Most pragmatic leftists recognize that working with mainstream Democrats is necessary to achieve reformist policy goals.

Yet few mainstream Democrats recognize how much the party also needs the left.

A crucial, incisive analysis by @maricohen95 https://jewishcurrents.org/democrats-cant-win-without-the-left/

For instance, the hollowness of the Democratic Party means that in many districts instrumental to electing Democrats, it is the very left-wing activists party moderates deride who are doing the canvassing and GOTV work.

This was all the more true this year, during the pandemic, when much of the party apparatus and the Biden campaign de-emphasized in-person voting:

Part of what's so perverse about Democratic moderates attacking progressive activists is that these activists *literally* risked their lives to elect Democrats this year.

In return, party moderates thank these activists by throwing under them bus.

It's true that, for the most part, progressives don't have an electoral alternative outside of the Democratic Party.

But at a time when elections are decided at the margins, the Democrats actually can't afford to demobilize the people who keep helping them win.