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by alephnerd·3y ago·view on hn ↗

I have worked with Congressional Progressive Caucus affiliated representatives, but this "No True Scotsman" of Left is ignoring the OP's point. Relatively, us in the DNC are to the left of the GOP. End of story. We are not Far Left like a Communist Party, but we 100% are a coalition between Center Left-Center.

And it pains me to say as a Progressive, but our movement has absolutely been hijacked by the "elite". There's a good article about it in the Harper Mag (https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a37628920/rad...) and I have definetly seen this in my network of friends who work in the Media, Government, Law, VC, and Tech (3rd generation upper middle class/upper class, attended the same 20 universities, went to the same 200 high schools, 60-40 White-Asian).

If you're from a working class Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous backgroud, you don't have the in group network to leverage the levers of power. And any activist organization that wants to help the working class ends up having to kowtow to donors who always fit the archetype above.

That said, this 100% is happening in the GOP as well. Among their network of staffers and journalists, it's the exact same architype as above except more like 80-20 White-Asian.

At the end of the day, Bari Weiss, Carl Tucker, Rachel Maddow, $insertJournalistHere are all different sides of the same coin.

OK maybe if the Democratic Party and all liberal media institutions count as "The Left," then you can say they have societal power. This is a crazy statement because, as I cited, these people being in power never leads to any leftist reforms and is mainly just more of the same pro-capital cronyism as when Republicans are in charge. There is essentially no daylight between the parties on economic issues of substance. Instead they pretend to differentiate by adopting increasingly radical social policies. It won't be /good/ exactly when President DeSantos signs the Freedom To Learn Act requiring all schoolchildren to carry sidearms, but it is inevitable when "the left" (your definition) fight on this ground instead of on economic issues.