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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/10/bernie-sa...

It’s time for AIPAC funded Third Way libs to stfu and stop trying to kill progressive candidates. The last second hatchet job my Schumer conservative dems on Platner blew up in their faces.

Purge the AIPAC and billionaire funded Clintonites from the party. It’s the only way to save the democrats and save America. Schumer and his aged ilk have got to go.

It’s the only way to save the democrats and save America.

I mean, unless you think that the essential functions of the Democratic party are to reverse climate change, dismantle white supremacy, and fight the patriarchy. Because those causes have really taken it on the chin in the last few election cycles with the rise of economic populism. I think that's probably a good thing for Democrats' electoral chances, TBH. But the rise of populism as a powerful faction within the Democratic party has come at tremendous expense to the factions that were centered around those issues. Arguably, less so than the "corporate" Democrats you disdain - who have definitely lost some of their power within the party, but not nearly as much as the Greens and the minority rights coalitions.

Purging the heretics always sounds fun in theory. The problem is that you can't purge all those Clintonites from the party, else you won't have enough people in the party to win majorities. I'm sure the Third Way libs would stfu and stop trying to kill progressive candidates if Justice Democrats and the populists would stfu and stop trying to kill centrist candidates - but I think having those contests between competing policy visions is actually good, rather than something to be "purged."

Arguably, less so than the "corporate" Democrats you disdain - who have definitely lost some of their power within the party, but not nearly as much as the Greens and the minority rights coalitions.

OCD: s/b "more so."

Purging the heretics always sounds fun in theory. The problem is that you can't purge all those Clintonites from the party, else you won't have enough people in the party to win majorities.

Take 3 times a day.

“I mean, unless you think that the essential functions of the Democratic party are to reverse climate change, dismantle white supremacy, and fight the patriarchy.”

Yeah, those are progressive values and goals. The Third Wave Clintonite dems are not the party of those values. They are the party of neoliberalism, corporate money and power, status quo, and the bold and clearly articulated agenda of “not Trump”. Most importantly, they resist the well articulated criticism of the wealth and money power that undergirds the Third Way politics. This is the “Democratic Party” that has earned Trump-like approval ratings and driven so many former democratic voters into the arms of right-wing populists.

The fear of losing the financial support of the wealthy, corporations, and special interests like AIPAC drives the institutional democratic party’s desperate attacks on progressive candidates. The BS last minute “Platner’s a cad” attack reeked of AIPAC and the DNC.

They need to be “purged” through free and fair primary elections but the fat fingers of AIPAC, the DNC, and big money super pacs are all over the scales. That’s what is so surprising about these primary results. Progressives are winning despite these fat fingers. Let’s keep purging them.

“the rise of populism as a powerful faction within the Democratic party has come at tremendous expense to the factions that were centered around those issues… - who have definitely lost some of their power within the party, but not nearly as much as the Greens and the minority rights coalitions.”

Let’s talk black politics, since you keep hinting at it. The elderly civil rights coalition succeeded in creating openings for educated and monied black people but has done little for the vast majority of working class black people, especially less well educated black men. Indeed this civil rights elite is often aligned with the white elite in moralizing the problems experienced in poor black communities. This is why younger black voters are getting behind progressive candidates, AND WHY MANY OF THOSE CANDIDATES ARE PEOPLE OF COLOR.

Your mistake is insisting that these issues of civil rights and environmental justice are separate from the dynamic of class inequality and wealth concentration. They are not.

While you can address the opportunity structure for some minorities through policies aimed at racial equality, you’ll never achieve for all unless you attack the class inequality at the root of racial privilege.

Yeah, those are progressive values and goals. The Third Wave Clintonite dems are not the party of those values.

They are, though. Despite your derision, the factions in the party have been coalescing along some rather coherent lines.

One faction is largely organized around the interests of the college-educated liberals, who tend to bury the needle on what we think of as "social" progressive values: things like aggressive action on climate change, anti-Racism and dismantling systems of white supremacy, fighting the patriarchy (including the MeToo movement), and other liberal positions. This is the Clintonite base. It is the faction of the party that centers things other than structural economic change. That's the faction that Clinton activated when she pivoted to the left on social issues against Sanders in 2016, and that Biden captured when he did his end run around Sanders (and Warren) to some extent in 2020. That's the Third Way/Clintonite coalition.

The other faction is organized far more around issues of economics, class. This is what we might now call the more "populist" wing of the party or the Sanders wing. This faction of the party prioritizes economic justice and structural changes to the economic system as their top priority. Other considerations, particularly those surrounding issues of race or gender, are relegated to a lower priority - if not deemed to be the symptoms of economic problems, rather than significant problems that cannot be materially ameliorated with economic reforms.

There is a very real conflict among these groups - perhaps not so much in positions (all the Sanders wing will nod towards the problems of race in the U.S., while all the Clintonians will acknowledge problems of class) but priorities. A wrong but useful heuristic is to say that the Sanders wing believes that it's more important to focus on structurally changing the economy (even perhaps to say problems of race and patriarchy and even climate change can be meaningfully addressed through those economic measures), while the Clinton wing believes that the focus should be primarily on fixing those social problems as a priority (even perhaps to say that the economic disparities will be materially addressed if you change the unfairness).

Again, if we simplify to the point of being wrong but still useful: Populists/Sanderites think that voters should (and do) think of their interests primarily based on class and their material, economic interests. Clintonites think that voters should (and do) think of their interests primarily based on their identitarian characteristics.

That’s what is so surprising about these primary results. Progressives are winning despite these fat fingers.

Not that surprising. The Sanders wing is winning primary contests in some races (Maine! NJ-12! CA-22!) and the Clintonites are winning primary contests in others (Iowa! CA-11! NJ-7!). And they're winning them in places you'd expect - the Sanderites in blue places, and the Clintonites in purple-to-red places. That's been happening for the last couple of election cycles. You could equally be surprised that the Clintonites are still winning races despite the national Sanderite machine pushing tipping the scales in those local elections. Heck, I'm actually more surprised the Sanders wing hasn't been more successful, since the salience of economic issues to voters has skyrocketed while the salience of Clintonite issues (like climate change and racial justice) has really collapsed. The overall environment is generally more favorable to the Sanderites issue set, but they seem to have mostly continued to have their candidates mostly succeed in the same sort of state/districts that they traditionally have (blue) and not so much in purple or red ones, with the very notable exception of CA-22. It will be very interesting to see what happens in Michigan's primary.

Your mistake is insisting that these issues of civil rights and environmental justice are separate from the dynamic of class inequality and wealth concentration. They are not.

While you can address the opportunity structure for some minorities through policies aimed at racial equality, you’ll never achieve for all unless you attack the class inequality at the root of racial privilege.

That is indeed the claim of the Sanders wing. It has been from the beginning of his efforts. That theory is a big reason why he lost in 2016, and why he lost in 2020. He believes that, but huge swatches of black voters don't necessarily share that view:

Democrats who wish to beat Trump but prefer Sanders to former Vice President Joe Biden, must ask themselves the following question: Can a campaign that rests primarily on class warfare and economic justice, one that largely relegates race to a concern simply encompassed by economic reform, attract enough black voters to prevail?

Recently, we conducted a national survey of the black community to answer this question. We found that if Democrats hope to mobilize the African American community, a Sanders-style message framing Trump as a threat to the poor and the working-class isn’t the best way to do it. If the goal is to maximize black turnout in 2020, a message emphasizing the threat that Trump poses to racial progress, according to our survey, is more effective.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/07/...

As noted in that article, there's a big chunk of voters who don't believe that class inequality is at the root of racial privilege. They believe that racism is at the root of racial privilege. That you can't fix racism by going after the banks and oligarchs (to paraphrase Clinton's very effective attack on Sanders from 2016).

This is probably very frustrating to those who are historical materialists (like many socialists, and certainly Marxists), who have faced a lot of obstacles in raising voters' class consciousness and struggle with why the voters don't self-identify prioritizing class instead of other issues (or the way the voters used to act, according to the What's the Matter With Kansas). They believe the voters are wrong for not recognizing that class, not race, is what's most important. But whatever the reason, class consciousness has faltered in the face of other identity markers.

That's what I think is your mistake. I certainly don't believe that issues of civil rights and environmental justice are separate from the dynamic of class inequality and wealth concentration, but I don't believe that that the former are as strongly determined by the latter as I suspect you do (and certainly the Sanders wing of the party does). And I certainly don't think that the big chunks of the Democratic party that chose Clinton and Biden over Sanders in 2016 and 2020 believe that assertion, either. And I think the historical record supports their skepticism.

As noted in that article, there's a big chunk of voters who don't believe that class inequality is at the root of racial privilege.

Because it isn't. At least, not entirely. Most of the lower class is white. Most white people are lower class. Also, most black people are lower class. It is true that a larger percentage of black people are lower class (and a smaller percentage are upper class) compared to the respective populations, and a lot of that is legacy racism / inequality.

So where would I fall in this spectrum? We need civil rights, but we also need to reduce wealth inequality (both as it exists, and the mechanisms that perpetuate it like unfair tax treatment where rich people pay little taxes compared to ordinary folks paying W2 rates, stepped-up bases, and so forth). In very general terms.

I don't really see it as either/or. They are in large part interrelated.

I don't really see it as either/or. They are in large part interrelated.

Sure. But if everything is a priority, nothing is. Policy isn't just about what positions you take, but which issues you determine are more important.

There is a belief, very strong among certain portions of the economic left, that societal ills like racism are downstream from class inequality and the structural unfairness of capitalism generality. A useful but oversimplified way to describe that approach is that if you fix the problems of the economic system, one of the effects of that will be to significantly (if not completely) fix the problems of racism. And climate change. And the patriarchy. Those latter problems are the symptoms of economic dysfunction, not problems with significant causes independent of economic dysfunction.

Voters that are the victims of those oppressive systems, though, generally rejected that belief. And with good reason. They don't want to sit around and wait for something as massive as FIXING CAPITALISM before getting relief from white supremacy and the patriarchy.

And history backs them up. Look, we still have tons of racial problems today. But there's no argument that America is a lot less racist than it was back in the 1950's and 1960's. America isn't any less capitalist than it was back in the fifties and sixties, and it certainly isn't any less unequal than it was back then. But it is vastly better for racial minorities today than it was back then. It would have been an error of catastrophic proportions had folks back then concluded that the best way to fight racism was to try to restructure capitalism, rather than just fighting racism directly. Because fighting racism directly ended up removing enormous amounts of human misery from the world that otherwise would have existed while we waited - in vain - for capitalism to be reworked instead. It turns out that yes, we can fundamentally reduce the life-destroying harms of overt racism (both personal and structural) in ways that are indescribably consequential....without having to address inequality.

That's why Sanders' approach to racial problems fell flat, and almost certainly was a major reason he lost the candidacy. On the whole, minority voters didn't seem receptive to approach of fixing capitalism and inequality as the proper way to address the specific problems they face under racism or white supremacy or systemic injustice. They know, I think, that it's a very long road until those things are fixed enough to materially reduce racism (if that happens at all), and it's hardly surprising if they'd rather directly act towards making society less racist than rely on that being an indirect benefit of fixing inequality. Because that has been proven to work.

I understand the position PhoolishPhillip is espousing. If you believe that racism exists only because the exploitive nature of capitalistic economies, which is definitely a position that is held to some degree or another in some economic schools of thought, then it might seem like the best strategy is to attack the exploitive problems of capitalism as the best route to eliminating racism.

Because fighting racism directly ended up removing enormous amounts of human misery from the world that otherwise would have existed while we waited - in vain - for capitalism to be reworked instead.

Clearly. But it seems to me we are backsliding for the past ~10 years. We also need to be restructuring things so that those changes "stick".

If we think of spinning plates on sticks, you have to keep them ALL going or one (or more) will shatter on the floor. It's a priority to keep them all spinning.

As I said, it seems to be interrelated. I would think it would be more effective to attack the problem on both fronts.

As I said, it seems to be interrelated. I would think it would be more effective to attack the problem on both fronts.

That argument can be made.

A few are making it.

More need to.

As I said, it seems to be interrelated. I would think it would be more effective to attack the problem on both fronts.

Sure. For simplicity, I've been talking about it as "either-or," but the reality is that all of the factions in the Democratic party will support some action on all of these fronts. The question is one of degree and priorities.

The most vivid example of that was the Build Back Bet...I mean, Inflation Reduction Act. It started off with the Democrats floating funding every measure in the playbook. But once the topline number got smaller, choices had to be made. And the Democrats chose Climate Change over Economic Populism. Not 100%, of course - there were still some economic populist measures that got funded, mostly relating to health care. But the lion's share of the funding went to climate measures - things like funding pre-K and child care for working families got axed. When push came to shove, the leadership picked climate over other priorities.

IMHO, that's a huge part of why the Democrats didn't get any political benefit from the bill. Overall, voters support action to fight climate change, but it's near the very bottom of what they think is important. But it's very important to the Clintonite, college-educated mostly-white liberal wing of the party. So that's what got in.

Overall, voters support action to fight climate change, but it's near the very bottom of what they think is important. But it's very important to the Clintonite, college-educated mostly-white liberal wing of the party. So that's what got in.

But that's a separate issue from what we were discussing. You had said that there were those that felt that dealing with racism and civil rights was priority one, and others felt that dealing with class (and, by extension, economic inequality) was the way to go. You're now introducing a third group that didn't value either approach?

I certainly place climate change has hyper-important. But people have to be secure first before you can try to push that. And they aren't secure, and haven't been since at least 2016. Obama made some headway with the ACA (in terms of making people feel more secure). Chasing climate change isn't going to do that**. And neither is trying to dismantle the ACA, give more tax breaks to the rich, shake confidence in the government (which the Felon is going out of his way to do), and pretty much everything else going on right now.

IMO, Dems need to assure civil rights, rule of law (no matter who you are!), reducing income inequality, and, if we can link it to more jobs created, throw in some climate change. The jobs aspect of that would help personal security. Without it, that issue would probably lose a lot of votes.




**Accepting that it probably should, on some level, but people generally can't think that long-term. The payoff would be decades away, and people are feeling insecure right now.

You had said that there were those that felt that dealing with racism and civil rights was priority one, and others felt that dealing with class (and, by extension, economic inequality) was the way to go. You're now introducing a third group that didn't value either approach?

Your summary of my point is a little off. I was saying that there were those who felt that dealing with what we might call "social" liberal issues was a greater priority than dealing with class and inequality. Those social liberal issues include a host of things, including climate change, and not just racism and civil rights. It's a way of framing the big division in the Democratic party right now: between those who want the party to be focused primarily on reworking the economic structures in the country, and those who emphasize correcting these "social" issues directly. Again, this is a simplification to the point of being incorrect, but it's still useful. It's a division between those who think that capitalist structures need to be fundamentally reworked (if not eliminated), and those who think that the core is sound enough that our primary focus should be on solving important other issues we face.

In some ways, this reflects the 'takeover' of the party apparatus by young college-educated liberals during the Great Awokening of the last ten years. That group - like the Corporate Democrats PP rails against - is personally well-situated in the broader economic structure of the country. But they are deeply motivated to make changes based on their values about non-distributive problems - like climate change, racial justice, fighting the patriarchy, etc.

But the lion's share of the funding went to climate measures - things like funding pre-K and child care for working families got axed.

I agree that Pre-K and child care should take precedence over climate change (which is abstract compared to the immediacy of kids). Take care of the poor and the lower/middle middle classes, the upper middle class and the wealthy will take care of themselves as they can more easily influence favorable legislation.

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