System change and the Cori Bush defeat

Of course the current system is awful. The inequality is egregious and the profit-driven “development” that desecrates society and ecology is ruinous.

Socialism would be better. It would have to be a chastened, post-development eco-socialism. Few can even imagine such a thing. So that extent of system change is, unfortunately, far down the road.

But what Bernie had talked about, European-style social democracy, is conceivably realizable.

But the United States is very stuck in its paradigm. It was So Successful for two hundred years.

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Every once in a while the ought-to-be-obvious idea of effectuating system change toward social democracy gets a little momentum. That’s why we movement people point to the ferment of the 1930s, 1970s, and 2010s: Roosevelt and Norman Thomas, McGovern and Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders and AOC. In the wake of the latter momentum the Congressional “Squad” got elected. There had been nine of them.

But instead of expanded momentum the system reacted and their ranks are diminishing. In this country the system is very stuck in its paradigm. In every other advanced democracy there is an enduring social democratic pole such that Labor and Socialist and Green parties have some support, get some representation.

But not yet here in the belly of the beast.