An Autopsy of the Left in Zombie-Land USA

Joe Biden, the oldest and perhaps most senile president ever to hold the office is stumbling into a reelection catastrophe worse than that of Jimmy Carter 1980 or perhaps more fittingly Lynden B. Johnson’s election of 1968. I mention ‘68 because there exists a very real chance Biden never becomes the nominee, due to his continual gaffes, verbal and memory fumbles, and his ever decreasing popularity amongst the public. There really is a Humphrey factor that could be Dean Philips, Gavin Newson, or even Kamala Harris. All of whom, like Humphrey will lose to the Republicans. Why? Because the Democratic Party has essentially run on nothing since 2016 other than not being big bad evil Republicans.

Where is the left amongst all this? Dead. Consumed and repurposed into the liberal-left the Democratic Party and associated apparatuses [Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Black Lives Matter (BLM), Unions, and so forth]. It is not that these “organizations” lack revolutionary potential, no that potential rests in all of the oppressed wherever they are found, but that these structures have been historically hijacked (in the case of unions) or are mere new-left structures (protest movements) — used to distract and redirect disaffected left-liberals back into the liberal capitalist party — the “Democratic” Party. Bernie Sanders and his 2016 & 2020 campaigns served the same purpose. After all, Sanders was no revolutionary and endorsed both Clinton & Biden, campaigning more vigorously for them both than either ever did for themselves (queue Hillary ditching Michigan). Today Sanders cannot even bring himself to support a ceasefire in the ongoing Palestinian conflict and widening war in the Middle East. At least UAW president Shawn Fein has the political awareness to see that the struggle for the oppressed as an international one, and called for a ceasefire — though endorsed Biden for President.

Bernie Sanders rapidly lost political and cultural relevance immediately after dropping out in 2020 and with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bernie spent the pandemic as the strongest advocate for progressive policies in the U.S. — $2,000 a month checks — still radically inadequate policies. Just like his Medicare-For-All, a policy I would like to see because it’s better than nothing — but here in lies the reality: Bernie Sanders is no socialist, opting instead to kill Rosa Luxembourg and become a water-boy for capitalism. Revolution or Reform? Bernie chooses reform and weak ones at that. Medicare-For-All would solve the issue of access in healthcare. Everyone, under the plan, would have access to a doctor for free. The doctors, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and medical technologies would all remain private for-profit markets that would continue to feed off of sick Americans. The capitalist societal drive to both, profit off of an ever increasingly ill populace, and to increase illness amongst that population, would not reverse but continue to grow exponentially. The unresolved defects of the government program exacerbated by the profit motive would leave the program vulnerable to attacks, eventually resulting in erosion and repeal. That is history. And here we are today, defunded and successfully eroded public institutions — some now corporations — “free” market enterprise state-capitalist bureaucracy. Reagan and Thatcher would be proud. Society has been destroyed and the individual — a lost zombie fulfilled only by spectacle and disassociation.

Where is the left? Does it live on in the commentariat through Podcasts, Substack, Twitter, or Instagram Pages? Perhaps the ghosts and whispers of the failed new-left movements and academics? This liberal-left and its associated apparatuses are the floundering structures of what remains of the new-left. Bernie Sanders and his 2016 campaign were credited for “awakening” a generation, and inspiring people to strive for “a future to believe in.” The awakening occurred primarily amongst liberals themselves — however there exists a minority like myself who followed Bernie’s “socialism” to its natural conclusion, and thus reject reformism. Liberal-leftists have in recent times been reinvigorated by the Sanders campaigns as well as the BLM movement. To get a taste of left-liberals, one simply needs to attend their local DSA chapter to see what utter dissociative behavior plagues these liberals cosplaying as “leftists.” The spaces are of course predominantly white, but more importantly predominantly liberal, academic, and identity-politics based. An identity politics based in politics as sport, politics as a card game, politics for fun, and politics as identity itself. The liberal-left is “left” in the same way the academic professional managerial types lined up behind Elizabeth Warren in 2020, the are policy wonks. They are motivated by the fact that the left is right on the issues. They desire a more effective and efficient bureaucracy, and see a dire need for reform. They have not read theory directly usually, though they may have claimed to (more disassociate behavior). For them, Marxist-Leninist states like Cuba or China (states with histories of successful left revolutions) are disastrous dictatorships — simply regurgitating state propaganda funneled by the U.S. media apparatus, lacking any knowledge of those countries or their respective histories or even contemporary conditions. The liberal-left identifies as “socialist,” in the same way of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC). The “socialism” they speak of is dissociative because it is in fact a capitalist one (social democratic). The disassociation here, is that social democracy was a historical movement against socialism opting for reformism. The only reason Europe has or had (thanks to neoliberal reforms) a social democratic state of free healthcare and education is because of socialism, the USSR, and the eastern soviet block — all of whom had free healthcare, education, and more for their people. Additionally the liberal-left may identify as a variety of political identities; anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, anarcho-communist, and so on. These are again, mere identities more so than any real ideological frameworks. These individuals may have read theory and identify with the works they have read, but they have no real organization nor political party nor do they engage in any real action to suggest their identities as anything more than just that — identities. I myself am implicated here as a self described communist, though I would readily admit that I am not a card carrying member and have much more reading to do.

As for the organized left which has previously been captured by the Democratic Party, the renewed calls and even successful campaigns for unionization and organization are the only promising signs a reinvigorated left can rise again. We may take credence in the election and leadership of Shawn Fein as promising. Though Fein and the UAW leadership undemocratically endorsed the “Democratic” Party presumptive candidate before Biden has even won or accepted the nomination, Fein is ultimately a Bernie Sanders type figure. One who is the most “left” we’ve seen in some time. Bernie and Fein we should take as signs of a shifting reality beneath our feet rather than leaders of movements, which Bernie so obviously was never capable of being. Now is a time to organize and take back unions from the grasp of liberal capitalist capture, but also to recall our history and to reaffirm the call for revolution — not reform.

Amongst the rubble of the “left” exists post-left tendencies that are filled with the disappointments and failures of the Bernie Sanders campaigns, as well as disaffection from the liberal-left’s COVID-19 pandemic responses. It is being expressed through anti-war, anti-authoritarian, and counter-cultural sentiments — even so called “MAGA Communism.” The failures of any coherent leftist program or ideological framework has left otherwise disaffected, oppressed, and potentially revolutionary subjects bare to reactionary forces. Forces that aim to rightfully criticize the liberal-left, but ultimately serve to funnel reaction towards Nazism and a desire to appeal to the masses (the normies). MAGA communism targets trans people and leans in to the reactionary right’s anti-queer “they’re indoctrinating and preying on your children” narrative. It is completely disassociated from the real East-German radical queer history and the reality that the literal Marxist-Leninist state of Cuba has the most pro queer pro trans laws in the world as of today. A movement for socialism must always stand for the liberation of all the oppressed peoples of the world, not seek opportunistic reactionary solutions or follow the current capitalist political forces towards rightist ideals.

The “left” is dead, and what remains of the liberal-left as well as the post-left are stagnations and entrapments in their unimaginative capitalist thinkings best illustrated and understood by Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. Is there no alternative? I find myself running up against capitalism every moment of everyday. Resistance and revolution are in the present. My 24 hour day is controlled and divided by what? By whom? We have to work to survive. Most of us 8 hours, potentially more. And the remaining 16 are for sleep and everything else one has to do, including getting ready for work, our work break, and anything else we want or have to do to partake in society and culture. There is simply no time to live — or fulfill one’s unique potential. The culture itself is nauseating. Fisher rightfully points out in his Capitalist Realism how contemporary music is often unimaginative and uninspiring, repeating the same movements and sounds of the 60’s 70’s and 80’s — resulting in music that all sounds virtually the same. Sports are mundane and perpetually reoccurring. Award shows. Celebrity culture. Television and movies, all owned by Disney and affiliates have destroyed most artistic expression in those mediums. Fashion and style, again all a perpetual repeat and mismatching of previous eras. There is no passion and very little artistic drive in our Zombieland USA.

There exists a deep and profound dissociation throughout American life and culture. A dissociation at work in order to work, to deal with the trauma of management. A dissociation of mind from body, to deal with the management of the body — to deny and control bodily functions and desires: touch, sex, shitting, pissing, eating, walking, using the body. A dissociation with food, food reduced to mere calories. A repression of our desire and evolutionary need for whole plant foods, replaced instead with highly processed foods lined with the drugs of sugar, salt, and fat. A dissociation from our trash and waste, out of site out of mind — as the U.S. is rapidly approaching full-capacity in its landfills. We dissociate as a form of relaxation, we put on the television and consume zombie-cultural material — void of life and void of meaning. We drink alcohol — a class 1 carcinogen (meaning we know it causes cancer) — to relax or have fun. We continuously poison ourselves as a means to dissociate from the present conditions as well as the human desires within ourselves. But the present is where the revolution lies. The contradiction — the individual must manage/deny one’s own humanity in order to operate in capitalist society, the same system one is compelled to perpetually disassociate from. The revolutionary thus calls on themselves and their comrades to resist dissociation and reconnect with who they really are, their human desires, and what prevents them from fully realizing themselves and their humanity — capitalism.

A renewed left, calls upon all of the oppressed to wake up to their present reality. A humanity denied, zombie-land vs. a humanity invigorated by its nature and desire for connection and purpose. But we must start here, with all of the dissociations of the contemporary. By the time we are adults we have spent most of our time denying our true nature — ourselves — to get on with “life.” It’s time to get on with revolutionizing the way we relate to the contemporary, through everyday activities. Not by being more normie or making left thought more easily digestible by coating it in sugar, capitalist imagery, or ideals. The left must summon humanity to find their nature and where it is denied. Capitalism has made a zoo out of us all, and the conditions are ripe for resistance and revolution.