C&P from something I just sent to a mailing list inhabited mainly by septuagenarian telecom execs (don’t even ask):
The Dems’ abandonment of the poor was driven by the party’s Clinton-era turn to the right, which is usually dressed up as “centrism.” That turn have been toward the center on an axis that emphasizes cultural values, but on an economic axis it looks really different indeed. The post-Obama progressive wave — Bernie, the Squad, Stacey Abrams, and the rest — has renewed focus on economics. Un/fortunately [for the purposes of the conversation this is excerpted from], the early leaders of this wave mostly come from multiethnic urban areas, so their ferocious commitment to their constituencies is heavily oriented toward cultural issues. But they’re all newbies and they’re learning fast – unlike the national Dem leadership (DNC, DCCC, Pelosi, Schumer) which are learning very slowly — so that’ll change. A few days ago, the NYT ran an interview with AOC, which shows how sharp she’s becoming on this.
But back to your point, right-wing media desperately want to avoid any focus on class issues, so when they attack AOC etc they strip away their structural analysis and the only thing left is their ethnicity/race and gender — which ends up amplifying racism and sexism. So, yeah, you could say these attitudes are “equally” on the left and right, but that obscures where they’re headed (as does most of the piffle about “both sides” this, “partisanship” that, and “polarization” the other). The Dems are moving to the left as part of a structural economic analysis, and the GOP is moving to the right to avoid it.
Here’s my thumbnail prediction: Biden may be a “transitional” figure (that kind of muttering is the flavor of the week among rightists nursing their wounds), but Harris will be genuinely transformational. There’s no way Biden will try to run for reelection in 2024, which means he’ll need to give Harris the clearest runway possible — not some Hubert Humphrey–style “my bucket of spit is warmer than that of my opponent” non-platform, but a solid record. So look for him to find a reason to step down after the midterms, making Harris pres and injecting new life into the admin, particularly via a VP appointment (Buttigieg is the best guess I’ve heard). That’ll also come at a time fraught with risk for the GOP: in the Senate there’ll be 13 Dem seats coming up, but 22 GOP seats. Biden and Harris both come from the Senate, so this kind of thinking is in their DNA. Pelosi, if she’s still Speaker, will be on her way out, and I can’t see Schumer hanging around much longer. Trump will leave the GOP in chaos, and McConnell’s basically an animatronic corpse at this point. In other words, BIG change coming.
But my focus here is less about political predictions than structural conditions. The Dems’ “centrist” machinery is aging out, and a new generation is coming in — and I think they’ll understand better by the day the kind of criticism you made (in part) about Blue bigotry. The GOP, conversely, can only amplify that kind of bigotry: it’s all they have left.