Are the Left Finally Seeing the Democrats For What They Are? Part 1
Here I begin a 6-part series divided into bite-sized pieces that seeks to answer the question posed by my interrogative article title. And the short answer is to that question is… some are, and some are not.
It’s a highly emotional struggle, and the equivalent of trying to accept that a parent or partner you have always looked up to and idolized as the greatest hero in the world is in actuality a drug addict; a philanderer; a pathological liar; a massive hypocrite; a thief; and is maliciously manipulative. Someone who is a fake in every way, but nevertheless always seems to know the right thing to say that appeals to you on a deep emotional level.
And he/she knows how to continue getting your support and love no matter how many times they let you and others who depend on them down; no matter how many times they are caught lying or break their promises with the same excuses over and over again. You just cannot bring yourself to part ways with them and accept the very harsh reality because of what they represent to you in your own mind.
Some people eventually wake up after this parent figure or beloved partner fails them one time too many, because they are no longer able to deny that harsh truth when constantly faced with the evidence.
Others, however, cling for dear life to the myth because they are simply too emotionally invested to accept the truth. So, they ignore the evidence and continue to put that parent on the pedestal. And when they and others suffer as a result, they place the blame elsewhere — any convenient scapegoat will do.
What Were the Main Problems of the Democrats?
Their supposed concern for the marginalized manifested in emotionally feel-good rhetoric that did nothing but turn the various demographics in the working class against each other, thus forestalling the class unity we seriously need.
Their insistence that the Orange Guy and the other wing of the capitalist duopoly was “far, far worse” than what the Dems had to offer was not borne out by the reality of those working class people earning less than 100K per year. People from our class had lived through four years of Trump and then four years of Biden-his-time, and the reality struck us in the face every day of our lives. No feel-good emotional ties with the Democrats were going to convince us that Biden’s crew were on our side or protecting us from something “worse.”
Hence, by the time of the 2024 election, the capitalist-controlled party had screwed up too many times; broke too many promises; and delivered nothing but war, emotionally appealing (to some) but divisive (to many) identity politics, and increasing levels of poverty to the working class that they are supposedly looking out for one time too many to continue ignoring or rationalizing.
We’re now at the point where you have to be either seriously clueless or willfully blind in a major way to continue thinking otherwise.
The professional actors in the donkey party were thus handed their walking papers by 71% of the working class who were desperate for an alternative — even if that alternative was the other wing of the capitalist bird of prey. The Democratic Party was now officially embraced as the party of the rich posing as something very different. This is due to the fact that for the first time in our recent memory, the great majority of people earning over 100K per year voted blue instead of red.
As Mr. Spock might say when provided this data: “fascinating.” But as I say: “very telling.”
What is the End Result of This?
Some on the Left who previously favored the “blue no matter who” slogan and were staunch supporters of the Democrats, even if simply to keep the Trump Beast out of the White House again, are beginning to wake up and smell the proverbial java.
But others… well, is it really that easy to accept the truth about the parent figure or cherished partner that you always looked up to as your protector and benefactor despite heaps of evidence to the contrary? Especially if they happened to be a master manipulator who knew exactly which emotional buttons to push with you? If they constantly tell you that the people you hate the most are responsible for your problems but never them?
This is similar to how so many people find it exceedingly difficult to leave an abusive partner, especially if the latter convinces them that they can do no better.
What Am I Trying to Accomplish Here?
In the rest of this 6-part series I am going to take a look at two recent responses I made to fellow Lefties on Medium and Substack, quoting from them but without naming names. Both are brilliant writers and class analysts on the Left who, unlike me, remain staunch supporters of the Democrats. But they differ in one major way at this point:
The first refuses to accept the reality of what the Democrats actually are because their emotional investment in the party is (at least currently) too great.
The second is beginning to “wake up” to what the donkey in their midst truly is thanks to the humiliating failure of the outgoing Biden/Harris administration.
Though I will not be naming them, both of these responses of mine began as comments on Substack and Medium, respectively, so if you saw them there, you know who I’m responding to. Both are good representatives of two different tendencies we’re now faced with in the Left as 2025 and a potentially new era for the working class begins.
Let’s now move to the first of these responses in Part 2.