Activism in the Age of Social Media

Last week’s episode dealt with the state of the American Right post-election. Today we ask: Where is the American Left going? How will it respond to Trump? “There is a palpable sense of passivity on the Left,” says Damir Marusic. “What I’ve seen is resignation or weird, detached analysis,” says Samuel Kimbriel. Is there more going on than we see? We invited WoC contributor Osita Nwanevu, writer for the New Republic and author of an upcoming book about American democracy, to tell us more.

Osita begins by distinguishing between the Democratic Party and the movement Left. While the Democrats are a loose coalition in broad disarray, the Left simply stands for “a grand reform of political economy to empower workers.” The Left, Osita argues, was not surprised that Trump won. The problem lies it how it can create a platform that will appeal to American voters. There is too much despair. Too many on the Left, Osita argues, have been left in a state of “political hopelessness” after the election, wondering what to do in a country where most people voted for Donald Trump. But such an attitude is “antithetical to democratic thought and what we need to do for practical politics.”

Damir and Osita go on to engage the question of whether a Left that stands for universal human values, rather than in-group, national concerns, is able to win. Osita argues that there is not necessary contradiction between a universal value and a local interest. When it comes to climate change, for example, the Left isn’t asking voters to care about “the Maldives,” but about “fires in LA and storms in Florida.” Damir is not so sure.

The conversation touches on symbolic politics versus real politics, whether protest movements can actually transform society, whether Trump is the true revolutionary force in American politics, and whether the Left actually has intellectual leaders and a utopian vision today. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Sam argues that the Left needs an idea of transcendence, Osita talks about transcendence without god, and Damir pushes both on whether personal philosophical convictions actually have any bearing on real-life politics.

Required Reading:

* Osita’s website.

* Sam on why the Left needs ideas (WoC).

* Damir’s post-election reaction (WoC).

* Osita on BLM (Pairagraph).

* Osita’s debate with Oliver Traldi about democracy and ideology (WoC).

* Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (Amazon).

* “Nancy Pelosi Insists the Election was Not a Rebuke of the Democrats” (New York Times).

* On the Gushers BLM post mentioned by Osita (New York Times).

* “Costco Teamsters vote to authorize US-wide strike, union says” (Reuters).

* “Costco shareholders just destroyed an anti-DEI push” (CNN).

* History of hospitals (Britannica).

* Scott Alexander, “Everyone’s A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up” (Astral Codex Ten).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

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