To say that the US election was a disappointment is an understatement. Just to get that out of the way. It’s heart-breaking, frightening, angrifying and very difficult to process. It’s going to take some time to really sit with a lot of difficult emotions and the new path voters collectively took.
The hand-wringing on the progressive left has already begun unfortunately, with many people pointing fingers at various targets within - men, Biden, Harris, white people, Latinos, Gen Z, other progressives. Thankfully I think overall it has this time been outnumbered by genuine expressions of grief and solidarity. Once again, the identity politics is going to need to take a back seat if we really want to understand how to move forward.
I’ve also seen a lot of what I can only presume are Putin-backed trolls purporting to be Trump supporters, but also leftists. Their hallmark is the highly emotive language combined with mockery, a total lack of empathy and usually empty profiles. Interestingly enough, if you call them out as Putin plants, they suddenly disappear. Who knew?
Toxic perfectionism has been an issue in progressive left circles for a very very long time, certainly since I was at university in the early 00’s. Demanding ideological purity is one manifestation. Demanding a particular kind of specific wording or language. Exact messages. The blame game if things don’t go well. Cancel culture, public humiliation and trials by mob. Hand-wringing, severe anxiety and despair when there are minor setbacks. Ruminating, looking for logical reasons within without being able to assign responsibility appropriately to external forces when that’s needed. Inability to really connect with any emotions other than rage, anxiety, hubris or schadenfreude.
Inability to tolerate that sometimes we don’t have all the information or means to make ‘perfect’ decisions, or predict the future. We are in an incredibly complex time where many things are happening simultaneously and very rapidly, and I’ve certainly told myself anyway that we can’t always know. I remember I half expected Trump to win in 2020, so I’ve been wrong every US election for awhile.
Sometimes we can’t control other people and the bad decisions they make. The blame really needs to be placed squarely at the foot of the people who had control - Trump, the far right, the Republican Party, billionaire donors to both US parties, Putin and his allies, the mainstream media, those who worsened pre-existing US socioeconomic inequality, voters that voted without critical thought and the part of US culture that fetishises ‘strength’ over community and believes in aspirationalism, toxic individualism and success as a zero-sum game.
I really believe that the Harris campaign did the best they possibly could. The progressive left is disparate and you will never be able to satisfy everyone’s policy goals, nor message absolutely perfectly. I don’t agree with every policy she had. I don’t agree with every policy anyone has. If she was farther left, people would be complaining right now that she didn’t appeal to mainstream voters. If you need perfection to achieve your goals, then there is something wrong with the playing field.
A lot of this sort of thinking claims to be about ‘learning from the past’, but to be honest I have seen this same wringer go around and around for many years now. The blame game never ends. The perfectionism is never sated. The present never arrives because everyone is still obsessed with the past.
It is a set of ideas that is based on the ‘great man’ theory of history, that everything hinges on only a few people and key decisions. The truth is changes in society are often mostly gradual and collective punctuated by sudden shifts that may be individual. These two phenomena are part of the same system and are interrelated. The ‘great man’ theory is a very simplistic view and it suffers from the same malaise that affects the right wing, that of trying to explain and fix complex phenomena with a superficially ‘satisfying’ solution.
In truth, fascism is a social disease that embodies malignant narcissism, a victim complex and toxic perfectionism. And the progressive left malaise when it strikes embodies toxic perfectionism but there is absolutely egotistical behaviour here too. This is why extremism looks the same regardless of the stated ideology - the headspace is similar.
We are going to have to grapple with the fact that many things were happening all at once. There is no single right answer. Global macroeconomics, despair, complacency, latent and overt bigotry, psy-ops/hacking, a political cult, toxic shame, extreme socioeconomic inequality, austerity, lack of public services and many other things were the real causes of what’s happened. Realising this and working on multiple fronts, building community, working with others, deprogramming and re-engaging cult members, protecting against disinformation, providing services that have been cut are all things that we will need to do collectively.
And this requires first taking a breather and feeling the feelings, taking breaks, working on ourselves, avoiding jumping to conclusions, listening, being empathetic, knowing which battles to fight and knowing that we are in for a marathon not a sprint and need to look after ourselves.