thinking of something matt christman said in chapo back in 2019 this was when both bernie sanders and elizabeth warren had a lot of momentum (lol rip), and he clearly thought one of the two of them would win. He said (rough transcription):
whether warren wins or if bernie wins is gonna tell us whether what we're seeing really is the emergence of a new working class movement that people have been talking about, or, honestly if this has all been a fucking mirage the entire time, and all we're really seeing is a confluence of guilty professional class people wanting to launder their sense of being implicated in this grotesque neo-gilded age exploitation machine, and then capitalism’s instinctive search for a more inclusive logic for its cultural hegemony
At the time this was written, i worried about this a lot too, and remembered the pre-2017 me who was just rooting for another new deal. I said it on twitter before: the professional managerial class is 100% fine with social democracy (some want it called socialism, some want it called the democratic party). And the thing is, I'm not even sure I agree with matt that bernie is much different. While poll data did show that Bernie is more supported by working class people than warren I still think the project he supports and wants is fundamentally capitalist. Bernie’s happy to use to the socialist label and I’m happy he is but I think when he says socialism he means Scandinavia. He's indicated this, too, at various points. and if the reason you support socialism is "Sweden works well," you're missing a whole hell of a lot.
But, wait, a lot has happened since then, hasnt it. A pandemic, an attempted insurrection, the utter kneecapping of even bernies milquetoast socialism. And its almost like, in the lack of either one winning, both of matts visions have become a little more in focus. I think that the pandemic WAY accelerated the pattern of the PMC feeling personally guilty and having a politics of wanting that guilt absolved without really doing much work. You see this in the Get Out-style exhortations that, no, I always tip 25, no, 30 percent on my instacart orders. The type that is happy to help in whatever way they can, as long as "whatever way they can" only involves giving money.
But at the same time....holy shit are workers WAY more powerful than in 2019! The success of that workers' united effort in buffalo starbucks has lead to an unstoppable coffee movement. When i first was thinking of this observation that matt made i, too, was one of those professional manegerial class office workers, with too much time on their hands. Now, after losing that job more than three years ago and failing to find anything similar, i have become part of that worker movement, as both a member of a bargaining committee that lead to a contract and now as a union steward enforcing that contract. When we get new employees almost none of them have worked a union job before, so when people start i get the fun process of explaining what weingarten rights are and that workers have the right to at least question management's punishment.
And to see this effort reflected not just in coffee but other trades is incredibly inspiring. We're coming off incredibly strong, popular wins for WGA, Teamsters (UPS contract), and UAW (big three us automakers). All of these have come straight from new, reformist leadership for the first time in generations, each leader comandeering their union into successful workers campaigns. These, to me, are more revealing elections than the democratic primary or us elections.
So, in a sense, both realities matt talks about came true. Its just that several factors in us politics complicate a simple "one reality or the other" type analysis: first, both the guilty PMC and the actual working class were legitimate anchors of the left-of-biden parts of the us, so both expanded into their own sometimes in sync, sometimes out of sync movements after that. What's more, the slightly greater than usual hand the progressive bloc in congress played in early 2020 for covid aid led to a whole generation getting to meaningfully experience what government-given cash welfare could look like, and that itself both radicalized people towards action (in things like the george floyd protests and the explosion of mutual aid) while also giving people enough financial support to make certain pro worker risks that they could take, well, not as risky, due to the safety net. And the thing about these sorts of expanded aid policies is that theres an induced demand for them, in a sense: the more people see that getting 2000 dollars a month makes their life a lot easier the harder it is to unring the bell of "thats not possible".
Anyway those are my rambling thoughts. what are yours?