{"id":13342,"date":"2024-09-23T09:54:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=13342"},"modified":"2024-09-26T19:32:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T23:32:36","slug":"block-squander-disorganize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/09\/block-squander-disorganize\/","title":{"rendered":"Block, squander, disorganize?"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/span>ax Elbaum departed from the norms of comradely debate in \u201cProfiles in Political Cowardice<\/span><\/a>,\u201d in which he attacks Tempest and the DSA leadership for not voting and campaigning for Kamala Harris. Why he stooped to macho posturing about courage, cowardice, and toughness in political strategy and tactics is between him and his comrades.<\/span><\/p>\n

I could respond by simply calling attention to the betrayal of anti-imperialism, internationalism, and solidarity, i.e. what ought to be fundamental socialist principles, in campaigning for Kamala Harris. After all, the Biden\/Harris administration is not just passively \u201ccomplicit\u201d in Israel\u2019s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians, as Elbaum claims, but is actually an active co-partner<\/span><\/a> in it. If that greatest crime against humanity is not a red line against supporting the lesser evil, nothing ever will be, guaranteeing that the Left will remain hostage to the Democrats from here to eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I won\u2019t continue down that path of calumny; whatever our disagreements, we have no choice but to collaborate together in a common struggle against the far right, the predatory capitalist class, and its main party, the Democrats. So, we must have debates in a fashion that does not unnecessarily burn bridges as the New Left did in the 1960s and 1970s and impede essential united fronts against our enemies.<\/p>\n

Old, corked wine in new bottles<\/span><\/h4>\n

So, I will address the substantive core of the argument Elbaum has laid out<\/span><\/a> in far more temperate articles, which can be summarized in his slogan, \u201cBlock and Build.\u201d He contends that the Left must not only vote for Harris but spend our time, money, and energy to elect her, block Trump and the GOP, and then build the Left, class struggle, and social movements against the Democrats in power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Far from being some bold new strategy, Elbaum\u2019s position is one that has been hegemonic on the Left since the Communist Party abandoned independent working-class politics<\/span><\/a> to support the Democratic Party in the 1930s. For a time, the New Left of the 1960s seemed poised to break from it, only to be led by social democrats like <\/span>Michael Harrington<\/span><\/a> and former \u201cMarxists-Leninists\u201d in the <\/span>New Communist Movement<\/span><\/a> on a long march back into the Democratic Party. <\/span>The Left\u2019s collapse<\/span><\/a> into the Democratic Party compromised the independent organization of class and social struggles, subordinated movements to elections, and forced it to abandon demands it once fought for.<\/span><\/p>\n