[NYMAG] The British election results, like any election results, are the result of unique circumstances and multiple factors. So was what happened to Charles I. So was what happened to Romulus Augustulus.
They are also, however, a test of a widely articulated political theory that has important implications for American politics. That theory holds that Corbyn’s populist left-wing platform is both necessary and sufficient in order to defeat the rising nationalist right. Corbyn’s crushing defeat is a decisive refutation.
Item 1: Don't run a candidate who looks like Lenin. Likewise Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.
Many writers, not only on the left, detected parallels between the rise of Corbyn and the movement around Bernie Sanders. The latter is considerably more moderate and pragmatic than the former, and also not laden with the political baggage of Corbyn’s widely derided openness to anti-Semitic allies.
Bernie's a socialist. He's also Jewish, even though he does have his links to anti-Semites. They're just the ones who speak in polysyllables, not the ones who shoot up kosher grocery stores in Joisey.
And yet many leftists have emphasized the similarities between the two, which are indeed evident.
Did Germy honeymoon in Russia too?
Both built youth-oriented movements led by cadres of radical activists who openly set out to destroy and remake their parties.
But BoJo and Trump represent a trend toward Fascism?Both lost in somewhat close fashion, Sanders in 2016 and Corbyn the next year. And fervent supporters of both men treated their narrow defeats as quasi-victories, proof of victory just around the corner.
Losing close still counts as a loss.
Arguments of this sort tend to quickly devolve into straw-man attacks. So, in order to show that the view I’m describing is widespread, I am sharing lengthy excerpts from a half-dozen essays written by American leftists in recent years:
“Only Socialism Can Defeat Trumpism,” by Nicole Aschoff and Bhaskar Sunkara, The Nation, November 2016
“The past year has shown that millions of ordinary people are ready for an alternative, one pointed to by the success of Sanders and the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain …
Just not enough millions.
As with the collapsing social democrats in Europe, the Democratic Party’s best bet is to move left and embrace a platform that speaks to the real needs, fears, and aspirations of working people …
Like Barbara Streisand and Alyssa Milana...
For the Democrats, no less than their peers in Europe, where the neoliberalization of social democracy has opened up space for a populist right, the choice on offer might well be either socialism or irrelevance.”
I'd say it was the invasion of their homelands by Moslems with the connivance of latter day Quislings and Petains.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s Success is a Model for American Progressives,” by James Downie, Washington Post, June 2017
“Corbyn’s success provides a model for U.S. progressives in 2018, 2020 and beyond: If you need turnout to win — as liberals in the United States do — you need a bold, uncompromising platform with real solutions …Like Pakistain needs more Islam.
Why was turnout so high? Because Corbyn was able to generate excitement among Labour voters, especially the young. That’s in no small part because of this year’s Labour manifesto (the British equivalent of a party platform). Unlike other recent versions, mostly incrementalist documents that tweaked what came before, the 2017 edition is the boldest in decades: more money for the National Health Services and other major initiatives, a “jobs first” Brexit and free university tuition, financed by taxing corporations and the wealthiest. The manifesto and the campaign were summed up by their elegantly simple slogan: “For the many, not the few.”
BoJo's was better.
We're leaving the Holy Roman Empire!
“Politics has changed,” declared Corbyn Thursday night, “and politics isn’t going back in the box where it was before.” He is right about British politics. If progressives apply the lessons of his success judiciously, U.S. politics will also change — for the better, for the many and not the few.”
Oh, and slap those uppity Jews around
“Jeremy Corbyn Is Leading the Left Out of the Wilderness and Toward Power,” by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, June 2017
“Last Thursday’s election result in the U.K. is a ringing confirmation that stirring idealism need not be sacrificed at the altar of political pragmatism …
If
Stirring Idealismmeans being part of the Holy Roman Empire or a Continental System most Brits will probably be against it.
Yes, mainstream center-left parties may have been crushed in recent European elections — think of France or the Netherlands. However, Corbyn — who spent 32 years toiling in obscurity on the backbenches before becoming leader of his party in a shock victory in 2015 — has now a paved a road out of the wilderness …
... and now back into obscurity...
Here in the United States, meanwhile, the Corbyn-esque Sanders
He sez that like it's a good thing...
has become the most popular politician in the country and would probably win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by a landslide if the contest were to be held tomorrow. Some polls also suggest he might have defeated Trump last November, too.”
That's what they said about Hillary, too.
“The American Left Has Found a New Hero,” Paul Blest, The Outline, June 2017
“American left-wingers like myself have found ourselves looking for an escape over the past few weeks in the stratospheric rise of the Labour Party — led by Corbyn, an unabashed socialist — in the polls ahead of this Thursday’s UK election …"Okay. Corbyn lost in a landslide. Let's keep working on impeachment. That's sure to work.
As left wing activist Paul Mason told the New Republic last week: “They assumed Corbyn was their secret weapon. It turns out he is our secret weapon …
Except that he was their secret weapon... Ph, the hell with it. Their secret weapon was a lot less likable than the other secret weapon.
The reason that Corbyn is surging now, apart from the discovery that May is extremely bad at campaigning, is that he’s got a clear, progressive vision for the future, one that tackles the big question of making a more equitable society at home and around the world.
May kept trying to be-Labour the point on Brexit.
The Labour Party manifesto unabashedly goes the farthest we’ve seen from a major left-of-center party; not just the Sanders-like social democratic parts like pumping more money into the National Health Service and making college free, but in nationalizing essential public services and raising revenues from increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for all of it.”
“How Jeremy Corbyn Is Inspiring the American Left,” by Graeme Demianyk, HuffPost UK, July 2017
“Sanders’s defeat to Clinton helps explain why the U.S. left has such a soft spot for a 68-year-old British collector of manhole covers. Corbyn’s success — not victory, but 40 percent of the vote and preventing Theresa May and the Conservative Party from winning a majority that she was expected to enlarge — is celebrated because his unashamedly left-wing manifesto was supposed to return Labour to the wilderness of the 1980s. It was the same accusation leveled at Sanders, that the Democrats could expect oblivion with the Vermont senator as their would-be President …
So, what with Trump's numbers going up, and impeachment being patently stupid--Joe's
| Joe is what? Don’t leave is in suspense, Fred. |
There's more in the same vein, just as dumb.
Related:
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-12 Yang Qualifies for Dem December Prez Debate
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-11 The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History Of The War. U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, states a confidential trove of government documents.
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-09 Anthony Hopkins on Why He Doesn't Talk About Politics: 'Actors Are Pretty Stupid'
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-12 Yang Qualifies for Dem December Prez Debate
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-11 The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History Of The War. U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, states a confidential trove of government documents.
Bernie Sanders: 2019-12-09 Anthony Hopkins on Why He Doesn't Talk About Politics: 'Actors Are Pretty Stupid'
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Democratic Party: 2019-12-11 Russia’s Lavrov calls on US to publish bilateral communications over 2016 election
Democratic Party: 2019-12-10 Trump attacks 'pathetic' Fox News for airing 'loser' Rep. Eric Swalwell and other Democrats