Every time a candidate of the left loses in a Democratic Party primary to another candidate (usually a liberal), her or his supporters are quick to cry “Foul Ball” and rail against “The Establishment.” Never is the idea entertained that maybe the other candidate had greater appeal, maybe a better game plan and maybe a more accurate read of voter sentiments. To ignore the latter interpretation, to dismiss it out of hand isn’t smart politics. It may feel righteous, but I doubt it will serve the left well in the longer run.
Lift the Blockade on Cuba and send humanitarian aid, Joe. That’s what neighbors do (or should do). Don’t embrace the sound bites of your right wing opponents or voices in your own party that would like you to tighten the screws on Cuba, not to mention China. A majoritarian audience awaits a new foreign policy that accents peace, diplomacy, mutuality, and the imperative of a global response to the existential threats – climate disruption, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and war – of our times. Do the right thing!
I’ve read a few different takes on strategy recently. Here’s mine. Strategy, as I learned it in the Communist Party and from reading Lenin is wide angled and dynamic. Never narrowly focused, Its field of vision is the larger political landscape on which competing coalitions (or, in Gramsci’s language, blocs) collide and compete for advantage (war of position), and power (war of maneuver). It brings into focus the main class and social constituencies in that field of struggle, clarifies where they stand in relation to each other and the main issues of struggle, and, above all, takes into account the distribution of power – the balance of power – in the moment between/among the contending coalitions.
A strategic excavation doesn’t stop here though. It goes on to specify the key alliances that are crucial to each side’s success, the key constituencies to be won, and the key democratic and class issues that, if settled in favor of one or another coalition, will either move the whole chain of struggle to a new, higher stage or in a backward direction. And of course, any strategic rendering is set within and deeply informed by a particular economic and political conjuncture.
In today’s circumstances, the main clash is between two competing cross class coalitions, each with its own distinct class and social makeup and politics. One is right wing, white nationalist, authoritarian, and if need be, fascistic. While socially diverse, it skews toward white billionaires, millionaires, and middle income Americans. The other is democratic minded and leans in a progressive direction. Unlike its rival, it can claim a majoritarian status and skews toward working people, people of color, women, and young people. While it scored victories last fall at the ballot box – the biggest the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – and legislative breakthroughs this spring, the outcome of what can fairly be described as an existential clash of these two grand coalitions is still to be decided.
To see economic and political processes in the present and future as simply a continuation, with slight modifications, of the past is analytically mistaken and politically counterproductive. A vibrant, open ended Marxism should take into account discontinuities, changing conjunctures, and new phenomena at the national and global level that emerge in the course of capitalist development and modify, not only the conditions for the production and realization of surplus value, but also class and democratic struggles at the national and global level. When these modifications are deep going and thus possess potential for far reaching economic, social, and political change, adjustments in strategy and tactics in an expansive and flexible direction are usually in order.
The political coalition that scored victories last fall at the ballot box and this spring in the halls of Congress stretches from conservative William Kristol to CEO JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon to President Biden to AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka to Senator Bernie Sanders to AOC to long time radical Black activist Angela Davis. Like any coalition that is politically and socially diverse, it possesses, seldom in equal measure and rarely in a static state, cooperative and contested relations that structure and animate its interactions and policies.
Setting the agenda and defining the terms of engagement in this far flung coalition is the Biden administration. This isn’t to say that others in this coalition are voiceless or passive actors. Not at all.
Each presses its demands and priorities. Where differences and tensions arise (and they are inevitable), they usually pivot not around the direction, but the pace, scale, and scope of the reform process. Only on matters of foreign policy where the administration’s approach fits into the old Washington consensus are the differences of a more fundamental nature.
In these circumstances, politics becomes more an art than a science, in which differences are articulated and pressed, but not in such a way that they shred the threads of unity and cooperation on a wide range of issues. After all, unity was the template of last year’s victory at the ballot box and this year’s legislative successes, not to mention the main requirement to carry this coalition across the finish line victoriously in next year’s elections.
This coalition, to say the obvious, is locked into a titanic battle against another coalition that is its mirror opposite – white nationalist, authoritarian, and revanchist. And, without any sense of exaggeration, its outcome will position the country to either address the great challenges that it faces or throw it on a long, downward, and chaotic trajectory. If the latter, It may not end in “barbarism,” but the resemblance will be unmistakable and no exit will be in sight.
