This Noah Smith Twitter thread is super interesting and reminds me of the observation by @collapsedsquid that the new socialist left is heavily influenced by the downwardly mobile intellectual worker.
Basically, Noah points out that the biggest threat to the “neoliberal” establishment from the left is coming not from the beleaguered working class, but rather the disappointed and downwardly mobile elite, who are motivated by loss rather than have the smarts and connections and free time to actually make an impact.
It also means that it’s fairly easy to take the steam away from this movement, which is left as an exercise to the reader.
Cleverly defeat socialism by redistributing wealth.
defang revolutionary movements by giving in to their more reasonable demands
Oh, come on. Defeat socialism and defang revolutionary movements by bribing the leaders.
That’s the pitch here; redistribute a bit of wealth to cover the personal demands of the disaffected elites, and trust that they’ll abandon the working class as soon as they’re welcomed back into the lives they expected.
My prediction? The IDC and all these other new challengers will actually matter, they’ll pull the party left a bit, but within 15 years they’ll be voting a straight mass-surveillance-and-drone-wars ticket like all their predecessors. Because admitting them into politics is restoring them to their lost place in the elite – that’s part of what keeps our politics so unalterable across so many social upheavals.
the system works!
