ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that progressives and the Left are the natural—and historical—forces opposing militarized capitalism and its dangerous Security story. But the Left has weakened and transformed itself since the 1960s as it has moved toward identity politics and siloed movements that have lost focus on the overarching and universal issues of class and security essential to moving the nation in a new direction.
The chapter presents central failings of the American Left that have opened the nation to the ascendancy of the Security story and the strengthening of a militarized and highly unequal capitalism. Most important is the shift away from a conversation about capitalism itself, historically the heart of Western Leftist movements in the last century. The disappearance of a strong Left seeking to transform militarized capitalism is tantamount to a virtual disappearance of the Left itself.
The chapter digs deeper into this history of a failing Left and looks at several elements of the crisis. One is the rise in identity politics based on race and gender that has been “de-classed,” that is, largely divorced from an analysis of how racism and sexism are inseparable from the US capitalist order and cannot be remedied without taking on economic exploitation, racism and sexism as an intertwined system of power. The second is the failure to debunk manufactured enemies, as the Left has largely failed to organize a peace movement that debunks the manufactured enemies constructed under the rubric of the national security religion of the nation; indeed progressives have increasingly embraced the “heroism” of warmongering and the “honor” of the national security establishment, ironically often in the name of anti-Trumpism. Third, the Left has failed the emotional test, using rationality without an accompanying personal and emotional set of stories that are essential to reaching and mobilizing the population. The Right has been more successful than the Left in recognizing the irrationality of people and politics, and learning how to achieve a rational political discourse that speaks effectively to powerful emotions and passions. Finally, the Left has embraced forms of the “political correctness” of which it is accused by its adversaries, sometimes embracing a purity of dogma, an intolerance of nuance and a shutting down of unorthodox Left or conservative views that violate the sacred principles of critical and open thinking central to the very soul of the Left. The movement toward a new society and a new paradigm of security requires that the Left recognize and act to correct these failings.
