’s Twitter feed, you’d find pointed at Jonathan Chait and similar
center-left writers the same kind of derision that you would listening to Rush
Limbaugh. Both refer to their ideological opponents as “libs,” and both mock
the elitist snobbery that so many say helped put Trump in office. Many cultural
issues, including transgender rights (which they fully support), serve as a
distraction from the economic malaise and stagnation plaguing the average
American, according to the Chapo gang. Much of the commentary from the dirtbag
Left sounds more like Peter Thiel’s speech at the Republican National
Convention than something you’d hear at Occupy Wall Street.
Throughout the campaign, the Chapo gang acknowledged
Hillary Clinton’s various flaws. While they’re unlikely to carp about Benghazi,
they had no problem attacking her for her connections to Goldman Sachs and
foreign governments. Although none of them expected a Trump win, his victory
seems overdetermined to a group already disgusted by the Democrats’ decision to
nominate such a “moderate” candidate. In response, Chapo personality Will
Menaker said, “We must declare eternal, holy war on the Democratic party.”
In an interview with PS
Magazine, Chapo cohost Matt Christman speaks about his admiration for
various texts from Karl Marx, and he views them as the fundamental inspiration
of his ideology. Biederman refers to “criminals” in the Democratic party who
don’t do enough to end inequality or racial discrimination. In terms of the
kinds of specific policies they want enacted, the concept of for-profit health
care, for example, is an absurdity and fundamental error of modernity.
It’s important to know that they’re not pining for some
kind of third-way politics. Yes, they disfavor the advice and policies of
liberals and technocrats, but only because they view them as impediments to
true social revolution — traitors to the cause. The incrementalism toward
social democracy advocated by traditional Democrats is unacceptable — and
arguably as bad as conservative policies.
The writers of Jacobin
magazine travel in intellectual circles close to the dirtbag Left. A socialist
quarterly with a strong social-media presence, Jacobin serves as the home for the more serious work of this new
New Left. To get a flavor of where they’re coming from, read contributing
editor Matt Karp, who lays it out in “Against
Fortress Liberalism.”
“Incrementalism is just a code word to disguise what is
effectively a right-wing retrenchment,” according to Karp. The electoral
failures of the Democratic party are due not to any platform left of the
American electorate but to Democrats’ having part “distanced themselves from .
. . redistributive economics.”
If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Compare
the language of writers in Jacobin to
that of the New Left in the 1960s and you find little difference, despite the
fall of the Soviet Union and the millions lifted out of poverty because of
capitalism, in their rhetoric.
In 1960, leftist sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote
“Letter to the New Left” for the New Left
Review. There he attacked “liberal rhetoric . . . used as an uncriticised
weapon with which to attack Marxism.” This “New
Yorker style of reportage has become politically triumphant,” and the idea
that “US capitalism will continue to be workable, the welfare state will
continue along the road to ever greater justice” was the primary ideological
enemy of his time.
In other words, those breaking away from Clinton-brand
Democratic politics in 2017 differ little from 1960s leftists disgusted with
the “NATO intellectuals.” It’s not enough to enact certain social reforms and
policies and tinker with them after seeing the results. Total social upheaval
is the only answer. Fortunately, instead of the Weather Underground, we have
(at least right now) only podcasts.
As conservatives, we find it easy to enjoy the spectacle
of infighting on the left. In many ways, I even sympathize with the kind of
politics put forth by the comrades at Chapo Trap House and Jacobin. Their attachment to socialist theory and historical
materialism is in some respects a lot purer and more honest than a professional
economist like Jonathan Gruber, who sounds more like a snake-oil salesman than
a sincere reformer.
Still, it’s important to remember the potency of this
kind of thinking. The same intellectual forces propelling a relatively unknown
socialist quarterly or the podcasts of a group of Brooklyn hipsters nearly gave
Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination. More darkly, the young people
advocating a no-compromise form of politics and social revolution don’t live
with the memories (or receive an education that properly warns) of the
20th-century atrocities and calamities done in the name of justice and equality.
I suspect that in the next year we’ll hear a lot from
mainstream pundits saying that the ideas presented by Jacobin and leftist satirists can save the Democratic party. But
let’s hope not. Their ideas are old, tried, failed — and dangerous.
No comments:
Post a Comment