Three Visions for Leftism

The ghost of leftism past rears its head with three recent news stories

The Democrat’s recent defeat by the MAGA right has left their partisans scrambling to figure out what went wrong. Two main theories have floated to the surface: one, they lost their souls to milquetoast centrism, or two, they lost their sanity to wild-eyed wokeism. With this binary analysis, commentators have failed to appreciate the famous ideological diversity of the left, which includes Stalinism, Trotskyism, Third Way, social democrat, syndicalism—the list goes on.

Meanwhile on the ground, the public is reacting to three recent news events, each suggesting a different possible (but by no means comprehensive) way forward for the left.

Direction 1: Sclerotic Establishment Power

Case Study: The Hunter Biden Pardon

On December 1^st, 2024, US president Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for any and all crimes he may or may not have committed over the previous eleven years. This includes the gun and tax evasion charges for which he was under trial, as well as potentially using his father’s position to curry financial favors while working at Burisma.

We can gloss over the sordid details (crack cocaine, corruption, “the Weed Slut”). Hunter Biden’s vibe is clear (gross), but what does this say about the larger Democrat-qua-Biden vibe?

One might draw a historical parallel between contemporary Democrats and the late Soviet leadership. In the last few decades of the Soviet Union, the entire bureaucracy was riddled with corruption, infecting basic operations of the economy and government.

Let’s take a look at Galina, daughter of Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from the 60s to the 80s. Like Hunter, she cavorted with criminals and influencers, including a circus clown who was also a diamond smuggler (the late Soviet era was a vibe). Unlike Hunter, Galina’s father enjoyed a state controlled press, and was able to keep her activities secret. Hunter has no such official protection, but leading up to the 2020 election, Twitter, Facebook and the mainstream media suppressed the story of his incriminating laptop, protecting his name during his father’s crucial election campaign.

The Democratic party shares another key parallel with the late-Soviet era Communist party: both are full of old people. After Brezhnev’s rule, which lasted until his death at the age of 74, the party cycled through a series of elderly leaders in poor health. The “gerontocracy” was mocked by the Soviet population, who referred to the Politburo as a “retirement home” or “cemetery.” A preponderance of old dudes symbolize the overall stagnancy of a system, and suggests a party that prioritizes loyalty and stability over change and innovation.¹

The Democrats certainly aren’t as blatantly corrupt as the late-stage Soviets, instead favoring a light and subtle corruption style. They tried to package Hunter’s blanket exoneration as part of a plea deal, which would have been much more palatable. However, when a judge struck it down, Joe Biden went back on his words and extended Hunter a full pardon. All this invites the philosophical question: Are Democrats truly less corrupt than the Republicans, or just better at hiding it?

Much of their base justifies the pardon as a human decision that any father would’ve made. Besides, the Democrats’ pardons extend beyond just nepotism: Biden just commuted the sentences of 1500 prisoners, many for outdated charges related to weed and military homosexuality. The bargain is clear: let us be kinda corrupt, but we’ll try to keep it on the down low, and we’ll sometimes give back to the people.

But while many hardline Democrats would’ve continued embracing this status quo, as a whole, the American people have had enough.

Verdict: Base still likes it, but unlikely to galvanize others.

Direction 2: Woke Racial Politics

Case Study: The Daniel Penny trial

A few years ago, the Daniel Penny case might’ve had a greater reach. But Black Lives Matter doesn’t have the power it once did. On May 1^st, 2023, Jordan Neely, a homeless man, threatened passengers on the New York subway, saying, “someone is going to die today” and that he wasn’t afraid of going back to prison. Daniel Penny (a fellow passenger) put him in a defensive chokehold, and Neely later passed away.

Black Lives Matter certainly tried to politicize this case. Protesters gathered outside the courthouse each day of the trial, but the energy didn’t escape the surrounding blocks. Following Penny’s acquittal, Black Lives Matter activists tried to claim it represented a triumph for the KKK, and that “white supremacy got another victory.” But even on the left this interpretation hasn’t caught on. Take this r/AskALiberal thread, where the comments are broadly sympathetic to Penny and focused on homelessness reform.

As I’ve written about before, woke politics are on the retreat. Language that was mainstream only a few short years ago now comes off as cringe. Recent polls show that only 35% of Americans claim to worry “a great deal” about race relations, down from 48% in 2021. In 2020, the term “white privilege” had 2.5 mentions for every million words in the New York Times, and in 2023 it had just 0.04.

The tides have shifted: woke racial politics are out.

Verdict: Strategy tanking hard, unable to even galvanize the base.

Direction 3: Jacobin Reign of Terror

Case Study: The UHC Assassination

On December 4^th, 2024, in New York City, Luigi Mangione assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (allegedly). The killing seems to have been motivated by rage against the health insurance industry, with UHC being one of the largest providers. Shell casings were found carved with the words, “delay, deny, depose,” a reference to a book about how insurance companies dodge claims. Following a high-profile manhunt, Mangione was apprehended on December 9^th.

The response to Mangione’s act has been overwhelming. After the murder, supported cosplayed as Mangione in Central Park, shared memes offering fake alibis, and raised $130,000 in his defense.

Don't even get me started on the female fans.

From where I’m standing, Mangione’s act succeeds at igniting the masses because his act combines American heroism with the virtues of the historical left.

American Heroism Tropes

Today’s American dream is above all about image. And Mangione’s act succeeds on the level of image for two main reasons:

1) Good-looking

Mangione is cute. If you wanna be an American hero, that’s important.

2) Cinematic

The murder was pure Hollywood. A handsome Byronic hero plans his revenge, plants clues on the scene, and successfully flees to another state, sparking a nation-wide manhunt. We even had a romantic subplot! What’s next, a prison heist (masterminded by the very hostel worker he flirted with)?

Overlapping American and Leftist Virtues

3) Involving guns

It’s a historical incongruity that American leftists have become associated with an anti-gun attitude. Many on the left care about social issues, but are just as ready for civil war as the most jingoistic of rightists.

To be fair, Americans prefer a lone gunman, while leftists tend to favor an army rising in collective fervor. But the historical left can appreciate a good one-man assassinations: they were all the rage among 19^th century Anarchists.

4) Action-oriented risk-taker

American men are sick of passivity. They’re ready to be the center of action and political focus, as the rise of various red pill ideologies attests to. Many, however, remain repulsed by the right. Mangione offers a new dream for the radical leftist man.

Classic Leftist Virtues

5) Intellectual

Mangione’s past political statements leave his alignment unclear, but one thing is undeniable: he’s quite clearly an intellectual, who wrestled with ideas from many perspectives. Leftism at its best, intricately elaborates its ideas, a tradition that state socialism and modern woke culture have been all to quick to discard.

6) Populist cause

Mangione, crucially, took on a life and death issue that impacts ordinary people. In recent years, woke culture has focused on injustices that seem less… substantive. It spent a decade taking stands that appeared trivial, marginal, and at worst, insane. Issues like whether Geology is racist, or coffee is unbearably white were never going to resonate with the masses.

7) Protective masculinity

Given the soy boy image of the contemporary leftist male, it’s easy to forget the righteous violence of leftism past. Historical leftist masculinity balanced a bleeding heart with a iron fist. Che Guevara described himself undergoing a death and rebirth experience upon witnessing his patients’ poverty, before overseeing mass executions of Batista loyalists. Lenin nursed an injured bird back to health, before heading to the Commissar to suppress the Kulaks.

The classic leftist man is beautifully moved by suffering, but willing to do whatever it takes to stop it. Mangione embodies this dichotomy, and the people love it.

Not just the left, either—Ben Shapiro’s YouTube comments have been overwhelmingly pro-Mangione:

Ding, ding ding! We’ve finally found a leftist stance that has the power to spread beyond the base, and to the masses.

Verdict: Huge success! Power to galvanize well outside the base.

Conclusion

The internet has spoken: Red Terror, American style, will have a Hollywood flavor (or at least a TikTok one). No more grainy photos of serious-faced comrades in drab uniforms. No, it will trending dances shot vertically on iPhones while revolutionary manifestos scroll by. It’ll be gun-toting young people with perfect hair, white teeth, and substantive issues. Their escapades will be structured according to the logic of screenplays, with catchy hooks, dark midnights of the soul, and steamy subplots. And just like all bloody revolutionaries, they will see themselves as heroes.

1. When the Soviets finally did appoint a young reformer, the system collapsed under his (Michael Gorbachov’s) innovations.