Moving the democratic and Republican parties left has happened more recently than a third party winning national prominence.
Both Democrats and Republicans moved left during the progressive era, 1890’s to 1916. The Democrats stayed there for decades while the Republicans moved right over the course of the new deal. A third party hasn’t gained prominence since the Republican party came on the scene in the 1850’s.
You didn’t connect that to the will of the voters, though. Two important factors:
The US took a “progressive nationalist” stance following World War I, leveraging its income from the inter-ally debts it levied during the war in order to bleed Europe dry for its own gain.
The historic rise of the Soviet Union presented the world with an alternative to Capitalism, and as a consequence many Capitalist states began making concessions to their working class in order to pour some water over the rising revolutionary fire.
In neither case was the progressive shift due to the will of the voters, but the ruling class.
What was important was not whether or not people voted for “progressives” or voted in larger quantities for the DNC. What mattered was growing Communist sympathies and labor organization. The “inputs” that drove the “outputs” were entirely disconnected from the bounds of electoralism, but labor organizing.
That’s why I say there’s no evidence the DNC can be moved left. The progressive movements were only at the behest of Capital, not the workers, because Capital feared for the usurption of its ruling status.
Moving the democratic and Republican parties left has happened more recently than a third party winning national prominence.
Both Democrats and Republicans moved left during the progressive era, 1890’s to 1916. The Democrats stayed there for decades while the Republicans moved right over the course of the new deal. A third party hasn’t gained prominence since the Republican party came on the scene in the 1850’s.
You didn’t connect that to the will of the voters, though. Two important factors:
The US took a “progressive nationalist” stance following World War I, leveraging its income from the inter-ally debts it levied during the war in order to bleed Europe dry for its own gain.
The historic rise of the Soviet Union presented the world with an alternative to Capitalism, and as a consequence many Capitalist states began making concessions to their working class in order to pour some water over the rising revolutionary fire.
In neither case was the progressive shift due to the will of the voters, but the ruling class.
You just said the concessions were to head off the growth of revolutionary fire. What is that but responding to the will of voters?
What was important was not whether or not people voted for “progressives” or voted in larger quantities for the DNC. What mattered was growing Communist sympathies and labor organization. The “inputs” that drove the “outputs” were entirely disconnected from the bounds of electoralism, but labor organizing.
That’s why I say there’s no evidence the DNC can be moved left. The progressive movements were only at the behest of Capital, not the workers, because Capital feared for the usurption of its ruling status.