Laying Blame at America's Non-Existent Left

In the coming days, we will undoubtedly hear all the reasons Democratic leadership and the New York Times craft to claim this election was lost due to the "left." Before they do, however, it’s worth examining the historical tradition of blaming the left for events beyond its control.

On a recent episode of the Royal Palace Podcast, Fall of France - Part I, we explored how a broad leftist coalition led by the French Jewish socialist Léon Blum not only managed to implement significant labor reforms amid the Great Depression but also invested heavily in modernizing a French military plagued by chronic neglect since the end of World War I.

In the cramble to prepare for a German invasion, not everyone saw Hitler as an existential threat—least of all French industrialists who actively sabotaged the Popular Front’s attempts to nationalize parts of wartime production. Nationalizing defense production is hardly a radical idea; as Thomas M. Hanna noted in a Jacobin article, it's an idea "as American as apple pie."

This fact, however, did not prevent the dominant right-wing narrative during and after the Fall of France from blaming the Popular Front, its nationalization program and Léon Blum himself for France's defeat.

While these right-wing accusations may seem absurd, they might appear at least plausible to the layperson, since the Popular Front did hold political power in the lead-up to the war. This, however, is precisely what makes the modern-day iteration of blaming the left so outlandish: since no matter how large the left may loom in right-wing mythology, it has been functionally nonexistent as a political force since the fall of the Soviet Union.

For proof of this, one need only look at the Democratic program from the 1990s onward, the fact that labor union members no longer vote as a unified political bloc, the absence of socialists in major political office (Bernie does not count), the existence of swing-voters and the lack of a veritable electoral threat to Democrats from the left.

So when the Democratic Party comes looking for someone to blame for their embarrassing defeat this November, they need only look in the mirror.