^^Horseshoe theory that one for me, please.
There is a theory in political science called “horseshoe theory.” This theory posits that if you go far enough “left” or “right” on the political spectrum, the extremes will start to resemble each other more than they resemble the center. This theory was lent a lot of theoretical credence by Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. Mass mobilization of supporters and co-optation or destruction of civil society, and total control by The State, are seen as key factors of both the far-left and the far-right.
This is a surface-level analysis of politics that has nothing to do with Marxism. It is merely descriptive – both fascism and Communism are repressive to domestic political dissent, territorially aggressive, and entail mass mobilization of the population into a common political project, whether that’s ultra nationalism or the destruction of class society itself.
Work from popular historians such as Jung Chang and John Halliday, Anne Applebaum, and, in previous generations, Robert Pipes and Robert Conquest reinforced this view. Before it was just Hitler, but now it’s Hitler and Stalin and Mao who sit at the top of the pantheon of evildoers.
It’s notable that Hitler directly ordered the extermination of entire groups of people, like the Roma people and Jewish people, whereas Stalin and Mao’s body count largely comes from famines that happened in already poor and underdeveloped countries while they were in charge. Both Russia and China had had horrific famines before Communism, but nobody imputes those deaths to the imperial dynasties of the day. Mao supposedly killed millions all by himself, just by being Very Evil, during the famine and political upheaval of early to mid twentieth China, but nobody has identified the Xianfeng emperor as one of the great Monsters of History for his role in the 20-30 million deaths that took place during his reign.
It’s also notable that the famines which took place under Stalin and Mao were the last mass casualty famines of their respective countries – because Stalin and Mao, far from being psychotic mass butchers, led Communist movements that wanted the famines in their impoverished countries to stop, and took active measures to prevent them from happening again. Romanov Russia and Qing dynasty China had periodic famines as their technologically primitive political economies reached their geographical limits, with no prospect of them coming to an end anytime soon.
Another key difference – if you owned a business in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, you were safe to keep your wealth, and could even add to it as the Nazi party destroyed the independent trade union movement, provided of course that you were not Jewish. By contrast, the entire property of Russia’s capitalist class was taken over by the state after the Bolsheviks came to power.
One political project, the far right, entails the mass destruction of groups of people, the other, the far left, entails the mass destruction of social classes. One, the far right, necessarily entails the mass murder of human beings based on their nationality, the other, the far left, does not. One political project, the far left, necessarily entails the destruction of a class society based on property rights, the other, the far right, preserves it. Observing that both political movements involve a heavy state apparatus, secret police, strong party structure and mass mobilization of ordinary people, and concluding that they have a lot in common, is just like seeing that whales have fins and live in the ocean and concluding that they are another species of fish.
Horseshoe theory warps our understanding of 20th century European politics. It also warps our understanding of contemporary American politics.
A lot of observers look at the success of the Goldwater right, Ronald Reagan, the Gingrich Congress, and, finally, the Tea Party in pushing the Republican party to the political right, and conclude that the DSA can do something similar to the Democratic party.
This assumes that the left wings and right wings of the Overton Window in American politics have fundamental similarities that just aren’t there.
Creating a social democratic state along the lines of Scandinavia, like the DSA dreams of doing, would require big increases in taxation for America’s financial speculators, retail giants and industrialists.
Creating a Christian theocratic state with a radically libertarian economy that essentially enslaves workers (and entire towns) to powerful industrialist bosses, does just the opposite of that. It would entail super-profits for America’s capitalist class.
This is why the heads of powerful companies have, for decades, donated to lobbying groups, libertarian academic circles, and far-right activist groups, and even more important, created an entire political-media ecosystem to keep radical right wing politics mainstream in America. Resources matter, a lot, and there’s a reason why no such comparable infrastructure exists for the left in the United States. This can’t be crowdfunded either, unless DSA-style politicians start to actually deliver on their promises in a way that makes working-class Americans want to donate en masse. I won’t hold my breath on that.
The Democratic and Republican parties rely on the same wealthy donors to fund elections and keep armies of political consultants and media types employed. In fact, many donors even donate to both political parties, just to hedge their bets. The parties might both be amenable to playing ball, but their activist bases are meaningfully different. Who threatens their outlandish power more: a group of religious fundamentalists who want to help them do whatever they want, or a group of activists who want to expropriate more of their wealth? This opens up a rift between the donor base and the activist base in the Democratic party when no such rift exists in the Republican party.
The DSA, however, is both unable and unwilling to take advantage of this rift within the Democratic party. A parasite relies on its host, and DSA’s entire existence revolves around an entryist strategy that would parasitize the Democratic party. Every wave of DSA recruitment, either with Bernie, AOC, or now, Mamdani, was directly caused by a Democratic Party Primary that shook out unexpectedly in the DSA candidates’ favor. Without the Democrats, the DSA wouldn’t even have a habitat within which to stay relevant and controversial.
The Democratic Party, as it stands today (it has had many, very different, incarnations) is a loosely affiliated conglomeration: vast armies of political consultants, lobbyists, and journalists, donor networks, media figures, and yes, even politicians who play musical chairs through lucrative careers in public “service.” The strong molecular bonds between these groups is what gives the party its structure and coherence.
Would they dissolve these molecular bonds in an acid bath of vague “solidarity” in order to do right by the majority of Americans? Quite simply, no. Look no further than the tepid bank regulations and giveaways to the insurance industry during the first term of the Obama years, and virtually the entire party leadership’s violent rejection of Bernie Sanders’ inspiring 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Real policy to help ordinary Americans would eat into the donor class’ superprofits, and suddenly many political consultants, lobbyists, and general hangers-on who work within the Democratic party would be out of a job.
The DSA, by design due to its deeply McCarthyist – ahem, I meant to say “anti-authoritarian” – leanings, also lacks a central leadership structure, the kind of centralized leadership that would be required to rouse the organization out of its comfortable complacency as an opposition within the Democratic Party, and into a new era of political danger and opportunity. Why risk your NGO or teaching job when you could just wait another few years and wait for another charismatic Mamdani or AOC figure to zap some life back into your organization’s limp flesh?
The DSA, like other activist organizations, still works to elect Democrats, at the end of the day, and so politically, they are a non-entity with no bargaining power. Everything they do is a bluff.
Look no further than the “uncommitted” movement. This movement sought to bring Democrats to their senses on the genocide in Gaza, by making it clear that the party was hurting its own chances before it was too late. Well, surprise surprise, the Democratic party did not come to its senses. Uncommitted was revealed as a paper tiger when they refused to punish the Democrats at the ballot box in any coordinated way. Worse, after the election went to Trump, their messaging amounted to: “Don’t blame us, we’re good Democrats and didn’t cost Kamala the election!” If they were serious about making the Democrats change their behavior like they claimed to be, they would have said, “Yes, we cost Kamala the election, and we’ll do it again to the next Democratic candidate unless the party changes its stance on Gaza.”
Ultimately, all “progressive” movements have been captured by the Democratic party and, by extension, have been captured by moneyed interests, in a similar fashion, despite their grandiose rhetoric. This is why they deliver nothing, which in turn is why progressive policies are incredibly popular while progressive politicians themselves remain unpopular, nationally speaking. Voters would rather get a small piece of the graft for their own communities from a James Clyburn than empty promises from a Bernie Sanders. It’s better than nothing.
Horseshoe theory, then, is just as useless when applied to US politics today as it is when applied to 20th century history. The activist base of one party (the pathetic “far left” of our nation’s Overton Window) has been thoroughly captured and tamed, while the activist base of the other political party is free to run wild, since its interests aligned with the propertied class’s from the start.
For all the attention and hubbub DSA has generated nationally, mostly just from the shock value of conventional centrist candidates calling themselves “socialists” (Zohran’s policies for NYC would have been that of a moderate Democratic mayor in the pre-Reagan era), they are all thunder and no lightning. This won’t go anywhere, and it can’t, because horseshoe theory is nonsense and no left wing group can replicate what the Tea Party pulled off 15 years ago. It will take leaders of sterner stuff and greater originality to actually move the American left forward.