A MASSIVE REBUKE OF SOCIALISM.

In light of what appears to be the outcome of the runoff elections in Georgia, Reason's Robby Soave backed away from some of what he wrote last November.  "A Biden presidency and a GOP Senate could keep the left out of power for years."  He elaborates in the conventional way.

For democratic socialists, the 2020 election cycle began with great promise; the hard left had not one but two ardently progressive primary candidates in Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), the latter of whom had shown auspicious resilience against Hillary Clinton in 2016. There had also been small, encouraging signs in the years between then and now: the surprise election of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) in 2018, the success of socialist magazines and podcasts, the increasing salience of issues like economic inequality and Medicare for All, the formation of "the Squad.

But neither Warren nor Sanders could overcome Biden, the candidate who had worked hardest to put serious distance between himself and the term socialist. If anything, Biden needed to work even harder at this, since President Donald Trump's reelection campaign was able to tie Democrats to Latin American socialism in the minds of some Florida voters, leading to a surprisingly good showing for Trump among Latino—and particularly Cuban—voters.

Progressives often operate under the assumption that their failure to win elections is a result of malfeasance: More democracy, more activism, and more turnout will produce the broad mandate they need to enact change. They also assume that an increasingly racially diverse electorate will override the white voters who don't support fundamental, revolutionary changes to the economy. But the 2020 results are casting doubt on both of these beliefs: Trump is on track to have the GOP's best showing among minorities in decades, and while he will indeed lose the popular vote to Biden, the unusually high turnout did not lend itself to any sort of blue wave.

Let alone a clear win for the self-styled progressives, who still have to work with more conventional Democrats in both the House and the Senate.  Mr Soave adds, "Even some progressives think it's in the party's best interest to at the very least stop using the word socialism."  Jacob Crosse, a disciple of Leon Trotsky. concurs.  "The so-called progressives rallied behind Pelosi despite the fact that the right-wing policies of the Democratic Party were responsible for major losses for the Democrats in the November 3 election, including the loss of 11 seats in the House and the loss of governorships and state legislatures across the country."  That's right, dear reader, the Democrats were not Marxist enough.  Why vote for a fake reactionary when a real one is available, I suppose.  "There is nothing progressive about Ocasio-Cortez and company. They are conventional bourgeois politicians and have no independence from the factions of the military-intelligence establishment and Wall Street for which the Democratic Party speaks."  In other words, they've been excommunicated from the Fourth International.  There are as many schisms among True Marxists as there were among True Puritans, and for the same reasons.