As a student of the history of the American left, one of the most obvious though little discussed phenomena of that history is that about the only thing that said "left" has ever produced is the creation of tiny little political parties and cells and, really, cults and the constant splitting and fracturing and endings of those political parties and cells, the cults sometimes enduring as long as the central figures of those cults live but seldom that long and almost never after they die.
And in that history, I think you can see its typical pattern being repeated right now, today.
If you want a slight idea of that history, look at the list of political parties of the United States at Wikipedia and click on the various ridiculous third-party parties listed to read how they either started or ended in fracturings of previous parties that split into other parties, frequently more than one at a time. It's really been about what most of them are good at, THE ONLY THING THEY'RE GOOD AT.
That would include the political party which Bernie Sanders has supported BUT WAS NEVER A MEMBER OF (sound familiar?) The Socialist Workers Party, one of the larger such parties in American history. For this purpose the history of that party as given in the Wikipedia article is quite sufficient. It begins, not with the founding of the Socialist Workers Party but with
1. A pre-history of the Communist League For America which was comprised of former members of the Communist Party USA, kicked out for supporting Trotsky as Stalin won the power struggle to dictate to the Soviet Union.
2. That is only the start of the list of Marxist and socialist parties involved in the absurdly complex history of this party. I'll start listing the ones named
a. Communist League of Struggle
b. they approached the Norman Thomas's Socialist Party of America (the remnant of the previous Socialist Party which did what no other one has done, win elected offices in any number, destroyed by the faction that would form the CPUSA), to make common cause only to be (temporarily) rebuffed.
c. French Trotskyists of the Communist League who tried to infiltrate the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière, to poach some of the Trots in that rival party.
d. The mainline Communist Party of France.
e. the Communist League of America which merged with A. J. Muste's American Workers Party - forming the Workers Party of the United States.
Here I'll note that the Wiki article, which is unusually useful for a Wiki article introduces readers to the tactic of "entryism" in which a smaller group infiltrates a much larger group to take it over or at least alter its character and activities, something which is a constant of such Commuinst and socialist groups, indeed, it is one of the few "activities" of the play left. It was clearly what was done to destroy the Socialist Party in 1919 and it is clearly something that feels oddly familiar in what the factions supporting Bernie Sanders does, now, to hijack the Democratic Party which he has never deigned to really join except temporarily, as it suits his interest.
f. Not done with my listing of the various Communist and socialist "parties" and finding the listing tedious (not to mention I'll run out of letters well before it's done), I'll just give a few more paragraphs from the article.
Throughout 1935, the Workers Party was deeply divided over the "entryism" tactic called for by the "French Turn" and a bitter debate swept the organization. Ultimately, the majority faction of Jim Cannon, Max Shachtman and James Burnham won the day and the Workers Party determined to enter the Socialist Party of America, though a minority faction headed by Hugo Oehler refused to accept this result and split from the organization.
g. We're hardly done yet. Here's the very next paragraph
The Socialist Party was itself beset with factional disagreements. The party's left-wing Militant faction sought to expand the organization into an "all-inclusive party"—inviting in members of the Lovestone and Trotskyist movements as well as radical individuals as the first step towards making the Socialist Party a mass party. Although there were no mass entries at this time, several radical oppositionists did make their way into the party, including former Communist Party leader Benjamin Gitlow, youth leader and ex-Jay Lovestone supporter Herbert Zam and attorney and American Workers Party activist Albert Goldman. Goldman at this time also joined with YPSL leader Ernest Erber to establish a newspaper in Chicago with a Trotskyist orientation, The Socialist Appeal, later to serve as the organ of the Trotskyists inside the Socialist Party.
Which doesn't even get us through the 1930s. I'll remind you that none of these groups, other than the original Socialists ever produced actual office holders elected in democratic elections. Though I believe the Stalinist Communists (can't remember which of the many Stalinist parties) did, at one point, actually manage to get two of their members on to the New York City council, though I'm not going to bother looking for the citation for that, now.
But they could put out a newspaper or a magazine! And you should read them if you want to see how boldly and absurdly they can present their efforts and the prospect that they offer "the workers". There is no more fecund a producer of bull shit than the Marxist-socialist-"leftist" media, then and today, though it's done mostly through podcasting and online now.
h. They couldn't do much by way of actually producing electoral successes or law making. But they sure as hell could split and divide and organize new cults and if you read their material, you can see how they could whine and complain at the wrongs committed against them by their former comrades as they spit poison at each other.
In January 1936, just as the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party was expelling the Old Guard for their factional organization and alleged "violation of party discipline", James Cannon and his faction won their internal battle in the Workers Party to join the Socialist Party, when a national branch referendum voted unanimously for entry. Negotiations commenced with the Socialist Party leadership, with the admissions ultimately made on the basis of individual applications for membership rather than admission of the Workers Party and its approximately 2,000 members as a group. On June 6, 1936, the Workers Party's weekly newspaper, The New Militant, published its last issue and announced "Workers Party Calls All Revolutionary Workers to Join Socialist Party".
I'll leave it to you to go read the entire thing but remember two things as you read the continuing history of splits and formations of new factional parties for the rest of its history . . . THIS IS ONLY THE HISTORY OF ONE OF THOSE PARTIES one which, you'll note if you read the entire history which must have been written by believers true enough to bother to be familiar with this pathetic history, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PERSON ELECTED TO A SINGLE OFFICE IN A DEMOCRATIC ELECTION ANYWHERE IN IT. If you bother to look at the article, search it for the word "won" to see what their idea of winning comprises.
This is the absurdity which the history of Marxism and socialism in the United States is comprised of. The kind of thing which I think we see being reproduced in Bernie Sanders' effort to do the one and only thing which has been held as a success in the history of such socialism, trying to take over a larger party and, failing to do that, to destroy it. And if you know that history, you have every reason to suspect that is exactly what his carpetbagger campaign for president is motivated by with the totally ahistorical and lunatic faith that in the ruins of the Democratic Party the glorious socialist-Marxist revolution will unite and win power. That is a wet dream of these idiots going back more than a century, one which their own history proves to be a complete and utter delusion.
This is why, from time to time, the Bernie Bots will admit that they don't care about what they do to the Democratic Party because they aren't Democrats.
I just thought I'd go into what I have to conclude they're really up to.
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It occurred to me a few days back, listening to the rumor mongering about DARK FORCES! that are out to get Bernie when he loses primaries, the kind of idiocy that claims that something must have been done to rig the races in places like Maine and Massachusetts - claimed by them as Bernie country - that their imaginations cannot comprehend that PEOPLE MAY JUST NOT CHOOSE HIM AS THEIR CANDIDATE BECAUSE THEY DON'T AGREE WITH HIM OR BELIEVE HE WILL WIN THE ELECTION. They can't imagine that becaue they believe with the faith of true believers that their success is scientifically proven to be inevitable. That is one of the founding faiths of Marxism, that its predictions of what will be are infallibly founded in science (they really do believe that history can be made scientific!) and so when they and their heroes fail to convince "the masses" that the masses are asses led astray by DARK FORCES! or that the vote was rigged.
Bernie Sanders cannot believe that people hear him and don't agree with what he says they should want or, as it is with me, that I am certain he will lose this election and put Trump and McConnell in charge for four more years. His cult did it before, as they didn't follow his endorsement of Hillary Clinton in large enough numbers to prevent that disaster, he'll do it again and if not him, then his Bots. If it's any comfort to him, if, by some miracle, he won the presidency, they'd turn on him and split off as he failed to fulfill their idea of Marxist or socialist or, whatever, purity. It's what they always do.
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