Proposed Changes to Medicaid Would Reduce Funding for W.Va. [feedly]

Proposed Changes to Medicaid Would Reduce Funding for W.Va.
http://www.wvpolicy.org/proposed-changes-to-medicaid-would-reduce-funding-for-w-va/

On Monday night, members of the U.S. House of Representatives released their bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. Possibly the biggest deal for West Virginia is that the new bill proposes changing the way that Medicaid is funded.

Listen

Listening...

4:02

Medicaid is the joint state-federal insurance program that covers more than a third of West Virginians. Right now, the federal government matches state spending for Medicaid dollar for dollar. But under the proposed bill, that funding would change to a per-capita cap.  

"This would drastically change it, because it would put strict limits, strict ceiling if you will, on how much the federal government is willing to spend," said Simon Haeder, an assistant professor of political science at West Virginia University.

"This would transfer the Medicaid program from somewhat of an open-ended commitment to improving healthcare for America's most-poor individuals to putting a specific dollar amount on this," he said.

Per-capita caps are supported by West Virginia Representative Evan Jenkins and some other Republican politicians, because they may give states more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars while saving tax dollars paid to the federal government.

"Under the per capita, it would be more reflective of the needs of West Virginia and the populations that Medicaid is designed to do," said Jenkins.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke to Jenkins at an event last week. At the time of the event, he had not seen the House proposal, but did say he believed the ACA was in a "death spiral" and supported plans to repeal and replace it.

"It's very important to go back and look at traditional Medicaid….it was a safety net program for targeted populations," he said. "Well, what's happened is that, under the ACA, Medicaid was used as a vehicle to allow able-bodied people based on income level – up to 138 percent of [Federal Poverty Line] to go in. So that was one of the Obamacare approaches to expanded insurances – just put more people in Medicaid. So … as a result, the Medicaid budget is three times what it was when Bill Clinton was president. The trajectory right now is through the roof and is simply unsustainable."

But critics of per-capita caps say they don't adjust for increased healthcare costs.

"The problem is, when they set that amount they usually tie it to CPI, the current [rate of] inflation," said Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

"And we all know that medical inflation grows 5, 6, 7 percent a year – much higher than GDP, much higher than other inflation –  so that amount of money is really going to decline over time, and that means less benefits."

Haeder said since West Virginians are sicker, older and more disabled than the national average, Medicaid costs here have similarly been rising at a greater rate.

"And so once you put a ceiling on expenditures, it's either going to be more state spending or cuts to eligible enrollees or eligible benefits," he explained.

More state spending would likely be difficult for West Virginia, considering the current budget crisis. The Department of Health and Human Resources did not respond to a request for an interview, but said in an emailed statement that the "DHHR will be exploring the impact of any changes.  It will take some time."

West Virginia is one of 19 states that expanded Medicaid. For now, the more than one hundred thousand people covered by this expansion are protected. In 2020 under the proposed plan, enrollment for expansion would freeze and states would no longer be able to enroll new participants in the program. As of late 2016, more than 170,000 West Virginians had gained coverage through the expansion of Medicaid. Some legislators say, ideally, they hope the number of people covered by this expansion will slowly decline as enrollees' incomes improve.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Kuttner: Higher Interest Rates: Oh Goodie!

Higher Interest Rates – Oh, Goodie!

18 Robert Kuttner by Robert Kuttner  /  1h  //  keep unread  //  hide

The press is fairly slavering for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. You can hardly read an item in the business pages without some commentator declaring that, at last, the unemployment rate is low enough and the growth rate high enough that the Fed can tighten money… and choke off further progress. Hosannas!

But the commentators have to strain to tell us how good things are. Yes, wages are up this year, and unemployment is down, but as EPI's comprehensive report makes clear, these gains have only begin the reverse several decades of rising inequality. 

Why does the financial community want higher interest rates? So that banks and other creditors can make more money, of course. And to head off inflation that for the moment is mostly imaginary. 

The core inflation rate is about 2.3 percent, a hair above its average in recent months. The Fed could easily let this recovery go on still longer, to produce even more wage gains.

Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, deserves a medal for fending off this pressure for as long as she could. Yellen is the first liberal to hold the job since renegade banker Marriner Eccles ran the Fed under FDR and engineered low interest rates to help finance World War II.

Yellen has brilliantly bobbed and weaved, in the manner of Fed chairs, suggesting that the Fed would surely raise rates sometime soon but not quite yet. But the pressure among other Fed governors and regional Fed bank presidents has reached the point where even Yellen has had to join the inflation-hawk camp, lest she get outvoted on the Fed's policy-making Open Market Committee—a fate that Fed chairs detest. So Yellen herself has now signaled that the Fed will indeed raise rates at its policy meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday.

X

Please recall that Yellen got the job only because progressives in the Senate, led by Elizabeth Warren, were able to block Larry Summers. As a testament to the power of the dead hand of economic orthodoxy, the usual suspects persuaded Obama to name as deputy Fed vice-chair Stanley Fischer, a paladin of financial deregulation and tight money. The austerity caucus at the Fed keeps growing.

This brings us to President Trump, who found to his shock that the economic statistics were not fake after all―when they reported the good news the economy had generated 235,000 jobs last month, causing the unemployment rate to tick down to 4.7 percent. Of course, in the boom of the late 1990s, unemployment went below 4 percent and could again.

Trump will soon have three seats to fill at the Fed (out of seven), and he probably will replace Yellen when her term as chair expires early next year. What will Trump do?

Normally, a conservative Republican president would appoint other conservatives, who are both inflation-phobic and pro-deregulation. But if Trump is shrewd, he will look to inflation doves, so that he can enjoy more good reports of rising growth and declining unemployment.

Unfortunately, Trump's banker chums, such as his economic policy director Gary Cohn, late of Goldman Sachs, and his treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, also want more deregulation.

Loose money and financial deregulation are not a good combination. It leads to bubbles—of the sort that crashed the economy in 2008. 

The Yellen regime at the Fed has been a splendid exception to the norm, because it has combined easy money with tight regulation, allowing the real economy to recover without a resurgence of abuses.

It is a far less dramatic story than all of the Trump outrages that dominate the news, but the competence, progressivism and integrity of the Fed under Janet Yellen are one more thing that we are going to miss.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility. 

Like Robert Kuttner on Facebook: http://facebook.com/RobertKuttner

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rkuttner

--

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

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International GDP per capita comparisons [feedly]

International GDP per capita comparisons
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2017/03/international-gdp-per-capita-comparisons.html

As I have noted before, it is one of the great ironies of UK politics that recent growth only looks respectable because of immigration. Because mediamacro does not connect dots, politicians can get away with talking about a solid UK recovery, even though it is only half respectable because of the immigration they say must be reduced. But large migration flows are not just a UK experience.

The focus on GDP rather than GDP/capita distorts international comparisons as well. I conducted a small twitter poll (something over 500 votes) asking which of these 4 countries had grown most rapidly from 2006 to 2015: Germany, Japan, UK and US. Now those who voted are by self-selection well informed about economics, but over half chose the wrong answer in a comparison where the winner is ahead by a mile. Here is a chart (using IMF data).

I suspect the main reason why less than 50% chose Germany is that we are so used to GDP comparisons, and both the UK and the US experienced large scale immigration over this period. Using GDP the US wins (with 12% growth), closely followed by Germany (10.5%) and the UK (9.5%) with Japan way behind at 3.5%. But both the US and UK numbers are hugely flattered by immigration.

Why did Germany do so well in terms of the average living standards of its people? We need to talk about demand and supply. As readers should know, Germany suffered from austerity just as the US and UK did. But as you should also know, this was compensated for by a large competitive advantage it had gained over its fellow Eurozone members because of slow wage growth from 2000 to 2006. Strong growth in net trade made up for austerity, leading to a comparatively strong output per head performance (and, going with that, a huge current account surplus).

How was this demand boost met in terms of increased supply? Not through more rapid productivity growth (measured in terms of output per employed person), which hardly increased over this period. Instead it was through an amazing decrease in unemployment. In 2006 the unemployment rate in Germany was 10%, whereas by 2015 it was less than 5%. This in turn reflects the Hartz reforms, discussed by Tom Krebs and Martin Scheffel here. As they point out, this reform created losers (in terms of risk, particularly) as well as winners in terms of average income per head.

All this emphasises the point that GDP figures can be a poor guide to growth in average incomes. It also puts into perspective claims by Conservative politicians, widely repeated by the media, that the UK has been doing better than everyone else. Over this reasonably long period (you can always cherry pick short horizons), Germany has clearly been doing better than anyone else among the major countries, with growth from 2006 to 2015 of over 11%. Next come a group of countries at around 4% growth, including the USA and Japan as well as Sweden and Switzerland. Below them is another group of around 2% growth, including the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands. Just behind at 1% is France and Belgium.

The UK is certainly not at the bottom of the league, with a number of countries with GDP per capita in 2015 still below 2006 levels. These include Spain, Portugal, Finland and Denmark, with really poor performances from Italy and Troika run Greece. But growth of even 4% over 9 years is nothing to be proud of. Among all these countries, only Germany can claim to have actually recovered from the recession. [1]

[1] Outside this established group, we have seen strong growth from Australia, Israel, and the Czech and Slovak republics, as well as some smaller countries.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Re: [socialist-econ] CPUSA -- Above it all

Thanks, John for this critical focus on austerity and 40 years of stagnant wages. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 12, 2017, at 4:18 PM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

With the best of intentions and sentiments, CP leader Bachtell delivers a typically impotent CP rebuke to fascism. The fascist threat will be rebuked when its driving cause, 40 years of Austerity, is directly addressed and reversed. Not before. Bachtell does not even mention that. Doing that would mean raising, not burying, effacing, minimizing or damning with faint praise, class politics in the midst of reveling in the abundance of "resistance" movements. Hat tips from "Communists" to these movements are no doubt elevating to the tipper. But who in the movements cares? the CP represents no class, none,  Airy speculations about all-peoples fronts and such from those with no base, and no prospects of one, are just that: hot air.

I suspect the faction online advocating that the whole Trump affair, and now the fate of democracy, is mainly about race and not class is loud in party ranks. I guess THEY won't be contending, like Sanders, "the new center" -- Joe Manchin  --  in the coalfields of West Virginia. Or engaging the gas fields either, with those evil pipeline workers and their building trades unions  begging Trump -- not the "multi-class allies" -- for jobs at a living wage.

Bachtell offers this, for those who might be tempted to criticize, like Sanders, the new "center": Senator Joe Manchin, of West Virginia:  "These approaches [that] advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary..."

Unity on what? Does the "unity" include  -- first --  reversing austerity, which, by the way, does NOT require overthrowing capitalism, but does require a determined class struggle against the rights and prerogatives of billionaires? If not, it won't amount to dogshit in repairing working class disunity. And if that is not repaired, all the "multi-class" coalitions in the world won't remove the fascists, and the fetid petri dish of austerity in which they thrive and are reborn. If you do not use a class approach -- who are YOUR people, YOUR way of life -- if ordinary people are not drawn into motion in the millions, you wont ever know what the basis of popular unity really is. For example -- you might find that fixing austerity HAS TO COME BEFORE bathroom rights in North Carolina, if you were listening to millions, not the "left".

Of course this discourse is all a waste of time with the CP and some similar orgs -- orgs with no base have no real way of politically verifying their positions, and thus can remain firmly planted in mid-air for lifetimes. It was effectively liquidated in the 50's by a combination of repression and sectarianism. It revived a half Zombie existence in the sixties at the pleasure of the  CPSU and a quid pro quo with the Kennedy Administration. It's leaders got out of jail. It succeeded in getting Angela Davis out of jail -- its singular post-war actual accomplishment, beyond a repository of militant memories. Soviet cash helped pay for the paper and presidential campaigns of Gus Hall. Which makes the CP going after Trump for foreign interference a bit, well, compromised to say the least.

But I offer it as an example of what not to do as the resistance goes forward.

Stay away from sectarian outfits with "profound world-scale views" but no legs, and giant suitcases of dead weights they will ask you to carry for them on the way to "liberation".

jcase

***********************************************************************************************************************************



Donald Trump and the alt-right cabal in the White House pose a dire threat to truth, democracy, peace, and life on the planet.

The danger they present is compounded by Trump's mental instability and his attraction to dark conspiracies, including the latest one accusing President Obama of secretly directing the growing resistance.

This charge, which resonates among the white nationalists, racists, and conspiracy theorists of the alt-right, is a threat against Obama.

The Resistance

An unprecedented upsurge of resistance is engaging millions of Americans who understand the stakes. This resistance is based on the 66 million who voted for Hillary Clinton and millions more who either didn't vote or voted third party. It will eventually include many of those who voted for Trump and come to realize they made a profound mistake.

It also encompasses Democrats in Congress, parts of the judiciary (especially in Democratic-controlled states), fissures in the state institutions (including the intelligence community), and resistance by government workers.

It embraces entire state, county, and city governments controlled by Democrats, people of every faith, scientists, artists, celebrities, professional athletes, universities, and much of the mass media – both corporate and independent.

It includes almost the entire Democratic Party, independents, and moderate Republicans.

It includes emerging movements such as Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, the Dreamers, climate justice, Native American rights, transgender rights, and the thousands of grassroots neighborhood committees springing up to oppose the Trump policies.

Fissures, chaos, and divisions

The resistance is compounding chaos and division within the administration and slowing down the Trump/GOP juggernaut.

The administration is further hampered by the scandal over Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion with Trump to sabotage the Clinton campaign.

Fissures are emerging within GOP ranks and between the White House, GOP Congressional leadership, and with some GOP governors, forcing delay in passing their agenda.

It is no accident Trump was unable to offer many specifics in his speech to the joint session of Congress on Feb. 28. His main initiatives are the Muslim bans and the plan to build a U.S.–Mexican border wall, both geared to firing up his base and dividing the electorate.

Exploding opposition has placed Trump and the GOP on the defensive on some issues. For example, Trump and the GOP have no unified approach to the "repeal and replacement" of Obamacare and may be headed toward self-created "gridlock."

Bigger movements, greater unity needed

Participants in the Marxist Strategy and Tactics Seminar in Chicago, Feb. 19. | CPUSA

So far Trump's base, including among Republican voters, continues to back him. A shift of public opinion among these voters, can force the most vulnerable GOP elected officials to break ranks and oppose aspects of the Trump/GOP program before the 2018 elections.

It will take a much bigger movement to halt the breaching of democratic norms and the threat to constitutional rights. It will take a majority of Americans to resist, slow down, and block the Trump/GOP agenda, and ultimately defeat Republican majorities in Congress and statehouses and their ideas in the court of public opinion.

It will take more highly engaged activism, extending broader and deeper into the grassroots and among Trump voters and so-called "red" congressional districts and states.

Despite how they voted, millions can be united to defend the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the EPA, and Planned Parenthood.

Simultaneously, influences of racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and misogyny among Trump's supporters must be challenged – particularly among millions of whites. Such influences come primarily from the ubiquitous right-wing mass media and the conservative Christian Evangelical church networks.

A section of primarily white voters makes up the hard core of Trump's support and are thoroughly under the sway of right-wing ideology. Many of these could be drawn into an organized "alt-right" and even fascist-type movement.

However, another sizeable segment is not deeply tethered to Trump. They can and must be convinced their future is tied to multi-racial working class unity and the people's movement led by organized labor.

Trump effectively scapegoated immigrants, Muslims, and African Americans to exploit the fears generated by the massive economic, social, cultural, and demographic changes taking place with in conjunction with capitalist globalization and neoliberal policies. His tactics resulted in 40 percent of trade union households, mainly among white workers, supporting Trump.

The alt-right cabal around Trump aims to exploit these working class divisions and drive a wedge in the multi-racial organized labor and people's movement, rendering its opposition impotent. These dangers are inherent in the administration's attempts to foster a strategic relationship with the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades.

The alt-right's nefarious aim is to create a governing united front of white voters allowing the administration to implement policies to reverse the long-term demographic shifts rapidly occurring in the U.S.

All-People's Coalition

An all-people's coalition comprising the overwhelming majority of the American people is needed to defeat Trump and defend democracy, inclusivity, peace, and the environment.

Such a loose anti-right alliance has been (and is still being) built through the ups-and-downs, the advances and reverses of the political and legislative battles and election cycles that have spanned the last 35 years.

It reflects a convergence of many complex alliances and movements on a number of levels. By nature, it's a dynamic multi-class, multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-generational, and multi-tendency alliance – basically, everyone opposed to the right.

It embraces the forces led by the multi-racial working class and its organized sector, communities of color, women, youth and all the democratic movements and social networks in loose alliance with fragments of the capitalist class that are themselves in conflict with the extreme rightwing.

The multi-racial working class and other core social forces – communities of color, women, youth, and a range of democratic movements – play a fundamental and central role in shaping the politics and building the breadth and depth of the broader all-people's coalition with all its inherent class and social contradictions.

Application of united front against fascism to today

The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and militarism in Japan also brought into existence a global anti-fascist movement. The international Communist movement made a singular contribution to understanding the nature of fascism and what was needed to defeat it.

During the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International held in 1935, the Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov advanced the idea of uniting every force possible against the fascist menace. This constituted the "popular front," and within it was the "united front," or the special need for the unity of all working class forces specifically.

In the U.S., the "popular front" was known as the "People's Front," mobilizing millions against fascism abroad and the Republican Party and reactionary class and social forces arrayed against the New Deal coalition at home.

Fast forward to 1980 and the rise of Ronald Reagan. His election marked the emergence of a new extreme right danger to democracy and social progress. Its central feature was the takeover of the Republican Party by extreme right, racist, religious fundamentalist, and social conservative forces.

The CPUSA, along with other forces, identified this new danger to democracy early on and called for the formation of an "all-people's front" to defeat it. This outlook has been widely embraced as the right-wing danger has grown.

Multi-class alliances: Unity and struggle

Multi-class alliances are nothing new. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, and Dimitrov recognized them as a necessary part of advancing the interests of the working class at various stages in the fight to expand economic, social, and political democracy and defeat fascism.

U.S. history is rich with examples, including the struggle to end slavery and the Civil War, the fight against fascism in World War II, and today's fight for climate justice.

Racial and gender oppression cross class lines. For example, the struggle for equality encompasses all African Americans and all women, regardless of class.

The struggle to prevent an ecological catastrophe spans classes in conflict with the fossil fuel sector.

Such an approach also recognizes the existence of contradictions, shades of difference, fissures, and splits among factions of the ruling class and the possibility of exploiting them.

It recognizes the struggle for economic and social justice and democratic socialism passes through multiple stages, which are not neatly demarcated and often overlap.

It recognizes that at each stage key political objectives must be identified along with the necessary class and social forces needed to decisively shift the political balance of forces.

These are temporary class alliances based on momentary coinciding class interests. They invariably result in some compromises, however temporary, by the various contending class and social forces.

They are naturally unstable and unreliable allies and strictly follow their own class interests. On one issue they may be allies, and on another, foes.

Irreconcilable class antagonisms and contradictions do not disappear. The working class doesn't cease fighting for its interests or building independent organizational and political capacity, as the AFL-CIO has shown in establishing its own independent political mobilizing structure.

Left-center unity

The all-people's coalition is not based on organizing the left against the right wing. The left alone, while growing, can't defeat Trump and right-wing extremism. Broad unity of left and center political currents along with every other class and social force opposed to the right is needed.

Unity of the broad, diverse, and multi-layered people's movement – led by the multi-racial working class and organized labor – is fundamental. Its ability to influence the overall coalition depends on the extent to which it achieves broad multi-racial, multi-gender, and native-born/immigrant unity, as well as its level of engagement.

The main efforts of the left must be concentrated in building this movement at the grassroots – in all directions, as broad and deep and possible, with a focus on unity. Otherwise, the working class will be unable to play its leading role and put its imprint on the broader multi-class alliance.

Some on the left assert that the political center has collapsed and that, therefore, the concept of left-center unity no longer applies.

However, even with increasing polarization, recent polls showed about one-third of the electorate and 38 percent of Democrats identify as political moderates.

The center forces in the Democratic Party reflecting much of the corporate establishment are still powerful, well-resourced, deeply entrenched, and they control most state and city organizations.

There is simultaneous unity and contestation taking place between the establishment and progressive wings of Democratic Party – a reflection of the disparate, contradictory class and social forces of this electoral coalition.

That doesn't mean the left should cease criticism of the center or stop opposing centrist forces when necessary. Progressive independent forces in Chicago sharply criticize Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration's pro-corporate tendencies, policing policies, and privatization of public education. But this occurs in the context of the overall fight against Trump and the GOP. Emanuel is an ally in this fight as a supporter of the Sanctuary City movement and a defender of ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare.

The Democratic Party establishment is responding to the massive upsurge, reaching out to the progressive wing and waging a largely united, determined fight against the Trump agenda.

Center and left currents and political demands are not static and change under the impact of class and social movements and the growing mass upsurge against Trump. The changing demands of the center are the starting point for unity.

The emerging movements and shifts in public opinion and the impact of the Sanders campaign that gave voice to them all impacted the process of unity and contestation. This led to the most advanced platform of a major party in history being adopted at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

DLC/Third Way style politics have been discredited and the center has moved away from many positions, as evidenced by Clinton campaign. This shift should be welcomed, but under no circumstances should we assume center forces will give up efforts to assert their interests.

The broad left should continue advancing its agenda, developing a loose program reflecting the people's coalition led by labor. It helps influence the direction of the overall struggle.

Left attacks on the center

One left trend has concluded the Democratic Party center is responsible for the 2016 election loss. They believe the center is an obstacle to defeating Trump and that the left can defeat Trump, the GOP, and the extreme right all on its own. They see any engagement between left and center as futile.

Based on the response to the Sanders campaign, Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara calls for a left-populist alternative, which he thinks is the only way to defeat right-wing extremism. Environmentalist Naomi Klein advocates either taking over the Democratic Party or founding a third party.

These approaches advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary.

Today, millions are pouring into the streets on the basis of stopping Trump and defending democracy. The left current is a vital and growing part of this all-peoples movement. If its approach is geared toward building the broadest unity, it will emerge from a defeat of Trump as a stronger force capable of giving greater leadership to more advanced stages of struggle that lie ahead.

-- 

John Case

Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, The EPIC Radio Player Stream, 

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

Check out Socialist Economics, the EPIC Radio website, and 

The Poets and Mechanics Quaker Worship Group

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Re: [CCDS Members] CPUSA -- Above it all

Of course it's about class and class struggle.  It always is.  The ruling class uses racism to divide the working class against itself, esp. in this country.  It's a major reason why they continue to win.

 

All the best to all, Steve Jonas

 

In a message dated 3/12/2017 4:18:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jcase4218@gmail.com writes:

With the best of intentions and sentiments, CP leader Bachtell delivers a typically impotent CP rebuke to fascism. The fascist threat will be rebuked when its driving cause, 40 years of Austerity, is directly addressed and reversed. Not before. Bachtell does not even mention that. Doing that would mean raising, not burying, effacing, minimizing or damning with faint praise, class politics in the midst of reveling in the abundance of "resistance" movements. Hat tips from "Communists" to these movements are no doubt elevating to the tipper. But who in the movements cares? the CP represents no class, none,  Airy speculations about all-peoples fronts and such from those with no base, and no prospects of one, are just that: hot air.

I suspect the faction online advocating that the whole Trump affair, and now the fate of democracy, is mainly about race and not class is loud in party ranks. I guess THEY won't be contending, like Sanders, "the new center" -- Joe Manchin  --  in the coalfields of West Virginia. Or engaging the gas fields either, with those evil pipeline workers and their building trades unions  begging Trump -- not the "multi-class allies" -- for jobs at a living wage.

Bachtell offers this, for those who might be tempted to criticize, like Sanders, the new "center": Senator Joe Manchin, of West Virginia:  "These approaches [that] advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary..."

Unity on what? Does the "unity" include  -- first --  reversing austerity, which, by the way, does NOT require overthrowing capitalism, but does require a determined class struggle against the rights and prerogatives of billionaires? If not, it won't amount to dogshit in repairing working class disunity. And if that is not repaired, all the "multi-class" coalitions in the world won't remove the fascists, and the fetid petri dish of austerity in which they thrive and are reborn. If you do not use a class approach -- who are YOUR people, YOUR way of life -- if ordinary people are not drawn into motion in the millions, you wont ever know what the basis of popular unity really is. For example -- you might find that fixing austerity HAS TO COME BEFORE bathroom rights in North Carolina, if you were listening to millions, not the "left".

Of course this discourse is all a waste of time with the CP and some similar orgs -- orgs with no base have no real way of politically verifying their positions, and thus can remain firmly planted in mid-air for lifetimes. It was effectively liquidated in the 50's by a combination of repression and sectarianism. It revived a half Zombie existence in the sixties at the pleasure of the  CPSU and a quid pro quo with the Kennedy Administration. It's leaders got out of jail. It succeeded in getting Angela Davis out of jail -- its singular post-war actual accomplishment, beyond a repository of militant memories. Soviet cash helped pay for the paper and presidential campaigns of Gus Hall. Which makes the CP going after Trump for foreign interference a bit, well, compromised to say the least.

But I offer it as an example of what not to do as the resistance goes forward.

Stay away from sectarian outfits with "profound world-scale views" but no legs, and giant suitcases of dead weights they will ask you to carry for them on the way to "liberation".

jcase

***********************************************************************************************************************************



Donald Trump and the alt-right cabal in the White House pose a dire threat to truth, democracy, peace, and life on the planet.

The danger they present is compounded by Trump's mental instability and his attraction to dark conspiracies, including the latest one accusing President Obama of secretly directing the growing resistance.

This charge, which resonates among the white nationalists, racists, and conspiracy theorists of the alt-right, is a threat against Obama.

The Resistance

An unprecedented upsurge of resistance is engaging millions of Americans who understand the stakes. This resistance is based on the 66 million who voted for Hillary Clinton and millions more who either didn't vote or voted third party. It will eventually include many of those who voted for Trump and come to realize they made a profound mistake.

It also encompasses Democrats in Congress, parts of the judiciary (especially in Democratic-controlled states), fissures in the state institutions (including the intelligence community), and resistance by government workers.

It embraces entire state, county, and city governments controlled by Democrats, people of every faith, scientists, artists, celebrities, professional athletes, universities, and much of the mass media – both corporate and independent.

It includes almost the entire Democratic Party, independents, and moderate Republicans.

It includes emerging movements such as Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, the Dreamers, climate justice, Native American rights, transgender rights, and the thousands of grassroots neighborhood committees springing up to oppose the Trump policies.

Fissures, chaos, and divisions

The resistance is compounding chaos and division within the administration and slowing down the Trump/GOP juggernaut.

The administration is further hampered by the scandal over Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion with Trump to sabotage the Clinton campaign.

Fissures are emerging within GOP ranks and between the White House, GOP Congressional leadership, and with some GOP governors, forcing delay in passing their agenda.

It is no accident Trump was unable to offer many specifics in his speech to the joint session of Congress on Feb. 28. His main initiatives are the Muslim bans and the plan to build a U.S.–Mexican border wall, both geared to firing up his base and dividing the electorate.

Exploding opposition has placed Trump and the GOP on the defensive on some issues. For example, Trump and the GOP have no unified approach to the "repeal and replacement" of Obamacare and may be headed toward self-created "gridlock."

Bigger movements, greater unity needed

Participants in the Marxist Strategy and Tactics Seminar in Chicago, Feb. 19. | CPUSA

So far Trump's base, including among Republican voters, continues to back him. A shift of public opinion among these voters, can force the most vulnerable GOP elected officials to break ranks and oppose aspects of the Trump/GOP program before the 2018 elections.

It will take a much bigger movement to halt the breaching of democratic norms and the threat to constitutional rights. It will take a majority of Americans to resist, slow down, and block the Trump/GOP agenda, and ultimately defeat Republican majorities in Congress and statehouses and their ideas in the court of public opinion.

It will take more highly engaged activism, extending broader and deeper into the grassroots and among Trump voters and so-called "red" congressional districts and states.

Despite how they voted, millions can be united to defend the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the EPA, and Planned Parenthood.

Simultaneously, influences of racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and misogyny among Trump's supporters must be challenged – particularly among millions of whites. Such influences come primarily from the ubiquitous right-wing mass media and the conservative Christian Evangelical church networks.

A section of primarily white voters makes up the hard core of Trump's support and are thoroughly under the sway of right-wing ideology. Many of these could be drawn into an organized "alt-right" and even fascist-type movement.

However, another sizeable segment is not deeply tethered to Trump. They can and must be convinced their future is tied to multi-racial working class unity and the people's movement led by organized labor.

Trump effectively scapegoated immigrants, Muslims, and African Americans to exploit the fears generated by the massive economic, social, cultural, and demographic changes taking place with in conjunction with capitalist globalization and neoliberal policies. His tactics resulted in 40 percent of trade union households, mainly among white workers, supporting Trump.

The alt-right cabal around Trump aims to exploit these working class divisions and drive a wedge in the multi-racial organized labor and people's movement, rendering its opposition impotent. These dangers are inherent in the administration's attempts to foster a strategic relationship with the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades.

The alt-right's nefarious aim is to create a governing united front of white voters allowing the administration to implement policies to reverse the long-term demographic shifts rapidly occurring in the U.S.

All-People's Coalition

An all-people's coalition comprising the overwhelming majority of the American people is needed to defeat Trump and defend democracy, inclusivity, peace, and the environment.

Such a loose anti-right alliance has been (and is still being) built through the ups-and-downs, the advances and reverses of the political and legislative battles and election cycles that have spanned the last 35 years.

It reflects a convergence of many complex alliances and movements on a number of levels. By nature, it's a dynamic multi-class, multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-generational, and multi-tendency alliance – basically, everyone opposed to the right.

It embraces the forces led by the multi-racial working class and its organized sector, communities of color, women, youth and all the democratic movements and social networks in loose alliance with fragments of the capitalist class that are themselves in conflict with the extreme rightwing.

The multi-racial working class and other core social forces – communities of color, women, youth, and a range of democratic movements – play a fundamental and central role in shaping the politics and building the breadth and depth of the broader all-people's coalition with all its inherent class and social contradictions.

Application of united front against fascism to today

The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and militarism in Japan also brought into existence a global anti-fascist movement. The international Communist movement made a singular contribution to understanding the nature of fascism and what was needed to defeat it.

During the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International held in 1935, the Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov advanced the idea of uniting every force possible against the fascist menace. This constituted the "popular front," and within it was the "united front," or the special need for the unity of all working class forces specifically.

In the U.S., the "popular front" was known as the "People's Front," mobilizing millions against fascism abroad and the Republican Party and reactionary class and social forces arrayed against the New Deal coalition at home.

Fast forward to 1980 and the rise of Ronald Reagan. His election marked the emergence of a new extreme right danger to democracy and social progress. Its central feature was the takeover of the Republican Party by extreme right, racist, religious fundamentalist, and social conservative forces.

The CPUSA, along with other forces, identified this new danger to democracy early on and called for the formation of an "all-people's front" to defeat it. This outlook has been widely embraced as the right-wing danger has grown.

Multi-class alliances: Unity and struggle

Multi-class alliances are nothing new. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, and Dimitrov recognized them as a necessary part of advancing the interests of the working class at various stages in the fight to expand economic, social, and political democracy and defeat fascism.

U.S. history is rich with examples, including the struggle to end slavery and the Civil War, the fight against fascism in World War II, and today's fight for climate justice.

Racial and gender oppression cross class lines. For example, the struggle for equality encompasses all African Americans and all women, regardless of class.

The struggle to prevent an ecological catastrophe spans classes in conflict with the fossil fuel sector.

Such an approach also recognizes the existence of contradictions, shades of difference, fissures, and splits among factions of the ruling class and the possibility of exploiting them.

It recognizes the struggle for economic and social justice and democratic socialism passes through multiple stages, which are not neatly demarcated and often overlap.

It recognizes that at each stage key political objectives must be identified along with the necessary class and social forces needed to decisively shift the political balance of forces.

These are temporary class alliances based on momentary coinciding class interests. They invariably result in some compromises, however temporary, by the various contending class and social forces.

They are naturally unstable and unreliable allies and strictly follow their own class interests. On one issue they may be allies, and on another, foes.

Irreconcilable class antagonisms and contradictions do not disappear. The working class doesn't cease fighting for its interests or building independent organizational and political capacity, as the AFL-CIO has shown in establishing its own independent political mobilizing structure.

Left-center unity

The all-people's coalition is not based on organizing the left against the right wing. The left alone, while growing, can't defeat Trump and right-wing extremism. Broad unity of left and center political currents along with every other class and social force opposed to the right is needed.

Unity of the broad, diverse, and multi-layered people's movement – led by the multi-racial working class and organized labor – is fundamental. Its ability to influence the overall coalition depends on the extent to which it achieves broad multi-racial, multi-gender, and native-born/immigrant unity, as well as its level of engagement.

The main efforts of the left must be concentrated in building this movement at the grassroots – in all directions, as broad and deep and possible, with a focus on unity. Otherwise, the working class will be unable to play its leading role and put its imprint on the broader multi-class alliance.

Some on the left assert that the political center has collapsed and that, therefore, the concept of left-center unity no longer applies.

However, even with increasing polarization, recent polls showed about one-third of the electorate and 38 percent of Democrats identify as political moderates.

The center forces in the Democratic Party reflecting much of the corporate establishment are still powerful, well-resourced, deeply entrenched, and they control most state and city organizations.

There is simultaneous unity and contestation taking place between the establishment and progressive wings of Democratic Party – a reflection of the disparate, contradictory class and social forces of this electoral coalition.

That doesn't mean the left should cease criticism of the center or stop opposing centrist forces when necessary. Progressive independent forces in Chicago sharply criticize Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration's pro-corporate tendencies, policing policies, and privatization of public education. But this occurs in the context of the overall fight against Trump and the GOP. Emanuel is an ally in this fight as a supporter of the Sanctuary City movement and a defender of ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare.

The Democratic Party establishment is responding to the massive upsurge, reaching out to the progressive wing and waging a largely united, determined fight against the Trump agenda.

Center and left currents and political demands are not static and change under the impact of class and social movements and the growing mass upsurge against Trump. The changing demands of the center are the starting point for unity.

The emerging movements and shifts in public opinion and the impact of the Sanders campaign that gave voice to them all impacted the process of unity and contestation. This led to the most advanced platform of a major party in history being adopted at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

DLC/Third Way style politics have been discredited and the center has moved away from many positions, as evidenced by Clinton campaign. This shift should be welcomed, but under no circumstances should we assume center forces will give up efforts to assert their interests.

The broad left should continue advancing its agenda, developing a loose program reflecting the people's coalition led by labor. It helps influence the direction of the overall struggle.

Left attacks on the center

One left trend has concluded the Democratic Party center is responsible for the 2016 election loss. They believe the center is an obstacle to defeating Trump and that the left can defeat Trump, the GOP, and the extreme right all on its own. They see any engagement between left and center as futile.

Based on the response to the Sanders campaign, Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara calls for a left-populist alternative, which he thinks is the only way to defeat right-wing extremism. Environmentalist Naomi Klein advocates either taking over the Democratic Party or founding a third party.

These approaches advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary.

Today, millions are pouring into the streets on the basis of stopping Trump and defending democracy. The left current is a vital and growing part of this all-peoples movement. If its approach is geared toward building the broadest unity, it will emerge from a defeat of Trump as a stronger force capable of giving greater leadership to more advanced stages of struggle that lie ahead.

-- 

John Case

Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, The EPIC Radio Player Stream, 

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

Check out Socialist Economics, the EPIC Radio website, and 

The Poets and Mechanics Quaker Worship Group

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CPUSA -- Above it all

With the best of intentions and sentiments, CP leader Bachtell delivers a typically impotent CP rebuke to fascism. The fascist threat will be rebuked when its driving cause, 40 years of Austerity, is directly addressed and reversed. Not before. Bachtell does not even mention that. Doing that would mean raising, not burying, effacing, minimizing or damning with faint praise, class politics in the midst of reveling in the abundance of "resistance" movements. Hat tips from "Communists" to these movements are no doubt elevating to the tipper. But who in the movements cares? the CP represents no class, none,  Airy speculations about all-peoples fronts and such from those with no base, and no prospects of one, are just that: hot air.

I suspect the faction online advocating that the whole Trump affair, and now the fate of democracy, is mainly about race and not class is loud in party ranks. I guess THEY won't be contending, like Sanders, "the new center" -- Joe Manchin  --  in the coalfields of West Virginia. Or engaging the gas fields either, with those evil pipeline workers and their building trades unions  begging Trump -- not the "multi-class allies" -- for jobs at a living wage.

Bachtell offers this, for those who might be tempted to criticize, like Sanders, the new "center": Senator Joe Manchin, of West Virginia:  "These approaches [that] advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary..."

Unity on what? Does the "unity" include  -- first --  reversing austerity, which, by the way, does NOT require overthrowing capitalism, but does require a determined class struggle against the rights and prerogatives of billionaires? If not, it won't amount to dogshit in repairing working class disunity. And if that is not repaired, all the "multi-class" coalitions in the world won't remove the fascists, and the fetid petri dish of austerity in which they thrive and are reborn. If you do not use a class approach -- who are YOUR people, YOUR way of life -- if ordinary people are not drawn into motion in the millions, you wont ever know what the basis of popular unity really is. For example -- you might find that fixing austerity HAS TO COME BEFORE bathroom rights in North Carolina, if you were listening to millions, not the "left".

Of course this discourse is all a waste of time with the CP and some similar orgs -- orgs with no base have no real way of politically verifying their positions, and thus can remain firmly planted in mid-air for lifetimes. It was effectively liquidated in the 50's by a combination of repression and sectarianism. It revived a half Zombie existence in the sixties at the pleasure of the  CPSU and a quid pro quo with the Kennedy Administration. It's leaders got out of jail. It succeeded in getting Angela Davis out of jail -- its singular post-war actual accomplishment, beyond a repository of militant memories. Soviet cash helped pay for the paper and presidential campaigns of Gus Hall. Which makes the CP going after Trump for foreign interference a bit, well, compromised to say the least.

But I offer it as an example of what not to do as the resistance goes forward.

Stay away from sectarian outfits with "profound world-scale views" but no legs, and giant suitcases of dead weights they will ask you to carry for them on the way to "liberation".

jcase

***********************************************************************************************************************************



Donald Trump and the alt-right cabal in the White House pose a dire threat to truth, democracy, peace, and life on the planet.

The danger they present is compounded by Trump's mental instability and his attraction to dark conspiracies, including the latest one accusing President Obama of secretly directing the growing resistance.

This charge, which resonates among the white nationalists, racists, and conspiracy theorists of the alt-right, is a threat against Obama.

The Resistance

An unprecedented upsurge of resistance is engaging millions of Americans who understand the stakes. This resistance is based on the 66 million who voted for Hillary Clinton and millions more who either didn't vote or voted third party. It will eventually include many of those who voted for Trump and come to realize they made a profound mistake.

It also encompasses Democrats in Congress, parts of the judiciary (especially in Democratic-controlled states), fissures in the state institutions (including the intelligence community), and resistance by government workers.

It embraces entire state, county, and city governments controlled by Democrats, people of every faith, scientists, artists, celebrities, professional athletes, universities, and much of the mass media – both corporate and independent.

It includes almost the entire Democratic Party, independents, and moderate Republicans.

It includes emerging movements such as Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, the Dreamers, climate justice, Native American rights, transgender rights, and the thousands of grassroots neighborhood committees springing up to oppose the Trump policies.

Fissures, chaos, and divisions

The resistance is compounding chaos and division within the administration and slowing down the Trump/GOP juggernaut.

The administration is further hampered by the scandal over Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion with Trump to sabotage the Clinton campaign.

Fissures are emerging within GOP ranks and between the White House, GOP Congressional leadership, and with some GOP governors, forcing delay in passing their agenda.

It is no accident Trump was unable to offer many specifics in his speech to the joint session of Congress on Feb. 28. His main initiatives are the Muslim bans and the plan to build a U.S.–Mexican border wall, both geared to firing up his base and dividing the electorate.

Exploding opposition has placed Trump and the GOP on the defensive on some issues. For example, Trump and the GOP have no unified approach to the "repeal and replacement" of Obamacare and may be headed toward self-created "gridlock."

Bigger movements, greater unity needed

Participants in the Marxist Strategy and Tactics Seminar in Chicago, Feb. 19. | CPUSA

So far Trump's base, including among Republican voters, continues to back him. A shift of public opinion among these voters, can force the most vulnerable GOP elected officials to break ranks and oppose aspects of the Trump/GOP program before the 2018 elections.

It will take a much bigger movement to halt the breaching of democratic norms and the threat to constitutional rights. It will take a majority of Americans to resist, slow down, and block the Trump/GOP agenda, and ultimately defeat Republican majorities in Congress and statehouses and their ideas in the court of public opinion.

It will take more highly engaged activism, extending broader and deeper into the grassroots and among Trump voters and so-called "red" congressional districts and states.

Despite how they voted, millions can be united to defend the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the EPA, and Planned Parenthood.

Simultaneously, influences of racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and misogyny among Trump's supporters must be challenged – particularly among millions of whites. Such influences come primarily from the ubiquitous right-wing mass media and the conservative Christian Evangelical church networks.

A section of primarily white voters makes up the hard core of Trump's support and are thoroughly under the sway of right-wing ideology. Many of these could be drawn into an organized "alt-right" and even fascist-type movement.

However, another sizeable segment is not deeply tethered to Trump. They can and must be convinced their future is tied to multi-racial working class unity and the people's movement led by organized labor.

Trump effectively scapegoated immigrants, Muslims, and African Americans to exploit the fears generated by the massive economic, social, cultural, and demographic changes taking place with in conjunction with capitalist globalization and neoliberal policies. His tactics resulted in 40 percent of trade union households, mainly among white workers, supporting Trump.

The alt-right cabal around Trump aims to exploit these working class divisions and drive a wedge in the multi-racial organized labor and people's movement, rendering its opposition impotent. These dangers are inherent in the administration's attempts to foster a strategic relationship with the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades.

The alt-right's nefarious aim is to create a governing united front of white voters allowing the administration to implement policies to reverse the long-term demographic shifts rapidly occurring in the U.S.

All-People's Coalition

An all-people's coalition comprising the overwhelming majority of the American people is needed to defeat Trump and defend democracy, inclusivity, peace, and the environment.

Such a loose anti-right alliance has been (and is still being) built through the ups-and-downs, the advances and reverses of the political and legislative battles and election cycles that have spanned the last 35 years.

It reflects a convergence of many complex alliances and movements on a number of levels. By nature, it's a dynamic multi-class, multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-generational, and multi-tendency alliance – basically, everyone opposed to the right.

It embraces the forces led by the multi-racial working class and its organized sector, communities of color, women, youth and all the democratic movements and social networks in loose alliance with fragments of the capitalist class that are themselves in conflict with the extreme rightwing.

The multi-racial working class and other core social forces – communities of color, women, youth, and a range of democratic movements – play a fundamental and central role in shaping the politics and building the breadth and depth of the broader all-people's coalition with all its inherent class and social contradictions.

Application of united front against fascism to today

The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and militarism in Japan also brought into existence a global anti-fascist movement. The international Communist movement made a singular contribution to understanding the nature of fascism and what was needed to defeat it.

During the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International held in 1935, the Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov advanced the idea of uniting every force possible against the fascist menace. This constituted the "popular front," and within it was the "united front," or the special need for the unity of all working class forces specifically.

In the U.S., the "popular front" was known as the "People's Front," mobilizing millions against fascism abroad and the Republican Party and reactionary class and social forces arrayed against the New Deal coalition at home.

Fast forward to 1980 and the rise of Ronald Reagan. His election marked the emergence of a new extreme right danger to democracy and social progress. Its central feature was the takeover of the Republican Party by extreme right, racist, religious fundamentalist, and social conservative forces.

The CPUSA, along with other forces, identified this new danger to democracy early on and called for the formation of an "all-people's front" to defeat it. This outlook has been widely embraced as the right-wing danger has grown.

Multi-class alliances: Unity and struggle

Multi-class alliances are nothing new. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, and Dimitrov recognized them as a necessary part of advancing the interests of the working class at various stages in the fight to expand economic, social, and political democracy and defeat fascism.

U.S. history is rich with examples, including the struggle to end slavery and the Civil War, the fight against fascism in World War II, and today's fight for climate justice.

Racial and gender oppression cross class lines. For example, the struggle for equality encompasses all African Americans and all women, regardless of class.

The struggle to prevent an ecological catastrophe spans classes in conflict with the fossil fuel sector.

Such an approach also recognizes the existence of contradictions, shades of difference, fissures, and splits among factions of the ruling class and the possibility of exploiting them.

It recognizes the struggle for economic and social justice and democratic socialism passes through multiple stages, which are not neatly demarcated and often overlap.

It recognizes that at each stage key political objectives must be identified along with the necessary class and social forces needed to decisively shift the political balance of forces.

These are temporary class alliances based on momentary coinciding class interests. They invariably result in some compromises, however temporary, by the various contending class and social forces.

They are naturally unstable and unreliable allies and strictly follow their own class interests. On one issue they may be allies, and on another, foes.

Irreconcilable class antagonisms and contradictions do not disappear. The working class doesn't cease fighting for its interests or building independent organizational and political capacity, as the AFL-CIO has shown in establishing its own independent political mobilizing structure.

Left-center unity

The all-people's coalition is not based on organizing the left against the right wing. The left alone, while growing, can't defeat Trump and right-wing extremism. Broad unity of left and center political currents along with every other class and social force opposed to the right is needed.

Unity of the broad, diverse, and multi-layered people's movement – led by the multi-racial working class and organized labor – is fundamental. Its ability to influence the overall coalition depends on the extent to which it achieves broad multi-racial, multi-gender, and native-born/immigrant unity, as well as its level of engagement.

The main efforts of the left must be concentrated in building this movement at the grassroots – in all directions, as broad and deep and possible, with a focus on unity. Otherwise, the working class will be unable to play its leading role and put its imprint on the broader multi-class alliance.

Some on the left assert that the political center has collapsed and that, therefore, the concept of left-center unity no longer applies.

However, even with increasing polarization, recent polls showed about one-third of the electorate and 38 percent of Democrats identify as political moderates.

The center forces in the Democratic Party reflecting much of the corporate establishment are still powerful, well-resourced, deeply entrenched, and they control most state and city organizations.

There is simultaneous unity and contestation taking place between the establishment and progressive wings of Democratic Party – a reflection of the disparate, contradictory class and social forces of this electoral coalition.

That doesn't mean the left should cease criticism of the center or stop opposing centrist forces when necessary. Progressive independent forces in Chicago sharply criticize Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration's pro-corporate tendencies, policing policies, and privatization of public education. But this occurs in the context of the overall fight against Trump and the GOP. Emanuel is an ally in this fight as a supporter of the Sanctuary City movement and a defender of ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare.

The Democratic Party establishment is responding to the massive upsurge, reaching out to the progressive wing and waging a largely united, determined fight against the Trump agenda.

Center and left currents and political demands are not static and change under the impact of class and social movements and the growing mass upsurge against Trump. The changing demands of the center are the starting point for unity.

The emerging movements and shifts in public opinion and the impact of the Sanders campaign that gave voice to them all impacted the process of unity and contestation. This led to the most advanced platform of a major party in history being adopted at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

DLC/Third Way style politics have been discredited and the center has moved away from many positions, as evidenced by Clinton campaign. This shift should be welcomed, but under no circumstances should we assume center forces will give up efforts to assert their interests.

The broad left should continue advancing its agenda, developing a loose program reflecting the people's coalition led by labor. It helps influence the direction of the overall struggle.

Left attacks on the center

One left trend has concluded the Democratic Party center is responsible for the 2016 election loss. They believe the center is an obstacle to defeating Trump and that the left can defeat Trump, the GOP, and the extreme right all on its own. They see any engagement between left and center as futile.

Based on the response to the Sanders campaign, Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara calls for a left-populist alternative, which he thinks is the only way to defeat right-wing extremism. Environmentalist Naomi Klein advocates either taking over the Democratic Party or founding a third party.

These approaches advocate war against the political center at a moment when center-left unity is absolutely necessary.

Today, millions are pouring into the streets on the basis of stopping Trump and defending democracy. The left current is a vital and growing part of this all-peoples movement. If its approach is geared toward building the broadest unity, it will emerge from a defeat of Trump as a stronger force capable of giving greater leadership to more advanced stages of struggle that lie ahead.

-- 

John Case

Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, The EPIC Radio Player Stream, 

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

Check out Socialist Economics, the EPIC Radio website, and 

The Poets and Mechanics Quaker Worship Group