The sea of Tory blue seats that now envelop Labour’s heartlands on the electoral map of Britain is one kind of future for Western democracies. (Hat tip: wretchardthecat.) Like their embarrassing support for Hugo Chavez, I suspect their support for Corbyn will be memory-holed as quickly as possible.Īndrew Sullivan offers up (mostly) keen insight into Johnson’s win and Corbyn’s fall:
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There’s lots more where that come from, but it’s striking that even his boosters boil down Corbyn’s appeal to the left as socialism, free stuff and hoary cliches. The manifesto and the campaign were summed up by their elegantly simple slogan: “For the many, not the few.” Unlike other recent versions, mostly incrementalist documents that tweaked what came before, the 2017 edition is the boldest in decades: more money for the National Health Services and other major initiatives, a “jobs first” Brexit and free university tuition, financed by taxing corporations and the wealthiest. That’s in no small part because of this year’s Labour manifesto (the British equivalent of a party platform). Why was turnout so high? Because Corbyn was able to generate excitement among Labour voters, especially the young. progressives in 2018, 2020 and beyond: If you need turnout to win - as liberals in the United States do - you need a bold, uncompromising platform with real solutions … “Corbyn’s success provides a model for U.S. “Jeremy Corbyn’s Success is a Model for American Progressives,” by James Downie, Washington Post, June 2017 “The past year has shown that millions of ordinary people are ready for an alternative, one pointed to by the success of Sanders and the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain …Īs with the collapsing social democrats in Europe, the Democratic Party’s best bet is to move left and embrace a platform that speaks to the real needs, fears, and aspirations of working people …įor the Democrats, no less than their peers in Europe, where the neoliberalization of social democracy has opened up space for a populist right, the choice on offer might well be either socialism or irrelevance.” “Only Socialism Can Defeat Trumpism,” by Nicole Aschoff and Bhaskar Sunkara, The Nation, November 2016 There are lots of conclusions to be drawn and lessons learned from Boris Johnson’s Conservative landslide victory over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, especially for the American left, who I suspect will learn none of it.įirst, let’s establish how many American liberals lionized Corbyn as the future of politics:
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