Fool Me Twice: Kyrsten Sinema and the Poverty of Progressive Politics

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If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal” – Emma Goldman

 

Thumbs Down

As I mentioned in my most recent edition of The War on Sharing, it’s been a particularly trying few weeks in my life for both personal and professional reasons. This has left me a little behind on covering the constant maelstrom of hate and fuckery that is the Pig Empire news cycle these days, and instead I’ve been reading a lot of books that are focused on larger class struggle and police state issues. That’s going about as well as you’d expect given that we live in capitalist hellworld and most Americans think class analysis is a conspiracy theory; I’ve spent a lot of time practicing my thousand yard stare and very little time thinking about what it means that Tucker Carlson is trying to revive a culture war debate about women in the military.

There was however one reverberation in the discourse that managed to garner my full attention because it (at times inadvertently) touched on a number of issues that are near and dear to my heart; including the flawed Pig Empire left approach to electoral politics, the ongoing and uphill battle to raise the American minimum wage, and why alliances with folks who don’t share our core anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist values are themselves, of little value to the Pig Empire left. I’m talking of course about eight Democratic Party Senator’s recent refusal to help pass a Bernie Sanders amendment tying their $1.9 billion Covid relief package to a plan that would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to a miserly $15 per hour, over five long years; a moment perhaps best exemplified by Kyrsten Sinema’s dramatic “thumbs down” vote on C-Span.

Given that I’m roughly a week late to the (richly deserved) media pile on, I won’t waste a lot of time dissecting the class war optics involved in how Sinema delivered her vote. I would however like to note that even more so than her now infamous thumbs down, or bizarre decision to bring cake to celebrate sinking the amendment, I was fascinated by her efforts to signal her agreeable vote to GOP Senate minority leader and noted human slug, Mitch McConnell; an activity that’s apparently becoming quite the compulsive habit for Krysten even in the post-Trump era. Furthermore, I think it’s only fair to mention that Sinema was far from alone in telling exploited American workers to go fuck themselves; in total eight Democratic Senators happily voted against the widely popular proposal, albeit with a little less zestful vigor.

Finally, we must remember that fifty (mostly fascist) Senators from the Republican Party also voted without hesitation to spit in the eye of America’s poorest workers. Of course, the only reason that last detail even matters is because of conservative Democrat skullduggery in regards to both the filibuster and the Biden White House’s refusal to exercise power on behalf of working Americans; but here too Sinema is merely an increasingly prominent co-conspirator in her Party’s ongoing self-immolation to please the whims of ruling class capital.

Even despite all of these caveats however, there are still two important things we can learn from not only Sinema’s let them eat cake routine, but also her journey in American politics; an odyssey that has seen her transform from a nominally progressive anti-war activist, to a backstabbing, reactionary “Blue Dog” Democratic Party Senator for the state of Arizona. To dig a little deeper into what I’m talking about here, let’s examine this March 7th, 2021 piece by David Sirota and Andrew Perez over at Jacobin Magazine:

 

Kyrsten Sinema Went to Washington and Became a Monster

 

Yes, that’s right kids; before Kyrsten Sinema became the unofficial lieutenant of Joe Manchin’s “Fuck the Poor” caucus in the Senate, she was a “punk rock” progressive activist who joined the Green Party, organized anti-war protests, and as recently as 2014 was campaigning (albeit, rather meekly) on raising the federal minimum wage. This story, as told from the progressive electoralist perspective, almost takes on the dimensions of a Greek tragedy, featuring the rise of a former social worker and (possible) victim of extreme poverty now championing progressive positions, her exposure to the rarefied (and lucrative) swamp gas of Beltway life, as well as her ultimate corruption and transformation into a literal monster. It’s a compelling tale, and one made more so by the seemingly genuine feelings of sadness and betrayal exhibited by the, again, progressive authors. Examine for a moment these quotations directly from the article:

 

"One of the most enduring parables in American culture is about “going Washington” — it is a tale of the earnest do-gooder deciding to run for office on a pledge to be a voice for the voiceless, then getting to the Beltway and quickly becoming a swamp monster selling out the folks back home.

There are countless examples of this phenomenon, but we should understand that there has maybe never been such a pure personification of this cliché as Kyrsten Sinema — and she managed to capture the entire trope in one iconic moment that should never, ever be forgotten."

"Sinema’s journey is now complete. She has become a timeless cautionary tale about what happens in a political process that typically self-selects for the most cynical among us."

"Sinema is more than happy to provide that on camera in the well of the U.S. Senate. She seems overjoyed to show the world that she has “gone Washington” — and dishonored everything she purported to care about during her political ascent."

 

Whew; in the milquetoast world of wonky, electoralist, left wing reform politics, that’s about as direct a repudiation and disownment as you’re going to get. Unfortunately, even if I were to accept this explicitly reformist, electoralist, and progressive framing, this piece still conjures up a number of extremely uncomfortable questions about the overall viability of the progressive, or democratic socialist project, particularly within the confines of the U.S. Democratic Party. The most obvious of which is probably “if Kyrsten Sinema’s fall is a cautionary tale, precisely whom is being cautioned in the telling of her story here?” Given both the professional and financial benefits of her betrayal, it certainly can’t be, or at least shouldn’t be, Sinema; even the authors themselves admit she knifed progressives and the poor for the money and power, not because of the corrupting influence of Washington swamp gas.

I myself would posit that the folks who should be taking heed here, are the rank and file supporters who not only vote faux-gressives like Kyrsten Sinema into power, but also continue to insist that electoralism and the mechanics of the Democratic Party are the only viable solutions to problems like her; although, given their political and professional leanings, I doubt the authors of this piece would agree with me on that measure. Please understand that I’m not picking on Sirota, or Perez, who both seem to be honest enough analysts; they’re just married to a now discredited and aging theory of politics I’m fairly certain will inevitably spit out politicians like Kyrsten Sinema.

Frankly, what the “change the system from within” crowd never quite seems to grasp here is that working within a party structure that rewards neoliberal orthodoxy, and actively punishes left wing political asperations, means we’re constantly in competition to essentially re-recruit even our own “progressive” politicians every single day. Furthermore, while the powerful capitalist establishment that controls the party is quite capable of enforcing obedience from elected party reps, the means at the progressive movement’s disposal to accomplish the same goal are paltry, and wholly ineffective; Arizona progressive Democrats can claim almost censuring Sinema got their point across all they like, but clearly her vote on the Sanders $15 minimum wage amendment and the way she conducted herself while casting that vote, indicate that nothing has fundamentally changed. When the Democratic Party and its loyal media establishment objectively prefer a reactionary cracker like Joe Manchin, to a progressive like Paula Swearengin, expecting them to help DSA organizers primary neoliberal politicians and replace them with progressives, borders on fatal naivete.

Of course, as I detailed in my December 2020 essay “Organize or Die,” there are in fact ways to ensure the loyalty of our elected representatives even after they’ve entered office, but doing so would entail a type of compartmentalized movement politics and popular organizing that is anathema to the Democratic Party establishment; and to some degree, those that seek to change it from the inside. Thus I agree that Sinema’s fall is a cautionary tale; but it’s primarily a story about the futility of pursuing electoral strategies on the left, without an explicitly independent mass movement to enforce continued adherence to a common (and objectively socialist) program. I’m not pretending I have all the answers here, but if the worst consequences a so-called progressive politician will face after they’ve “dishonored everything she purported to care about during her political ascent” are a snarky op-ed, and a half-baked primary challenge opposed by the Party establishment, the American progressive movement will continue to be plagued by defections from a lot more Kyrsten Sinemas.

 

The “Progressive” Problem

This then brings us to the second lesson I believe we can learn from the career arc of Krysten Sinema, and it involves an issue that’s become a now familiar itch of mine; the political and organizational poverty of building a movement around the almost meaningless term “progressive.” I guarantee you that if you went out and asked five random Sanders primary voters to define “what is a progressive” you would get five wildly different answers; although most of them might at least be expected to contain something about supporting Medicare For All and ending the forever wars. The fact is that rather than representing a fully-fleshed out political program, “progressive” politics in the Pig Empire tends to involve a loose adherence to any number of (mostly milquetoast) liberal-capitalist “reformer” positions that would admittedly still represent an improvement on our current neofeudalist hellworld socio-economic order.

This in turn supports an organizational style that is about promoting individual personalities who hopefully check the right number of boxes, as opposed to a unified and clearly defined agenda that represents a movement, not singular representatives or leaders. The absence of a grassroots organization outside of politics to police the ideological boundaries of the progressive movement, in turn allows largely self-interested politicians (ranging from neoliberal corpse merchants to populist reactionaries) to claim ownership of the progressive mantle without much resistance; provided they can capture the imagination of certain key influencers in the boutique “progressive” media. In practice then the key to becoming a progressive icon or political figure, is to adopt a few of these progressive policy planks and ride them for all they’re worth, while hoping star-struck pinko bloggers and the voters they influence don’t notice how completely dogshit your other opinions are; a process which perfectly explains how Tulsi Gabbard briefly became a “progressive” rockstar because of her (exaggerated) anti-war positions, despite being an otherwise reactionary fundamentalist weirdo who low-key embraces fascists.

So how does all this relate to the fall of progressive star Kyrsten Sinema? Well, I believe that a careful reading of the portions of her past that Sinema has been unable to scrub from the internet, make it pretty clear that she was always an early prototype for what we might jokingly call the Gabbard-type progressive. Take for example these four articles from mainstream, right-leaning media outlets that have no reason to minimize Kyrsten’s history as a supposed radical:

 

Sinema’s anti-war activist past under scrutiny as she runs for Senate

Can a Onetime Nader-Supporting ‘Bomb Thrower’ Win Arizona’s Senate Seat?

Candidate’s stance on Afghan, Iraq wars faces scrutiny in Dem primary

Sinema’s anti-war group blasted ‘U.S. terror,’ depicted soldier as skeleton

 

Now, I don’t know about you, but what I see here is a woman who made her “progressive” bones by working with libertarians, opposing an outrageously fascist war that quickly grew widely unpopular across a broad base of American politics, and tapping into the same outrage and anger at the system driving both left wing organizing and right wing populism even to this day. Even her 2009 origin story interview is couched in explicitly capitalist terms; Kyrsten got into politics because the poor migrant families she worked with were simply unable to ever “live the American dream.” If Sinema was ever a progressive, it’s simply because being a progressive in the Bush era of the Pig Empire wasn’t particularly hard to do. Furthermore, as a forty-four year old survivor of both the American anti-war protests, and Nader’s second coming as a Green Party candidate, I can tell you that while certainly well meaning, both of those movements were married to precisely the same left-right alliance against the system strategy I warned you against in my December 2020 essay “On Mea Culpas, the Populist Alliance & the Young American Left” and I continue to warn you against today, while critiquing reactionary assclowns like Jimmy Dore.

In other words, and as politely as I can say it; if Kyrsten Sinema fooled Gen-X lefties into believing she was their ally, it’s because they never demanded enough of her in the first place – the same can be said of Gabbard supporters as well. These are ultimately self inflicted wounds, caused by ideological weaknesses baked directly into the Pig Empire progressive political strategy; an objectively capitalist, albeit reformist, political formulation.

Frankly I still have no fucking clue what a progressive is supposed to be, but an American left that isn’t anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist is no left at all. It is well past time for progressive organizers and media influencers to ask themselves just how serious they are about this socialism stuff, because continuing to insist on a strategy of cooperation with the neoliberal minions of a capitalist order that just fed half a million Americans into the furnace to protect stock prices, is now wholly unworkable for the Pig Empire labor class. We are simply out of fucking planet lads; either capitalism goes, or we as a human species do. Attempts to reform capitalism, or for that matter the Democratic Party, are at this point a one-way bus ticket to a massacre – unless so-called progressives wake the fuck up, they’re going to be buried under the collapse of neoliberalism; and collaborator careerists like Kyrsten Sinema will be only too happy to shovel the dirt over all of our graves.

You simply can’t reform a system built on slavery, exploitation, and the extraction of rents, so it’s probably time you progressive thought leaders stopped trying. Whether you still believe in electoral politics or not, the future of the American left is in a culturally diverse, labor class, anti-capitalist insurgency that seeks to break down the rule of the monied establishment across all spheres of our society, not just politics; or the American left, along with virtually everyone else in the Pig Empire, has no future at all.

As ever, the answer remains “organize or die.”

 

• nina illingworth

 

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

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