To yield the flag, the national anthem, and other “emotive” symbols to the right without a fight is political stupidity. That the Democrats didn’t make that mistake at the just concluded convention is to their credit. I wish more on the left were as wise.

Inside the Democratic Party convention were delegates who easily fit into the category of left-progressive. They were delegates representing every state. They obviously don’t understand their presence at the convention as somehow in contradiction to their politics. I wish others who don’t share this view were as wise. This narrow conception of the left should be retired. It’s more trouble than it is worth.

The left isn’t and shouldn’t be an exclusive club, but a big tent. By the same token, the present day Democratic Party should be seen as a field of unity as well as struggle with the accent on unity, especially at this moment when the future of the country hangs in balance.

“A careful consideration of the evidence, then, suggests that the election results are not just difficult but impossible to believe. Boric is not the only Latin American leader to have expressed major doubts. This has also come from three countries that have been close allies to Maduro’s Venezuela: Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. This bloc issued joint statements on 1 and 8 August asking the CNE to release the electoral returns and calling for restraint in the face of dissent. In recent days, Brazil’s Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro have gone further, with both leaders calling for new elections, with enhanced safeguards to ensure accountability and fairness. Petro has floated the idea of a transitional government …”

This article confirms my suspicions that the Maduro government manipulated the results in order to win, in order to stay in power. Such actions shouldn’t be defended in Venezuela or anywhere else, not least here where the MAGA movement is all about rigging elections to their favor. When denied that option, MAGA and company organize insurrection, as they did on January 6, 2021.

The left, in contrast, should not compromise and instrumentalize democracy and democratic practices in the name of “class interests and anti-imperialist politics.” Nor should it defend undemocratic practices, as occurred in Venezuela. This isn’t the road to a socialism worthy of its name. If anything, it is a slippery slope leading to a loss of political authority and moral integrity.

To say that the Democratic Party is a party of oligarchy or a party in the pocket of the establishment or finance capital seems to me a flight from analytical complexity and thus empty of strategic and tactical insight. Both characterizations should be retired. A more accurate, useful, and complex characterization of today’s Democratic Party needs elaboration because it matters, strategically and tactically.

I wasn’t a big fan of Bernie’s speech at the DNC. Others will likely disagree, but for me it was all pronouncement but tone deaf to the moment, a bit insensitive and presumptuous, and devoid of humor.