Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Razgovory]

I'm beginning to see that CC and Zoupa have a point.  Maybe America is just terrible.

Two Futures for the American Left
The dustup over Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't really about tactical coalitions. It's about values.

By Arash Azizi

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/aoc-marjorie-taylor-greene/687254/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawR9QKFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFvQ2ZZZTVSbUcxRFEydktic3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHrG-jj3-KZl02umguQNn2jjX3ditDDo1YN-eHTtVornueu6a4ONk0pIyx0zD_aem_G9gQu81Nq2LKwWw0MuVWCw

In a spat between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene, which side would American leftists take? Until recently, this might have sounded like a ludicrous question. By any measure, AOC is one of America's most left-wing politicians. Greene is a self-described Christian nationalist who once belonged to the right-wing Freedom Caucus.
But two weeks ago, AOC described Greene as "a proven bigot and anti-Semite" who shouldn't be trusted, and many American leftists flocked to Greene's corner, condemning AOC for her comments. They included the activist Cenk Uygur, the journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Grim, the Palestinian writers Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed el-Kurd, and the Democratic strategist Peter Daou, to name a few.
The newfound love for Greene on the left is explained primarily by one factor: Israel. MTG has changed sides on the issue. In the past she evinced strong support for "our ally Israel," criticized AOC on the grounds that the representative "hates Israel," and complained about "Israel-hating radicals." Now Greene has broken with Donald Trump and come to condemn the "genocide in Gaza."
Greene hasn't become more tolerant: She greeted the election of Zohran Mamdani, New York's first Muslim mayor, last year with an X post that showed the Statue of Liberty in a burka. And she hasn't abandoned conspiracism: Just last week, with regard to COVID-19, she claimed that the pharmaceutical company Moderna had helped "manipulate the virus (bioweapon), make the vaccine (poison), and then make the profits."

But Israel tops all concerns for some leftists, so Greene's reversal on the issue is enough to win their support, and AOC's refusal to embrace her is seen as a counterproductive purity test. Uygur, for instance, claimed that AOC had done "exactly what Israeli supporters want—split the anti-war movement and critics of Israel's genocide."
The AOC-MTG dustup is not really about how big a tent the American left should erect, however. It's not even about whether left-wingers should occasionally collaborate with those on the right. Rather, it presents a choice between two irreconcilable futures for the leftist movement itself.
One of these two visions involves building on America's liberal tradition while attempting to push it toward democratic socialism. This approach has a long history in the United States. In the late 1930s, the Communist Party gave vociferous support to Franklin D. Roosevelt even while recruiting thousands of people to its own ranks. The Port Huron Statement of 1962—the defining document of the American New Left— called for the movement to "include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system."



Institutionally and electorally, this version of the left relies on a grand coalition of trade unions and civil-rights groups advancing the rights of women and Black Americans—in other words, the historic constituency of the post-1970s Democratic Party. It would work to gain back the working-class votes that the party has lost in recent years.
Such a path is essentially that of Bernie Sanders, who has managed to both oppose the two-party system and make himself a core part of the Democratic Party, occupying top positions and helping shape its platform. AOC has made similar choices: She's stayed on good terms with the Democratic leadership, even while being enormously popular within the country's largest leftist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America.
The alternative to this vision for the left is very different. It envisages a future anchored in populist anti-elitism rather than in defined values or political traditions. It would unite those angry at "the system," including by opposing the post-1945 world order and liberalism itself, in search of an alliance of the far left and the far right. Hence Greenwald, once on the left, now makes common cause with his right-wing counterparts, such as Alex Jones and Candace Owens. A popular pro-Palestinian account on X endorsed both a leftist Democratic-primary candidate in Michigan and Dan Bilzerian, a Holocaust denier who is running for Congress in Florida. As an emotional wedge issue, Israel is ideal for this trans-spectrum populism. Those on the left embrace hostility toward Israel as an anti-imperialist cause, while those on the right advocate an American nationalism suspicious of entanglements abroad, such as the steadfast U.S. support for Israel.
Some of the responses to AOC's remarks about MTG made clear that her critics weren't just suggesting that she tactically align with Greene, but that they preferred Greene's politics to AOC's, especially on Israel. Daou, for instance, averred that Greene had "far more intellectual honesty" and "far more courage on the defining moral issue of our time," namely, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abulhawa, too, asserted that for her, "as a leftie," Greene had "more credibility and honor" on that issue. In fact, AOC has one of the most pro-Palestinian records in Congress. But the populist wing of the left distrusts her commitment largely because of her association with the Democratic Party establishment. Greene, since her rift with Trump, can be cast as an outsider.
The writer Sohrab Ahmari, who combines Catholic conservative social values with populist economic views, recently wrote about AOC's criticism of Greene in the British magazine UnHerd. He called on AOC to view society as divided into two camps—underdogs versus those in power—and to mobilize the former against the latter.
But this kind of populism does not have a track record of success for the left. Perhaps the most significant force to have tried it is the Spanish party Podemos, founded in 2014, which attempted to ignite a left-right groundswell against an ill-defined establishment that it called "the caste." But this message didn't resonate with Spanish voters. No grand populist coalition came to be; instead, Podemos wound up allying with the Socialist and Communist Parties, and it currently backs Spain's Socialist-led government.


Populism has, at the same time, proved stunningly successful on the right. And as far-right populist parties consolidate power in one country after another, many on the global left find themselves drawn to join them in a shared anti-liberalism. Last year, Perry Anderson, the grand old theorist of the British New Left, offered an account of populism that strongly suggested that its purveyors on the right and left could pursue a common agenda.
But a far left that put aside its significant differences with the far right to unite over a joint opposition to "the system" and obsession with Israel would no longer be recognizable. It would be forced to abandon or heavily de-emphasize defining values, such as gender equality, anti-racism, and the need for action on climate change, without necessarily finding common ground with the right on its economic agenda.
This is thus a struggle over the American left's identity. The 2010s, following the 2008 global financial crisis, gave rise to anti-establishment forces across the world. In the U.S., these included both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. The former's success eventually transformed the Republican Party and brought about the Trump presidency. The left, in turn, has done much to transform the Democratic Party: Despite losing two primaries in 2016 and 2020, Sanders, once a lonely voice on the fringe, has become a major force, and some polls show AOC leading among potential Democratic candidates for president in 2028. A DSA member is now mayor of America's largest city.
But the American left must choose. It can help transform the Democratic Party into a broad liberal-socialist coalition that encompasses the politics of Sanders and AOC. Or it can try to compete for the right's populist voters by dissolving its political and historical identity into an unrecognizable mash of anti-elite anger. In the process, it will become ever more like Marjorie Taylor

Also

Last month, Ana Kasparian, executive producer of the progressive YouTube channel The Young Turks (6.5 million subs), tweeted out "Hey, bitch, the goyim are waking the fuck up. Deal with it." Ana, like many other chronically online leftists, has been making increasingly obsessive anti-Israel content since October 7. So obsessive, in fact, that it led Jillian Michaels, a co-host of Ana's panel show Her Take, to storm off set in the middle of production saying "I don't know how every show ends up being about 'how do we bash Israel?' This is not for me, I am not interested in this."

"MAGA communist" influencer Jackson Hinkle likes to use the same phrase as Kasparian with his millions of followers. Examples include, "Goyim, do not complain. You must die for Israel," "Now goyim, it's time to die for Israel," and "Goyim, don't ask questions." This is copied in even harsher languages by the "American Communist party," a political formation that seems to be less a real party than a social media grift.

It's difficult to work out who the anti-Israel leftists or right-wing groypers are because their language is now indistinguishable

There are multiple factors driving the groyperfication of the online left. But it can't be denied that there is increasing acceptance of anti-Semitic tropes by a subset of leftists and influencers. Nick Fuentes and his digital army of fans, "the Groypers," have revamped anti-Semitic tropes for the digital era. Now, online leftists are using that same rhetoric.

Of course, left-wing anti-Semitism goes back decades: Stalin carried out Jewish purges and Brezhnev had vast quantities of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion printed in Arabic and distributed throughout the region to counter Israel.


Age-verification for social media puts kids at risk
But the difference today is that leftist anti-Semitism is propagated and encouraged by Islamic activists, who can now communicate instantly with their counterparts in the US. Palestine alone has a Marxist Popular Front party, a Marxist Democratic Front, and a Marxist People's Party. Many of these younger Middle Eastern activists are just as online as America's young radicals and they, too, are sharing their views online. It isn't just the keffiyeh that's been adopted by US college activists since October 7.

Using "goy" to imply malicious intent by Jews towards outsiders is just one example of the anti-Semitic vocabulary used by left-wingers these days. Perhaps even more popular is the term "ZOG," which stands for Zionist Occupation Government. The term originated in American white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles in the 1970s, particularly around the American Nazi Party and a group called "The Order." Now it's used far more often by fanatical internet socialists.

While some leftists have been arguing about whether or not it's OK to use words like "ZOG" and "goy," others have been using the terms against their opponents within the movement. Podcaster Sean McCarthy tweeted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling her a "slave for ZOG". Some radical pro-Palestine activists have taken to calling Zohran Mamdani "Zogran Goydani," a name that for now seems to have won out over "Ziohran."

Why do they call him "Zogran/Ziohran?" Examples include Mamdani condemning anti-Semitic attacks, including the one involving two bombs being thrown at a crowd of Jews which, thankfully, didn't go off. They were also annoyed at him for failing to defend his wife's egregious old tweets about Israel.

When other leftists object to this behavior, as Jacobin contributor José Sanchez and DSA Maoist Christopher Winston did recently, they are attacked. When Winston objected to the use of "Zogran Goydani", he was immediately pounced upon with language like "ZOG slave," "goy slave," and "kikeslave." When Sanchez called such language  "the socialism of fools", he was called a "shabbos goy kind and sensitive person," "cucked Marxist," "Zionist kind and sensitive person." It's difficult to work out whether those denouncing them are anti-Israel leftists or right-wing groypers because their language is now indistinguishable.

None of this shows any sign of abating given the war with Iran and the incentives of creator revenue sharing. You can now actually make a living calling people abusive names online, provided you have a big enough following. These activists are fighting for attention and it seems the best way to get it is using these deeply unpleasant slurs. The leftist groypers are here to stay.

https://spectator.com/article/rise-of-the-leftist-groypers/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQ1Xl9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFDU01laWFrb091RjNYcmlNc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHs0q-pCJsQV8UPihOwtfefMOGETnrVAMjbSA-eREiKOuwHilijclaLlxtyWY_aem_3gFgIOazxX2OpJr6rFEEOA&edition=us

I should be buoyed by the defeat of the Democratic candidate in Texas that wanted to imprison "Zionists" and then castrate them, but the amount of support for the guy in Maine with the Nazi tattoo has me a bit apprehensive.  I don't think I'll be voting this year.

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidiin ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβνλλα τί ϴέλεις; respondebat illa: άπο ϴανεΐν ϴέλω."

[Valmy]

Both Ana Kasparian and MTG are nuts. It is certainly a concern. I think you should listen a little more to what Platner actually has to say to understand why people in Maine like him rather than the clickbait stuff.

As for that obscure House rep race, a nutty fruitcake getting swamped in a primary is the system WAD yes?

[Razgovory]

Well, I wouldn't say Kasparian and Greene are nuts, just vile racists.  But why would leftists defend vile racists?  I had always believed the left was better than this, but I have realized now that simply isn't true.  As for Platner, I really don't care how much a Nazi want's to build infrastructure or stick it to Trump.  It's a really weird world where antifascist give Nazis a pass because, really they have a very "progressive" attitudes regarding the Jewish state. 

[grumbler]

The Death's Head image long predates Naziism. Having said that, the tattoo he had looked very much like the Totenkopf badge of the SS division of that name. I don't put any stock in the rumor that he got it to show that he was a neoNazi.

[Grey Fox]

In essence the fight has always been about capital and American exceptionalism usually obscure that fact in your partisans politics.

For some reason, Israel is polarizing enough to shed that curtain back.

[Sheilbh]

The Death's Head image long predates Naziism. Having said that, the tattoo he had looked very much like the Totenkopf badge of the SS division of that name. I don't put any stock in the rumor that he got it to show that he was a neoNazi.

Yeah I don't think he's a Nazi (though I think there's other reasons I think he's maybe a bit problematic. To be honest looking at his background - in the military then in private security, Redditer I think it's probably more just because it's "based" as an image - and I don't for one second buy his explanation that he didn't know what it meant given that background.

[Razgovory]

The Death's Head image long predates Naziism. Having said that, the tattoo he had looked very much like the Totenkopf badge of the SS division of that name. I don't put any stock in the rumor that he got it to show that he was a neoNazi.

I wouldn't give a Republican the benefit of the doubt, and think that's because he really, really into the Prussian light cavalry.  Why would I give the benefit of the doubt who claims all his opponents are bought by Israel?

[Razgovory]

In essence the fight has always been about capital and American exceptionalism usually obscure that fact in your partisans politics.

For some reason, Israel is polarizing enough to shed that curtain back.

Can you explain this one?

[Valmy]

The Death's Head image long predates Naziism. Having said that, the tattoo he had looked very much like the Totenkopf badge of the SS division of that name. I don't put any stock in the rumor that he got it to show that he was a neoNazi.

Yeah I don't think he's a Nazi (though I think there's other reasons I think he's maybe a bit problematic. To be honest looking at his background - in the military then in private security, Redditer I think it's probably more just because it's "based" as an image - and I don't for one second buy his explanation that he didn't know what it meant given that background.

He was a edgy military guy right in the middle of that culture. Whatever. People change.

I find this whole business of looking into people's ancient social media history looking for dirt very much bullshit. Maine doesn't have Platner from all those years ago on the Ballot, they have the 2026 guy.

But also I am not from Maine, but I know Susan Collins is a liar and a coward so I would rather they replace her. If this guy ends up sucking well hopefully they will replace him.

[Valmy]

I think it's probably more just because it's "based" as an image - and I don't for one second buy his explanation that he didn't know what it meant given that background.

I don't know man. Don't overestimate the ignorance of young dudes, he might have just thought it looked badass.

[Sheilbh]

He was a edgy military guy right in the middle of that culture. Whatever. People change.

I find this whole business of looking into people's ancient social media history looking for dirt very much bullshit. Maine doesn't have Platner from all those years ago on the Ballot, they have the 2026 guy.

I agree with all of that and I think the correct response is to own it. Basically what you've said and explain that/if/how you've changed. I think that's perfectly defensible. But I also think it's not what he's said - so I don't think we can give him credit for an argument he's not making.

But also I am not from Maine, but I know Susan Collins is a liar and a coward so I would rather they replace her. If this guy ends up sucking well hopefully they will replace him.

Oh I don't disagree.

I don't know man. Don't overestimate the ignorance of young dudes, he might have just thought it looked badass.

You could well be right. I think young man in the marines, on Reddit, goes into private security is more likely than not to know. And as I say I think it looking badass is my theory.

[Razgovory]

You know, we actually had this discussion, or something similar to it 20 years ago.  Some Marines were posing with a flag with SS runes on it.  The consensus among left-wing posters was that they should have know better and it was terrible.  I think only Berkut was really big on defending them.  How things have changed.  Hell, they've changed in the five.  You wouldn't have leftists like Cenk Uygur defending Margery Taylor Greene.  Turns out, "Jewish space lasers" lady wasn't bad, she was just ahead of her time.

[Tonitrus]

Re: Platner, I think one of the salient points is that he has apologized/tried to make amends for the thing causing the controversy. (though I do find the claim of prior complete ignorance a bit suspect)

Many of those criticizing him do nothing of the kind, even in the face of blatant hypocrisy.

If I have any reservations of him as a Senate candidate, is that I generally think US Senators should be somewhat experienced senior statesmen...not coming from a populist (of any leaning) surge.  That is what the House is for. 

[Grey Fox]

In essence the fight has always been about capital and American exceptionalism usually obscure that fact in your partisans politics.

For some reason, Israel is polarizing enough to shed that curtain back.

Can you explain this one?

It's about money and who has it.
Both sides are increasingly filled with activists attacking who is perceived to have it.

[Razgovory]

In essence the fight has always been about capital and American exceptionalism usually obscure that fact in your partisans politics.

For some reason, Israel is polarizing enough to shed that curtain back.

Can you explain this one?

It's about money and who has it.
Both sides are increasingly filled with activists attacking who is perceived to have it.

I agree somewhat, but this less about capitalism and more about a struggle between elites.  The lower tier of the elites doesn't feel secure in their position and resent the wealth and status of the top tier elites.  If there was a different economic system, and the professional class felt resentful they would respond the same way.

They oppose Israel because it is aligned with the America oppose, if they were in charge, they would again find their sense of patriotism.  Just as Chinese and Russian revolutionaries did when they were in charge.