Repenting the Status Quo: A Radical Return to Center WarriorPoet Follow Mar 15 · 10 min read

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”- Desmond Tutu

Surprised as I am to hear myself say it, Barry Goldwater was a least half right. While it remains, perhaps, to be demonstrated, more than half a century later, whether “extremism in the defense of liberty” is indeed “no vice,” it can hardly be denied that, faced with existential peril, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no more a virtue than it was in 1964. If the preponderance of scientific data is to believed, we have, in recent decades, already crossed significant environmental rubicons, and have certainly forfeited the luxury of further hesitation to initiate a long overdue course correction, not only in terms of environmental policy, but in the fundamental attitudes toward nature, and one another, that have led us to the brink of catastrophe.

Disillusioned by the failure of unrestrained market forces to safeguard our collective economic security (let alone facilitate an equitable dispersal of American prosperity), and galvanized by the vision of democratic socialism as a means of legislating and practicing, en masse, the empathy we preach, young people are now engaging our nation’s political life in unprecedented numbers, leveraging the power of social media as well as traditional methods such as public canvassing, demonstrations, and political rallies to further educate themselves and articulate their concerns about a broad range of issues relevant to their present and future quality of life. In doing so, millions of teens and twenty-somethings have transcended the stereotype of self-absorbed, out-of-touch consumers that many older Americans have prejudicially applied to them, and have, to the contrary, found meaning, forged connection, and discovered their own political potency by joining together to push for progressive social and legislative action. Aligning themselves with older members of the electorate who share their progressive ideals (if not their savvy with emerging media), these young activists have tapped into and re-invigorated a long-standing, though often suppressed, American tradition of cultural critique and activism to counter and reform systemic injustice, and constitute a crucial component of a diverse, multi-generational movement calling for wholesale re-allocation of our national resources to prioritize meeting basic human needs over and against corporate welfare.

Amid such a popular groundswell, one would think (or at least hope), that a political party which self-identifies as “Democratic” would enthusiastically embrace this renewed interest in political activism among the youth as an opportunity to reform the balance of power in Washington, by backing candidates and committing to enact policies which this presumptive base overwhelmingly supports. And yet, with Donald Trump poised, all too conveniently, as the perfect grotesque, unhinged, neo-fascist boogie man to keep the “rabble” divided, insecure, and desperate for an alternative, those “liberals” who have prospered from, or at least made peace with, our nation’s increasing material imbalance, styling themselves “the adults in the room,” now have the gall to insist, without irony, that it is the duty of those left furthest behind (and most at risk) to “get over” our well-founded misgivings about concentrated wealth and its immense influence on our legislative agenda, and return to “center,” by reaffirming our political allegiance to a party whose chosen standard-bearers eschew even the appearance of solidarity with the economic struggle and existential anxiety of young and working class Americans, let alone any sense of urgency proportional to the impending biological and ecological catastrophe we all face.

Contrary to the buoyant American optimism on which we have been weened, we are now chastened, in the face of brazen assaults on our democracy, waves of environmental instability exacerbated by human negligence, growing wealth inequality, and unprecedented challenges to our public health system, to be “practical,” and settle for “moderate” reforms that fall far short of the bold, collective action necessary to realize the kind of economic, social, and environmental justice on which a sustainable future depends. We are counseled, instead, to put our faith in the wisdom and good will of an entrenched political establishment, who posit a servile return and acquiescence to the status quo of days gone by as panacea for what ails our body politic. Just “dump Trump,” they promise, and all will be well. Any “blue,” they claim, will do. Ultimately, it is this naive, nostalgic attachment to the past, at the heart of centrist politics, along with its failure to critically examine the untenable compromises from which our increasingly polarized population is understandably repelled, which constitutes its fundamental weakness.

In the century since Eugene Debs’ last bid for the presidency in 1920, and particularly since the end of World War II, corporate interests have been increasingly successful, through their lobbying efforts, at weakening and undermining the political strength of organized labor. Consequently, class consciousness as a substrate for coordinated political action has steadily receded from the forefront of our collective imagination, and been replaced by a individualistic narrative that weakens the social “safety net” by demeaning as “idealistic” (and implicitly unrealistic) our instincts for mutual care and concern, and adds insult to the injury of financially exploited segments of our population by promulgating a meritocratic myth that indicts the poor as the sole cause of their own poverty.

Against this backdrop, political elites from both major parties, grown comfortable with (and well-rewarded by) ever-increasing levels of economic stratification, have nonetheless continued to cynically court the votes of poor, working class constituencies, whose economic viability is directly at odds with that of the party bosses themselves and the wealthy “donor class” to whom they are beholden. Shifting the focus of political discourse, through their control of the mainstream media, away from fundamental economic concerns, around which working people, regardless of gender, racial, or religious identity, are most likely to develop and act on a broad consensus, the psychologically savvy masters of political theatre have learned to skillfully exploit emotionally divisive “wedge issues,” obscuring our common interests and diverting righteous anger at an unjust social, economic, and political order into petty rivalries between niche factions that can be easily played against one another. As a result, one faction or another has, all too often, seen its potential insurgency translate into mere token victories, the vicarious sense of elation we experience when “one of ours” ascends to power serving as, at best, a hollow proxy for substantive systemic change on behalf of the marginalized. In the final analysis, the election and presidency of Barack Obama, while a significant, superficial marker of black progress and social mobility within American society, ultimately left intact a socioeconomic and political power structure which systematically, and disproportionately, impoverishes, incarcerates, and murders African-American men.

Try as we might, we cannot locate the solidarity we seek, the center to which we might return, in the neoliberal status quo of the Obama years, any more than we might hope to find it in the superficial calm of the 1950’s, during which overt racism ran rampant, and the majority of Americans remained legally precluded from full pursuit of the “American dream.” Nor is it to be found in the unrealized vision of the 1960’s, dissolving into self-indulgent nihilism, the frenzied, conspicuous consumerism of the 1980’s, or the rebellious, but ultimately ineffectual angst of the early 1990’s. Centrist calls for moderation and a return to “business as usual” are no longer compelling to the majority of working Americans, precisely because the status quo, and the compromised values required to maintain and legitimize it, have failed too many of us for far too long.

Consequently, this year’s Democratic primary represents, in many ways, the last grasp for continued relevance by those whose rhetoric has lost its power to persuade low and middle income Americans that a party intent on pandering to the concerns and sensibilities of affluent, urban elites is either willing or capable of serving our best interests. The true reason that Biden and the Democratic Party establishment are reluctant to engage in a direct, sustained, head-to-head policy debate with Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement that has coalesced around him is that their resistance to nominating Sanders has nothing to do with “electability.”

The fact that Donald Trump is so personally repugnant and demonstrably unfit for office, highlighted more than ever by his deliberately misleading and self-serving statements in response to the current public health debacle, renders him eminently vulnerable to defeat by any Democratic candidate who enters the race with the full support of both the progressive left and the party establishment. If so-called moderates and conservatives within the party were to publicly endorse and commit to voting for Sanders as their nominee, he would certainly have the numbers behind him to defeat Trump in the general election.

In fact, the party establishment knows (and fears) that pitting Sanders and Biden in a vigorous, head-to-head policy debate, with the eyes of the nation watching, will dissolve the smokescreen of fallacious concerns about electability they have relentlessly promulgated and, simultaneously draw the tension between Sanders’ progressive initiatives (which polls indicate are overwhelmingly popular with the Democratic electorate), and Biden’s own extremely compromised positions, perfectly summed up by his stated commitment to wealth donors that “nothing will fundamentally change,” into even sharper relief.

This is the crossroads that they have long feared and done everything in their power to avoid. Faced with the prospect of embracing Sanders or risking the possibility of seeing Trump elected to a second term, the Democratic party must finally embrace true solidarity with the working people of America by severing its ties to big money, or concede that their actual allegiance lies with the same wealthy donor class that is currently reaping a windfall at the public’s expense in Trump’s America. They can no longer play both sides, claiming to be the “people’s party,” while promising cabinet positions to billionaire oligarchs like Michael Bloomberg and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, both reportedly on Biden’s “short list” of potential appointees.

If there is, indeed, any center to which we might return, any common ground from which we might organize effective resistance not only to Trump but to the pervasive fascism and aggression which his regime has normalized, it will necessarily entail a return of party leadership to alignment with the needs and experience of the most vulnerable among us, not the other way around. Moreover, it will entail a willingness, especially on the part of wealthy and upper middle-class, to critically re-evaluate the moral assumptions that determine and regulate our economic behavior, most significantly the fundamental incongruity between the unbridled pursuit of self-interest and our basic human intuition to care and need to be cared for by others.

Author Ronald Wright once observed that “socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The cognitive price of identifying oneself as a victim is even greater, it seems, than that of identifying as a failure. Alone with our personal frustrations, it is easier to convince ourselves that we just need to work harder than to come to terms with the possibility that there are systemic forces against which our best efforts may ultimately prove futile. Yet as the internet and the ubiquity of social media have allowed us ever greater insight to the circumstances and details of one another’s lives, we are more and more aware that we are not alone, that the struggle we face in translating our “sweat equity” into financial security is anything but unique. We are coming to terms, and faster it seems by the day, that, by and large, as author Anand Giridharadas recently put it in his interview with Trevor Noah, “the people ‘up above’ are up above because they are stepping on the people down below,” and that the only viable alternative “to a ‘winners-take-all’ world is, almost logically, a world where ‘winners’ take less.” Precisely because, as Giridharadas puts it, “real change involves the loss of power,” an authentic return to center must entail mutual surrender of our relentless pursuit of self-interest (which capitalism so venerates) to safeguard the good we hold in common. The options between which we are finally being forced to choose are these:

Are we willing to fight for the well-being and dignity of the stranger at our side or are we destined to rival, outmaneuver, and outwit, if we are able, one another for scarce resources and fleeting status?

Is our public life to become merely the cold remainder of divided interests, or might it be the sum of mutual responsibility?

Are we many, or are we one?

The political options corresponding to these differing conceptions are nowhere more evident than the parallel political ascendency of Trump and Sanders themselves: two men deeply, reflexively committed to ideologically opposed conceptions of our human identity. Whereas Trump revels in the trappings of privilege and masterfully taps in to an anxious, conservative obsession with walls, privacy, and the sanctity of borders, Sanders finds his strongest allies and supporters amidst the growing unrest of the marginalized millions at the periphery of Trump’s “booming economy” who have found common ground in support of the socio-economic alternative that his candidacy represents.

Just as Trump embodies a decadent, self-congratulatory caricature of privileged entitlement and unchecked self-interest allowed to run amok, Sanders represents a growing disenchantment with and prophetic rebuke of a system that has allowed for an increasingly disproportionate distribution of resources, and concentration of global governance into fewer and fewer hands. This election, more than a decision between two men, is a moral gut check, a referendum on who we are and who we are determined to become, whether anxiety or compassion will drive our collective destiny. In the face of such momentous consequence, a return to some fictive “normalcy,” that does little to dislodge the levers of power from the hands of those who have steered us to the edge of global catastrophe, is tantamount to an acceptance of our current trajectory toward environmental apocalypse.

Liberals, at last, need to choose what they will do with their vaunted freedom. Will we materially abandon one another, and accept regressive rivalry, egotism and predation as our collective destiny, or will we, at long last, repent of our misplaced faith in the virtue of self-interest that has historically nurtured an unjust status quo, legislate policies that affirm the integrity of the human family, and prioritize attending to fundamental human (and non-human) needs above the liberty of individuals to accumulate limitless personal property, resources, or power. There is no middle ground in this contest of values, no room, as Desmond Tutu warns us, to remain morally or ideologically “above the fray.”

Trump says TRUST IN ME. Sanders exhorts us to BELIEVE IN WE.

The choice remains before us, and if we would change the trajectory of collective destiny, we can afford to put it off no longer.