How the 1 percent always wins: Liberal washing is the right’s new favorite tactic

Here's why plutocrats control our politics: Corporate America knows both parties are up for sale

David Sirota

“What is most striking about the present is not the virtues of moderation but of the potential power of conviction. One detects, behind all the anxiety about 'extremists,’ ‘radicals,’ and ‘militant minorities,’ a degree of envy. On the Right there is a group with enough commitment to a shared project that is willing and able to disrupt the ordinary functioning of government. If only the Left had such wherewithal. We might, at the very least, get something more than than the economically stagnant, politically oppressive Mugwumpery of the Democratic Party.” — Jacobin’s Alex Gourevitch 

This trenchant passage about liberals’ reaction to the Tea Party summarizes a hugely significant yet little discussed truism: American politics has been inexorably lurching to the right not only because of the extremism of the Tea Party, but also because of a lack of Tea Party-like cohesion, organization and energy on the left. There are, of course, many factors that contribute to that sad reality including a successful war on the labor movement; a campaign finance system that makes conservative oligarchs even more powerful than they already are; and a mediasphere that ignores principles and tells liberals everything must be seen exclusively in partisan red-versus-blue terms. One factor, though, stands out for how it so destructively shapes the assumptions that define our political discourse. That factor can be called “liberal washing.”