[lbo-talk] Rethinking Liberalism

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Fri Apr 27 14:08:19 PDT 2007


Doug wrote:


> On Apr 27, 2007, at 3:11 PM, Chuck wrote:
>
>> As soon as a
>> Demcocrat is elected president in 2008, these folks will shut up
>> and go
>> home.
>
> Some will, but after a time, some will get disillusioned with all the
> continuities. Dem administrations are better for radical politics
> than Republican. 1930s, 1960s, late 1990s. Cf. the correlation with
> periods of retreat and Rep admins: 1970s-1980s, 2000s....
=============================== That stands to reason. In politics as in life generally, victories produce confidence and an impulse to progress further while defeats result in discouragement and disengagement. The expectations of Democratic activists and voters and their potential to apply upward pressure on the administration will obviously be greater if their party wins rather than if their hopes are dashed by the Republicans being returned to office. Both the FDR and JFK victories, as you point out, stimulated rather than dampened dissent from below.

If there were a ruling class consensus that the war was a vital interest, a DP administration would be compelled to resist their pressure, and the DP base might or might not be coopted. But the US ruling class has also become progressively alarmed about the effect of the war and other Bush administration policies on its strategic interests, and it is too is looking forward to altering course - in effect, a reversion to more supple and multilateral means of exercising global power. The expectation therefore is that a new Republican administration would also break with the Bush administration's failed adverturism, but the added pressure of the DP ranks on a DP administration - rather than the contrary pressures of a reactionary Republican base on a Republican administration - would be a more certain bet to help that process along.

If Chuck, Carrol and others who are presumed to be farthest to the left on this list are so despairing about the present political situation under the Bush administration and don't believe it would improve - and might even worsen - under a Democratic administration, you have to wonder what logic underlies their professed commitment to an American working class they appear to view as politically hopeless...



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