by WP64 Fri Nov 25, 2016 4:59 am
I agree with you, Raj, but that's simply not enough. I'm not trying to out maneuver you politically but, and I'll just go ahead and speak for all of us, as progressive socialists we need to focus the majority of our political attention on the State. Period.
The Lilla article that has been making the rounds should be taken very seriously. I'm not suggesting that attacks against minority groups should be considered a separate issue, it isn't. And I'm not suggesting that we separate Trump's demagogic and hurtful rhetoric in the campaign from his actual political platform, we shouldn't. These things are inextricably linked and combatting them needs to be dynamic and flexible.
All that being said, funnelling all of our attention into NGOs isn't helpful. It's putting a bandaid on a severed limb. As a socialist, I truly believe in the power of the State to function as both a regulating and liberating institution. Unfortunately, American political ideology, at least since Reagan and arguably since much later, is antithetical to that central belief. Clinton (both of them), Obama, and the vast array of centrist liberal democrats haven't challenged the the truly bizarre anti-Statism of conservative voters and have instead focused their campaign energy around this tenuous coalition of special interests and disparate identity politics. They've also refused to actually engage baseline issues of material inequality. There hasn't been any real effort towards criminal justice reform, educational funding, campaign finance reform, etc.
That's the real issue. If we don't mobilize primarily on that front than we are being incredibly naive.
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