Actually Centrists Should Love the DSA
In the age of conservative extremism, it's about time a lefty counterweight gets some traction. True centrists should welcome this.
In the age of conservative extremism, it's about time a lefty counterweight gets some traction. True centrists should welcome this.
The last couple months in politics have been hilarious. We're in the midst of potentially one of the biggest Democratic party electoral sweeps of all time as the Republican party and President Trump tank in the polls. The American people are clearly clamoring for change and it's threatening the decades-long and purpose-built structural dominance of the Republican party.
But reading the newspaper and social media, what is the biggest threat today to the political order?
Democratic Socialists.
Everywhere you look these days the big bad of politics are people in some midwestern state who want people to be able to afford health care and have safe food and don't like it when children are blown up by American bombs. They want more affordable housing and better designed streets and this is considered the evilest thing on the planet.
We live in a world where Republicans purposely choose the most disruptive, cruel, incoherent, and expensive policies on nothing but vibes or the preferences of a mad king who falls asleep at every public meeting. But it's the people saying "hey the rest of us are struggling, maybe the rich can pay a little more than their record low taxes they're paying now" who get all the smoke.
I don't post often on Twitter anymore, but I keep my account there for complicated reasons I don't wish to go into her. But every time I log on there now I see centrist mutuals who I knew long ago just constantly rotting their brains posting about every little thing they hate about the DSA, about Hasan Piker, about Abdul El-Sayed, etc.
Neera Tanden, President and CEO of the centrist think tank Center for American Progress, has even taken recently to teaming up with far right fascist influencers to trash and undermine progressive candidates. Matt Yglesias at least is a little more transparent. He doesn't mind the progressive wing, he claims, as long as they fuck over trans kids.
Yglesias, my former coworker at Vox, is a broken record at this point. He only has one issue he cares about: hating trans people. Everything else is irrelevant.
Watching the centrists freak out over the far left and even partner with fascists in an effort to stop them is perhaps more indicative of the true aims of the current centrist movement than they intend.
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