Why the left can win.

The left in America is pitiful.  Progressives and liberals cannot say, proudly, I am a leftist!  Or I am on the centre-left.  This is because of a constant demonization by the right-wing and the Republican party.  The sad thing is, is that this is expected.  And yet for decades we haven't fought back properly.

This is my first diary, so I apologize for any spelling mistakes, or anything glaringly wrong about my writing.

The biggest political slur is lefty, in America.  The Republican party has succeeded in convincing enough Americans that all that is left is socialist.  We have just simply not done enough in countering this.

Isn't Social Democracy left-wing, and isn't Progressivism left to centre-left?  And here American Liberalism is considered centre-left too.

In most major political or social movements the left has won.  In the French Revolution, it was (what was to become) the left-wing that fought for Democracy in France against a conservative and reactionary monarch.  In the US the abolition movement was lead largely by American liberals.  In Turkey, wasn't it the left-wing movement of Atatürk that brought secularism and the seedlings of parliamentary democracy?

It is true that the left-wing has made mistakes.  In the USSR you had revolutionaries, who brought down the Russian monarch, but who eventually gave up on democratic principles and human rights.  The problem was a series of dictators who implemented a policy without regard to human cost, or the democratic process.

But when you compare left-wing mistakes and accomplishments, to right-wing mistakes and accomplishments, the left-wing wins.

In the US we had our first, arguably, Socially Democratic president in FDR, who brought about the New Deal.  The New Deal, with the Civil Rights Act of 1965, is the greatest legacy of the left in modern US history.  And yet we have moved away from economic justice.

While all three of our frontrunner's are proposing some form of health insurance reform, all three have shied away from single-payer healthcare.

We have a chance to return to a movement of social democracy, but we have to fight hard for it.  We need to be able to proudly identify our politics on the left, and say why.

•  Tipjar

  by Notus on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:25:57 AM PDT

•  We are Socalist

  The Republican party has succeeded in convincing enough Americans that all that is left is socialist.

  We are Socalists in some respect. We have to own up to that. Socalism and Stalin Communism are not the same thing. We are not North Korea. We are Northern Europe.

  Despite being demonized, we need to also recognize the vast majority of the country disagrees with us A LOT. We're lefties in a center-right nation.

  by nrafter530 on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:27:38 AM PDT

•  I Am A Populist

  I am a populist democrat who is also part socialist.

  by rssrai on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:29:26 AM PDT

•  Is that all there is?

  Is that all there is....
  If that's all there is, my friend,
  Then let's keep blogging...

  by Immigrant Punk on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:30:05 AM PDT

•  Couldn't agree more

  and everyone who represents us on TV and in print (liberals, progressives, whatever) needs to say it loud, say it proud.

  What might help is if they add: "And so are the majority of Americans - conservative principles have failed and so-called conservatism has been rejected by most of the American people." Make it clear that the rightwing demonization of liberals/progressives ISN'T WORKING - and that many more Americans identify themselves as Democrats than republicans. And add that the more wingers insult the majority of the American people by trying to demonize liberals, the more unpopular the republican brand gets...

  by everhopeful on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:31:48 AM PDT

•  Left-libertarian

  I like low tariffs but I don't like "free" trade agreements.

  I like free markets but I don't like corporate welfare or union-busting.

  I'm suspicious of universal health care plans but not nearly as much as I'm suspicious of HMO's in bed with their own regulators.

  And I want the war to end; I can't stand immigrant-baiting.

  So I'm voting Democrat.

  by slaney black on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:34:18 AM PDT

•  An observation

  You did not identify an achievement of the left since the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

  by science first on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:34:49 AM PDT

  •  That is true

    It was not because there hasn't been any, but I just listed some of my old favorites.

    by Notus on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 09:40:57 AM PDT

•  I would have voted Socialist, if it were

  clear that you meant democratic socialism. (No socialism without democracy.) Accordingly, I voted Social Democrat.

  OTOH, by now I think that democratic socialists and social democrats may just be flavors of liberal (as that word is used in U.S. politics). That is, I don't think either requires belief in, e.g., public ownership of the means of production. My self-identification is mostly because of an egalitarian commitment and support for the extension of democracy further into the economy, and, in part, nostalgic (for Michael Harrington, not, say, Earl Browder).

  by another American on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 10:29:05 AM PDT

  •  Well

    if you change that to public ACCESS to the means of production, would it sound better?  (i.e. Not trying to abolish ownership, but leveling the playing field with respect to barriers to ownership.)

    Starve the corporate beast, buy local!

    by EthrDemon on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 11:08:22 AM PDT

•  the Leftist position is always the correct

  position, because the Left position is the one arrived at through reason, deliberation, and creative doubt.

  The Left means, merely, the Enlightenment--reason, liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy as a principle.

  by ChicagoLife on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 10:40:51 AM PDT