Establishment Democrats and conservative Republicans have something in common: they both hate socialists above all else. Even more than fascists.

Establishment Democrats and conservative Republicans have one other thing in common: they both use the same talking points of the far-right to smear socialists.

Let's start with the term "alt-left", a term President Trump used just today.

The video below goes into the origin of the term - how it started with the alt-right, went to Fox News, and ended with corporate Dems shamelessly punching left.

This isn't the only talking point of the far-right that corporate Dems have adopted.

Consider the smear by Third-Way Neera Tanden and her slur about the alt-left being fascists like the alt-right.

This has been a right-wing talking point for decades.



Democrats and democratic socialists were incorrectly linked by some to Nazism following the harrowing protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend that led to one woman’s death. The allegations were a huge misrepresentation of what each of the terms means and a poor, surface-only reading of what German leader Adolf Hitler’s party and government stood for.

The Newsweek article above was a defense of liberals against smears from the right-wing, but it applies just as well to smears from centrist, establishment Dems as well.

"Alt-left" is just the next step in the evolution of the "Bernie Bros" slur.

Or to put it another way, "We called you all racist, misogynistic, white men (even when you were people of color, women, or both) to get you to shut up about single-payer health care, and you still persisted. So now we are doubling down and calling you all Nazis."

Something tells me it isn't going to work.

Jacobin Magazine has a great article about how the horrible events in Charlottesville has exposed the corporate Dem to be shameless liars.



“If the Bernie Bros wanted to make a show of force on behalf of progressive values, Saturday in Charlottesville would be a good time,” wrote Mieke Eoyang, former Ted Kennedy staffer and vice president of the National Security Program at Third Way, a centrist think tank.

Corporate Dems actually dared Bernie supporters to turn out in Charlottesville, and they did.

Mieke has since deleted that tweet.

When you critique Bernie Sanders pic.twitter.com/uu8buHGbLC — Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) August 12, 2017

Well, the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville took place, and the same people who some have spent months dismissing as closet racists were on the front line, risking bodily harm to stand up against white supremacy. The International Socialist Organization (ISO) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) were part of the counter-protest, and their flags flew high after the alt-right marchers had gone. The DSA started a fundraiser to cover the injuries sustained by those attacked at the event, which has raised $138,000 as of the time of writing. Two of its members were injured in the attack on the protests. So were the family members of a staffer at Truthout, a publication that was critical of Clinton during the 2016 election, and one of whose journalists has featured on the “Trumpian Leftism” Tumblr as a “Bernie Bro” and alt-left member.

Or let’s look at Heather Heyer, the murdered young woman who is so far the only casualty of Saturday’s right-wing attack. Heyer was a committed civil rights activist, whose mother, Susan Bro, said “always had a very strong sense of right and wrong.” She was also a Bernie Sanders supporter.

This is hardly a new development. DSA and other left-wing organizations have been involved in anti-Trump protests, including those against the implementation of Trump’s travel ban. Socialists have been playing important roles in recent protests against police violence. If you go further back, you can find leftists organizing and defeating racists in places like Dubuque, Iowa during the nineties and in other campaigns for over a century.

When push came to shove the socialists were on the front lines, risking their lives fighting the racists and Nazis, just like they have for a century.

Meanwhile, corporate Dems were nowhere to be found.

Sorry, that's not true.

Corporate Dems could be found shamelessly smearing socialists and trying to undermine their efforts at fighting Nazis.

Anyone still pretending last year's election was about "economic anxiety" anymore? I mean, outside of the alt-left that is. — Markos Moulitsas (@markos) August 13, 2017

The Alt Left, in their drive to smear the "impurity" of Clinton on economic justice issues, excused the racism and bigotry that is Trumpism. — Armando (@armandodkos) August 13, 2017

Both of those tweets came out after people they call the alt-left got hurt or killed fighting Nazis.

Which just proves that people running the Daily Kos hate socialists more than Nazis.

The alt-left allowed white supremacy to perpetuate & worsen because they valued personal issues of purity over protecting POC. — Molly (@isteintraum) August 13, 2017

This is far from the first time that the corporate Dems have ignored, undermined, and attacked the progressive left.

It's just the latest example.



Establishment Democrats’ tendency to punch left ignores that progressives, not moderate Democrats, are the ones who individually and collectively mobilize against fascism. Centrists have traditionally denigrated and attacked protesters—if not ignored them completely. From the Occupy Wall Street movement to the water protectors standing up to the Dakota Access pipeline, to the counter-protests against white supremacists, and the nurses and activists fighting for single-payer health care in California and across the country, the purveyors of the Bernie Bros and alt-left myth are nowhere to be found.

ShareBlue, a centrist outlet, did not run a single story on the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Neera Tanden, Markos Moulitsas, and DNC Chair Tom Perez never tweeted or otherwise mentioned the protests.

Black anti-racist Protestors in solidarity w #Charolettesville get shut down by liberals in #Durham , @indivisible_nc refused us the mic pic.twitter.com/rjQNWo3mxY — dante strobino (@imastringbean) August 13, 2017

The question is, after more than a year of punching left, the corrupt corporate Dems have escalated their slurs to the point of saying progressives and socialists are no different from Nazis.

Where do you go after that?

What lies, what slanders do you have left after calling your "allies" Nazis?

And if that doesn't work, is the next step for corporate Dems simply to align themselves with Republicans?

We will find out.