So much for “The Shining City on the Hill” and “The Last Best Hope for Mankind.” Both metaphors never really fit the reality, but after yesterday’s hearing, the overturning of Roe v. Wade last week, and the spike in mass gun violence – in Buffalo, Uvalde and elsewhere – the fit is all the more awkard and undeserved.

It is hard to believe that the editors of the PW would publish this article, written years ago by Betty Smith, commenorating the Soviet resistance to Hitler’s invasion of that country on June 22, 1941 without mention of the irony of it all. Everybody knows that the current Russian goverment led by Putin – authoritarian and imperialist, if not fascist – is reigning down, without a scintilla of justification, bombs, bullets, and mayhem on Ukraine, a sovereign country and government on its border.

Was this an oversight by the editors? Could be, but probably not. It strikes me as a continuation of its Janus faced coverage of this bloody invasion by Russia. One day it objects to it, the next day it blames Biden and NATO for it all, and the day after that it suggests, mimicking Putin, that Ukraine is nothing but a hothouse of Nazis.

I wonder what Susan Collins is thinking today???

I consider this essay, written by the editorial team at Convergence Magazine, a refreshing and necessary break – analytically and practically – from the conventional approach and wisdom of many on the left.

“Our task is to stitch together the left-progressive bloc, and fight to maximize its influence within the broader alliance needed to beat back the authoritarian Right. The Democratic Party is shifting, and while there are still forces in it that see the Left as the big enemy, those forces are weakening; the Democrats are closer to being allies than they have been in 40 years at least. Non-neoliberal policy is widely popular, including among Republicans, and could be a way to get some on the Right to shift to the Left (think of union members who voted for Sanders but not Clinton).There is an opportunity in this opening and in the uncertainty of the waning of neoliberalism to reassert a different, new common sense, something like a Third Reconstruction, a multi-racial social democracy.”

I’ve never been a big fan of the term “corporate Democrat.” In too many instances, it becomes a term of reproach for anyone in the Democratic Party who doesn’t embrace consistently and unapologetically left and progressive politics. Deployed in this manner, it fails to capture the complexity, fluidity, and direction of positions and sentiments among Democratc Party officeholders.

Predictability, it turns allies into enemies, scales down coalition opportunities, weakens struggles electorally and legislatively, and fractures the Demcratic Party and the democratic front at a moment when maximum unity is imperative. If that posture strikes you as wrong headed, counterproductive, and sectarian, then we are on the same page.

That said, I had no problem when Bernie recently labeled Joe Manchin – the Build Back Better killer – as a corporate Democrat. If anyone has earned that title of opprobrium, it is Manchin.

As you would expect, Manchin took issue with Bernie’s type casting of him. In his reply, Manchin said he is a “moderate.” Sorry Joe, you can’t hide behind that claim. Your voting record, public utterances, differences with Biden and Democrats on issues, like BBB, close affinity to everything corporate and, above all, the immense damage you have done over the past two years to the chances of tens of millions of people gaining some relief in these difficult times betrays your claim.

Bernie is right. You are wrong. And no dance or denial on your part can change that fact. Nothing can clean up your betrayal. You’re a corporate man and, objectively, a water carrier for Trump, Fox, and the white nationalist authoritarian right.