Krystal Ball Goes Full Democrat Sheepdog
New sheepherding campaign begins with enthusiastic rant about defeating Biden in 2024 primary
I was involved in Democratic Party politics off and on from the time I was 18 until Bernie Sanders’ Second Sickly Obsequious Debacle in 2020, with a few multi-year gaps.
After Demexiting for the first time in 1996 in response to Clintonian neoliberalism, I got sucked back in when Obama came riding in on his rainbow-colored unicorn. In spite of being a Marxist committed to seeing the abandonment of capitalism, the promise of an FDR II who would materially improve my family’s material living conditions was simply too tempting for me to pass up.
I wanted to believe in Barack Obama, and I did, despite warnings from my fellow Marxists. Sometimes, when one is a parent, one wishes for certain things like affordable health care and less imperial war, both of which Obama so eloquently promised.
I was a sucker. I detested Obama by the autumn of 2009, but gave Bernie Sanders not one, but two chances to win my hopes and some of my no more than median income for a time. At least I didn’t vote for the corrupt corporate puppet who won the nomination either time in the fall.
In both 2008 and 2016, a Democratic candidate who had never been on more than the edges of my awareness burst forth and inspired me to believe that it just might be possible to wrest control of the Democratic Party from the entrenched oligarchical interests who have controlled it since at least the late 1980s.
And do some frigging good a la’ FDR, Harry Truman, and LBJ.
The betrayals of Obama, Sanders, and the few progressive congress members since the #ForceTheVote campaign have proven to me that will never be allowed to happen by the oligarchy, yet here’s Krystal Ball enthusiastically hoping for some non-woke progressive-moderate coalition to replace Biden with someone at least a little better who potentially hopefully maybe might implement some real positive change for American society:
What she’s doing here is describing the possibility of an effective primary challenge to Biden from a candidate tolerable to “progressives.” This means she’s saying that the possibility of reforming the Democrats from within is a thing. It isn’t. It doesn’t exist. This is another sheepherding attempt.
Come back to voting in Democratic primaries, progressives and leftists. If we get past the divisive woke stuff and back somebody on policy, like maybe at least on abortion, they can win! Biden’s that terrible! It’s better than doing nothing! What else are you going to do?
No, Ball didn’t come out say that, but that’s where this is going. She may even believe it herself. She certainly is rich enough to be able to afford to believe it.
The Democrats haven’t delivered on policies and governmental actions that noticeably, much less substantially, improved the material lives of most working class Americans to any level that could be described as “comfortable” since LBJ was in the White House. Since then, there were a few things that helped a few million here or a few million there, but always alienated a few million more who didn’t benefit from whatever Great Democrat Thing it was at the time.
Meanwhile, Democrat support for the MIC and the national security state, with a brief, wonderful hiatus in the mid-to late 1970s, has continued unabated the whole time, and been overwhelmingly pro-capitalist, pro-monopolist, anti-labor and anti-consumer since at least 1993.
How long are people going to believe this crap?
Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re right in pointing to a class divide between your take on the Democrats and Krystal Ball’s. I had listened to her monologue prior to reading this and had thought, “yeah, I hope so . . . “ and sort of felt that old hope you describe starting to stir a teeny tiny bit. But what’s also true is that I’m not part of the working class and, as you point out, can more easily afford to imagine such a rosy scenario coming to pass - maybe. Probably not. But hope springs eternal, right? Well, as your post here states: No, after a certain point, it doesn’t. Which is completely understandable. And also pivotal in terms of how we see what’s happening on the Right and the energy they’re tapping into. Although I’d caution that I know a few extremely wealthy Trumpers who are enormously resentful of progressives/liberals and demonize the left without any hint of grounding in reality - and when it comes to the sort of populism that we might hope to see, I’m quite sure that to the extent that people like that are really running the GOP show (which I don’t doubt is the case), it’s not going to happen there, either. They hate the liberal elite just as much as the working class, but for status reasons (right wingers don’t rack up elite cultural capital like leftys do), not bread-and-butter economic ones. But their ability to connect to populist rage is real. Where that runaway train is going worries me enormously. I am very skeptical that the more authentically economically populist voices on the right will ever truly play decisive leadership roles in the GOP. They are hoping for the same sort of transformation Krystal Ball is, just on the other side.
There is a regrettable reality - the President and most members of Congress are going to be either a Republican or a Democrat.
Citizens United made that a reality for the foreseeable future with unlimited campaign funding. It's not the only reason, of course, but money - big money - decides who is the President.
While I'm not likely to vote for either major party, it would be nice to have a President who actually keeps a campaign promise or two, or at least doesn't follow the path towards more forever wars, and a path towards WW III and nuclear war.
Or maybe something simpler - a President who cares about the people of the US, rather than the corporations of the US. But then - I don't expect it.
So Krystal, if you can help to replace the worst President in US history, I'm all for it. Not that I expect it, regrettably.