Yes, they won the White House, but down ballot, the Democratic Party did not see the kinds of successes they were counting on. They lost ground in the House, may yet fail to take back the Senate, and left the Republicans in control of most state legislatures. They fell far short of expectations, and they are looking for an explanation.
At its most efficient, the Democratic Party gets the working class to put servants of big business in power without letting voters see the contradictions. Keep this in mind, as the Democrats analyze this year’s election. They are not interested in the math or science of why they lost but are seeking an explanation that will best support their role as saboteurs of an organized left. So, the likes of Spanberger (D-Virginia) will turn to their colleagues with demands that they “never use the words socialist and socialism again.” In that vein, Democrats and the media are lining up to blame their losses on the paltry lip service they lent to political movements like Black Lives Matter and the Fight For Fifteen.
The point isn’t just to know that the Democratic leadership and the mainstream press are lying, it’s also to understand why. When we bring our politics to new people, helping them understand the motives behind the systemic lies makes our case much more convincing.
The desire to suppress an independent left is why the Democratic party chose to hang Al Gore’s 2000 loss around the neck of Ralph Nader. Their loss had considerably more to do with voter disenfranchisement—a fight which would make the Democrats much stronger electorally for generations to come, since roughly one in three Black men in Florida has been disenfranchised by the racist criminal justice system there. Instead, Democrats (with the help of mainstream media) decided to make it about independence on the left, an attack which successfully crippled the Green Party leadership with misplaced guilt.
Today, comments from the likes of Spanberger mean to convince us that if we fight for human rights and human dignity (she singled out Black Lives Matter and socialism), we’ll wind up driving voters into the arms of the Republican Party. But despite her admonition, we no longer live in a world where the word socialism stops conversations before they start, and our experience with the 2020 election proves it. Twenty-eight out of thirty-seven DSA backed candidates won their elections, some even in Republican areas. But, uncontested, the lie becomes the truth. If someone’s only sources of information were the likes of NBC or The Washington Post, they’d never know November 3rd was a banner day for the left.
It’s up to us to tell our story.
– Cesar M.
Authors’ opinions may not reflect those of the TCDSA.