I expect that the “we” in what I write includes few members of long-marginalized demographic groups, who may readily respond, “What’s so great about what we’d go back to?”

That said:

1. We [see above] are so dismayed with what we seem to be losing and have already lost that our focus keeps dwelling on reversing post-election horrors and somehow returning to a nostalgic condition, comfortable to us, before the loss.
2. As history and psychotherapy (and Thomas Wolfe) have taught us, one can’t go back to an imagined past.
3. And of course, “back” had so many problems. But no matter how much we cared about the problems, few of them affected our PERSONAL daily comfort.
4. Can we go “forward” as we resist in a way that will include IMPROVEMENTS on at least SOME of the past rather than just blocking (more like tilting at windmills, it often seems) the seemingly never-ending barrage of assaults on our (and others’ we care about) well-being? Where do such niches lie?*
5. If only “SOME” of past iniquities, what happens to the rest? How can we possibly prioritize/privilege some oppressions over others?
6. We nobly embrace the the slogan, “RESIST,” but doesn’t that suggest holding a line that narrows our horizons about what we can/want to achieve? Doesn’t it focus on the present and not a future other than one cleansed of trumpist atrocities?
7. To what extent is defeating Trumpism a social immediacy that justifies setting aside some disagreements on what society should look like? (Cf. #5.) How quickly is widespread sectarianism/factionalism (a great scourge, in my eyes, even though I have my own pet beliefs) going to arise to fragment “the movement” (however we define that right now) and contribute to enabling a reactionary governing elite?

I have no clear answers to these moral-strategic problems amidst all the other problems we are constantly confronting these days. But I think we need answers.

THROUGH THE PRIMARIES AND GENERAL ELECTION SEASON, moderates and many “liberals” say to us progressives and others on their left inside and outside the Democratic party: “We’re all on the same barricades, with a common enemy. We have to get Trump out. Any Democratic nominee is tons better than Trump. Don’t be self-indulgent or vengeful, don’t subject the country to possible fascism. Gag if you must, but it is immoral not to vote Democrat this year.[1]” Etc., etc.

POST-ELECTION: “We won! We won! Thanks to everyone who toed the line and voted to get Trump out!” I did feel an intense wave of liberation when he lost, and I have no question that getting Trump out was crucial for every decent human being here and around the world.

But that is what many of us were doing: voting to get Trump out. That Biden consequently got in is a necessary but not necessarily desirable outcome.[2]

But when realization set in that so many down-ballot Democrats lost, within a day those same moderates and liberals started saying to the same people to their left who had agreed that the priority was to get rid of Trump: “It’s your fault we did so poorly! You were too radical! You were self-indulgent by promoting progressive policies that would only alienate voters! We must tack towards the middle! We must make compromises on our core values!” Etc., etc.

This shouldn’t surprise me: united fronts against an agreed evil have often quickly fragmented when the evil is (or seems) past.[3]

Shouldn’t surprise me…but such double-think self-righteousness still enrages me.[4]

And while we’re at it: exactly what would a compromise look like for the rapid acceleration of climate disasters[5], or about the murder and assault of Blacks and trans folk and other marginalized people, about uniting immigrant families[6] and streamlining their admission to “our” country, about the well-being of people with sexual behavior different from some mainstream standard, about the freedom of pregnant women to decide what to do with their embryos or fetuses,[7] and so on through the litany of progressive and further left stances on social justice? What could possibly be a morally acceptable PARTIAL (i.e., compromise) position be in each of these matters and equivalent ones I’ve left out?

Is it a mere coincidence that so many of those moderates and liberals seem to have reasonably comfortable financial circumstances and personal security  in contrast with those whose severely compromised lives they want to “compromise” about? Or that most of them seem to be white?

A great deal more could be said about the preceding, but this is at least a starter in getting across the core anger that I, and I assume many others to the left of compromising Democrats, feel.

______________________

[1] Of course, though this time the difference was palpable, we hear similar pleading in every election.

[2] I hope he’ll be better than I expect, but I’m not counting on it, and I believe we have to be ready to hold his feet to the fire starting yesterday. [Added after original draft:] If accurate this report is encouraging: https://time.com/5910008/joe-biden-climate-change-election/. Cabinet appointments will help gauge Biden’s commitment to key causes.

[3]…though in this case, it is remaining with us for at least two months longer—and of course it will be embedded in much of the country long after that.

[4] Here’s a corresponding commentary from one of my favorite political sources (though sometimes when it pillories an article, it inappropriately condemns the entire journal from which the article came): https://fair.org/home/when-centrists-lose-corporate-media-blame-the-left/. Here is another a thoughtful (to me) examination of the issue: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/progressives-house-races-democrats_n_5fa6981bc5b67c3259aef686. And AOC, whom I highly respect, had this to say a few days ago: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-biden-democratic-party_n_5fa773fbc5b66009569b4349.

[5] Probably including more pandemics.

[6] And getting caged and abused immigrant kids into humane settings in the meantime.

[7] Thanks to my wife, Dr. Barbara Beitch, a biologist, for the following clarification: “[C]oncerning the right of a woman to make the difficult decision about to do when she finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy: Such decisions are usually made in the first trimester, at what we biologists call the embryonic stage. Later in development, when there are changes that make it look more human, we use the term fetus. Richard asked me to make this correction (embryo rather than fetus). And for those who are wondering when we use the term ‘baby,’ biologists refer to the stage after birth, after the umbilical cord has been cut and when nutrients and oxygen no longer come from the mother, via a placental connection.”

*The only ones I’ve seen are related to future elections and by-elections that arise in the meantime. Perhaps this is a realistic limit. Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s more in service of the Democratic Party than a truly progressive country.

On one point I agree: unless you mean it literally, the term “defund the police” is alienating and just plain inaccurate. Most of us mean “reallocate [and maybe amplify] relevant portions of police budgets to professionals like social workers who are skilled in tasks for which police are typically unequipped—indeed, they may exacerbate a bad situation. And (unless they mean it literally), I get increasingly enraged at the self-indulgence of people, otherwise progressive but often yielding to peer pressure, who don’t appreciate the impact of words and defend the term because it happens to resonate with them.

I’m not convinced that any particular group is responsible for the down-ballot frequency of Republican victories. When I lived in California in the 60s and 70s, it was claimed that voters commonly split their ballots to avoid a single dominant party. Perhaps this psychology exists today in some places. Perhaps in the unusually large turnout, enough previous Trump supporters who had become dismayed with him voted for Biden, while voting for other Republicans on the ballot. Perhaps the “moderate” Democrats would not have lost if they had trumpet progressive values.

But it seems that behind all these disputes is the hi-jacking of our language. Propagandistic and emotive subtexts of disapproval for key ideas seem to have won the day with far too many people.

I am at my wit’s end about how to reverse this. In the meantime, permanent damage victimizes people and institutions we need to protect. “Black Lives Matter” has become some sort of invalid narrowing that marginalizes (ha-ha!) everyone else rather than speaking to the historical and worsening treatment of Black people. “Fracking” has become a contribution to economic compromise rather than a dire exacerbation of the climate threat to the planet. “Socialism” has become “communism” which became a synonym for an oppressive state (as it too often was) rather than a strategy to bring social justice to everyone—including those Trump supporters who have valid concerns about their own economic and medical well-being. “Science,” whether about climate disaster or vaccinations, has become a source of hoaxes and self-interested, condescending eggheads who are getting rich at the expense of those they are duping. Add your own examples.

In the spirit of “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana), consider this 2400-year-old philippic (roughly “tirade” but stronger) by Thucydides on the brutal fate of Corfu (then called Corcyra):

“To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward… If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the party in power, so far from giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical effect…. More interest was shown in those who could produce attractive arguments to justify some disgraceful action.” [The Peloponnesian War, III.82-3]

While I’m incredibly relieved about the removal of Trump, I’m still dismayed at the prospect of the world I’ll be leaving for my descendants before too many more years have passed. I can only hope that Biden will turn out to be much better than I expect, and that his administration will vigorously tackle social justice issues.

Here is my current, minute example, in the midst of a NY Times digest of its latest post-election stories: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/13/us/joe-biden-trump#another-progressive-group-suggests-biden-hires-we-are-making-it-easy-for-them-to-appoint-good-people. For many of us, this story is pretty encouraging news.

Let us, then, consider the use of “the left” in this clause at the end of the first paragraph: “the latest instance of the left’s attempts to help shape the president-elect’s executive branch.” Now let us ask ourselves, “What exactly does the writer (Sidney Ember) mean by ‘the left,’ and what is the Times’s editorial policy towards this usage?”

You and I may react with enthusiasm to whatever “the left” might be doing, but other readers won’t. Those who are less progressive may stop (on the assumption that what follows is crap) or skim on, primed  to take a dim view of the remainder of the report. And this passage could be easily cited by media on the political right as an objective “liberal” statement that reinforces expectations that a Biden administration will be perfidious even before it takes office.

At one important level, the problem here is failure to define key terms. What exactly is meant here (or anywhere) by “the left”? Seemingly, in this particular context (unlike many other contexts), it’s not the entire Democratic Party. But is it “the” left within the Democratic Party? Anyone to the left of whatever is meant by “moderates”? Anyone identifying as “progressive”? Anyone to the left of the entire Democratic party? Some subset of people to the party’s left? Marxists? Non-Marxist socialists (whoever they are, exactly)? Antifa (a much-distorted and maligned term)? A mélange of strugglers for whatever “social justice” is (of which I’m a constituent)?

Communication problems like this existed long before Trumpian abuse of language. Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR.com) is often effective at exposing such subtext in respected sources like the Times and the Washington Post. (While I generally find FAIR’S commentaries helpful, and I donate money to support their efforts, I am not comfortable with how they use such occurrences to tar the journals in general, nor am I sure that its writers understand the impossibility of attaining whatever we mean by “objectivity.”) We don’t need to stop reading such sources (I certainly continue to, along with many other print media), but as much as we can manage, we need to do so with a jaundiced eye and attention to how our own feelings are burbling as we listen or read.