AVELLINO: What will happen to American Left after November 8?
With three weeks until Election Day and my inevitable nervous breakdown, I cannot stop thinking about Nov. 8, 2016.
That was a less-than-ideal night for me. Republicans maintained their majorities in the House and Senate, expanded their number of governorships to 33 and maintained dominance over state legislatures. And they got former President Donald Trump elected president. Whoopie.
But there was one silver lining for a pint-sized progressive after that disastrous election: the Left was in the driver's seat.
The next four years saw a surge of progressive activism and engagement that shook the Democratic establishment. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), formerly a bartender and organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) 2016 campaign, defeated the fourth-most powerful Democrat in the House. They even made a movie about it!
Progressive organizations like Justice Democrats and Our Revolution began springing up, providing money and support to would-be conquerors in Democratic primaries.
To the Left, the 2020 Democratic presidential primary was essentially a race, with the fastest runners always eager to prove they were the most progressive candidate. Though he was a moderate, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. agreed to a unity taskforce with Sanders to determine the party platform.
The Left was not in charge, but it still made the rules. As Matthew Yglesias has written, the 2016 Hillary Clinton loss convinced plenty of Democratic elites that they could beat Trump's populism with their own.
Progressives may be hoping for another come-to-Jesus moment for the Democratic Party should Vice President Kamala Harris lose to Trump. If the Democrats' 2016 loss triggered a Left-wing insurgency, maybe it can happen again!
I am not so sure.
The Left today is in a really weird spot. I think it can be broken down into three major groups:
There are interest groups and think tanks supporting Left-wing policy, promoting active executives like Lina Khan and weaving progressive personnel into every room they can fit in.
There are elected officials who create protest votes over their key issues, introduce progressive legislation and become the public faces of the progressive movement.
There are activist groups that stage protests, raise awareness and mobilize voters.
This last group is what I am most worried about because they are by far the biggest mess.
The Democratic Socialists of America have lost support for and from Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez due to their closest allies in Congress' lack of support for Palestine.
The Sunrise Movement, an influential climate organization that helped draft Biden's climate policy in 2020, refused to endorse him before he dropped out. This was well after Biden signed into law a record $369 billion for green energy and nominated progressive darling Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) to the Department of the Interior.
After failing to keep Biden from winning the nomination, the Uncommitted movement refused to endorse Vice President Harris. This is even after they recognized that Trump's agenda "includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing."
These and so many more groups are breaking the traditional bargain between activists and a political party: We give you stuff that you want, for which you give us support and resources. Harris and the Democratic Party are extremely frustrated that they seem to have given progressive groups a lot of stuff they want — canceling tons of student debt, increasing antitrust enforcement — but have gotten squat in return.
This is really bad. An interest group needs to curry favor with a party by promising to hold up its end of the bargain. Nobody really questions that Harris is the ideal choice between her and Trump on issues. So, interest groups were and are denying support based on purity or stubbornness. That makes elites in the Democratic Party a lot less eager to take their deals, take their meetings or take them seriously.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention and flirted with supporting Trump, even after Biden has been the most pro-union president in modern U.S. history. He was not invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention. And neither was any other group who couldn't support the Democratic nominee in exchange for policy concessions.
The activist Left's inability to properly function as every other interest group is leaving progressive legislators to fill the void of leadership. Many supported Biden and now support Harris because they are rational actors who know Harris is more Left-wing than Trump and want to continue to wield influence in government. But these progressives need strong foot soldiers to govern and right now the troops are in disarray.
If Harris loses, I think it is a bad thing in its own right. She is a more progressive candidate than Trump and his victory would be an awful policy shift in the U.S.
But if that happens, in combination with the public's Right-wing shift on issues like immigration, the activist Left's insubordination will be blamed. The Democratic Party will reckon that a Right-wing shift is necessary to win back voters. They will cite the activist Left's inability to work, and bargain with them as evidence to cut them out. Fewer progressives will be in the rooms where decisions are made, strategy is executed and the big-kid governing happens. And the Left gets even weaker.
Progressives made serious gains since 2016, both policy-wise and politically. If this Election Day results in another Trump presidency, they will lose both.
Noble Avellino is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in economics and minoring in political science. Avellino’s column, “Noble’s Advocate,” runs on Mondays.
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