The Left Abandons anti-war principles for Kamala Harris
Large sectors of the American left have abandoned being anti-war and supporting Palestinians to embrace Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris has recently announced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz. This move has been celebrated by much of the American left which previously supported Bernie Sanders and the Squad. Some of this celebration is warranted, on domestic politics, Walz’s record has been better than your average corporate Democrat. As Governor, Walz has implemented progressive policies such as free school lunches, paid family leave, and free college tuition. It is fully understandable for some on the left to be happy that Walz was chosen over more neo-liberal options such as Josh Shapiro. But the left has gone much further than this and has used his choice as VP to fully embrace and support Kamala Harris. Prominent left-wing YouTube channels and news outlets have put out videos and articles putting their full support behind Kamala Harris in 2024 because of this choice. This is sad for two reasons, the first being the fact that a Vice President really doesn’t do much, and Kamala Harris is a corporate-funded Democrat who is likely using populist messaging as a campaign strategy and will govern as a neo-liberal if elected. The second reason is that both Harris and Waltz are in full support of backing the genocide in Gaza and the proxy war in Ukraine two issues the left has completely abandoned in favor of supporting Harris. In this article, I will break down why I believe the left’s embrace of the Democrats is bad, both morally and strategically.
Has the Left Forgotten Obama?
For some reason, many on the left believe that because Kamala chose Walz as vice president, it means she will govern as a left-populist. But she is another corporate Democrat who is just using this as a campaign strategy. Has the left forgotten how Obama campaigned on a platform of “Hope and Change” to then govern as a neo-liberal puppet of Wall Street? Wikileaks’ documents proved that the Wall Street Bank Citigroup chose his 2008 cabinet for him. One of Obama’s earliest policies was to bail out the big banks. Obama also supported a police raid on Occupy Wall Street protestors. He covered up the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s drinking water, approved drilling in the Arctic, and supported the TPP. Obama campaigned against the Iraq war but was arguably a bigger war hawk than Bush. Not only did he stay in Iraq and Afghanistan but he expanded the Drone war to include Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. By 2015 he had droned so much that he was starting to run out of bombs. He dropped 26,171 bombs in his final year alone. Obama campaigned against Bush-era civil liberties violations but then kept Guantanamo Bay open and used the Espionage Act more than all previous presidents combined to prosecute whistleblowers who leaked information to reporters. Has the left somehow forgotten that corporate Democrats pretend to have a populist and left-wing message when campaigning but then get in and implement a neo-liberal agenda at the behest of Wall Street, Big Pharma, The Military Industrial Complex, and other corporate interests? Is the left really so historically illiterate that they think Kamala Harris will get in and implement Medicare for All or a living wage? It appears that some of them are.
Why is Genocide and Nuclear War not a red line for the left
Even if Kamala were to be more populist on domestic policies there is zero evidence she will end the U.S. support for the genocide in Gaza or the proxy war in Ukraine. Even progressive darling Walz is considered“friendly to Israel” and “supports Ukraine” according to Yahoo News. In Israel, Kamala Harris is opposed to an arms embargo, and recently shut down pro-Palestine protests by saying “if you want Donald Trump to win, say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking”. On Ukraine, Harris supports continuing the proxy war. These policies are not just simple disagreements they are horrific. So far 100,000 people have been killed, missing, or wounded as a result of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. One in every four people is starving in Gaza due to Israel’s genocidal blockade. Recent reports have come out showing that Isreali soldiers are raping Palestinian detainees. In Ukraine, people are being dragged off the street and thrown into vans to fight in an unwinnable proxy war that could have ended two months in. Many Ukrianins have gone into hiding escaping the draft while others have drowned escaping the draft. Recent polls show that the majority of Ukrainians support peace talks with Russia, but the U.S. wants to continue this war to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, a policy that brings the world closer to the brink of nuclear war every day. These U.S. policies in Gaza and Ukraine are not just minor disagreements, to put it crudely they are some fucked up shit. But why is the left okay with giving their full support to politicians in favor of these policies? The question has more than one answer. Some elements of the left simply do not care about foreign policy. There are people on the left who will be okay with supporting a warmonger committing crimes abroad if they give some concessions on domestic policy. Some on the left even prioritize identity politics and dumb culture war issues over war and imperialism. It is a sad fact that some of the Bernie left thinks gender pronouns and “owning conservatives” are more important issues than stopping the rape and genocide of Palestinians and preventing nuclear war. For those who do follow foreign policy, there are other explanations. In Ukraine many of them fully support the proxy war. Russigate brainwashed many liberals into adopting Victoria Nuland, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kagan’s view of Russia. The fact that it was sold on “humanitarian” and “pro-democracy” grounds also made them support it similar to how many liberals were tricked into supporting wars in Libya and Syria on false humanitarian grounds. In Gaza, many of them pretended to support Palestinians since the war on October 7th but happily threw Palestinians under the bus out of loyalty to the Democratic party.
Pictured Above: A meme created by the political commentary channel Due Dissidence mocking “progressives’” abandonment of Palestinians
As journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out in a recent episode of his show “System Update” these “progressives” used the Palestinian cause to get views and feel radical and now are more than happy to throw the m under the bus and stop caring about the current genocide against them in order to show their loyalty to the democratic party.
Repeating the same failed strategy
The only way the Democrats will ever feel threatened and need to change on issues like Gaza will be if large segments of the left don’t vote for them. If Jill Stien, the third-party candidate who supports populist economic policies and opposes the Gaza genocide and proxy war in Ukraine gets a substantial amount of the vote, it will show the Democrats they have to change because they need this base to win. Unfortunately, the current iteration of the Bernie left are some of the biggest cucks in human history who will be tricked by the democrats election after election and will happily look past genocide and warmongering if they have a few rhetorical bones thrown at them on domestic policy. Anyone serious about ending the genocide in Gaza or ending wars would refuse to vote Democrat unless they change their foreign policy, unfortunately, the current left is more interested in sheep-dogging people into the democratic party than ending U.S.-supported wars and genocide.
Zei Squirrel and I have both written about stuff like this in the past
https://benmedia.substack.com/p/liberals-democrats-and-the-synthetic
https://zeisquirrel.substack.com/p/on-social-imperialism-on-the-american
https://zeisquirrel.substack.com/p/aoc-is-a-social-imperialist-masquerading
If you call yourself a "Leftist" but support American Imperialism, you're not on the Left.
As Richard Medhurst said:
“And then they call themselves “progressive”…what the fuck does that mean? You’re an Imperialist who wants Healthcare.”
I agree with the article and appreciate it. However, the comments do reflect a ubiquitous trap where the discussion can devolve into arguing about labels instead of content. Labels are a necessary short-hand communication, but I don't think it is productive spending so much energy around constructing these iron-clad boxes around what they mean. I do think that it is really important to re-educate, re-frame the popular interpretation of politicians and party agendas: e.g. Obama's surveillance/intrusive policies and his military aggressiveness, Biden's entire career of war-mongering, Walz's pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian bias....etc. (just read an article of CAIR MN being refused a meeting w Walz - after a year of trying they finally arrived for a meeting with him but it was canceled on-the-spot when he learned that they wanted to talk about solutions/actions e.g. state divestment). Many of my friends are all excited about Harris, and I can see that they are green-screening. They just want to believe because she isn't Trump that she is some hero that will be his opposite. They can't accept the cognizant dissonance of their manufactured hero supporting genocide and forever wars, that she has absolutely no inkling of an intent to challenge the Empire policies and paradigm. And most people don't understand the Empire paradigm either or how it drives concrete impacts like cost/availability of EVs or tax rates. Most still buy the "Putin wants to conquer Europe" nonsense. Not many still buy the "Israel is the Beleaguered Good Guy" lie - you have to be a brain-washed morally-deficient idiot (of which there are plenty) to deny/justify/excuse the torrents of sheer evil Israel delivers every day. BUT they will accept that (ignore it) for Harris's stated domestic policies that are, legitimately, less threatening than Trumps. I think that we don't have to insist on strict label definitions in order to promote information dissemination, education, challenge, visibility, organizing...somehow expand and reframe.