The embrace of a united or popular front strategy by some on the left strikes me more as decorative facade than a substantive shift in their politics. It is more rhetorical than substantive, concealing a strategic orientation that still pivots around class against class. But the latter is precisely the wrong strategy at this moment. In fact, nothing good will come from it. If this approach were to capture the thinking and shape the actions of a significant number of people it could greatly weaken the effort to win back the presidency and the Senate in this fall’s election. But so far it hasn’t. Tens of millions of voters have embraced a far more expansive strategy in the face of the existential danger of Trump’s reelection. And I don’t expect to change.

Trump did’t start disinformation and polarization. Right wing Republican extremism preceding him did. But he has taken to an entirely new level. Even in the midst of a pandemic, he is at it. In fact, he is cranking it up.

In his historic report at an international meeting in Moscow in 1935, which made the case for the formation of a broad front (coalition) against fascism, Georgi Dimitrov, the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party said,

“Formerly many communists used to be afraid it would be opportunism on their part if they did not counter every partial demand of the Social Democrats by demands of their own which were twice as radical. That was a naive mistake.”

And it remains “naive” today, impeding as it does the search for common action between the left and the center. And like then changing this dynamic is of crucial importance to the future of our country and world.

In the relations between the left and the center, the left should act like the grown up in the room, not the whining kid in the corner. It shouldn’t at every turn get into a tit for tat exchange of broadsides with the center. Its main task, especially in the times in which we live and the challenges that we face, is to reach out to the center in the hope of finding ground for cooperation and common action.

Can you imagine a president mocking governors in the midst of a pandemic crisis? I can’t. And, worse still, it is a crisis that his words and actions have made far worse than it had to be.