When a first group of Puritan emigrants landed in Massachusetts Bay, their guide John Winthrop, before setting foot on the cold land, wrote the sermon “A model of Christian charity”. It sanctioned the birth of a “nation of saints”: a just society that would constitute a model of equality and equanimity for the entire world.
Centuries and centuries later it was discovered, without too much effort, that the USA is not a nation of saints. However, trade unionist Leo Casey harked back to that Puritan tradition, somewhat obsessed with morality, in an article published in Dissent last October 8th.
Casey points to the extremist “moralism” of the American ultra-left as something that has paralyzed the democratic movement: “Instead of seeking common ground with necessary allies, look for moral failings in others; instead of building consensus, it focuses on isolating a morally pure vanguard from the body of the morally deceased. It is a ‘scarlet letter’ policy,” in reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel of the same name.
Likewise, a choice of allies based solely on ethical and moral impeccability would, according to Casey, weaken American social democracy to death. A lethal distancing from realpolitik that would have dispersed the forces of the left and given many votes to the Republicans.
A SIMILAR IDEA was expressed last March by Arash Azizi, columnist for The Atlanticin the article «Too much purity is bad for the left». Azizi noted the eternal fragmentation of the US left which, rather than attempting coalitions of various types, “has spent decades mired in niche subcultures of activist groups: they are marginal and yet they reject coalitions that risk betraying their purity”.
Azizi was referring above all to the Democratic Socialists of America, the political organization of origin of Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who four years ago decided not to support Joe Biden – Ocasio-Cortez herself knows something about DSA’s severity , which in July saw the organization revoke its endorsement due to positions deemed too moderate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Azizi, on the other hand, hoped that the most left wing of the party would accept contamination and also find an agreement with the moderates “to defend and change people’s true lives”.
Today Harris still seems to be stalling. Her ideological positioning is still a matter of discussion: if on the right she is referred to as a “Marxist”, the progressive press considers her a “pragmatist”, often deliberately ambiguous and soft on issues considered divisive. Harris gives a shot at the circle and one at the barrel: he shows signs of his agreement with the most left wing of the party by choosing Walz as second (which DSA really liked) and exhibiting an agenda that according to the newspaper The Hill «it perfectly reflects that of the American socialists», but at the same time focuses its communication on themes dear to the middle class. Furthermore, his position on social issues and Gaza is considered “worrying” by many commentators on the left – as Branko Marcetic wrote in Jacobin last September.
WHAT MATTERS Now it is that Harris has gained broad support in recent months. What is striking is the number of newspapers, neutral in 2020, that have decided to declare their support. Perhaps what drives the left most today is still the need to build a barricade against Trump, perceived as a serious danger to democracy, but there is also the perception that there is something truly constructive as well as simply pragmatic.
«We believe that these threats [alla democrazia] are real – declared the magazine The Nation in the October edition, significantly titled “For Kamala Harris” – but we also support Harris as an experienced and capable leader, with a vision of America’s future that – while not as progressive as we would prefer, particularly on foreign policy – represents a clear step forward from the Democratic presidential candidates of the last half century.”
