this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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I think this is too pessimistic, especially in light of how bad all other options are for the left. Party bases change -- Democrats used to be a lot closer to the working class, and (decades ago) delivered major policy improvements. With a lot of jobs re-proletarianizing, who's to say the party base can't shift back?
The biggest barrier to such a change is campaign donations, of course. But Bernie showed you can fund even a major presidential campaign through small donors, and we're also at the point where corporate Dems have more money than they can effectively use (see the Harris campaign).
I haven't really seen any evidence of this being possible. I maintain optimism, just in the revolutionary direction, not electorally.
Bernie had plenty of problems, but he would have been a significant step left of the party and he came pretty close to winning the 2020 primary. It's easy to forget the unique circumstances that allowed Democrats to pull off the fix: a highly popular former president to coordinate the drop out, a Republican opponent with an unprecedented ability to rile up the Democratic base, and Covid hitting right before Super Tuesday. Without any one of those things, I'm not sure they could have slipped in Biden. Imagine if that primary had played out in, say, 2004.
You can also look at local elections -- progressive District Attorneys, for example. They've ran (and a number have won) as Democrats, but significantly to the left of the mainstream Democratic candidates in their cities. And they've won by specifically appealing to voters who are moving left faster than Democrats on criminal justice issues.
I do expect pushback on this, though. I still think that at scale, revolution maintains its edge strategically.