Heightened political emotions can be captured by party cartels

Evidence

Behind the current conjuncture lurk questions which American left-wing thinkers were keener to tackle in the 2010s, when debates about surrogate parties, dirty breaks, or left-wing caucuses maintained a constant relevance. Today, very few of these still stand on the mental radar of the left. As Tim Barker has noted, leading figures in American progressivism have maintained a highly Oedipal relationship to the Democrats. On the one hand, it is the party somehow uniquely responsible for a resolution to Israel’s genocidal punishment campaign, and on the other, it has long served as a hallowed institution of elite Zionism and the Cold War security state. Ironically, the result of the extraparty assault of the 2010s has been to tighten the hold of the DNC as the horizon of the American left. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the hyperpolitics framework core idea that politicization without organization gets captured; also parallels the 2010s surrogate-party debates mentioned in the reader’s goal. — connects to: Openly subordinating facts to feelings is a new strategy for political dominance — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 16; European populist-left parties revived mass political enthusiasm around charismatic leaders — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 119; Hard-right Republican power runs on volunteer activists mobilized by rage transformed into political therapy — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 85 (+2 more)