New Approaches are Not Defeatism

 We must always base our approach on facts. Although revolutionary optimism is important, as is avoiding defeatism, there is a difference between defeatism and a sober analysis of objective conditions. The US state is unresponsive to the needs and policy preferences of its citizens and has been for decades. Is this defeatism or is it a fact? It is a fact. Large parts of the US working class are politically disengaged. Is this defeatism or is it a fact? It is a fact. What we choose to do in response, how we organize ourselves, and how we approach the problem can be defeatist; acknowledging the fact is not. Likewise, the left/progressive strategy of unprincipled voting for Democrats to ‘stop the right’ has largely failed in its objective over the past four decades. Is this defeatism, or is it a fact? It is a fact. Indeed, we hear little else from the promoters of this strategy (and if we are being specific, I will name the CCDS as an exemplar of this) than endless warnings about the growing strength of the right. If I and others are sick of hearing the same strategy put forward over and over no matter how objective conditions change, that is completely understandable. The present moment is characterized by a rapidly shifting balance of forces, both internationally and within the US, fraught with both danger and opportunity; the old gradualist strategies of the 1980s and 90s will no longer serve us. We must explore new approaches, new tactics, new ways of engaging in electoral and organizing work. The final measure of the correctness of practice is objective results.