Polarization and Paralysis

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : His "pro-labor" politics consist of small tax reductions on middle- and lower-income households and a wholehearted embrace of Biden's nationalist plan to "re-shore" some manufacturing in the United States -- a far cry from the Green New Deal's promise of environmentally friendly union jobs.
58% : He does not embrace a universal amnesty for undocumented immigrants but calls for a "strong, secure and humane" immigration system that would "modernize our visa system and asylum programs so that they can't be exploited by bad actors" and would provide a pathway to citizenship only for "frontline workers, small business owners" and Dreamers.
57% : Jeffries, Pelosi's most likely successor for the leadership of the party's House caucus and potentially the first African-American Speaker of the House if the Democrats regain a majority, is a vocal opponent of the Democratic Party left, including opposing the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and any move to defund the police.
55% : Marijuana legalization was approved in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, and both South and North Dakota, with between 53 percent to 66 percent in favor.
54% : His "Build Back Better" plan, praised by some on the Left as "The New New Deal," was in fact a form of "Imperialist Keynesianism."
53% : However, the outcome of referenda on abortion rights, increased minimum wages, union rights, and marijuana legalization demonstrate that there is significant support for policies that benefit working-class and oppressed people.
51% : As a result, after all the electoral campaigns, the socialist Left is weaker and our program -- a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, defunding the police, and the like -- politically marginal, while the social movements, except for labor, are demobilized.
50% : In keeping with the popular repudiation of Dobbs, people voted for abortion rights in a clean sweep of measures in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont, with pro-choice positions receiving anywhere from 52 percent to a high in the Green Mountain State of 77 percent.
50% :Put simply, the Squad's promise of being a voice for democratic socialism in the U.S. Congress has been sacrificed, as have previous left-wing attempts to use the Democrats to advance substantial reforms, in the interest of "unity" within the second most enthusiastic capitalist party in the world.
50% : The spring and summer of 2020 saw the largest social movement in U.S. history, denouncing the police murders of people of color and making the abolitionist demand for defunding the police and refunding social services the common sense of millions of people.
49% : While the Squad pledged to fight for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All and against the U.S. military and economic aid to Israel when they were first elected in 2018, their practice has been quite different.
48% : On health care, Fetterman refuses to embrace Medicare for All and the abolition of private insurance, rather supporting "any legislation that gets us closer to the goal of universal health care coverage" -- a stance that includes expanding Obamacare's public subsidies to the private health care industry.
48% : Already, it stands poised to overturn affirmative action in higher education and has the 1965 Voting Rights Act in its sights.
47% : It is true that the rest of the Squad still, on occasion, talk about the Green New Deal or Medicare for All.
46% : Today, the Democrats -- so-called progressives included -- now campaign on increasing police funding and join the Right in demonizing abolitionists.
45% : Most positioned themselves as moderates, and the "progressives" dropped almost any mention of the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and defunding the police.
45% : In reality, the Democrats' track record on abortion, democratic elections, and fighting the Right has been less than stellar.
43% : Instead, they focused on the promise to defend abortion, democracy, Social Security, and Medicare against attacks by the MAGA candidates.
40% : New York's Democrats are more likely to follow the lead of Mayor Adams, who wants the Democrats to move right in general on criminal justice reform (reinstituting cash bail) and policing, as well adopting more "business friendly" policies.
39% : As Nate Cohn has argued, the Democrats did best in districts where defense of abortion and democracy were central issues, often winning by razor thin margins in "swing" districts around the country.
39% : Republican state governments will launch new reactionary assaults on bodily autonomy (especially reproductive and transgender rights), voter access, "criminal justice," education, union rights, and social spending.
38% : And in the midterms, more than one-fourth of voters indicated that abortion was the key issue deciding their vote.
38% : Victory or defeat in this tight election was determined by the two key issues of abortion and democracy.
29% : Despite having complete control over the government several times since Roe, they never codified it as a national law, repeatedly ratified the ban on federal funding for abortion, and stood by while both the legal right and access to abortion have been further and further restricted.

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