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The first problem with these kinds of arguments is that the alt-left doesnt actually exist, at least not in the way that the lefts opponents would have it. As The New Republics Sarah Jones pointed out, the alt-rights goal, shared by neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer and the White Houses infamous Steves (Bannon and Miller), is to implement a white supremacist state. In contrast, the goals of the alt-left are not too different from that of a New Deal Democrat. Universal health care and a $15 minimum wage are not the lefts version of a Muslim ban, even if the rhetoric of the left is combative, uncompromising, and, yes, sometimes obnoxious.

As Eric Levitz points out at New York, one of the main problems with Wolcotts piece is that he cherry-picks a number of voicesmany of whom barely intersectto speak for a perceived group. Among them are a few writers he apparently dislikes (Michael Tracey, Freddie deBoer, Connor Kilpatrick), Susan Sarandon, Mickey Kaus, and Oliver Stone. While criticisms can be made of many of Wolcotts targets, to lump them together as representative of the alt-left is nonsensical. It conflates being Loud Online with actual politics. And crucially, unlike members of the alt-right, who are being actively wooed by the GOP, these people have almost no power.

Blair is positing a more dangerous idea: that liberalism should essentially reorient itself as a globalized technocracy, in opposition to anti-elite populism.

A graver sin is the adoption of a term that was created by conservatives to smear the left and discredit criticisms of the growing clout of the racist right. Richard Spencer coined the term alt-right for his own movement. In very stark contrast, alt-left is a strawman invention of far-right websites. As The Washington Posts Aaron Blake pointed out in December, The difference between alt-right and alt-left is that one of them was coined by the people who comprise the movement and whose movement is clearly ascendant; the other was coined by its opponents and doesnt actually have any subscribers. When alt-left is deployed by the likes of Sean Hannity on Fox News, it is a form of propaganda used to conflate groups like Black Lives Matter with the Ku Klux Klan. For Wolcott to ascribe to this notion only gives this right-wing smear more credence.

Blair invokes the specter of a dangerous left for different reasons. By equating the populist lefts hostility toward big business and the 1 percent with the populist rights hostility toward migrants and people of color, he is creating a false equivalence that undermines progressivism as a whole. The ultra-wealthy patrons of the Republican Party (and, to a lesser extent, the Democratic Party) are, in fact, much to blame for deep inequality we see in the United States. Globalization did gouge the working and middle classes in the West, most notoriously during the Great Recession, even as it lifted millions out of poverty in other parts of the world. Political elites did fail us, from the Iraq War to the financial crisis.

Yet this is how Blair frames the debate over these issues:

Today, a distinction that often matters more than traditional right and left is open vs. closed. The open-minded see globalization as an opportunity but one with challenges that should be mitigated; the closed-minded see the outside world as a threat. This distinction crosses traditional party lines and thus has no organizing base, no natural channel for representation in electoral politics.

The last half of Blairs op-ed argues for achieving radical change by reaching for voters who remain in the big space in the center. Tellingly, he calls for an alliance between Silicon Valleyan industry of socially liberal economic elitesand public policy. In his closing line, Blair states that we must build a new coalition that is popular, not populist.

There are two ironies in Blairs column. The first is that Blair himself was partly responsible for his Labour Party losing a large chunk of its core working-class voters, thanks to the Iraq War and the Great Recession. The second is that huge pillars of Blairs British-style moderate liberalismsuch as universal health careare totally in line with what the American populist left is demanding. The populist left, in other words, is well within the mainstream of Western democratic tradition; it is apparently their anti-elitist rhetoric that really rubs Blair the wrong way. He is, after all, an elite himself.

One big lesson from Hillary Clintons loss to Donald Trump was her campaigns over-reliance on the mythical moderate voter. (Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer encapsulated this line of thinking in an infamously bad projection: For every blue-collar Democrat we will lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two or three moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It didnt quite work out that way.) Wolcott and Blair do not address this problem. In different ways, they make a case for the center based on a bad-faith argument that the populist left is the same brand of scourge as the nationalist right.

In American politics at least, the political center is the space between a functional liberal democratic party and one hijacked by white nationalists. This is not a promising ground on which liberals can build out from, as Blair puts it. Whether he likes it or not, the case remains that the Democratic Party will need its left wing to mobilize working-class and young, progressive voters; the left will need institutions like the Democratic Party if it wants to win elections. Over the next few years, there will be time for arguments over strategies and priorities. But there is no time for liberals to try to delegitimize the populist left; it will only cut their own legs out from under them.

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Liberalism Needs the Alt-Left - New Republic