Why progressives are so busy eating themselves alive
Elections are less than five months away and Democrats have a lot of ground to make up. But progressives are locked in drag-out internal fights.
As the midterms approach and discussions about Roe v. Wade and gun control dominate the news, progressive nonprofits should be busier than ever. Now’s the time to organize activists, knock on doors and create viral social media campaigns.
The good news for Democrats is that these nonprofits are very busy.
The bad news: They’re busy fighting against themselves.
Ryan Grim, a progressive reporter for The Intercept, reported on these miniature civil wars in a 10,000-word piece titled “Elephants in the Zoom.” Instead of moving the electorate to the left, many staff members are preoccupied with purging executives and co-workers who they don’t think are liberal enough.
The premier research organization for abortion rights, the Guttmacher Institute, has been sidelined for two years with mutual recriminations stemming from what was considered by some a half-hearted effort to promote Black Lives Matter.
“If your reproductive justice organization isn’t Black and brown it’s white supremacy in heels co-opting a WOC movement,” blared one dissent in an Instagram story. The release of the Alito draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade hasn’t distracted Guttmacher employees from their internal purge.
According to Grim, “Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and other reproductive health organizations had similarly been locked in knockdown, drag-out fights between competing factions of their organizations.”
It’s not just pro-choice groups, but also the Sierra Club, ACLU, Movement for Black Lives and Human Rights Campaign,
among others. It’s a nonprofit pandemic.
One organization leader finally quit but still kept his quotes anonymous. “My last nine months, I was spending 90 to 95 percent of my time on internal strife,” he told Grim. “It’s been huge, particularly over the last year and a half or so, the ability for groups to focus on their mission, whether it’s reproductive justice, or jobs, or fighting climate change.”
None of this is new, of course. The French Revolution was launched by disaffected aristocrats wanting to reform their stodgy monarchy. Soon, a group of the bourgeoisie decided those modest goals weren’t sufficient, so they formed the Jacobin Club to steer France further to the left.
Some of the Jacobins then decided the club wasn’t progressive enough, brought in the lower classes, and formed the Montagnards to steer the movement even further afield. They empowered
Maximilien Robespierre to launch the Reign of Terror ... before a group of Montagnards decided he was still too wishy-washy and formed the Hébertists.
Conservatives have been caught in similar purity loops. The fights between the Tea Party and “Republicans-inName-Only” is one example, and MAGA vs. “Never Trump” battles continue today.
Like the mythical Ouroboros, the snake keeps munching away on its own tail, never glancing around to see its party’s fortunes evaporate. The Trump years unified the left into a sort of resistance fever. It’s a grand time sticking it to The Man until the moment when The Man is you.
In Grim’s piece, one senior progressive congressional staffer (anonymous, of course) couldn’t hide his frustration. “There are wins to be had between now and the next couple months that could
change the country forever, and folks are focused on stuff that has no theory of change for even getting to the House floor for a vote.”
“I’m not saying it’s a right-wing plot,” another executive chimed in, “because we are incredibly good at doing ourselves in, but – if you tried – you couldn’t conceive of a better right-wing plot to paralyze progressive leaders.”
The midterms are less than five months away and Democrats have a lot of ground to make up. But progressives are too busy rolling tumbrels through their cubicles and admiring their own tails.
If November goes as expected, the left won’t need to worry about new legislation distracting them from their main job: eating themselves alive.