Editorial: Why Are Democrats Fighting Each Other Over Abortion?

[BainsBane]

27. Additionally, LBJ didn't divide the left

Southern Democrats weren't, by and large, leftists. Both parties contained liberal and conservative factions, and Southerners were more conservative.

I think part of the problem is that people assume Democrats once represented the left, and that's not really true. By the late 60s, they had become left in comparison to Republicans, but they remained liberals, seeking to assuage inequality but supportive of capitalism itself.
The left had existed outside the two party system, but the red scares of the 20th century purged them.

Now we have people who call themselves leftist but typically have never read leftist theory, like Marx, Gramsci or anarchist writings. They talk about corporatism and neoliberalism with no critique of capitalism itself. They seek to restore the white male prosperity of the 50s, imagine it has been robbed of them, and tend to be unaware or disinterested in the way in which race and gender structures even economic inequality. They imagine a simplistic economic message fits all, even as they become angry when women and people of color point out that their own experiences and concerns may differ. We see increasing hostility toward the rights or concerns of other Democrats, whom they now conveniently dismiss as bashing Bernie. I've recently come to realize that defense of Bernie is merely an excuse to block out voices and interests other than their own.