I have now listened to All the Podcasts, and my takeaway is as follows. The left’s response to the 2020 election should be clear—the Dems got exactly what they wanted: moderate presidential nominee, obvious incompetence & offensiveness of a GOP incumbent, and this was the result.

The Dem won the presidency & one house of congress with a bare majority. Lost ground in state legislatures. Prop 22 foretells the extinction of the social base of the party. Permanent GOP 6-3 majority on the court. If Breyer retires Biden probably can’t replace him. Etc.

The way forward rhetorically is obvious: this is the best the party will ever do, every ten years, if it keeps things as is. The maximum amount of power available to it under current conditions. And that’s radically not good enough.

I heard the guest on @KnowYrEnemyPod say that b/c McConnell will (likely) still control the Senate, there’s less room for the left to criticize a Biden admin. That’s profoundly wrong. We should criticize a Biden admin precisely because it permitted McConnell to remain in power.

Secondly, the idea that the left can only criticize a centrist Dem admin when it controls all branches of government hands the establishment the gift they seek on a silver platter, an obvious way to tamp down all criticism from the left: keep losing elections.

You’d only say that if you consider yourself an appendage of the Democratic Party and subservient to the party’s overall political aims. Which is exactly the opposite of the positioning the left should adopt.