The Nation: Michelle Goldberg- Adolph Reed & Electoral Nihilism

Source:The New Democrat 

A couple of things irritate me about the far left in the Democratic Party (social democrats or even socialists, as I call them) when it comes to their political analysis. One is that they believe Democrats and Republicans are the same and that therefore American elections do not matter.  As the great socialist philosopher Noam Chomsky said, we don't have a two-party system but a one-party system, a business party that contains both Democratic and Republican factions. The other irritating thing is that the Democratic Party is not far enough to the left for them, or as I would put it, the DP is not a social democratic party. Well, we are the Democratic Party, which has a social democratic faction, which is very different from, let's say, Britain, where the socialists are the major faction in the Labour Party.

But I give social democratic writer Michelle Goldberg credit when she says the job of what she calls the left and I call the far left, is to support the best person on the left who can actually get elected, what she would probably call a moderate Democrat, to prevent a right-wing Republican from winning a House or Senate or State office seat, or the presidency, especially if Republicans control at least one of the legislative chambers, whatever the level is.

And then Michelle Goldberg goes on to say, and I paraphrase, that before the elections you should work hard to get the furthest left Democrats with the most in common with you ideologically elected, or at least winning the Democratic primary, so you don't have to settle for the establishment moderate in the fall. That is where I agree with the Michelle Goldberg clones on the far left, in other words, if you don't like what is on the menu, then work to change the menu or find another place to eat, or another political party.

My point is that if social democrats are unhappy with the Democratic Party, they have a couple of options. One is to change the Democratic Party, but not wait until the last few weeks or months of election campaigning to do that.  They should get to work during the off-year of the election to encourage more people who ideologically represent them to either be active in the Party or run for office and help those people get the resources to become competitive. Or they should leave the Party to form that social democratic party they want, or the Green Party, or the Democratic Socialist Party, instead.
Source:The Laura Flanders Show