Of course 'the people' are full of shit a lot of the time, because there is no 'people' but just lots of different folks, where temporary majorities outvote temporary minorities of opinion. And nothing says that getting 50% plus 1 suddenly turns a set of beliefs into graven gold dogma. Obviously, leftists spend most of their time trying to move minority opinions into the majority in society.
I'm not a populist in the sense that populism sometimes means following whatever is supported by the majority at any given time. But I am a radical democrat in the sense that I trust working within the organic democratic process of decision-making over time as a far better alternative to vanguardism, dual unionism and third party separatism that has been the alternative modality of the Left.
I support Teamsters for a Democratic Union as a far better model for challenging the Jimmy Hoffas of the union movement than say, setting up a rival leftwing teamsters union. Similarly, I am all for building a leftwing formation to challenge corporate Dems for the loyalty of the Democratic base of voters in primaries across the country. The dumping of Congressman Martinez of California in the primaries this year by a labor-latino coalition is a great model of that.
I'm not even an absolutist on that point, since there are specific historical points where third parties and dual unions played a good role - heck, the CIO was essentially a dual union, although it was part of a split that grew organically from the core of the labor movement itself rather than reflecting vanguardist dual unionism as fruitlessly attempted by some left groups at points. And there are points where a third party could play a real role, but again it would have to come out of a real organic split in the mass-based movements that are already organized within the Democratic Party. The Rainbow Coalition could have moved in that direction, but Jackson didn't want to and the movement there was subordinate to his interests.
But I am and will remain profoundly skeptical, even hostile, to dual and split formations built without an organic basis in already existing mass organizations and movements. It is a recipe for division and counterproductive results that have been proved time and time again. Dual unionism by the Communist Party in the 20s accomplished nothing for the left, but contributed to undermining the unions that were still fighting to organize during those years. And nothing was more disasterous for the Left than the Wallace third party campaign of 1948, which split the left in the CIO and helped the most reactionary elements of the unions justify tossing the leftwing unions out of the CIO.
My favorite lines in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO have always remained:
"In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement."
So what does Marx see the role of leftists as?--
"The Communists are distringuished from the other working-class parties by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole."
Why I like in that conception of the left is it is aimed at promoting both theoretical and organizational unity. Leftists criticize leadership and promote alternatives, but not in a sectarian way that encourages splits and divisions in the name of the "true" theory. Marx rightly had profound skepticism of the idealistic political model winning out in the absence of an organic link to real existing organization. So it is better to struggle for the better within the compromises of existing mass organizations than to promote the ideal in some separate formation.
-- Nathan Newman