The New York Times applies the soothing “moderate” label to those aligned with a brutal status quo at home and abroad, writes Norman Solomon. What’s so moderate about genocide?
U.S. President Joe Biden giving a foreign policy address on the work of his administration in January 2025. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy)
By Norman Solomon
Common Dreams
We’ve been hearing a lot of panicky warnings lately after Democratic primary voters chose socialists and other leftists instead of “moderates” in several major elections. The alarm bells got louder this month after Michigan’s progressive Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens — who was, The New York Times reported, “the moderate establishment-backed candidate.”
The soothing “moderate” label routinely goes to candidates like Stevens who’ve supported continual arming of Israel. She “benefited from about $62 million in advertising spending from half a dozen outside groups,” the Times noted. “Over half of that sum came from the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country’s most influential pro-Israel group.”
What’s so “moderate” about supporting genocide?
Official headshot of Stevens, 2018. (Phi Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / United States Congress)
Politicians are also routinely dubbed “moderate” when they’re running interference for extreme income inequality and deadly healthcare inequities — helping to block popular policy options like tax hikes on the rich and Medicare for All, which is supported by three-quarters of Democrats.
The Democratic base is fed up with a system that gives inordinate power to the wealthy and to large corporations.
In the real world, the so-called “moderates” are aligned with a status quo that continues to inflict widespread suffering and preventable death at home and abroad.
To hear timeworn party strategists like James Carville and Paul Begala tell it, leftwing candidates are duping the Democratic electorate. As this month began, Carville threatened to leave the party. Begala made headlines by declaring, “I don’t like the socialists. I can’t stand them.”
But last month, a CNN poll found that “about a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults identify as democratic socialists.” At a time when defeating the fascistic Republican Party is imperative, any strategist’s prescription that would denigrate or seek to exclude them amounts to political malpractice.
Treating so many Democratic voters like interlopers to be scolded might play well with corporate donors. But it’s a feeble swim against the political current.
Polling shows that the younger Democratic voters are, the more favorable they’re apt to be toward socialism. “Younger adults are more likely to be in groups on the left, while older adults tend to cluster in more conservative groups,” the Pew Research Center noted.
Drawing on the results of its new public opinion survey, Global Strategy Group just reported that “socialist Democrats skew younger, with 57 percent of them being between the ages of 18 and 44.” Another poll, released a month ago by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research, found that two-thirds of young people “said that their political views have changed in some way in recent years” — and “youth whose views did shift were almost twice as likely to become more liberal/progressive instead of more conservative.”
As socialists and others on the left prevail in many high-profile races, the refrains of condemnation coming from some of the Democratic Party establishment are potshots in a losing battle. By definition, young voters are the future of the party. Its prospects for winning elections are diminished to the extent that younger voters are made to feel unwelcome, or even vilified.
To the ears of many young Democratic voters, derision about how they cast their ballots is coming from out-of-touch party elders who treat crucial problems as abstractions or matters worthy only of lip service. Millions of Americans in early adulthood are facing financial stress with bleak outlooks for jobs and careers. College tuitions are often prohibitive, and college debt can be debilitating. Rents and mortgages are high. Everyday expenses are worse than a challenge. The climate crisis is real.
Such realities cast a shadow over the future. The last thing those voters want is arrogant leadership that refuses to grasp the urgency of this political moment.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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I’m over 80 years old and I’m much further left and much more radical, on both domestic and international issues, than either the “moderates” or the “democratic socialists.” It’s the class war that’s crucial, not the generational division.
Yes it is ! A class war which an education about is sadly needed!!
Exactly!
Our full spectrum dominance strategic policy for military, economic, religious, cultural world male behavior is not moderate. It is out of balance with the ecological and sexual nature of our world for power and excessive profit. It is part of the ages of a military protection racket that is afraid of losing control of a global civilization with paranoia of genetic equilibrium.
I was a Democrat for Bernie Sanders years ago but have left that party ever since. I am 89 years old. Also no longer read the US corporate newsmedia either. Bring back democracy and socialism too.
Thank you Norman Solomon for shedding light in a very dark corner, for calling out the misuse of the term ‘moderate.’
The only reason we have anyone with a conscience running for office as a Democratic Socialist within the Democratic Primary is because the DNC has consistently, for many years, made certain that there would never be a third party, nor a candidate who did not tow the party line. The last time this occurred openly, in living memory, was when Kucinich attempted to run on the Democratic ticket. He was banned from the NH primary debates, in which Obama participated, without mentioning this immoral omission.
The right to vote is useless when the public is consistently lied to by those runnning while any potential candidate not towing the party line will be effectively sidelined, silenced when possible. The handing over of the nomination for President to Hillary Clinton by Bernie Sanders – was another disgusting example.
Time for dramatic and effective changes in our methods/processes of governance. Majority rule is deeply flawed. The ‘majority’ (deceived or bought) gets their way. The concerns of the ‘minority’ are ignored, discounted.
Sociocracy offers an alternative. Over 100 years ago, developed by Quakers in Holland, currently and for several years in use by Mondragon in Spain. Decisions arrived at via consent. Consent can only be achieved when all concerns are fully and satisfactorily addressed. There is much more of value for consideration.
Basic, elementary reforms are much needed. They will not occur using our current processes.
I no longer trust the New York Times.
There has never been any trustworthy “mainstream”, corporate media in the US.
Both Carville and Begala are old and I, for one, have had enough of both. I am old but I am still capable of engaging in critical thought and observation- not some slavish devotion to outdated notions that never really worked for most Americans anyway. The so-called “moderate” democrats have made a mess of their party. Good riddance to them.
I am old and I am sick to death of old people calling the shots and supporting the status quo- both Carville and Begala are old! Enough of the Clinton era triangulation or third way ( I always confused Blair’s nonsense with the Clinton’s, so please forgive me if I have it backwards). We have too many billionaires and heaven forbid, now trillionaires. Neither should exist primarily because of the structural, cultural and political instability they foster. I am with the youngsters on this-eat the rich and put (most) of the oldsters out to pasture.
El-Sayed is a full-throated supporter of the U.S.-NATO proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. Self-identified “progressives” just as enthusiastically support El-Sayed.
I am acquainted with a considerable number of San Francisco “progressives,” all of whom still wholeheartedly believe that Trump is a Putin puppet and won the 2016 election with the help of brazen Russian meddling, are implacably convinced that the irredeemably evil “Putin!”, unprovoked, full-scale invaded the paragon of “freedom, democracy, and human rights” Ukraine, and are outraged that “dictator” Xi Jinping is inflicting genocide on the Uyghurs.
For progressives, the solution to Trump, with whom all of the domestic and foreign problems the U.S. is facing began, is to elect Democrats who do not take AIPAC money. They basically understand the Israel situation, in other words, and are in the pocket of CNN or whatever media they consume regarding Russia, China, and pretty much the rest of the world.
“It were PUTIN that made me do it!”
The western religious warfare system has never been moderate but it has created the 2000 year old weaponization of monotheistic religion to promote empire building in the Middle East and other continents long before the strategic resource of oil with apocalyptic profit motives.
Moderate, as defined by the US mainstream media has always meant the stamp of approval that the politician unquestioningly supports imperialism abroad, and the domestic surveillance and mass incarceration state at home….while attempting to distract from that reactionary stance, by accepting abortion rights and not demanding that gay or trans people be banished from the public sphere. Because in a state as fundamentally reactionary as the US, well that is left of centre.
The DSA (trademark of the Dems wing of the uniparty) is not actually socialist. It exists purely to bleed the Greens and the Working Families Party of any chance of forming a real third party witha place on the ballot. Which is why the Dems spend millions of dollars every year on legal challenges to keep them off the ballot…..and the “DSA” does nothing to stop that.
The suffering at home? Well documented in /Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism/ by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, 2020. The ‘centrist’ Ds dumped the New Deal and abandoned us, the majority working class. They supported the policy to deliberately outsource manufacturing. So then unrelenting financial stress from being un- or underemployed for decades plus being invisible to the party once ours, relieved only by alcohol, drugs, suicide. Then the D elite and their 20%er PMC loyalists, bewildered by the last election, blame “stupid voters” for their party’s egregious neglect. They can’t tell the difference between MAGA cultists and us desperate workers. Nor do they care. If we were dogs, there would be outrage at the horrific cruelty.
How do ‘centrists’ respond to challenges? James Carville, D strategist, blasted the DSers, saying they should be purged from the party because “they care more about Lenin than MLK” and “they will ruin the D party name.” Not only disgusting ’50s McCarthy style Red baiting, but it would be laughable if it weren’t so deeply painful. His type and their corporate economics haven’t done anything for us lessers in decades. They’re who ruined the party name.
It’s just so puzzling; why in the heck would Gen Zers and Millennials lean socialist? Why?
I know they suffer under terrible employment prospects, crap wages, exorbitant housing/rental costs, massive inflation, skyrocketing student loan debt, totally unreasonable healthcare costs, and a growing lonely and isolating society.
But these issues couldn’t be the reason, could they?
They definitely could be the reason.
When first reading your post, I wondered about who on earth General Zee could be, as I had never heard of him before.
You’re so sharp, I think you might have sussed it.