> On Jun 28, 2010, at 11:29 AM, SA wrote:
>
>
>> I think there's a certain unhealthy rhetorical outbidding that takes place on the US left (totally absent in France, AFAICT) concerning "The Democrats." No one wants to be left vulnerable to the accusation that they're "soft on democrats."
>>
>
> Really? No one? A lot of pretty sophisticated leftists drank the Obama Kool-Aid, and it's only now that some of them are recovering. The Nation magazine, which is certainly part of the U.S. left, can't really be described as "soft on Democrats" because they really are Democrats. Ditto much of the former antiwar movement. Even some on the left of the labor movement. Yeah, the Spartacist League is another story, but where does this tendency that you're talking about prevail?
>
You're right, it's only a specific subset of the left that I'm talking about. How to define that subset? I guess the socialist left, broadly defined. (I count myself in that number.) It's by now been mostly purged from the Nation.
True, some people in that milieu came out for Obama, but that was something extraordinary that requires separate explanation and personally I often found it surprising to see some of their names. (E.g., Carl Davidson.) I don't think you have to go quite as far as the Sparts to find this phenomenon.
I guess it could be asked - why complain about this when the opposite problem is so much worse? And it is much worse. But since I don't expect that much from the uncomfortable-with-socialism types, their vice somehow just seems like part of the scenery.
SA