Donald Trump’s plummeting approval ratings suggest Democrats may be back in control of the White House in 2028. How should labor and the left relate to a centrist administration?
While I know you didn't intend to do so, your post feels to me rather like you are conceding that Gavin or Harris will be the nominee. God help us, if so. In the end, another round of neo-liberalism will just reinforce the forces of fascism.
Can we talk about who’s popularity is falling faster? The Dems seem very unpopular as well.
It doesn’t seem like much of a discussion if the choice is between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with glass. If the Democratic Party as a whole doesn’t change course, their leader won’t matter. Look at what happened to Corbyn.
The underlying framing here assumes the central question is how the labour movement should “relate” to a centrist administration. That already quietly narrows the field of possibilities.
A more awkward but important issue is whether that relationship has any strategic leverage at all in the current configuration. The Biden example isn’t just one of under-delivery; it’s one where even unusually sympathetic gestures toward labour were structurally reversible once they collided with party discipline, capital constraints, and geopolitical commitments. That suggests that the constraint is institutional.
There’s also a tension in the argument about “breathing room.” A centrist administration is presented as both a necessary buffer against authoritarian drift and a missed opportunity for transformation. Both can be true, but they point in opposite directions: stabilisation tends to reduce the urgency that drives movement-building, while crisis conditions tend to fragment it.
The more difficult strategic question might not be how the left engages a future Newsom presidency, but whether the expected cycle - lesser-evil mobilisation followed by disappointment and demobilisation - is now structurally self-reinforcing.
I want your opinion on this: at what point does “using the breathing room” stop being a plan and start becoming the default justification for political stasis? Thanks
Newsom will deliver the presidency to JD Vance or Marco Rubio if he is the Dem’s candidate. Harris, Buttigieg would do the same. The people are done with corporate liberalism and want a fighter for the common people. Why does someone writing “Left Notes” promote a centrist like Newsom or Harris? Even if you claim you’re just reading the polls, the effect is to discourage us from fighting for what we want and need. We can’t survive another presidency of the right, which is what we will get if the Dems nominate a centrist and block the left again.
While I know you didn't intend to do so, your post feels to me rather like you are conceding that Gavin or Harris will be the nominee. God help us, if so. In the end, another round of neo-liberalism will just reinforce the forces of fascism.
I’m not conceding it per se — it does seem to me the most likely outcome (probably Newson rather than Harris tbh)
We cannot waste energy carrying water for Biden 2.0.
Can we talk about who’s popularity is falling faster? The Dems seem very unpopular as well.
It doesn’t seem like much of a discussion if the choice is between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with glass. If the Democratic Party as a whole doesn’t change course, their leader won’t matter. Look at what happened to Corbyn.
The underlying framing here assumes the central question is how the labour movement should “relate” to a centrist administration. That already quietly narrows the field of possibilities.
A more awkward but important issue is whether that relationship has any strategic leverage at all in the current configuration. The Biden example isn’t just one of under-delivery; it’s one where even unusually sympathetic gestures toward labour were structurally reversible once they collided with party discipline, capital constraints, and geopolitical commitments. That suggests that the constraint is institutional.
There’s also a tension in the argument about “breathing room.” A centrist administration is presented as both a necessary buffer against authoritarian drift and a missed opportunity for transformation. Both can be true, but they point in opposite directions: stabilisation tends to reduce the urgency that drives movement-building, while crisis conditions tend to fragment it.
The more difficult strategic question might not be how the left engages a future Newsom presidency, but whether the expected cycle - lesser-evil mobilisation followed by disappointment and demobilisation - is now structurally self-reinforcing.
I want your opinion on this: at what point does “using the breathing room” stop being a plan and start becoming the default justification for political stasis? Thanks
Newsom will deliver the presidency to JD Vance or Marco Rubio if he is the Dem’s candidate. Harris, Buttigieg would do the same. The people are done with corporate liberalism and want a fighter for the common people. Why does someone writing “Left Notes” promote a centrist like Newsom or Harris? Even if you claim you’re just reading the polls, the effect is to discourage us from fighting for what we want and need. We can’t survive another presidency of the right, which is what we will get if the Dems nominate a centrist and block the left again.
https://substack.com/@thevulnerableadvocate/note/c-214441605