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American Left
American Left
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The American Left refers to the groups or ideas on the left of the political spectrum in the United States. It is occasionally used as a shorthand for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. At other times, it refers to groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States.[1] Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement.[2] Many communes and egalitarian communities have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader intentional community movement, some of which were based on utopian socialist ideals.[3] The left has been involved in both the Democratic and Republican parties at different times, having originated in the Democratic-Republican Party as opposed to the Federalist Party.[4][5][6]

Although left-wing politics came to the United States in the 19th century, there are currently no major left-wing political parties in the country. Despite existing left-wing factions within the Democratic Party,[7] as well as minor third parties such as the Green Party, Communist Party USA, Party for Socialism and Liberation, American Communist Party, Workers World Party, Socialist Party, and American Solidarity Party (a Christian democratic party leaning left on economics), there have been few representatives of left-leaning third parties in Congress. Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States.[8] Some writers ascribe this to the failures of socialist organization and leadership, some to the incompatibility of socialism with American values, and others to the limitations imposed by the United States Constitution.[9] Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were particularly concerned because it challenged orthodox Marxist beliefs that the most advanced industrial country would provide a model for the future of less developed nations. If socialism represented the future, then it should be strongest in the United States.[10] While branches of the Working Men's Party were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated land reform, universal education and improved working conditions in the form of labor rights, not collective ownership, disappearing after their goals were taken up by Jacksonian democracy. Samuel Gompers, the leader of the American Federation of Labor, thought that workers must rely on themselves because any rights provided by government could be revoked.[11]

Economic unrest in the 1890s was represented by populism and the People's Party. Although using anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for communism, collectivism, or socialism.[12] Progressives in the early 20th century criticized the way capitalism had developed but were essentially middle class and reformist; however, both populism and progressivism steered some to left-wing politics; many popular writers of the progressive period were left-wing.[13] Even the New Left relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.[14] Friedrich Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle-class values. Writing at a time when American industry was developing quickly towards the mass-production system known as Fordism, Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci saw individualism and laissez-faire liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David De Leon, American radicalism was rooted in libertarianism and syndicalism rather than communism, Fabianism and social democracy, being opposed to centralized power and collectivism.[15] The character of the American political system is hostile toward third parties and has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.[16] Political repression has also contributed to the weakness of the left in the United States. Many cities had Red Squads to monitor and disrupt leftist groups in response to labor unrest such as the Haymarket Riot.[17] The legacy of slavery and racial discrimination created deep divisions within the working class, producing a racially stratified, two-tiered labor force. These divisions fostered divergent political priorities and undermined class solidarity, making it more difficult for left-wing movements to build broad-based coalitions.[18]

During World War II, the Smith Act made membership in revolutionary groups illegal. After the war, Senator Joseph McCarthy used the Smith Act to launch a crusade (McCarthyism) to purge alleged communists from government and the media. In the 1960s, the FBI's COINTELPRO program monitored, infiltrated, disrupted and discredited radical groups in the United States.[19] In 2008, Maryland police were revealed to have added the names and personal information of anti-war protesters and death penalty opponents to a database which was intended to be used for tracking terrorists.[20] Terry Turchie, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, admitted that "one of the missions of the FBI in its counterintelligence efforts was to try to keep these people (progressives and self-described socialists) out of office."[21]

History

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Origins and developments (17th century–20th century)

[edit]

Many indigenous tribes in North America practiced what Marxists would later call primitive communism, meaning they practiced economic cooperation among the members of their tribes.[22]

The first European socialists to arrive in North America were a Christian sect known as Labadists, who founded the commune of Bohemia Manor in 1683, about 60 miles (97 km) west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their communal way of life was based on the communal practices of the apostles and early Christians.[23]

The first secular American socialists were German Marxist immigrants who arrived following the Revolutions of 1848, also known as Forty-Eighters.[24] Joseph Weydemeyer, a German colleague of Karl Marx who sought refuge in New York in 1851 following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the U.S., called Die Revolution, but It folded after two issues. In 1852 he established the Proletarierbund, which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the U.S., but it too was short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership.[25]

In 1866, William H. Sylvis formed the National Labor Union (NLU). Frederich Albert Sorge, a German who had found refuge in New York following the 1848 revolutions, took Local No. 5 of the NLU into the First International as Section One in the U.S. By 1872, there were 22 sections, which were able to hold a convention in New York. The General Council of the International moved to New York with Sorge as General Secretary, but following internal conflict, it dissolved in 1876.[26]

A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, which included social democratic followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle believed that state aid through political action was the road to revolution and was opposed to trade unionism which he saw as futile, believing that according to the iron law of wages employers would only pay subsistence wages. The Lassalleans formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874 and both Marxists and Lassalleans formed the Workingmen's Party of the United States in 1876. When the Lassalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America (SLP). However, many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers, formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.[24]

Anarchists split from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1881. By 1885 they had 7,000 members, double the membership of the SLP.[27] They were inspired by the International Anarchist Congress of 1881 in London. There were two federations in the United States that pledged adherence to the International. A convention of immigrant anarchists in Chicago formed the International Working People's Association (Black International), while a group of Native Americans in San Francisco formed the International Workingmen's Association (Red International).[28] Following a violent demonstration at Haymarket in Chicago in 1886, public opinion turned against anarchism. While very little violence could be attributed to anarchists, the attempted murder of a financier by an anarchist in 1892 and the 1901 assassination of the American president, William McKinley, by a professed anarchist led to the ending of political asylum for anarchists in 1903.[29] In 1919, following the Palmer Raids, anarchists were imprisoned and many, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, who would be executed in 1927.[30]

Daniel De Leon, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction. Eugene V. Debs, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union formed the rival Social Democratic Party of America in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by Morris Hillquit and opposed to the De Leon's domineering personal rule and his anti-AFL trade union policy joined with the Social Democrats to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA). In 1905, a convention of socialists, anarchists and trade unionists disenchanted with the bureaucracy and craft unionism of the AFL, founded the rival Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), led by such figures as William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, Helen Keller, De Leon and Debs.[31]

The organizers of the IWW disagreed on whether electoral politics could be employed to liberate the working class. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was expelled in 1908, forming a rival "Chicago IWW" that was closely linked to the SLP. The (Minneapolis) IWW's ideology evolved into anarcho-syndicalism, or "revolutionary industrial unionism", and avoided electoral political activity altogether.[32] It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and occasionally accepted violence as part of industrial action.[33]

The SPA was divided between reformers who believed that socialism could be achieved through gradual reform of capitalism and revolutionaries who thought that socialism could only develop after capitalism was overthrown, but the party steered a center path between the two.[34] The SPA achieved the peak of its success by 1912 when its presidential candidate received 5.9% of the popular vote. The first Socialist congressman, Victor L. Berger, had been elected in 1910. By the beginning of 1912, there were 1,039 Socialist officeholders, including 56 mayors, 305 aldermen and councilmen, 22 police officials, and some state legislators. Milwaukee, Berkeley, Butte, Schenectady, and Flint were run by Socialists. A Socialist challenger to Gompers took one-third of the vote in a challenge for leadership of the AFL. The SPA had 5 English and 8 foreign-language daily newspapers, 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies, and 10 English and 2 foreign-language monthlies.[35]

American entry into the First World War in 1917 led to a patriotic hysteria aimed against Germans, immigrants, African Americans, class-conscious workers, and Socialists, and the ensuing Espionage Act and Sedition Act were used against them. The government harassed Socialist newspapers, the post office denied the SP use of the mails, and antiwar militants were arrested. Soon Debs and more than sixty IWW leaders were charged under the acts.[36]

Communist–Socialist split, the New Deal and Red Scares (1910s–1940s)

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In 1919, John Reed, Benjamin Gitlow and other Socialists formed the Communist Labor Party of America, while Socialist foreign sections led by C. E. Ruthenberg formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).[37] The Communists organized the Trade Union Unity League to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.[38]

In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union, Jay Lovestone, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined with William Z. Foster to expel Foster's former allies, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman, who were followers of Leon Trotsky. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and Earl Browder became party leader.[39]

Cannon, Shachtman, and Martin Abern then set up the Trotskyist Communist League of America, and recruited members from the CPUSA.[40] The League then merged with A. J. Muste's American Workers Party in 1934, forming the Workers Party. New members included James Burnham and Sidney Hook.[41]

By the 1930s the Socialist Party was deeply divided between an Old Guard, led by Hillquit, and younger Militants, who were more sympathetic to the Soviet Union, led by Norman Thomas. The Old Guard left the party to form the Social Democratic Federation.[42] Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936.[43] Once inside they operated as a separate faction.[44] The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year and set up the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) joined them.[45] Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the Workers Party. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left.[46] The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party.[47]

Some members of the Socialist Party's Old Guard formed the American Labor Party (ALP) in New York State, with support from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The right-wing of this party broke away in 1944 to form the Liberal Party of New York.[48] In the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections the ALP received 274,000, 417,000, and 496,000 votes in New York State, while the Liberals received 329,000 votes in 1944.[49]

Civil rights, War on Poverty and the New Left (1950s–1960s)

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In 1958, the Socialist Party welcomed former members of the Independent Socialist League, which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by Max Shachtman. Shachtman had developed a neo-Marxist critique of Soviet communism as "bureaucratic collectivism", a new form of class society that was more oppressive than any form of capitalism. Shachtman's theory was similar to that of many dissidents and refugees from Communism, such as the theory of the "new class" proposed by Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Djilas.[50] Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like Irving Howe, Michael Harrington,[51] Tom Kahn, and Rachelle Horowitz.[52][53][54] The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.[55]

Socialist A. Philip Randolph, who led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech "I Have a Dream"

Kahn and Horowitz, along with Norman Hill, helped Bayard Rustin with the civil rights movement. Rustin had helped to spread pacificism and nonviolence to leaders of the civil rights movement, like Martin Luther King Jr. Rustin's circle and A. Philip Randolph organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech.[56][57][58][59]

Michael Harrington soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when his The Other America became a best seller, following a long and laudatory New Yorker review by Dwight Macdonald.[60] Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the Kennedy Administration and then the Johnson Administration's war on poverty and Great Society.[61]

Shachtman, Harrington, Kahn, and Rustin argued advocated for a political strategy called "realignment" that prioritized strengthening labor unions and other progressive organizations that were already active in the Democratic Party. Contributing to the day-to-day struggles of the civil rights movement and labor unions had gained socialists credibility and influence, and had helped to push politicians in the Democratic Party towards "social-liberal" or social-democratic positions, at least on civil rights and the war on poverty.[62][63]

Harrington, Kahn, and Horowitz were officers and staff-persons of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), which helped to start the New Left Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[64] The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, like Tom Hayden, when the latter's Port Huron Statement criticized socialist and liberal opposition to communism and criticized the labor movement while promoting students as agents of social change.[65][66] LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "exclusion clause" that prohibited membership by communists:[67] The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism".[68] The clause's removal effectively invited "disciplined cadre" to attempt to "take over or paralyze" SDS, as had occurred to mass organizations in the thirties.[69] Afterwards, Marxism–Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS,[70][71][72][73] which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.

SDUSA–SPUSA split, foundation of DSOC–DSA and anti-WTO protests (1970s–1990s)

[edit]

In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to rename itself as Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34 at its December Convention; its National Chairmen were Bayard Rustin, a peace and civil-rights leader, and Charles S. Zimmerman, an officer of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).[74] In 1973, Michael Harrington resigned from SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party.[75] The same year, David McReynolds and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the Socialist Party USA.[76]

When the SPA became SDUSA,[74] the majority had 22 of 33 votes on the (January 1973) national committee of SDUSA. Two minority caucuses of SDUSA became associated with two other socialist organizations, each of which was founded later in 1973. Many members of Michael Harrington's ("Coalition") caucus, with 8 of 33 seats on the 1973 SDUSA national committee,[77] joined Harrington's DSOC. Many members of the Debs caucus, with 2 of 33 seats on SDUSA's 1973 national committee,[77] joined the Socialist Party of the United States (SPUSA).

From 1979 to 1989, SDUSA members like Tom Kahn organized the AFL-CIO's fundraising of $300,000, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland.[78][79][80] SDUSA members helped form a bipartisan coalition (of the Democratic and Republican parties) to support the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose first President was Carl Gershman. The NED publicly allocated $4 million of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.[81][82]

The Democratic Socialists of America was founded in 1982 with the goal of running candidates in Democratic primaries and winning.[83]

In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around Love and Rage, which drew several hundred activists. By 1997 anarchist organizations began to proliferate.[84] One successful anarchist movement was Food Not Bombs, that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 World Trade Organization conference, called the Battle in Seattle, where the Direct Action Network was organized. Most organizations were short-lived and anarchism went into decline following a reaction by the authorities that was increased after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Occupy, Bernie Sanders campaigns and DSA electoral victories (2000s–present)

[edit]
Bernie Sanders is considered one of the most influential political figures of the contemporary American left.

In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke received 2,882,000 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote on the Green Party ticket.[85][86]

Filmmaker Michael Moore directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left-wing perspective, including Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story and Fahrenheit 9/11, which was the top grossing documentary film of all time.[87]

According to The New Republic, Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 United States presidential election "would thrill and then embitter a generation of leftists" with "Millennials curious about socialism [being] drawn to" Obama, "especially as he successfully repelled the avatar of the Democratic establishment, Hillary Clinton. In office, however, Obama veered to the economic center, tapping Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and allowing fiscal moderates like Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers to steer the recovery from the economic crash."[83]

In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protests demanding accountability for the 2008 financial crisis and against inequality started in Manhattan, New York City, and soon spread to other cities around the country, becoming known more broadly as the Occupy movement.[88]

Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013. She was re-elected in 2015.[89][90][91]

Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who runs as an independent,[92] won his first election as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981 and was re-elected for three additional terms. He then represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 until 2007, and was subsequently elected U.S. Senator for Vermont in 2007, a position which he still holds.[93][94][95] Although he did not win the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Sanders won the fifth highest number of primary votes of any candidate in a nomination race, Democratic or Republican, and had caused an upset in Michigan and many other states.[96]

Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the NY-14 U.S. House primary and went on to win her general election. She is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and ran on a progressive platform. The DSA has seen a huge resurgence in growth with Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign and continues to grow despite having had a membership of around 5,000 members only a decade ago. Unlike other parts of the modern left like the Socialist Equality Party, the DSA is not a political party and its affiliated candidates usually run on a Democratic or independent ticket.

Political currents

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Democratic socialism, social democracy, and resurgence of progressivism

[edit]

Use of the socialist label became more prominent after Socialist Party of America was founded in 1901. Eugene Debs ran as the party's presidential candidate five times and received 6% of the popular vote in 1912. The party suffered political repression during World War I due to its pacifist stance and broke into factions over whether or not to support the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and whether or not to join the Comintern. The Socialist Party was re-formed in the mid-1920s but stopped running candidates after 1956, having been undercut by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the resulting leftward movement of the Democratic Party to its right, and by the Communist Party on its left. In the early 1970s, the party split into tiny factions.

After 1960 the Socialist Party also functioned "as an educational organization".[97] Members of the Debs–Thomas Socialist Party helped to develop leaders of social-movement organizations, including the civil-rights movement and the New Left.[98][99] Similarly, contemporary social-democratic and democratic-socialist organizations are known because of their members' activities in other organizations.

When used in a broader sense, the American left can also refer to progressivism as the movement is largely sympathetic to social democratic principles, despite there existing differences in approach between progressive factions such as more capitalist-leaning American social liberals and social democrats versus some anti-capitalist democratic socialists. Following a slow in usage after the Progressive Era and post-F.D.R., progressivism had a rebirth in the 21st century with the two-term elections of Barack Obama,[100] followed by the election of politicians to Obama's left including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.[101] The label has been more broadly embraced by Democratic Party elected officials since the 2016 United States presidential election, since Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton referred to herself as a "progressive who likes to get things done" during a CNN primary debate with Sanders, who also brandished the progressive label and indicated some degree of value consensus despite differing policies.[102] The Democratic Party has adopted an increasingly progressive stance with the presidency Joe Biden and his progressive economic agenda.[103] Biden's presidency has been considered to be ushering-in more principles of social democracy into American government.[104]

Democratic Socialists of America

[edit]

Michael Harrington resigned from Social Democrats, USA early in 1973. He rejected the SDUSA (majority Socialist Party) position on the Vietnam War, which demanded an end to bombings and a negotiated peace settlement. Harrington called rather for an immediate cease fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.[105] Even before the December 1972 convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the Socialist Party.[74] In the early spring of 1973, he resigned his membership in SDUSA. That same year, Harrington and his supporters formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). At its start, DSOC had 840 members, of which 2 percent served on its national board; approximately 200 had been members of Social Democrats, USA or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.[106]

The DSOC became a member of the Socialist International. It supported progressive Democrats including DSOC member Congressman Ron Dellums and worked to help network activists in the Democratic Party and in labor unions.[107]

In 1982, the DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left.[108] Its high-profile members included Congressman Major Owens, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congressman Ron Dellums, multiple state legislators (Sara Innamorato, Lee J. Carter, Summer Lee, Julia Salazar), and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists.[109][circular reference] In 2019 at the Democratic Socialists of America convention in Atlanta, Georgia, DSA confirmed its support for Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 United States presidential election.[110]

Since the 2016 United States presidential election, the DSA has grown to more than 50,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in the United States.[111] In 2017, DSA left the Socialist International, citing its support of neoliberal economic policies.[112]

Social Democrats, USA

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The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972.[74] In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-chairman Bayard Rustin stated that its goal was to transform the Democratic Party into a social-democratic party.[113] SDUSA sponsored conferences that featured discussions and debates over proposed resolutions, some of which were adopted as organizational statements. For these conferences, SDUSA invited a range of academic, political, and labor-union leaders. These meetings also functioned as reunions for political activists and intellectuals, some of whom worked together for decades.[114]

Many SDUSA members served as organizational leaders, especially in labor unions. Rustin served as President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute,[115] and was succeeded by Norman Hill. Tom Kahn served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO.[59] Sandra Feldman served as President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).[116] Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the National Democratic Institute. Other members of SDUSA specialized in international politics. Penn Kemble served as the acting director of the U.S. Information Agency in the Presidency of Bill Clinton.[117][118] After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first Reagan Administration,[119] Carl Gershman has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy.[120]

Socialist Party USA

[edit]

In the Socialist Party before 1973, members of the Debs Caucus opposed endorsing or otherwise supporting Democratic Party candidates. They began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later renamed The Socialist. The SPUSA continues to run local and national candidates, including Dan La Botz' 2010 campaign for US Senate in Ohio that won over 25,000 votes and Pat Noble's successful election onto the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education in 2012 and subsequent re-election in 2015. The SPUSA has run or endorsed a presidential ticket in every election since its founding, most recently nominating Greens party co-founder and activist Howie Hawkins in the 2020 presidential election.

Christian democracy

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American Solidarity Party

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The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a fiscally progressive and socially conservative Christian-democratic political party with a social-democratic faction in the United States.[121][122] It favors a social market economy with a distributist flavor,[122][123] and seeks "widespread economic participation and ownership" through supporting small business,[123] as well as providing a social safety net programs. It also has a minor anti-capitalism faction.[124] The party's name was inspired by Solidarity (Solidarnosc), the independent labor union of Poland.[125]

Green politics

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Green Party of the United States

[edit]

The Green Party of the United States is an eco-socialist party whose platform emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence.[126][127][128][129][130] At their 2016 party convention in Houston, the party changed its platform to support a decentralized form of eco-socialism based on workplace democracy.[131][132]

In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke received 2,882,955 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote.[133]

In the 2016 election, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka qualified to be on the ballot in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with 3 additional states allowing write-in votes.[134][135]

The Greens/Green Party USA is a much smaller group focusing on education and local, grassroots organizing.

Anarchism

[edit]

Anarchism in the United States first emerged from individualistic, free-thinking, and utopian socialism as typified by the work of thinkers such as Josiah Warren and Henry David Thoreau. This was overshadowed by a mass, cosmopolitan, and working-class movement between the 1880s and 1940s, whose members were mostly recent immigrants, including those of German, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, and Russian descent.[136]

Prominent figures of this period include Albert Parsons and Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman, Carlo Tresca, and Ricardo Flores Magón. The anarchist movement achieved notoriety due to violent clashes with police, assassinations, and sensational Red Scare propaganda, but most anarchist activity took place in the realm of agitation and labor organizing among largely immigrant workers. Anarchist organizations include:

De Leonism

[edit]

De Leonism, occasionally known as Marxism–De Leonism, is a libertarian Marxist ideological variant developed by the American activist Daniel De Leon.

Socialist Labor Party

[edit]

Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of Karl Marx and Daniel De Leon in 1900, leading to the defection of reformers to the new Socialist Party of America (SPA). It contested elections, including every election for President of the United States from 1892 to 1976. Some of its prominent members included Jack London and James Connolly. By 2009 it had lost its premises and ceased publishing its newspaper, The People.[139]

In 1970, a group of dissidents left the SLP to form Socialist Reconstruction. Socialist Reconstruction then expelled some of its dissidents, who formed the Socialist Forum Group.[140]

Marxism–Leninism

[edit]

Marxism–Leninism has been advocated and practiced by American communists of many kinds, including pro-Soviet, Trotskyist, Maoist, or independent.[141]

American Party of Labor

[edit]

The American Party of Labor was founded in 2008 and adheres to Hoxhaism.[142] It has its origins in the activities of the American communist Jack Shulman, former secretary of Communist Party USA leader William Z. Foster; and the British Marxist-Leninist Bill Bland. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The present-day APL sees itself as upholding and continuing the work of Shulman and Bland. Although not a formal member of the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle), the APL is generally supportive of its line and maintains friendly relations with a number of foreign communist parties including the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), the Turkish Labour Party (EMEP), the Labour Party of Iran, and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist).

It has been involved in a number of events, such as a 2013 protest against the Golden Dawn in Chicago,[143] a 2014 meeting on Ukraine[144] and a protest against Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.[145] A significant program of the American Party of Labor is "Red Aid: Service to the People", which involves providing food, clothing and other assistance to the poor and homeless in impoverished communities, and has been established in multiple US cities.[146][147][148]

Its current organ, The Red Phoenix, carries articles concerning contemporary political issues and theoretical and historical questions.

Communist Party USA

[edit]

Established in 1919, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) claimed a membership of 100,000 in 1939 and maintained a membership over 50,000 until the 1950s. However, the 1956 invasion of Hungary, McCarthyism and investigations by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) contributed to its steady decline despite a brief increase in membership from the mid-1960s. Its estimated membership in 1996 was between 4,000 and 5,000.[149] From the 1940s, the FBI attempted to disrupt the CPUSA, including through its Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).[150]

Several Communist front organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the Labor Research Association, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CPUSA include the National Lawyers Guild, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.[151] Many leading members of the New Left, including some members of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization were members of the National Lawyers Guild.[152] However, CPUSA attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful.[153] The CPUSA attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high-profile activist, Angela Davis.[154]

The CPUSA publishes the People's World and Political Affairs. Beginning in 1988, the CPUSA stopped running candidates for President of the United States.[155] After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was found that the Soviet Union had provided funding to the CPUSA throughout its history. The CPUSA had always supported the positions of the Soviet Union.[156]

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

[edit]

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) was founded in 1985 through the mergers of Maoist and Marxist–Leninist organizations active near the end of the New Communist Movement. The FRSO grew out of an initial merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. Some years later, the Organization for Revolutionary Unity and the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective merged into the FRSO.

In 1999, the FRSO split into two organizations, both of which retain the FRSO name to this day. The split primarily concerned the organization's continued adherence to Marxism–Leninism, with one side of the FRSO upholding Marxism–Leninism and the other side preferring to pursue a strategy of regrouping and rebuilding the left in the United States. These organizations are commonly identified through their publications, which are Fight Back! News and Freedom Road, and their websites, (frso.org) and (freedomroad.org), respectively.

In 2010, members of the FRSO (frso.org) and other anti-war and international solidarity activists were raided by the FBI. Secret documents left by the FBI revealed that agents planned to question activists about their involvement in the FRSO (frso.org) and their international solidarity work related to Colombia and Palestine.[157] The FRSO (frso.org) works in the committee to Stop FBI Repression.

Both FRSO groups continue to uphold the right of national self-determination for African Americans and Chicanos. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the labor movement, the student movement, and the oppressed nationalities movement.

Party for Socialism and Liberation

[edit]

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004 as a result of a split in the Workers World Party. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. branches left almost in their entirety and the party has grown significantly since then.[citation needed] The new party took control of the Worker's World Party front organization Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) at the time of the split.[158]

Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, A.N.S.W.E.R. organized the "Seize BP" campaign, which organized demonstrations calling for the U.S. federal government to seize BP's assets and place them in trust to pay for damages.[159]

The PSL has also been active in the antiracist movement, participating in protests across the country throughout 2020.[160][161] Several organizers in their Denver branch were arrested for their involvement in protests against the death of Elijah McClain.[162]

Progressive Labor Party

[edit]

The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), forming the May 2 Movement as its anti-war front organization.[163] Its major publications are Progressive Labor and the Marxist–Leninist Quarterly.[164] They later abandoned Maoism, refusing to follow the line of any foreign country and formed the front group, the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), in 1973. Much of their activity included violent confrontations against far-right groups, such as Nazis and Klansmen.[165] While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.[166]

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

[edit]

Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long-time leader, Bob Avakian, a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly Maoist.[167] Working through the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association, the party arranged for visits by Americans to China.[168] Their newspaper, Revolutionary Worker has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the left, has been hostile to school busing, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of Mao Zedong, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.[169]

Workers World Party

[edit]

The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is Workers World. The party's position has developed from Trotskyism to independent Marxism–Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far-right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former Ethiopian communist government. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at 200.[170]

Their front group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) organized the early protests against the war in Iraq, which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C. before the war had even begun.[171] However, following a split in the party in 2004, some members left to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation, taking leadership of A.N.S.W.E.R. with them. The Workers World Party then formed the Troops Out Now Coalition.[158]

Trotskyism

[edit]

Many Trotskyist parties and organizations exist that advocate communism. These groups are distinct from Marxist–Leninist groups in that they generally adhere to the theory and writings of Leon Trotsky. Many owe their organizational heritage to the Socialist Workers Party, which emerged as a split-off from the CP.

Freedom Socialist Party

[edit]

The Freedom Socialist Party began in 1966 as the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party that had split from the party and joined with others who had not belonged to the SWP. They differed with the SWP on the role of African Americans, whom they saw as being the future vanguard of the revolution, and of women, emphasizing their rights, which they called "socialist feminism". Clara Fraser came to lead the party and was to form the group Radical Women.[172]

Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA)

[edit]

The Revolutionary Communists of America are the US Section of the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) (formerly International Marxist Tendency or IMT). They are a Trotskyist party founded in 2024,[173] with their preceding organization having existed in the US since 2002. The RCA are inspired by the theories of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, as well as British Trotskyist Ted Grant, and publish a regular newspaper called The Communist (formerly Socialist Appeal and Socialist Revolution). The party-affiliated publishing house is called Marxist Books. The party argues for a break with the Democrats and Republicans, advocates for political class-independence of the working class based on a socialist program and aims to build a capable revolutionary leadership.[174]

International Socialist Organization

[edit]

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a group founded in 1977 as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST). The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and considered itself a vanguard party, preparing the ground for a revolutionary party to hypothetically succeed it. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast to this, the ISO advocated the tradition of "socialism from below". It was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Hal Draper and Tony Cliff. It broke from the IST in 2001 but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years.

The ISO emphasized educational work on the socialist tradition. Branches also took part in activism against the Iraq War, against police brutality, against the death penalty, and in labor strikes, among other social movements. At its peak in 2013, the group had as many as 1500 members. The organization argued that it was the largest revolutionary socialist group in the United States at that time. The ISO found itself in crisis early 2019, largely stemming from a scandal over the leadership's response to a 2013 sexual misconduct case. The ISO voted to dissolve itself in March 2019.

Socialist Action

[edit]

Socialist Action was formed in 1983 by members, almost all of whom had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Its members remained loyal to Trotskyist principles, including "permanent revolution", that they claimed the SWP had abandoned. Strongly critical of authoritarian regimes, including the Soviet Union and Iran, it championed socialist revolution in third world countries. It was an active participant in the Cleveland Emergency National Conference in September 1984, set up to challenge American policy in Central America, and played a major role in organizing demonstrations against American action against the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.[175]

Socialist Alternative

[edit]

Although Socialist Alternative has sometimes pursued a democratic socialist strategy, most notably in Seattle where Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.,[89][90][91] it identifies as a Trotskyist political organization. Socialist Alternative is the U.S. affiliate of the International Socialist Alternative, which is a Brussels-based international of Trotskyist political parties.

Socialist Equality Party

[edit]

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is a political party that formed after a 1964 ideological rupture with Socialist Workers Party over the issue of their support of the Fidel Castro government in Cuba, The SEP are composed of Trotskyists and are affiliated with the World Socialist Web Site.

Socialist Workers Party

[edit]

With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second-largest Marxist–Leninist party in the United States.[176] Formed by supporters of Leon Trotsky, they believed that the Soviet Union and other Communist states remained "worker's states" and should be defended against reactionary forces, although their leadership had sold out the workers. They became members of the Trotskyist Fourth International.[177] Their publications include The Militant and a theoretical journal, the International Socialist Review.[178] Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the Spartacist League and the Workers League (which would later evolve into the Socialist Equality Party).[179] The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles.[180] In 1970 the party successfully sued the FBI for COINTELPRO, where the FBI opened and copied mail, planted informants, wiretapped members' homes, bugged conventions, and broke into party offices.[181] The party fields candidates for President of the United States.[180]

Solidarity

[edit]

Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal Against the Current. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of International Socialists, a Trotskyist organization based on the proposition that the Soviet Union was not a "degenerated workers' state" (as in orthodox Trotskyism) but rather "bureaucratic collectivism", a new and especially repressive class society.[182]

Spartacist League

[edit]

The Spartacist League was formed in 1966 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who had been expelled two years earlier after accusing the SWP of adopting "petty bourgeois ideology". Beginning with a membership of around 75, their numbers dropped to 40 by 1969 although they grew to several hundred in the early 1970s, with Maoists disillusioned with China's new foreign policy joining the group.[183]

The League saw the Soviet Union as a "deformed workers' state", and supported it over some policies. It is committed to Trotskyist "permanent revolution", rejecting Mao's peasant guerilla warfare model. The group's publication is Workers Vanguard. Much of the group's activity has involved stopping Ku Klux Klan and Nazi rallies.[183]

Notable figures and current publications

[edit]

People

[edit]

Publications

[edit]

Public officeholders

[edit]

Communist Party USA

[edit]

Wisconsin

[edit]
  1. Wahsayah Whitebird – Member of the Ashland, Wisconsin city-council.[187][188]

Green Party of the United States

[edit]

There have been at least 65 officeholders for the Green Party of the United States.[189]

Arkansas

[edit]
  1. Alvin Clay – Justice of the Peace Mississippi County, District 6 Elected: 2012
  2. Kade Holliday – County Clerk Craighead County, Arkansas Elected: 2012
  3. Roger Watkins – Constable Craighead County, District 5 Elected: 2012

California

[edit]
  1. Dan Hamburg – Board of Supervisors, District 5, Mendocino County
  2. Bruce Delgado – Mayor, Marina (Monterey County)
  3. Larry Bragman – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
  4. Renée Goddard – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
  5. John Reed – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
  6. Gayle Mclaughlin – City Council, Richmond (Contra Costa)
  7. Deborah Heathersone – Town Council, Point Arena (Mendocino County)
  8. Paul Pitino – Town Council, Arcata (Humboldt County)
  9. John Keener (politician)|John Keener – City Council, Pacifica (San Mateo County)
  10. Vahe Peroomian – Board of Trustees, Glendale Community College District, Glendale (Los Angeles County)
  11. Amy Martenson – Board of Trustees, District 2, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
  12. April Clary – Board of Trustees, Student Representative, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
  13. Heather Bass – Board of Directors, Gilroy Unified School District, Gilroy, Santa Clara County
  14. Dave Clark – Board of Directors, Cardiff School District (San Diego County)
  15. Phyllis Greenleaf – Board of Trustees, Live Oak Elementary School District (Santa Cruz County)
  16. Adriana Griffin – Red Bluff Union School District, Red Bluff (Tehama County)
  17. Jim C. Keller – Board of Trustees, Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District, Santa Cruz County
  18. Brigitte Kubacki – Governing Boardmember, Green Point School, Blue Lake (Humboldt County)
  19. Jose Lara – Vice President and Governing Board Member, El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera (Los Angeles)
  20. Kimberly Ann Peterson – Board of Trustees, Geyserville Unified School District (Sonoma County)
  21. Karen Pickett (politician)|Karen Pickett – Board Member, Canyon Canyon Elementary School District (Contra Costa County)
  22. Kathy Rallings – Board of Trustees, Carlsbad Unified School District, Carlsbad, San Diego County
  23. Sean Reagan – Governing Boardmember, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Norwalk (Los Angeles County)
  24. Curtis Robinson – Board of Trustees, Area 6, Marin County Board of Education (Marin County)
  25. Christopher Sabec (politician)|Christopher Sabec – Governing Boardmember, Lagunitas School District (Marin County)
  26. Katherine Salinas – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
  27. Jeffrey Dean Schwartz – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
  28. Alex Shantz – Board of Trustees, St. Helena Unified School District, Napa County
  29. Dana Silvernale – Governing Boardmember, North Humboldt Union High School (Humboldt County)
  30. Jim Smith (politician)|Jim Smith – President, Canyon School Board, Canyon Township (Contra Costa County)
  31. Logan Blair Smith – Little Shasta Elementary School District, Montague (Shasta County)
  32. Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
  33. John Selawsky – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
  34. Jesse Townley – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
  35. Jeff Davis (politician)|Jeff Davis – Board of Directors, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)
  36. Karen Anderson (politician)|Karen Anderson – Board of Directors, Coastside Fire Protection District (San Mateo County)
  37. Robert L. Campbell – Scotts Valley Fire District (Santa Cruz County)
  38. William Lemos – Fire Protection District, Mendocino (Mendocino County)
  39. Russell Pace – Board of Directors, Willow Creek Fire District (Humboldt County)
  40. John Abraham Powell – Board of Directors, Montecito Fire District, Montecito (Santa Barbara County)
  41. Larry Bragman – Board of Directors, Division 3, Marin Municipal Water District Board (Marin County)
  42. James Harvey (politician)|James Harvey – Board of Directors, Montara Water and Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
  43. Randy Marx – Board of Directors, Fair Oaks Water District, Division 4 (Sacramento County)
  44. Jan Shriner – Board of Directors, Marina Coast Water District (Monterey County)
  45. Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap – Board of Directors, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, Division 1 (Humboldt County)
  46. James Barone – Boardmember, Rollingwood-Wilart Recreation and Parks District (Contra Costa County)
  47. William Hayes (California politician)|William Hayes – Board of Directors, Mendocino Coast Park and Recreation District (Mendocino County)
  48. Illijana Asara – Board of Directors, Community Service District, Big Lagoon (Humboldt County)
  49. Gerald Epperson – Board of Directors, Crocket Community Services District, Contra Costa County
  50. Joseph Gauder – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
  51. Crispin Littlehales – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
  52. George A. Wheeler – Board of Directors, Community Service District, McKinleyville (Humboldt County)
  53. Mathew Clark – Board of Directors, Granada Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
  54. Nanette Corley – Director, Resort Improvement District, Whitehorn (Humboldt County)
  55. Sylvia Aroth – Outreach Officer, Venice Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  56. Robin Doyno – At-Large Community Officer, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  57. Janine Jordan – District 4 Business Representative, Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  58. Jack Lindblad – At Large Community Stakeholder, North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  59. Johanna A. Sanchez – Secretary, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  60. Johanna A. Sanchez – At-Large Director, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  61. Marisol Sanchez (politician)|Marisol Sanchez – Area 1 Seat, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  62. William Bretz – Crest/Dehesa/Harrison Canyon/Granite Hill Planning Group (San Diego County)
  63. Claudia White – Member, Descanso Community Planning Group (San Diego County)
  64. Annette Keenberg – Town Council, Lake Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
  65. Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)

Socialist Alternative

[edit]

Washington

[edit]
Election year No. of Seattle City Council members % of Seattle City Council members +/-
2013
0 / 9
0
1
2015
1 / 9
11.11
2019
1 / 9
11.11
  1. Kshama SawantSeattle City Council, Position 2

Socialist Party USA

[edit]

New Jersey

[edit]
Election year No. of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members % of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members +/-
2012
0 / 9
0
1
2015
1 / 9
11.11
  1. Pat Noble – Member of the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education for Red Bank

Vermont Progressive Party

[edit]
  1. David Zuckerman – Lieutenant Governor
  2. Doug Hoffer – State Auditor
  3. Tim Ashe – Pro Tem of the Vermont Senate
  4. Chris Pearson – Member of the Vermont Senate
  5. Anthony Pollina – Member of the Vermont Senate
  6. Mollie S. Burke – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  7. Robin Chesnut-Tangerman – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  8. Diana Gonzalez – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  9. Sandy Haas – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  10. Selene Colburn – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  11. Brian Cina – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  12. Jane Knodell – Burlington City Council President (Central District)
  13. Max Tracy – Burlington City Council (Ward 2)
  14. Sara Giannoni – Burlington City Council (Ward 3)
  15. Wendy Coe – Ward Clerk (Ward 2)
  16. Carmen Solari – Inspector of Elections (Ward 2)
  17. Kit Andrews – Inspector of Elections (Ward 3)
  18. Jeremy Hansen – Berlin Select Board
  19. Steve May Richmond Select Board
  20. Susan Hatch Davis – Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives
  21. Dexter Randel Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives & Former Troy Select Board
  22. Bob Kiss – Former Mayor of Burlington
  23. Peter Clevelle – Former Mayor of Burlington
  24. David Van Deusen – Former Moretown Select Board & Former First Constable

Working Families Party

[edit]

Connecticut

[edit]
  1. Ed Gomes – Member of the Connecticut Senate from the 23rd district

New York

[edit]
  1. Diana Richardson – Member of the New York State Assembly from the 43rd district

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
The American Left comprises a spectrum of political ideologies and movements that prioritize egalitarian reforms, government-led economic redistribution, and challenges to established power structures, ranging from liberal advocates of regulated to socialists seeking worker ownership and democratic control of key industries. Rooted in late-19th-century labor organizing and early-20th-century progressive agitation against industrial monopolies, it has manifested through parties like the , which garnered nearly 6% of the presidential vote in 1912, and later through influence within the Democratic Party coalition. Key historical achievements include contributions to labor standards such as the Wagner Act of 1935, which protected union organizing rights, and antitrust measures curbing corporate dominance, alongside pushes for and civil rights advancements that dismantled legal segregation. The New Deal era under marked a high point, establishing programs like Social Security that expanded the welfare state and mitigated economic downturns through public works and financial regulation. In the postwar period, the Left influenced anti-war protests against and environmental legislation like the Clean Air Act, reflecting a shift toward cultural and identity-based activism. Defining characteristics include a strong emphasis on expanding scope— with segments like the Progressive Left favoring major increases in services and taxes on high earners—alongside critiques of American institutions as systemically biased, particularly on race and inequality. Controversies persist over empirical outcomes, such as welfare expansions correlating with persistent traps and structure erosion in affected communities, and modern cultural campaigns that prioritize group identities over individual merit, fostering polarization and institutional distrust. Figures like Eugene Debs and exemplify its enduring appeal among intellectuals and youth, though internal fractures between electoral pragmatists and radical factions have limited broader electoral success beyond Democratic majorities.

Definition and Core Ideology

Philosophical Foundations

The philosophical foundations of the American Left emphasize egalitarian , collective intervention in social and economic affairs, and a pragmatic approach to achieving progress through institutional mechanisms, diverging from the of toward a view of society as malleable via rational planning. Drawing from 19th-century responses to industrialization, these foundations reject doctrines and , which posited that societal inequalities stemmed from natural hierarchies, instead asserting that issues like , exploitation, and class conflict require deliberate human agency and state involvement to mitigate. This perspective aligns with early progressive thinkers who viewed modernization's disruptions—such as rapid and corporate consolidation—as solvable through ethical rather than unfettered markets. Central to this tradition is the pragmatism of John Dewey (1859–1952), who argued that philosophy should serve democratic experimentation and instrumental problem-solving, prioritizing adaptive policies over abstract ideals. Dewey's instrumentalism influenced left-leaning education reforms and social democracy by framing knowledge as a tool for communal betterment, evident in his advocacy for public schooling as a means to foster social intelligence and equity. This approach informed Progressive Era policies, where reformers sought to harness federal power against corruption and monopolies, as seen in antitrust efforts under Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 onward. Complementing Dewey, figures like Herbert Croly in The Promise of American Life (1909) synthesized Hamiltonian statism with Jeffersonian democracy, calling for national administrative expertise to realize "national righteousness" through regulated capitalism. European socialist influences, particularly utopian strains from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888), which envisioned state-directed economies, merged with American optimism to promote cooperative ideals over Marxist class warfare, though direct Marxist importation occurred via immigrant labor movements in the early 20th century. Later, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) provided a contractualist framework for redistributive justice, emphasizing the "veil of ignorance" to prioritize the least advantaged, which resonated in policy debates on welfare expansion during the 1960s–1970s. These foundations collectively prioritize causal interventions—such as regulatory reforms enacted via the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906—to engineer outcomes favoring equality, though empirical critiques note persistent trade-offs, like regulatory capture observed in subsequent decades. Despite adaptations, this philosophy maintains a core tension with American constitutionalism's limited-government ethos, as evidenced by Progressive challenges to separation of powers starting around 1910.

Key Principles and Policy Priorities

The American Left's foundational principles center on and , positing that structural inequalities in society—stemming from , historical discrimination, and power concentrations—require and state intervention to rectify, rather than relying solely on market mechanisms or individual effort. This prioritizes over formal equality of opportunity, advocating for policies that redistribute resources and opportunities to marginalized groups, often framed through lenses of encompassing race, class, gender, and sexuality. Drawing from progressive intellectual traditions, it emphasizes progress through reform or transformation of institutions to enhance democratic control and human welfare, critiquing unchecked private enterprise as perpetuating exploitation. Key tenets include solidarity with the and global oppressed, in foreign affairs, and as inseparable from , viewing ecological degradation as a symptom of profit-driven systems. Unlike conservative or libertarian emphases on , the Left supports an activist state to decommodify essentials like and healthcare, promoting worker cooperatives and public ownership where feasible. Democratic socialists, a prominent strain, explicitly reject as the economy's organizing principle, instead seeking to meet human needs via democratic planning. These principles have evolved, with modern variants incorporating identity-based analyses, though critics note tensions between class-focused and group-specific equity demands. Policy priorities reflect these principles through advocacy for expansive social welfare: universal (e.g., Medicare for All, proposed by Sen. in 2019 legislation attracting 51% public support in 2020 polls but facing cost critiques exceeding $30 trillion over a decade), free public college tuition, and cancellation up to $50,000 per borrower as in Biden administration actions forgiving $150 billion by 2023. Economic redistribution features prominently, including taxes on fortunes over $50 million (as in proposals by Sen. in 2019), raising the federal to $15 (achieved in 27 states by 2021 but stagnating federally), and strengthening unions via laws like the PRO Act introduced in 2021. Social policies prioritize , such as ending cash bail and mass incarceration (U.S. prison population peaked at 2.3 million in 2008, disproportionately affecting minorities), expansive immigration amnesty for 11 million undocumented residents, and protections for abortion access post-Roe v. Wade overturn in 2022. Environmental priorities center on the framework, aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050 through massive public investments estimated at $10 trillion, combining job creation with fossil fuel phase-outs. Foreign policy favors diplomacy over military intervention, cutting defense budgets (U.S. spent $877 billion in 2022, 40% of global total), and critiquing alliances like as extensions of hegemony, as articulated in DSA platforms opposing U.S. aid to amid 2023-2024 Gaza conflicts. These priorities, while polling variably (e.g., 60% support for paid family leave in 2021), often encounter empirical challenges, such as minimum wage hikes correlating with 1-2% drops in low-skill sectors per meta-analyses.

Variants and Internal Divisions

The American Left comprises several ideological , ranging from moderate liberals to democratic socialists and radical fringes, each with distinct emphases on versus . Moderate liberals, comprising a significant portion of Democratic voters, prioritize incremental expansions of social welfare programs within a capitalist framework, such as targeted subsidies and regulatory adjustments, while maintaining support for free markets and institutional stability. In Pew Research Center's 2021 political typology, groups like Establishment Liberals exhibit more pragmatic views, favoring compromise on economic issues and less aggressive redistribution compared to leftward factions. Progressives and democratic socialists advocate systemic overhauls, including universal healthcare, aggressive climate action via frameworks like the , and wealth taxes to address inequality, often critiquing corporate influence as a barrier to equity. This variant gained prominence through ' presidential bids in 2016 and 2020, which mobilized younger voters toward policies emphasizing worker rights and public ownership in key sectors. The (DSA) exemplifies this strand, with membership surging from about 6,000 in 2015 to over 90,000 by 2021, driven by electoral successes like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 2018 congressional win. Radical elements, including Marxist-Leninist organizations and anarchist collectives, reject electoralism in favor of or revolutionary change, though they hold limited influence in mainstream politics, focusing instead on anti-capitalist agitation and opposition to state power. These groups often overlap with far-left activism in areas like anti-globalization protests but remain organizationally fragmented. Internal divisions fracture the Left along strategic, substantive, and cultural lines. A core tension pits "insider" strategies—working through the Democratic Party for reforms—against "outsider" approaches favoring independent runs or mass mobilization, as debated within DSA between coalition-builders and class-struggle purists. Economic-focused socialists clash with identity-oriented factions, where the former prioritize class solidarity and union organizing, while the latter emphasize intersectional advocacy on race, , and sexuality, sometimes diluting universalist appeals. exacerbates rifts, with progressives more likely to oppose U.S. military interventions and alliances—evident in DSA's internal debates over policy—contrasting moderates' support for strategic engagements. These cleavages, intensified by events like the 2020 pandemic and 2024 elections, hinder unified action, as seen in progressive frustrations with Democratic leadership on issues like relief timelines.

Historical Development

Colonial and Early Republic Influences (17th-19th Centuries)

The earliest precursors to left-wing in colonial America appeared in religious dissenting groups, particularly , who emphasized spiritual equality among all persons regardless of social status and issued the first formal protest against slavery in the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition, arguing that enslavement violated Christian principles of brotherhood. ' testimony of equality also extended to women's roles in ministry and governance within their meetings, challenging hierarchical norms prevalent in Puritan and Anglican colonies. Economic grievances among lower classes manifested in events like of 1676, an interracial uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon involving indentured servants, small farmers, and enslaved Africans against Virginia's elite planters, highlighting early tensions over land access and taxation that foreshadowed class-based radicalism. In the revolutionary and early republic eras, Thomas Paine's writings provided a foundational radical impetus, with Common Sense (1776) advocating direct over monarchical rule and inspiring widespread democratic fervor among artisans and farmers. Paine's Agrarian Justice (1797) further advanced proto-leftist ideas by proposing a national fund financed through inheritance taxes on land to provide stipends for the young, elderly, and disadvantaged, framing poverty as a systemic stemming from the of natural resources. The influenced American radicals, particularly Democratic-Republicans, who formed societies in 1793–1794 to celebrate its egalitarian ideals as an extension of 1776 principles, though this enthusiasm waned amid reports of Jacobin violence, deepening partisan divides with Federalists who viewed it as anarchic. Early trade unions emerged in the late , exemplified by the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers in (1794), which sought for wages and hours amid craft traditions. By the 19th century, utopian socialist experiments proliferated as responses to industrialization's inequalities, with Robert Owen's New Harmony community in (1825–1829) attempting cooperative production and education to eliminate class divisions through shared labor and property. Transcendentalist (1841–1846) in pursued intellectual and manual equality but dissolved due to financial strains, reflecting broader challenges in sustaining communal ideals. Labor organization intensified with citywide unions like Philadelphia's General Trades' Union (1833–1836), which coordinated strikes for shorter workdays and influenced the broader push for workingmen's parties advocating public education and currency reform. These developments laid groundwork for later leftist currents by prioritizing economic redistribution and anti-elite , though they remained marginal amid dominant liberal individualism.

Industrial Era and Progressive Reforms (Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries)

The late 19th-century industrialization in the United States, characterized by rapid factory expansion and urban migration, intensified worker exploitation, including long hours, low wages, and unsafe conditions, fostering the emergence of socialist thought within labor circles. Many labor organizations during this period adopted socialist principles, viewing them as essential to counter the monopolistic power of industrial capitalists and achieve collective worker control over production. The Haymarket Affair on May 4, 1886, in Chicago—where a bomb thrown during a rally for the eight-hour workday killed seven police officers and led to the controversial trial and execution of eight anarchist labor activists—served as a flashpoint, amplifying radical left voices while provoking widespread backlash against perceived foreign-influenced agitation. This event underscored tensions between state authority and labor radicals, galvanizing socialist organizing despite judicial outcomes that critics, including later historians, deemed politically motivated to suppress dissent. Eugene V. Debs, initially a railroad union leader, underwent a ideological shift toward following the violent suppression of the 1894 , which involved over 250,000 workers and federal injunctions under President . By 1897, Debs publicly embraced , criticizing capitalism's causal role in perpetuating class conflict and inequality. In 1901, he facilitated the merger of his Social Democratic Party with dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party to form the , which advocated public ownership of utilities, railways, and mines as remedies to industrial monopolies. Debs' presidential candidacies marked early electoral inroads for the American left: in 1900, he secured 96,000 votes (0.6% of the total), rising to 402,000 (3%) in 1904 and 420,000 in 1908. The Progressive Era (roughly 1890s–1920s) saw left-wing pressures contribute to reforms like state-level child labor restrictions and laws, though these were often incremental measures short of the systemic overhaul demanded by socialists, who prioritized worker cooperatives and union control over industry. The Socialist Party peaked in influence around , when Debs captured 901,551 votes (6% nationally), reflecting urban immigrant and working-class support amid economic dislocations. Leftist women, including figures aligned with socialist-feminist currents, intersected with campaigns, arguing that enfranchisement would empower proletarian women against capitalist , though mainstream suffrage groups largely distanced from explicit class-based . Despite these gains, persistent factors such as ethnic divisions among workers, government suppression, and the absence of a feudal legacy—unlike —limited socialism's mass appeal, as radicals repeatedly failed to transcend niche status.

Interwar Period and the Great Depression (1920s-1930s)

The (SPA), which had peaked with over 118,000 members in 1912, underwent a precipitous decline in the due to its staunch opposition to U.S. entry into , internal schisms, and the First Red Scare's repressive measures, including that targeted radicals. By the mid-, the party's membership had dwindled to around 25,000, and it struggled to regain pre-war electoral traction amid the dominance of Republican administrations under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, which prioritized business interests and limited government intervention. The SPA's 1928 presidential nominee, , garnered 267,420 votes (0.7% of the total), reflecting its marginal status in a prosperous era where socialist critiques of found limited resonance among workers insulated by apparent economic growth. The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), founded in 1919 amid splits from the SPA, remained small and factionalized in the 1920s, with membership under 10,000 and operations often underground due to ongoing anti-radical sentiment and legal prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. Adhering closely to Comintern directives from Moscow, the CPUSA focused on industrial organizing and anti-imperialist agitation but achieved little broad appeal until the economic collapse of 1929. The Great Depression, with unemployment surging to 25% by 1933 and industrial production halved, catalyzed a resurgence in left-wing activism, as mass suffering exposed capitalism's vulnerabilities and drew thousands to radical alternatives. CPUSA-led Unemployed Councils organized rent strikes, eviction resistances, and hunger marches, such as the 1932 Bonus Army march in Washington, D.C., which highlighted veterans' plight but was brutally dispersed by federal troops under Hoover. Labor militancy intensified in the early 1930s, with union membership plummeting to 3 million by 1933 from 5 million a decade prior, as employers exploited desperation to crush organizing efforts. Waves of strikes erupted, including the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike and the San Francisco general strike involving 150,000 workers, demanding recognition of unions and better wages amid deflationary pressures. These actions, often involving communists and socialists, pressured the incoming Roosevelt administration, though the National Industrial Recovery Act's Section 7(a) in 1933 provided only tepid protections that employers frequently ignored. The SPA, under Thomas's leadership, radicalized against "corporate socialism," with his 1932 presidential campaign securing 881,951 votes (2.2% of the total), the party's electoral high-water mark, by advocating public works, unemployment insurance, and nationalization of key industries. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, commencing in 1933, incorporated elements like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration that echoed leftist demands for relief, but its core aimed to stabilize capitalism through regulated markets rather than systemic overhaul, leading Thomas to quip that it achieved "ninety percent of the Socialist program in one administration" without crediting socialism. While some socialists and communists infiltrated agencies like the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, their influence was overstated by critics; the SPA initially opposed the New Deal as insufficiently transformative, though factional splits in 1936—expelling Trotskyist and "Old Guard" moderates—further weakened it. The CPUSA, shifting to the Popular Front strategy in 1935 per Soviet guidance, endorsed Roosevelt in 1936 and grew to influence in the nascent Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), aiding union drives in auto and steel sectors, yet subordinated domestic goals to anti-fascist unity abroad. By 1937, strikes numbered over 2,100 involving 1.86 million workers, bolstering industrial unionism, but the left's gains proved fragile, constrained by Roosevelt's pragmatic balancing of labor demands against business backlash and the CPUSA's foreign policy zigzags. Overall, the era marked tactical left-wing mobilization amid crisis, yet electoral irrelevance persisted, with Thomas's 1936 vote share dropping to 1.1%, as New Deal reforms absorbed reformist energies without empowering revolutionary currents.

World War II, Cold War Onset, and Red Scares (1940s-1950s)

During , the (CPUSA) reversed its opposition to the conflict following Nazi Germany's invasion of the on June 22, 1941, aligning with the Allied effort against and urging American workers to prioritize victory over strikes or labor demands. Under General Secretary , the party endorsed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies, including aid to the USSR and the "no-strike pledge" for unions, which contributed to its membership peaking at approximately 85,000 in 1942. This patriotic stance masked underlying Soviet loyalty, as CPUSA leaders subordinated domestic agitation to Moscow's directives, including temporary dissolution of the party into the Communist Political Association in 1944 to broaden appeal, though it was refounded as a party in 1945 amid postwar tensions. The onset of the Cold War after 1945 fractured the American Left, with CPUSA and affiliated radicals denouncing U.S. policies like the (announced March 12, 1947) and as imperialist aggression, while evidence from decrypted Soviet cables later revealed genuine espionage networks involving American communists in government roles, such as the atomic secrets passed to the USSR. Moderate left-leaning elements, including labor unions and Democratic Party factions, increasingly distanced themselves from pro-Soviet groups to avoid association with Stalin's regime, whose gulags and purges were becoming more widely documented. By 1947, CPUSA membership had begun declining from wartime highs, exacerbated by internal purges and external pressures, as the party's advocacy for Soviet foreign policy alienated broader progressive coalitions formed during the war. The Second Red Scare intensified suppression of the radical Left through institutional mechanisms, beginning with the (HUAC) hearings in 1947, which targeted alleged communist influence in Hollywood, resulting in the conviction of ten screenwriters and directors—the "Hollywood Ten"—for after refusing to testify. The of 1940, originally aimed at , was invoked in July 1948 to indict CPUSA leaders, culminating in the 1949 trial and conviction of eleven top officials, including , for conspiring to advocate violent overthrow of the government; the U.S. upheld these convictions in (1951), affirming that abstract advocacy of force could be criminalized if it posed a "." Over 140 CPUSA members faced similar prosecutions by the mid-1950s, decimating leadership and reducing party rolls to under 10,000 by 1957, while blacklists in entertainment, education, and unions sidelined thousands of suspected sympathizers, though declassified records confirmed some espionage threats while highlighting excesses like guilt by association. Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950 accusations of communist infiltration in the State Department escalated public paranoia until his 1954 censure, marking the Scare's peak but cementing the radical Left's marginalization as mainstream liberals embraced anti-totalitarian stances to preserve credibility.

Civil Rights Movement and New Left Emergence (1960s)

The intensified in the early 1960s, marked by nonviolent tactics such as the Freedom Rides organized by the (CORE) in 1961, which challenged segregation in interstate travel and faced violent backlash from white supremacists in states like and . Key legislative achievements included the , which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations and employment, and the , which outlawed discriminatory voting practices and led to a surge in Black voter registration from about 23% in the South in 1964 to 61% by 1969. While the movement's core organizations like the (SCLC) under Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized moral suasion and coalition-building with liberal Democrats, elements of the American Left—particularly labor unions, socialists, and the marginalized (CPUSA)—offered ideological and logistical support, viewing racial justice as intertwined with class struggle. However, CPUSA efforts were often opportunistic, aimed at exploiting grievances to advance Soviet-aligned agendas rather than genuine empowerment, as evidenced by FBI documentation of party directives prioritizing Negro recruitment for revolutionary ends over substantive reform. Northern white students, inspired by Southern sit-ins and marches, increasingly engaged through initiatives like the 1964 Freedom Summer project, where over 1,000 volunteers, many from Ivy League and Midwestern universities, registered approximately 17,000 Black voters in Mississippi amid Klan intimidation and murders, including that of activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner on June 21, 1964. This participation radicalized participants, exposing the limits of incremental liberalism and fostering disillusionment with establishment politics, as Northern radicals encountered the raw enforcement of Jim Crow laws. Organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) shifted toward Black separatism by 1966 under leaders like Stokely Carmichael, who popularized "Black Power" during the Meredith March Against Fear, rejecting white involvement and emphasizing armed self-defense, which alienated moderate allies but resonated with emerging radical fringes. Left-wing involvement drew scrutiny for potential communist infiltration, with FBI COINTELPRO operations targeting groups like SNCC for suspected ties, though evidence showed limited CPUSA control amid the party's post-McCarthy decline to under 10,000 members nationwide. The coalesced as a distinct generational revolt against the "Old Left's" bureaucratic and the complacency of Cold War , with (SDS) formalizing this shift at its founding convention in , on June 11-15, 1962, where fewer than 100 delegates adopted the . Drafted primarily by , the 25,000-word manifesto critiqued "corporate " for perpetuating alienation, called for "" through grassroots structures, and rejected hierarchical vanguard parties in favor of and personal authenticity, drawing tactical inspiration from civil rights but expanding to university governance, poverty, and eventual anti-Vietnam War mobilization. By 1965, SDS membership exceeded 20,000 chapters, reflecting a youth-driven that prioritized cultural transformation over orthodox Marxism, though it harbored internal tensions between democratic ideals and later factional violence, as seen in the 1969 split into Weatherman and other militant groups. This emergence marked a pivot from labor-centric priorities to student-led, anti-authoritarian , influencing broader countercultural shifts while amplifying critiques of American imperialism.

Fragmentation and Decline (1970s-1990s)

The , which had mobilized around anti-war protests, civil rights, and countercultural ideals during the 1960s, began fragmenting in the early 1970s due to ideological splits and organizational failures. (SDS), a key New Left group, dissolved amid violent factionalism at its 1969 national convention, splintering into radical offshoots like the Weather Underground, which pursued armed struggle but achieved negligible political impact before declining into irrelevance by the mid-1970s. This internal discord, characterized by debates over tactics ranging from to revolutionary violence, eroded unified action and alienated potential broader support. The conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975, following the U.S. withdrawal and , removed a primary unifying grievance for radicals, leading to demobilization as anti-war protests waned sharply. Economic in the 1970s—marked by 13.5% in 1980 and unemployment peaking at 10.8% in 1982—presented opportunities for left-wing economic critiques, yet fragmented groups like the New American Movement (founded 1971 from remnants) focused more on feminist and than mass economic mobilization, limiting their reach. Attempts to infuse "New Politics" into the Democratic Party, emphasizing grassroots participation over traditional machine politics, yielded mixed results, such as McGovern's 1972 nomination but subsequent landslide defeat, signaling voter rejection of perceived radicalism. The 1980s exacerbated decline under Reagan's conservative ascendancy, with Democrats suffering presidential losses in 1980 (Carter's 44% popular vote) and 1984 (Mondale's 40.6%), as public backlash against 1960s excesses— including , crime rates rising 200% from 1960 to 1990, and cultural perceptions of moral laxity—shifted sentiment rightward. , formed in 1982 via merger of socialist factions, struggled with stagnant membership around 8,000 through the decade, reflecting the broader left's marginalization amid economic recovery and anti-communist fervor. Scholarly analyses attribute this to the left's failure to adapt to post-industrial shifts like , which displaced 5 million manufacturing jobs from 1979 to 1989, instead prioritizing identity-based causes over class solidarity. By the 1990s, the mainstream left accommodated centrism through the (DLC), established in 1985 to counter the party's leftward drift since the late 1960s, promoting "" policies blending market reforms with social spending. Bill Clinton's 1992 and 1996 victories—securing 43% and 49% of the vote, respectively—hinged on this pivot, including the 1996 law ending Aid to Families with Dependent Children after 61 years and NAFTA's , which prioritized trade liberalization over despite displacing an estimated 850,000 U.S. jobs by 2000. The Soviet Union's 1991 collapse further discredited Marxist variants, reducing radical left membership and influence, as global socialism's empirical failures—evident in Eastern Europe's economic output lagging the West by factors of 3-5 times—undermined ideological appeal. This era marked a causal shift: electoral supplanted aspirations, fragmenting the left into niche advocacy while diluting its transformative edge.

21st-Century Resurgence and Setbacks (2000s-Present)

The American Left saw initial stirrings of revival in the early 2000s through widespread , with protests drawing millions but yielding limited policy shifts or electoral gains amid post-9/11 national unity. Barack Obama's 2008 presidential victory, capturing 53% of the popular vote, infused progressives with optimism via rhetoric of hope and change, including promises to close Guantanamo Bay and enact comprehensive ; however, his administration's expansion of , bank bailouts during the , and failure to prosecute executives eroded support among the party's left wing by the mid-2010s. The 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, originating in New York City's Zuccotti Park, crystallized grievances over income inequality—the top 1% capturing 93% of income gains post-2009—and corporate political influence, reframing national discourse on wealth disparity and inspiring tactics adopted by later movements like . While lacking formal leadership or demands, Occupy mobilized tens of thousands across 900 U.S. sites, trained activists in horizontal organizing, and correlated with a 20-point rise in public mentions of "income inequality" in media from 2010 to 2012, though police evictions and internal disorganization led to its dispersal by 2012 without direct legislative wins. Bernie Sanders' 2016 Democratic primary challenge marked a pivotal resurgence for , securing 43% of delegates and 12 million votes by advocating universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, and a $15 , thereby mainstreaming policies previously marginalized within the party. His campaign boosted Democratic turnout among young voters by 20% over levels and spurred the (DSA) membership from 6,000 in 2015 to over 90,000 by 2021, reflecting organizational growth amid economic populism. The 2018 midterm elections amplified this momentum, with DSA-endorsed candidates like defeating establishment incumbents in safe Democratic districts, forming the "" to champion the and challenge party leadership on issues like Medicare for All. Yet Sanders' 2020 primary effort faltered, capturing 26% of the vote before endorsing , highlighting resistance from party elites and moderate voters wary of socialism's label—polls showed it repelling 50% of independents. The and George Floyd's 2020 killing fueled left-leaning activism, with protests drawing 15-26 million participants, but Biden's centrist pivot secured a narrow 51.3% popular vote win, prioritizing over transformative reforms like cancellation beyond $10,000. Setbacks intensified post-2020, as inflation peaking at 9.1% in 2022—driven by supply disruptions and fiscal stimulus—eroded support among working-class voters, contributing to Democratic underperformance in the 2022 midterms where progressives lost key seats despite retaining House control narrowly. Cultural emphases on and "" initiatives, such as expansive DEI mandates and on campuses, provoked backlash; surveys indicated 56% of Americans viewed "" negatively by 2023, associating it with elite overreach rather than material gains, alienating non-college-educated demographics that shifted Republican by 10-15 points since 2016. and academic sources, often aligned with progressive views, frequently attributed such shifts to rather than policy disconnects from causal economic pressures like wage stagnation. The 2024 presidential election delivered a stark reversal, with defeating 312-226 in the and 49.9% to 48.3% in the popular vote, fracturing the Democratic coalition as Black and Latino voter support dropped 10-20 points from 2020 levels due to economic discontent and concerns. DSA candidates achieved sporadic local successes, such as state legislative wins in New York and , but national influence waned, with members facing primary threats and the broader left critiqued for prioritizing cultural signaling over class-based appeals amid deindustrialization's legacies. These outcomes underscored persistent internal divisions—economic socialists versus identity-focused factions—and electoral limits, as left-wing organizations grew in membership but struggled to convert into durable majorities beyond urban enclaves.

Ideological Currents and Organizations

Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism

Social democracy in the United States emphasizes reforming capitalism through extensive government intervention, including robust welfare programs, labor protections, and progressive taxation, while maintaining private ownership of production. This approach draws from European models like those in Scandinavia, prioritizing inequality reduction via mixed economies rather than systemic overthrow. In contrast, democratic socialism seeks democratic transition to an economy where workers collectively control means of production, viewing capitalism as inherently exploitative and requiring replacement to prioritize human needs over profit. These ideologies overlap on the American Left, often blending in advocacy for policies like universal healthcare and free higher education, though democratic socialism explicitly rejects capitalist frameworks. The (DSA), founded in 1982 via merger of the and , represents the primary democratic socialist organization today. With over 80,000 members across all 50 states as of recent counts, DSA experienced explosive growth from about 6,000 in 2015 to peaks exceeding 90,000 by 2020, fueled by economic discontent post-2008 recession and . The group endorses candidates committing to socialist platforms, achieving successes in local races, such as electing over a dozen members to seats by 2021, though national influence remains marginal within the Democratic Party. Senator , who identifies as a , popularized these ideas through campaigns in 2016 and 2020, garnering 13 million primary votes in 2016 alone and influencing Democratic platforms on issues like Medicare for All and a $15 . frames as an extension of Franklin D. Roosevelt's , advocating worker cooperatives, public ownership of utilities, and breaking up large banks, rather than state seizure akin to Soviet models. Democratic Socialists like , a DSA member elected to in 2018, have pushed the , combining climate action with job guarantees and union rights. Historically, social democratic tendencies appeared in early 20th-century movements, such as the formed by in 1898, which evolved into the Socialist Party emphasizing electoral reforms over revolution. Post-World War II, social democratic policies embedded in expansions, including Social Security established in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, reflected pragmatic left-wing governance amid anti-communist pressures. Contemporary American social democrats, often within the Democratic Party, advocate Nordic-style systems, as seen in proposals for paid family leave and tuition-free public college, though implementation faces fiscal constraints and political opposition, with U.S. welfare spending at about 20% of GDP in 2023 compared to 25-30% in Nordic nations. Internal DSA divisions highlight tensions between reformist social democrats favoring Democratic alliances and more radical factions pushing independent socialist parties or anti-capitalist direct action. Despite rhetorical commitments to democratic control, DSA platforms include controversial stances like abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and defunding police, reflecting broader left critiques of state institutions but drawing criticism for overlooking enforcement needs in high-crime areas. Economic analyses question feasibility, noting democratic socialist policies could expand deficits without productivity gains, as evidenced by Venezuela's state-led experiments yielding hyperinflation exceeding 1 million percent annually by 2018 under similar worker-control rhetoric.

Revolutionary Marxism and Leninism

Revolutionary Marxism and Leninism in the American context emphasizes the necessity of a disciplined party to lead the in seizing state power and establishing a , adapting Lenin's theories on , , and the role of a revolutionary party to U.S. conditions of advanced . This strand prioritizes violent or non-parliamentary overthrow of the over gradualist reforms, viewing electoral participation as subordinate to building revolutionary consciousness and organization. Early adopters interpreted Lenin's State and Revolution (1917) and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) as mandating opposition to U.S. and alliance with global communist movements, often aligning with the Soviet Union's shifts. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), founded in September 1919 in from splinter groups within the , became the dominant Leninist organization, adhering to Comintern directives and Stalin's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism after 1924. CPUSA implemented Lenin's concept of , centralizing authority in a while prohibiting factionalism, which facilitated rapid mobilization but also internal purges mirroring Soviet patterns in the 1930s. Membership remained under 20,000 until the catalyzed growth, reaching 66,000 by 1939 amid influence in the (CIO) unions and anti-fascist campaigns. CPUSA's revolutionary orientation waned during under Earl Browder's leadership, shifting toward alliances with liberals and temporarily dissolving into the Communist Political Association in 1944 to support the war effort against , peaking at 85,000 members in 1942 before reverting to orthodox post-1945. Revelations of Soviet funding—estimated at millions of dollars via channels like the espionage ring—and alignment with Moscow's with Hitler (1939-1941) eroded credibility, contributing to membership collapse to under 10,000 by the 1950s amid McCarthy-era prosecutions under the . Post-1956, Khrushchev's denunciation of fractured U.S. Leninists into factions: Trotskyists via the Socialist Workers Party (SWP, founded 1938 from CPUSA expulsions) rejected Stalinist "degenerated workers' state" theory; anti-revisionists formed the Marxist-Leninist Party USA (1970s) upholding Maoist influences against perceived CPUSA "Khrushchevism"; and later groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP, 1975) under promoted "New Communism." These organizations, often numbering in the low thousands, focused on agitation in anti-war protests (e.g., era) and labor strikes but achieved negligible electoral success, with CPUSA candidates garnering under 0.1% of votes in presidential runs through 1940. In the 21st century, self-identified Marxist-Leninist groups such as the (PSL, founded 2004), (FRSO), and American Party of Labor (APL, 2008) maintain branches across states, emphasizing and solidarity with states like and , but operate as marginal sects with memberships under 5,000 collectively and no legislative seats. Their influence persists in niche , such as campus organizing and protests against U.S. , yet causal factors like ideological rigidity, historical associations with authoritarian regimes, and competition from broader left formations limit broader appeal in a proletarian base fragmented by service-sector employment and cultural .

Anarchism and Anti-State Leftism

in the United States emerged in the late among immigrant workers and intellectuals, drawing from European traditions while adapting to industrial conditions, emphasizing opposition to both state and capitalist hierarchies through , mutual aid, and worker self-management. Early adherents, often German and Eastern European immigrants, rejected electoral politics and centralized , viewing the state as an enforcer of class domination. This strand of the American Left prioritized voluntary associations and federations over government intervention, influencing labor tactics like general strikes and . The of May 4, 1886, in exemplified anarchism's intersection with labor struggles, as a rally protesting police violence against strikers for an eight-hour workday ended with a bomb explosion killing seven officers and at least four civilians, sparking gunfire that wounded dozens. Eight anarchists—, , Adolph Fischer, George Engel, , Michael Schwab, , and Oscar Neebe—were convicted of conspiracy despite scant evidence linking them directly to the bomb, with four hanged on November 11, 1887, and one suicide in jail; Governor pardoned the survivors in 1893, citing judicial bias. The event galvanized international solidarity, establishing May 1 as , though it also fueled anti-anarchist repression in the U.S., associating the movement with in public perception. The (IWW), founded in on June 27, 1905, incorporated anarchist principles into revolutionary , advocating "one big union" to abolish labor via workplace control rather than . Attracting lumberjacks, miners, and migrants excluded by craft unions, the IWW rejected and emphasized , including the where 23,000 workers won concessions through solidarity tactics. Internal tensions arose between anarchist-syndicalists favoring and political socialists, but the organization's preamble explicitly opposed parliamentary methods, aligning with anti-state leftism. By 1917, federal raids under the Espionage Act suppressed IWW activities, imprisoning leaders like William "Big Bill" Haywood, reducing membership from peaks of 150,000. Emma Goldman, a Lithuanian-born activist who immigrated in 1885, became anarchism's most prominent U.S. voice, editing Mother Earth magazine from 1906 to 1917 and advocating free speech, women's autonomy, and anti-militarism through lectures reaching thousands. She defended the Haymarket martyrs and opposed conscription during World War I, leading to her 1917 arrest under the Selective Service Act; deported to Russia in 1919 amid the Palmer Raids targeting 249 radicals, her expulsion highlighted the 1903 Immigration Act's ban on anarchist entry. Goldman's critiques extended to Bolshevik authoritarianism after visiting Soviet Russia in 1920, reinforcing her commitment to stateless communism. Anti-state leftism beyond classical anarchism persisted in communal experiments and pacifist critiques, such as the Catholic Worker Movement's houses of hospitality from 1933, which embodied personalist rejection of state welfare in favor of voluntary mutual aid, though not strictly anarchist. Repression during the Red Scares marginalized these currents, with anarchism's influence waning by the mid-20th century amid dominance of state-oriented socialism, yet echoes remained in 1960s counterculture and later autonomous zones. Empirical records show limited electoral success and frequent violence associations, such as Leon Czolgosz's 1901 assassination of President McKinley, claimed as anarchist-inspired, underscoring causal links between anti-state rhetoric and isolated extremism, though most advocates renounced such acts.

Environmentalism and Green Politics

The American Left's embrace of environmentalism intensified during the 1960s, when activists linked pollution and resource depletion to systemic flaws in industrial capitalism, framing as a front in broader anti-establishment struggles. This shift contrasted with earlier bipartisan conservation efforts, such as those under Republican presidents like and , who established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 amid public pressure but without the left's emphasis on wealth redistribution or anti-corporate measures. By the 1970s, left-leaning organizations like the , originally focused on wilderness preservation, increasingly advocated for regulatory interventions tying environmental protection to , though critics note the group's progressive bias has sometimes prioritized over core ecological goals. Green politics within the American Left materialized through entities like the of the United States, founded in 2001 but rooted in 1980s committees promoting "ecological wisdom" alongside and nonviolence. The party, which garnered 2.74% of the national vote in the 2000 presidential election via Ralph Nader's candidacy, advocates an "Ecosocialist " calling for 100% clean energy, zero emissions, and economic guarantees like universal healthcare, explicitly critiquing capitalism's environmental toll. Mainstream Democratic left figures, such as Rep. , advanced the resolution in February 2019, proposing net-zero emissions by 2050 through massive public investments in renewables, , and job guarantees, though the non-binding measure failed to pass amid debates over its estimated $93 trillion cost over a decade. Empirical assessments of left-pushed policies like renewable portfolio standards (RPS), mandating 15-50% renewables in states such as and New York, reveal trade-offs: while supporting approximately 200,000 jobs and reducing CO2 by 4-8% in some models, they have raised wholesale prices by 7-11% on average through subsidies and integration costs for intermittent sources. In , aggressive mandates targeting 100% clean energy by 2045 correlated with rolling blackouts during the August 2020 heatwave, affecting nearly 800,000 customers due to variability and premature nuclear/gas plant closures, exacerbating grid strain despite subsequent battery additions. These outcomes underscore causal challenges in scaling renewables without reliable baseload backups, as intermittency necessitates costly storage and peakers, contributing to California's retail rates exceeding the national average by 50-80% as of 2023. sources often downplay such economic and reliability burdens, reflecting institutional biases toward alarmist narratives over cost-benefit analysis.

Identity-Focused and Cultural Leftism

Identity-focused leftism in the American context emphasizes political mobilization around group identities such as race, , , and , often framing societal issues through lenses of systemic oppression and rather than class or economic redistribution. This approach originated in the movements of the , evolving from civil rights activism and anti-war protests, where scholars and activists shifted emphasis from universal class struggle to particularized experiences of marginalized groups. The term "identity politics" gained prominence in 1977 with the Collective's statement by black feminist activists, who argued for liberation through recognition of interlocking oppressions based on race, , and class. By the and , this framework expanded in academia, influenced by postmodern theories that deconstructed traditional narratives of progress and merit, prioritizing narrative control over empirical verification. Cultural leftism, sometimes described as an extension of these ideas into broader societal critique, draws from thinkers like , who in the advocated repressive tolerance—tolerating radical critiques of Western culture while suppressing counterviews—to foster . This strand gained traction in U.S. universities post-, where economic waned amid discrediting, but cultural variants proliferated, reorienting from vs. to identity hierarchies like oppressor vs. oppressed groups defined by immutable traits. Key intellectual contributions include Kimberlé Crenshaw's 1989 formulation of , which posits that oppressions compound uniquely by identity combinations, influencing legal and policy discourses on . Empirical critiques highlight how this focus fragments coalitions; for instance, surveys post-2016 showed alienating working-class voters, contributing to Democratic electoral losses by prioritizing symbolic issues over material concerns like wage stagnation. Prominent organizations embodying identity-focused leftism include , founded in 2013 after the killing, which mobilized around racial justice but faced scrutiny for decentralized structures amplifying divisive rhetoric, such as demands to "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family." Other groups like the advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, pushing policies on gender transition for minors despite limited long-term outcome data; a 2024 Cass Review in the UK, echoed in U.S. debates, found weak evidence for benefits of blockers, with ideological capture in medical bodies overriding biological sex realities. Cultural leftism manifests in DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, adopted by corporations and governments post-2020 protests, yet studies indicate they correlate with reduced innovation and merit-based hiring; a 2023 analysis noted DEI training often increases bias awareness without behavioral change, while dipped in firms mandating quotas. Critics from within the left, such as historian , argue supplants universalist with tribalism, diluting anti-capitalist efforts by allying with neoliberal elites who co-opt grievances for market-friendly reforms. Empirical data supports backlash: 2020-2022 crime surges in defund-the-police cities like (homicides up 72% in 2020) undermined trust in identity-driven reforms ignoring causal factors like family breakdown over systemic alone. By , polling showed declining support for extreme cultural positions, with Kamala Harris's campaign muting amid voter fatigue, signaling a potential retreat from peak 2010s influence. Sources advancing these views, often from conservative think tanks, counter mainstream media's amplification of identity narratives, which academic bias studies (e.g., 2020 Heterodox Academy reports) attribute to over 80% left-leaning faculty in social sciences, skewing discourse toward unverified models.

Religious and Ethical Variants

The movement, emerging in the late among Protestant clergy, sought to apply Christian principles to address industrial-era social ills such as , child labor, and urban squalor, influencing early 20th-century progressive reforms and elements of American socialism. Key proponent , a Baptist minister, argued in his 1907 work Christianity and the Social Crisis that the kingdom of God required systemic economic justice, inspiring evangelical support for labor rights and anti-monopoly measures before such views waned amid and the rise of fundamentalism. This religious impetus extended to interracial efforts, as seen in Black Social Gospel advocates like Reverdy C. Ransom, who linked biblical ethics to critiques of racial capitalism in the . Jewish immigrants from played a pivotal role in the American labor movement from the 1880s onward, infusing socialist organizing with ethical imperatives drawn from Judaic traditions of justice and communal solidarity, as evidenced by their leadership in garment workers' strikes and the formation of the in 1900. Figures like and the press promoted class struggle alongside cultural preservation, contributing to the Socialist Party's peak vote share of 6% in the 1912 presidential election, though this involvement often clashed with assimilation pressures and antisemitism. Catholic social teaching, articulated in papal encyclicals like (1891), similarly shaped left-leaning labor activism among Irish and , emphasizing worker dignity and , which informed the ' union drives in the 1930s. In the mid-20th century, Black liberation theology, adapted from Latin American models, emphasized scriptural calls for exodus from oppression, influencing civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who integrated ethics with demands for economic redistribution in his 1967 Where Do We Go from Here?. This variant prioritized structural sin over individual salvation, critiquing capitalism's role in racial hierarchy, though it faced Vatican scrutiny for Marxist undertones by the 1980s. Contemporary expressions, often within denominations, advocate for and through groups like the Network of Spiritual Progressives, but empirical data show declining institutional influence, with self-identified progressive Christians comprising under 20% of U.S. religious adherents by 2020 amid broader . Secular ethical variants within the American left draw from , a codified in the 1933 and reaffirmed in 2003, positing reason and as bases for social progress, including wealth redistribution and global equity without supernatural appeals. This framework undergirds progressive policies on welfare and environmentalism, as articulated by the , which views ethical imperatives as evolving through scientific understanding of human interdependence rather than divine command. , emphasizing moral duties to mitigate inequality via , traces to thinkers like , who in Individualism Old and New (1930) fused pragmatist ethics with calls for democratic planning, influencing New Deal-era interventions without religious framing. These non-theistic strains prioritize causal analysis of systemic harms, such as market failures exacerbating poverty, over eschatological narratives.

Electoral Engagement and Governance

Historical Electoral Outcomes

The (SPA) achieved its peak national electoral performance in the early 20th century, with presidential candidate securing 402,283 votes (2.98% of the popular vote) in 1904. In 1908, Debs received 420,793 votes (2.83%). The party's high point came in 1912, when Debs garnered 901,551 votes (6.0%), finishing third behind and . Despite no electoral votes, this represented significant third-party support amid reforms and labor unrest. In 1920, campaigning from prison for opposing U.S. entry into , Debs still polled 919,799 votes (3.42%). Local elections yielded more tangible successes for socialists during this period, with SPA candidates winning mayoral races in over 30 cities by 1912, including , Wisconsin (Emil Seidel, 1910–1912), (George Lunn, 1911–1913), and . From 1901 to 1960, socialists were elected to office in 353 municipalities, often implementing , utility municipalization, and labor protections before facing opposition from business interests and anti-radical sentiment. Milwaukee stood out, electing mayor for 24 years (1916–1940), during which the city expanded and sanitation without tax increases.
YearParty/CandidatePopular VotesPercentage
1904SPA (Debs)402,2832.98%
1908SPA (Debs)420,7932.83%
1912SPA (Debs)901,5516.0%
1920SPA (Debs)919,7993.42%
The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), formed in 1919 amid post-World War I radicalization, fielded presidential candidates with modest results: William Z. Foster received 36,386 votes (0.13%) in 1924 and 103,307 (0.26%) in 1932. Earl Browder polled 80,159 votes (0.17%) in 1936 and 46,251 (0.10%) in 1940, reflecting limited appeal amid the Great Depression and New Deal competition. CPUSA influence waned further post-World War II due to anti-communist purges, though it endorsed Henry Wallace's 1948 Progressive Party bid, which secured 1,157,172 votes (2.38%) but no electoral votes. By the mid-20th century, left-wing parties faced systemic barriers including laws, media hostility, and loyalty oaths, contributing to electoral marginalization. The SPA splintered after over interventionism, while CPUSA suffered from Soviet associations and McCarthy-era repression, reducing both to under 0.1% nationally by the 1950s. Sporadic local victories persisted, such as Frank Zeidler's mayoralty in (1948–1960), but national viability eroded as labor aligned with Democrats.

Modern Party Structures and Victories

The Democratic Party functions as the primary electoral apparatus for much of the American Left, integrating progressive factions within its center-left framework. Its organizational structure centers on the (DNC), established in 1848 as the party's national governing body, which manages fundraising, strategy, and quadrennial conventions for presidential nominations. Complementing the DNC are 50 state parties and over 3,000 local committees, operating with significant autonomy under a model that emphasizes mobilization and primary elections for candidate selection. Within this structure, the progressive wing—often aligned with social democratic priorities—has gained prominence through caucuses like the , which by 2023 included over 100 members advocating policies such as Medicare expansion and aggressive . Key electoral victories for the party's left-leaning elements include Barack Obama's 2008 presidential win, where he captured 365 electoral votes and 52.9% of the popular vote on a platform featuring the Affordable Care Act's passage in 2010, marking the largest expansion of federal healthcare since Medicare. The 2018 midterm elections represented a breakthrough for democratic socialists, with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-endorsed candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez securing upsets in safe Democratic districts, contributing to a net gain of 41 House seats for Democrats. DSA, structured as a member-driven organization with chapters in all 50 states and a 25-member National Political Committee directing national efforts, has since 2016 propelled over 100 socialist-identifying officials into local and state offices through targeted endorsements and fieldwork. Third parties on the left, such as the , maintain federated structures with state affiliates coordinated by the Green National Committee, focusing on ecological and anti-corporate platforms. However, their electoral impact remains marginal; in 2020, Green presidential nominee garnered 407,068 votes (0.3% nationally), with successes confined to isolated local races, such as city council seats in states like and . The 2020 presidential election delivered a Democratic victory with winning 306 electoral votes, bolstered by progressive turnout in urban areas, though subsequent 2022 midterms saw GOP gains eroding some progressive incumbents like DSA-backed . These outcomes underscore the American Left's reliance on Democratic infrastructure for federal gains, with independent left parties struggling against winner-take-all electoral mechanics and ballot access barriers.

Policy Implementation in Office

The New Deal programs enacted under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 onward, including the Works Progress Administration and Social Security, expanded federal spending from 5.9% to nearly 11% of GDP by 1939, aiding recovery from the Great Depression with annual GDP growth averaging about 9% between 1933 and 1937. However, unemployment hovered above 14% until wartime mobilization, and critics contend that wage controls, agricultural restrictions, and cartel-like codes under the National Industrial Recovery Act stifled competition and prolonged the downturn, with some econometric analyses estimating they reduced output by up to 27% in affected sectors. Lyndon B. Johnson's initiatives, launched in 1964, tripled federal health, education, and welfare expenditures to over 15% of the budget by 1970, contributing to a rate decline from 19% to 12.1% by 1969 through programs like Medicare and food stamps. Yet empirical data indicate these fostered , with out-of-wedlock births among black families rising from 24% in 1965 to 72% by 2010 and rates stagnating thereafter despite trillions spent, as incentives discouraged work and family formation. In the domain, progressive district attorneys elected in cities like (, 2018) and (, 2020) implemented policies reducing prosecutions for low-level offenses and cash bail, correlating with a 7% rise in rates post-inauguration according to quasi-experimental studies. Following 2020 "defund the police" cuts in urban areas—such as Minneapolis slashing $8 million from its budget—homicides surged nearly 30% nationwide that year, with cities like Portland and experiencing 83% and 83% increases respectively amid reduced enforcement. trends later declined by 2023-2024 as funding partially restored, underscoring enforcement's role over alternative social spending. Sanctuary city policies, adopted in over 600 jurisdictions by 2023, limit cooperation with federal immigration detainers, leading to releases of individuals with criminal records; analyses link this to elevated reoffense risks, as seen in cases where deportable offenders committed subsequent violent crimes after local non-compliance. While some studies claim lower overall crime in areas, they often conflate with causation and overlook underreporting or specific immigrant-related offenses. Aggregate economic performance has shown higher real GDP growth (3.79% annually vs. 2.60%) and job creation under Democratic presidents since , but this reflects inherited cycles—Democrats often entering office during recoveries—and limited presidential control over or global factors, with left-leaning expansions in regulation and entitlements contributing to rising debt without proportionally reducing inequality.

Key Figures and Intellectual Contributions

Foundational Thinkers and Activists

emerged as a pivotal figure in early American , founding the in 1893 and leading the of 1894, which highlighted labor's struggles against corporate power. In 1901, Debs helped establish the , serving as its presidential candidate in five elections from 1900 to 1920, peaking with nearly one million votes in 1912, or about 6% of the total. His advocacy for and led to his imprisonment under the Espionage Act in 1918 for a speech in , where he criticized and as tools of capitalist exploitation. Debs's emphasis on class solidarity and influenced subsequent labor organizing and left-wing critiques of capitalism's role in perpetuating inequality. Upton Sinclair contributed to the American Left through his muckraking journalism and socialist advocacy, most notably with published in 1906, which exposed unsanitary conditions in Chicago's and the exploitation of immigrant workers. Intended to promote , the novel instead spurred passage of the and Meat Inspection Act in 1906, demonstrating how left-leaning exposés could drive regulatory reforms despite limited direct ideological success. Sinclair ran for in 1934 under the End Poverty in California (EPIC) banner, proposing state-owned factories and farms to combat the , garnering 879,537 votes or 44.1% but losing to the Republican incumbent. His prolific output, including over 90 books, advanced progressive critiques of industrial and inspired later social welfare advocates. A. Philip Randolph shaped the intersection of labor and civil rights within the American Left, organizing the in 1925 as the first successful Black labor union, which secured a contract with the in 1937 after over a decade of strikes and negotiations. As a socialist influenced by the and editor of The Messenger magazine from 1917, Randolph promoted interracial unionism and economic justice, threatening a March on Washington in 1941 that pressured President to issue , banning discrimination in defense industries and creating the . His later efforts, including co-organizing the 1963 March on Washington, underscored the Left's foundational push for linking workers' rights with anti-discrimination policies, though his democratic socialist framework prioritized economic restructuring over purely identity-based reforms. W.E.B. Du Bois advanced left-wing thought on race and economics, joining the Socialist Party in 1912 and later embracing more explicit after , viewing as the root of racial oppression in works like Black Reconstruction in America (1935), which reframed the Civil War era as a led by freed slaves. As a founder of the in 1909, Du Bois's magazine propagated pan-Africanist and socialist ideas, critiquing both liberal reformism and conservative . His shift toward in the 1930s, including support for the Soviet model as an alternative to American racial , influenced Black radical traditions, though his later Communist affiliations drew scrutiny during the . Du Bois's intellectual activism bridged civil rights with class analysis, challenging the American Left to address intersecting oppressions empirically rather than through abstracted egalitarianism.

Mid-20th-Century Leaders

emerged as the preeminent leader of the following ' death in 1926, serving as its standard-bearer in six consecutive presidential campaigns from 1928 to 1948. As a Presbyterian minister turned socialist advocate, Thomas championed , , and opposition to both and , critiquing the as insufficiently radical while supporting and anti-war efforts. His campaigns, though garnering modest vote shares peaking at 884,781 in 1932, influenced public discourse on and kept socialist ideas alive amid the party's decline due to internal splits and the rise of the . A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925—the first major Black labor union—integrated socialist principles with civil rights activism, viewing unionism and socialism as essential to combating racial and economic exploitation. As a self-identified socialist, he edited The Messenger magazine in the 1910s-1920s to promote interracial labor solidarity and ran for on the Socialist ticket in 1920, polling nearly 200,000 votes. Randolph's threat of a March on Washington in 1941 pressured President Roosevelt to issue , banning discrimination in defense industries and establishing the , marking a pivotal federal acknowledgment of Black workers' rights. His later organization of the 1963 March on Washington built on this legacy, though he distanced from communist influences to maintain broad coalitions. Walter Reuther, president of the (UAW) from 1946 to 1970, represented the social-democratic wing of the American labor left, advocating for expansive welfare programs, civil rights, and worker control in industry while purging communists from union ranks during the . Raised in a socialist family influenced by , Reuther led transformative strikes, including the 1937 Flint sit-down that secured UAW recognition at , and pushed the 1950 Treaty of Detroit, which provided cost-of-living adjustments, pensions, and health benefits for over 600,000 workers. His vision extended to national policy, co-founding the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947 to align labor with anti-communist liberalism and supporting the 1964 Civil Rights Act amid UAW-backed voter drives in the South. Reuther's anti-totalitarian stance, forged by experiences in Soviet factories in 1934-1935, positioned him as a bridge between Old Left unionism and mid-century reforms, though critics noted his accommodation to corporate power limited radical change. Michael Harrington, active from the late 1950s, bridged the Old Left to the New through his 1962 book The Other America, which documented persistent poverty affecting 40-50 million Americans and spurred Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty programs, including Medicare and food stamps. As a leader in the Young People's Socialist League and later co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, Harrington critiqued both capitalism's failures and Soviet-style communism, advocating democratic socialism via electoral and grassroots organizing. His influence waned post-1968 amid New Left radicalism, but he helped found the Democratic Socialists of America in 1982, emphasizing poverty's structural causes over cultural explanations.

Contemporary Influencers

Bernie Sanders, an independent U.S. Senator from Vermont since 2007, has significantly shaped the American Left through his advocacy for democratic socialism, emphasizing policies such as Medicare for All and wealth redistribution. His 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns mobilized millions, receiving 13 million primary votes in 2016 and over 26 million support expressions in 2020, thereby pulling the Democratic Party platform leftward on economic inequality and corporate regulation. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, elected to represent in 2018 after defeating incumbent in the primary, exemplifies the rise of younger, digitally savvy progressives. As a leading voice for the [Green New Deal](/page/Green_New Deal)—a proposal for massive government intervention in climate and economy—and co-chair of the , she has amplified left-wing priorities through , amassing over 8 million followers by 2020 and influencing debates on housing as a human right and labor protections. The Squad, an informal alliance of progressive Democrats including Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and formerly Cori Bush, formed in 2019 to advance policies like the abolition of private health insurance and critiques of U.S. foreign aid to Israel. Their influence peaked in pushing party resolutions on inequality but waned after primary losses for Bush and Jamaal Bowman in 2024, attributed partly to opposition from pro-Israel groups, highlighting tensions between ideological purity and electoral viability within the Democratic coalition. Intellectual figures like continue to exert influence through critiques of U.S. and , with his works shaping anti-war since the era protests, though his direct policy impact has diminished amid health issues at age 96 in 2025. , a philosopher and 2024 independent presidential candidate, critiques and empire, drawing on black prophetic tradition to advocate internationalism and moral vision, yet his third-party runs garnered under 1% of votes, underscoring challenges for outsider leftism.

Media, Publications, and Cultural Influence

Historical Outlets

The Appeal to Reason, founded in 1895 by Julius A. Wayland in Girard, Kansas, emerged as one of the most widely circulated socialist newspapers in U.S. history, promoting critiques of industrial capitalism, land monopolies, and political corruption to a primarily Midwestern audience of farmers and workers. By 1906, its weekly circulation exceeded 500,000, amplified by serialized exposés such as Upton Sinclair's (1905–1906), which detailed unsanitary conditions in Chicago's meatpacking plants and spurred federal inspections under the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The paper's advocacy for socialist reforms, including public ownership of utilities, waned after Wayland's suicide in 1912 amid personal scandals and financial strains, with publication ending in 1922 following declining subscriptions during repression of dissent. In New York City's bohemian scene, The Masses debuted in 1911 under Dutch immigrant Piet Vlag as a monthly illustrated socialist magazine aimed at educating workers on art, literature, and politics, evolving under editor (1912–1917) into a platform for radical cartoons and essays denouncing and . Featuring works by artists like and Art Young alongside writers such as Floyd Dell, it attained a circulation of around 20,000 by 1917, but its anti-war illustrations—such as "Conscription" depicting Capitalism, the Church, and courts dragging youth to war—prompted two federal obscenity prosecutions under the , leading to its demise after the U.S. Postal Service revoked mailing privileges. The Communist Party USA's , initially launched as the weekly Worker in in 1921 for party members and trade unionists, transitioned to daily publication in with a New York edition, serving as the official mouthpiece for Marxist-Leninist agitation on labor organizing, racial justice, and . Its peak readership in reached approximately 30,000 amid the , covering events like the trials and advocating alliances, though editorial fidelity to Soviet Comintern directives included uncritical endorsement of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact despite prior anti-fascist rhetoric. Facing FBI scrutiny and membership drops post-World War II, it suspended daily operations in 1958, transitioning to weekly formats before reviving sporadically. Post-Masses vehicles like The Liberator (1918–1924), edited by and funded partly by heiress Jessica Smith, shifted toward more literary with contributions from and Michael Gold, achieving circulations up to 60,000 while grappling with Bolshevik influences. Its successor, New Masses (1926–1948), revived proletarian arts under editors like Joseph Freeman, serializing works and aligning with CPUSA cultural fronts, but internal purges and pressures eroded its influence by the late 1940s. These outlets collectively shaped leftist discourse by prioritizing ideological mobilization over detached journalism, often amplifying class-struggle narratives at the expense of balanced sourcing.

Current Platforms and Narratives

Contemporary platforms of the American Left encompass cable news networks like MSNBC and , which deliver commentary and analysis favoring progressive viewpoints and draw disproportionate trust from Democratic audiences. A June 2025 Pew Research Center study found Democrats 80 percentage points more likely to trust than Republicans, with similar disparities for MSNBC, reflecting their role in shaping left-leaning discourse. Online outlets such as Vox, , , and further amplify these perspectives through articles on policy critiques and activism, often prioritizing interpretive framing over neutral reporting. Independent bias assessments, including the Media Bias Chart updated in July 2025, consistently rate these entities as left-leaning, highlighting systemic deviations from centrist sourcing in mainstream journalism. Dominant narratives promoted via these platforms include characterizations of conservative initiatives, such as , as existential threats to democratic checks and balances, with outlets like the ACLU and depicting it as enabling imperial presidencies despite its origins in standard policy planning by . Another persistent theme frames the as sliding toward under right-wing influence, as evidenced by April 2025 surveys of political scientists cited in reporting, where over 90% of respondents perceived democratic —though such views correlate strongly with respondents' left-leaning affiliations. Economic narratives stress widening inequality as a moral crisis demanding aggressive redistribution, while environmental coverage routinely elevates alarmist projections on climate impacts, often sidelining empirical debates over policy efficacy, as critiqued in bias analyses from . Identity-based narratives, including advocacy for expansive equity measures and critiques of "systemic" barriers, dominate cultural discussions, with progressive media in 2025 emphasizing resistance to rollbacks in diversity initiatives amid post-election shifts. These outlets have also navigated rising left-wing —outnumbering far-right incidents for the first time in over 30 years per October 2025 data—by contextualizing such acts within broader grievances rather than unequivocal condemnation, contrasting with coverage of comparable right-wing events. This selective framing underscores a meta-pattern: while self-described progressive sources prioritize empirical claims on social harms, their institutional alignment with left-wing advocacy introduces credibility challenges, as evidenced by donor influences and editorial patterns documented in media critiques.

Criticisms, Failures, and Controversies

Ideological and Philosophical Flaws

A core philosophical shortcoming in American Left ideology lies in its "anointed vision," which presumes elites and can engineer social outcomes through rational planning while discounting human incentives and trade-offs. critiques this as a failure to prioritize empirical consequences over intentions, noting that left-wing policies often expand state power under the guise of justice, inadvertently fostering dependency and inefficiency. This vision, Sowell contends, ignores historical evidence that unconstrained benevolence leads to coercion, as seen in the left's reluctance to acknowledge how distorts merit-based systems without proportionally advancing underrepresented groups. Economically, sympathy for socialist redistribution within the American Left revives the , where central authorities lack the price signals from private markets to allocate scarce resources efficiently. demonstrated in 1920 that socialism eliminates profit-and-loss mechanisms, rendering impossible the computation of relative scarcities and consumer preferences, a flaw empirically validated by the resource misallocations and shortages in 20th-century socialist experiments. Proponents like , advocating Medicare for All and wealth taxes, overlook how such interventions distort and innovation, as evidenced by slowed GDP growth in high-tax Nordic models post-1990s reforms that retained market elements. Culturally, the Left's embrace of and identity-based hierarchies undermines objective truth-seeking, prioritizing narrative equity over factual inquiry. This manifests in academia's ideological homogeneity, where left-leaning faculty outnumber conservatives by ratios exceeding 12:1 in social sciences, correlating with suppressed and replicated biases in research on topics like inequality. argues this lack of viewpoint diversity impairs causal analysis, as favors systemic blame over individual agency, a pattern confirmed by surveys showing progressive scholars undervaluing conservative moral foundations like loyalty and sanctity. Internally, the American Left exhibits intolerance for debate, preferring orthodoxy to empirical scrutiny, which stifles adaptation and amplifies policy failures. As noted in analyses of progressive movements, this reluctance to confront contradictions—such as equity goals clashing with free speech—echoes historical patterns where ideological purity overrides evidence, contributing to electoral reversals like the Democratic Party's 2020 underperformance among working-class voters due to perceived .

Empirical Policy Shortcomings

Progressive criminal justice reforms implemented in numerous Democrat-led cities around 2020, including reform, reduced prosecutions for non-violent offenses, and budget cuts to police departments under the "defund the police" banner, coincided with sharp increases in . Homicide rates in major U.S. cities rose by an average of 30% from 2019 to 2020, with cities like New York, , and experiencing spikes exceeding 50% in some cases, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data; empirical analyses attribute part of this surge to de-policing, where reduced officer proactive engagement led to measurable upticks in neighborhood-level crime, including assaults and robberies. These policies, often justified as addressing systemic biases, failed to deliver promised reductions in incarceration without corresponding crime control, as clearance rates for s dropped to historic lows around 43% nationally by 2024. Homelessness policies emphasizing "" models—providing permanent without preconditions like sobriety or employment—have yielded poor results despite massive expenditures. In , a stronghold of progressive , the state allocated approximately $24 billion to initiatives from 2019 to 2023, yet the homeless population grew by about 30,000 individuals during that period, with state audits revealing inconsistent tracking of program outcomes and limited evidence of cost-effectiveness. , spending over $1 billion annually by 2024 on similar approaches, saw visible encampments persist and per-person costs exceed $100,000 in some programs, underscoring failures in addressing root causes like crises and through non-coercive measures. Welfare expansions under left-leaning administrations have contributed to rising long-term dependency, reversing declines achieved by reforms that imposed work requirements. By 2021, the share of low-income families dependent on government transfers climbed toward pre-reform levels, with over 50 million Americans receiving means-tested benefits amid $1.1 trillion in annual federal welfare spending; studies indicate that unconditional aid structures discourage employment transitions, perpetuating cycles where recipients remain on programs for years rather than achieving self-sufficiency. In states with expansive safety nets, such as those expanding and food assistance without stringent eligibility checks, labor force participation among able-bodied adults has lagged, with dependency metrics showing intergenerational transmission of reliance. Economic policies favoring high taxation, stringent regulations, and hikes in blue states have constrained growth relative to red states, despite the latter's lower GDP. From 2010 to 2023, Republican-governed states averaged higher job growth and rates below national averages, with GDP expansion outpacing Democrat-led states by margins attributable to lighter regulatory burdens; for instance, and saw population and business influxes, while high-tax states like and New York experienced net outmigration of 1 million residents combined since 2020. These disparities highlight how progressive fiscal approaches, including hikes and environmental mandates, correlate with slower growth in affected regions, even as aggregate GDP benefits from urban concentrations. The American Left has historical associations with violent extremist groups that sought to overthrow societal structures through armed actions, particularly during the and . Organizations emerging from movements, such as the , conducted bombings targeting symbols of American and military power, including the U.S. Capitol on March 1, 1971, the on May 19, 1972, and the State Department, with no fatalities due to prior warnings but explicit intent to incite revolution against perceived imperialism. Similarly, the (SLA), a Marxist-Leninist group, assassinated Oakland school superintendent on November 6, 1973, using cyanide-laced bullets, and kidnapped publishing heiress on February 4, 1974, leading to her coerced participation in a on April 15, 1974, that resulted in a civilian death. These acts, documented in federal investigations, reflected ideological commitments to urban guerrilla warfare inspired by figures like and , with over 2,000 bombings attributed to left-wing extremists between 1970 and 1983 according to Department of Homeland Security analyses of terrorism patterns. In contemporary contexts, anarchist and antifa-aligned networks have engaged in organized violence, often under the banner of anti-fascist or activism. During 2020 demonstrations in , over 100 consecutive nights of unrest involved attacks on federal buildings, with rioters using commercial fireworks, lasers, and Molotov cocktails against , leading to federal charges against 74 individuals for crimes including and . The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) classifies antifa as employing violence primarily in ideological clashes at protests, contributing to a rise in left-wing attacks that accounted for 25% of domestic terrorist incidents from 1994 to 2020, though with fewer fatalities than right-wing counterparts. Federal assessments, including from the FBI and DHS, identify anarchist violent extremists (AVEs) as presenting persistent threats through property destruction and targeted assaults, with incidents like the 2019 attack on an facility in , involving and gunfire. The Black Lives Matter-linked unrest amplified these patterns, with riots in over 140 cities causing an estimated $1-2 billion in insured —the costliest in U.S. history—and resulting in at least 25 deaths amid widespread , , and assaults. The Department of Justice pursued over 300 federal cases for violent acts during these events, including interstate travel to incite riots and destruction of federal property, often tied to decentralized networks promoting anti-police narratives. While mainstream left organizations distanced from explicit violence, empirical data from CSIS indicates that left-wing surged post-2016, comprising 40 incidents in alone, driven by opposition to perceived systemic and enabled by lax local responses in progressive jurisdictions. These links underscore a recurring causal thread: ideological absolutism fostering tolerance for or rationalization of when aligned with progressive goals, as critiqued in peer-reviewed analyses comparing ideological violence.

Cultural and Societal Disruptions

The adoption of laws, beginning with California's legislation and spreading nationwide by the mid-1970s, correlated with a sharp rise in divorce rates, from 2.2 per 1,000 population in 1960 to a peak of 5.3 in 1981, facilitating easier marital dissolution without proving fault and contributing to family instability. These reforms, advanced by progressive feminists emphasizing individual autonomy over traditional marital obligations, have been linked to increased , with nearly 50% of divorcing parents with children falling into post-divorce, and higher rates of psychological distress among affected youth. Single-mother households, which rose alongside feminist-driven shifts away from norms, exhibit poverty rates of 36.5%, compared to 7.5% for married-couple families, exacerbating intergenerational economic disadvantage and social fragmentation. Identity politics, promoted by left-leaning academics and activists since the , has heightened societal divisions by rendering cultural and ethnic cleavages more salient, fostering political conflict and eroding interpersonal trust, as evidenced by models showing policy disputes amplifying group-based animosities. This approach correlates with declining social cohesion, with U.S. trust in others plummeting from 58% in 1972 to 30% by 2018, partly attributable to partisan polarization intensified by identity-framed narratives that prioritize group grievances over shared civic bonds. , a mechanism of social enforcement often amplified through left-dominated online platforms and campuses, has disrupted public discourse, with 38% of viewing call-outs as punitive rather than accountability, leading to widespread and institutional disruptions like event cancellations in higher education. In education, the integration of frameworks has shifted focus from empirical drivers of achievement—such as family stability and skill-building—to racial narratives, distracting from underperformance where non-racial factors like parental involvement explain more variance in outcomes than systemic claims. Similarly, corporate (DEI) mandates, pushed by progressive corporate and activist coalitions, frequently yield null or counterproductive results, with mandatory training showing no improvement in minority representation and a 4% drop in white female management shares over five years, while sparking backlash, morale declines, and legal challenges that undermine operational cohesion. These initiatives, often decoupled from merit-based criteria, have contributed to perceptions of reverse discrimination and efficiency losses, as seen in post-controversy dips in employee ratings and talent retention.

Overall Impact and Legacy

Claimed Achievements with Evidence

The American Left has claimed credit for establishing foundational social welfare programs that alleviated among vulnerable populations. The of 1935, championed by progressive reformers and enacted under President , introduced old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, which empirical analyses attribute with substantially reducing elderly rates. Prior to its implementation, nearly half of Americans over 65 lived in ; by the late , Social Security benefits lifted approximately 17 million seniors above the poverty line annually, accounting for a 75% reduction in the elderly poverty rate. A $1,000 increase in benefits correlates with a 2-3 drop in elderly , according to econometric studies adjusting for other factors. Labor protections represent another asserted success, with the Left advocating for and workplace standards through measures like the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. This legislation facilitated union growth, leading to higher wages and improved conditions; unionized workers earn 10-15% more than comparable non-union peers, with evidence from longitudinal surveys showing reduced income inequality and better health benefits coverage. Union density peaked at around 35% of the workforce post-World War II, correlating with wage premiums particularly for less-skilled employees and safer working environments via . In civil rights, left-leaning activists and organizations contributed to pressure for landmark legislation, including the , which prohibited discrimination in employment and public accommodations. Post-enactment data indicate a sharp rise in real wages for employed Black men, especially in states covered by subsequent voting rights enforcement, alongside desegregation of public facilities that expanded access for minorities. The Act's Title VII enforcement reduced employment disparities, with federal oversight enabling millions to enter previously barred sectors, though outcomes varied by region and enforcement rigor. Environmental regulations, advanced by progressive advocacy, include the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and the Clean Air Act amendments, which curtailed pollutants like lead and . EPA data show ambient lead levels dropped over 90% from 1980 to the present, correlating with public health gains such as reduced childhood blood cases by millions annually. The Clean Water Act of 1972 improved water quality, restoring fishable and swimmable conditions in thousands of impaired waterways, with measurable declines in industrial effluents. These efforts, while facing implementation challenges, provided verifiable reductions in environmental hazards attributable to federal standards pushed by Left coalitions.

Unintended Consequences and Causal Analysis

Policies promoting expansive welfare benefits, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) prior to 1996 reforms, aimed to alleviate but empirically contributed to higher rates of single motherhood and long-term dependency by reducing economic incentives for marriage and . The 1965 Moynihan Report documented a "tangle of pathology" in black families, linking welfare availability to family breakdown, with out-of-wedlock births rising from 24% in 1965 to over 70% by the 2010s among this demographic, patterns that persisted despite economic improvements. Causal mechanisms include benefit structures that often exceeded low-wage earnings, creating work disincentives, as subsequent reforms mandating work requirements led to a 60% drop in caseloads and net reductions through increased . In , progressive advocacy for "defund the police" following protests resulted in budget cuts and staffing shortages in major cities, coinciding with a sharp spike—up approximately 30% nationally in and 44% in sampled major cities from to —before partial reversals. Causal analysis attributes this to diminished deterrence from fewer patrols and prosecutions; cities implementing defunding experienced outsized crime increases relative to non-defunding peers, as reduced police presence allowed opportunistic criminality to flourish amid the "" of de-policing. Affirmative action in higher education, intended to boost minority representation, has produced mismatch effects where admitted students with credentials below institutional medians face higher attrition and lower graduation rates due to unpreparedness for rigorous curricula. Empirical reviews confirm that black and Hispanic beneficiaries at selective schools underperform peers at less selective institutions, with dropout rates exceeding 50% in some cases, as the academic gap exacerbates isolation and failure rather than fostering success. Emphasis on identity-based within left-leaning movements, while seeking equity, has causally undermined social cohesion by prioritizing group grievances over universal norms, fostering distrust and polarization as evidenced by declining interpersonal trust metrics and rising affective partisanship since the . This fragmentation incentivizes zero-sum competition among subgroups, diverting focus from class-based to ethnic or ideological , with surveys showing heightened perceptions of societal division correlating with identity-framed .

Comparative Global Context

The American Left, operating within the constraints of the ' , contrasts with left-wing movements in multiparty parliamentary democracies like those in , where social democratic and socialist parties have historically commanded significant electoral support independent of centrist coalitions. In , parties such as Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) or Sweden's Social Democrats have governed through policies emphasizing expansive welfare states, universal healthcare, and strong labor unions, often achieving vote shares exceeding 30% in national elections during the postwar era; for instance, the SPD secured 25.7% in the before entering a coalition. By contrast, explicitly socialist or far-left parties in the U.S., such as the , hold marginal influence, with no representation in beyond a handful of sympathetic Democrats, reflecting whereby favors broad-tent parties like the Democrats, which blend liberal economics with cultural progressivism rather than class-based redistribution. Economically, the American Left prioritizes regulated capitalism and incremental reforms over the comprehensive nationalization or high-tax egalitarianism common in European social democracy, where top marginal income tax rates often exceed 50% and public spending on social protection averages 25-30% of GDP in Nordic countries. U.S. Democrats have advocated for policies like the Affordable Care Act, which expanded private insurance coverage to 20 million more Americans by 2016 without achieving single-payer universality, in part due to federalism and cultural aversion to state dependency; this stands apart from Europe's entrenched models, where even declining social democrats maintain robust safety nets amid challenges like aging populations and immigration pressures. Culturally, however, the American Left has pioneered identity-focused agendas—emphasizing equity across race, gender, and sexuality—that exceed the pragmatic multiculturalism of most European counterparts, whose left parties have moderated on social issues to retain working-class voters wary of rapid demographic shifts. In a broader global context, the American Left diverges from Latin American variants, which often fuse with and , as seen in Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution under , where left-wing governance from 1999 led to economic collapse with GDP contracting 75% from 2013 to 2021 amid hyperinflation exceeding 1 million percent in 2018, highlighting risks of over-reliance on state control absent U.S.-style checks. Asian left-wing movements, such as India's or Japan's Social Democratic Party, remain electorally weak, polling under 5% in recent cycles, underscoring the U.S. Left's relative institutional embedding within a dominant party despite lacking the revolutionary zeal of historical Marxist-Leninist groups elsewhere. This positioning enables cultural export via media and academia but limits radical economic experimentation, fostering a hybrid that prioritizes individual rights and market mechanisms over prevalent in global socialist traditions.

References

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