Hey establishment Dems — f*ck your fearful politics... time to fight!
Old school Dems keep operating from a place of fear and "playing it safe" — but that sh*t just won't work anymore.
I didn’t really start paying attention to politics until 2016. At the time, Donald Trump’s political upset was causing a lot of fear and confusion among well-intentioned but politically ignorant liberals like myself. Under the right leadership, that energy could have been funneled into support for world-changing progressive policy.
But after Biden took the presidency in 2020, I noticed the liberal angst settle quickly into a sort of cautious apathy. By treating MAGA as an anomaly, the Democratic Party establishment reinforced the idea that things were “back to normal” (despite “normal” being what propelled Trump to power in the first place).
In the years since Biden was elected, that cautious, “don’t rock the boat” political apathy has continued to fail Americans.
The more I observe our political landscape, the more I realize that shamelessly rocking the boat is actually a prerequisite to any sort of sustained political success.
When people are motivated by fear, they tend to embrace a more conservative mindset. When institutions are organized around fear, the systems that they uphold reinforce hegemonic conservative attitudes. And when those institutions are political parties, fearful conservatism becomes an ideological cancer that threatens the well-being of everyone.
Let’s consider the Democratic Party in 2024. The Harris campaign’s failure to galvanize the electorate was negatively influenced by lots of forces—dark monied interests, bad political strategy, a lack of unique vision, and a morally bankrupt commitment to enabling genocide in Gaza… to name a few.
But perhaps its most painfully obvious shortcoming was its constant disposition of fear. Over and over, the Harris campaign went out of its way to remind the American people what it was afraid to do. And repeatedly, liberal pundits framed the campaign’s insecurity as pragmatism.
The campaign refused to break from Biden’s least popular policies... for fear of looking divided. It refused to acknowledge the economic struggles faced by working people... for fear of being blamed. Harris refused to give interviews... for fear of difficult questions.
Rather than address the needs of working class Americans across the political spectrum, the Harris campaign specifically groveled for Republican approval, for fear of a resurgent Donald Trump.
Along the way, Harris gleefully sacrificed core values of the Democratic base in favor of a dark mimicry of MAGA politics. It took Kamala less than 100 days on the campaign trail to center military supremacy and advocate for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, even while (gingerly, very carefully) calling him a fascist.
Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney (the least popular Republican in America) in a stunning demonstration of cultural and political ignorance. She duplicated the Biden campaign’s policies verbatim, in an impressive show of disregard for his legendary unpopularity. Anything to avoid criticism from the right (which came anyway) and nothing to appease growing frustration from the left.
Time and time again, the Harris campaign validated the Trump campaign by framing itself as having much in common with the MAGA movement. Harris called Trump a dangerous fascist in one breath, and urged unity with fascists in the next. Her campaign dared not fight too hard against rising fascism, for fear of setting democratic standards too high to appease the interests of her own corporate benefactors.
Fear plays no part in a winning strategy. Watching the Harris campaign (and supporting it, through gritted teeth) taught me that you don’t beat fascists through appeasement. And you don’t win hearts and minds without first earning their respect.
Now more than ever, the Democratic Party needs fighters. It’s out with the old guard—in with the new, fighting progressives. No more fascist collaborators, no more fascist appeasement.
To fight is to be pragmatic—creatively, consistently, and with a fucking moral backbone.