The Left’s Identity Crisis

Graphics by Madeline Barber

The political left is undergoing an identity crisis. While progressive voices are growing in size and volume among the public, parties are adapting to a one-size-fits-all model in order to curry favor with moderates. Two elections, one recent and the other ongoing, stand out as following this pattern: the elections in the United Kingdom and in the United States. The elections in the United Kingdom, which took place in July, saw the Labour Party regaining control following over a decade of conservatives in power. They won by a landslide, with four hundred and twelve parliamentary seats to the conservative Tory party’s one hundred twenty-one. Some of this success represents a general dislike of the Tory party, but the victory of Labour was aided by a shift away from progressive policies towards ones that were more moderate. In the United States, we are seeing the same pattern happen with the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. Since the 2020 election, Harris has redefined herself as a gun-owning woman who still supports abortion rights but who no longer believes in decriminalization of border crossings or banning fracking. While these changes in her beliefs may simply be her adapting to what is possible in our current government, they are certainly an indication of her backtracking on progressive values in favor of more moderate policies. What does this pattern mean? Does it point towards systemic issues in global political systems or just the urgency of needing to win an election and prioritizing short-term goals above long-term values? I argue that the realignment of the Democratic and Labour parties towards the center indicates a willingness of party elites to value appealing to a mass audience of voters over staying true to the fundamental merits of their party and ideology. 

The Labour Party of the United Kingdom is the sister party to the Democrats in the United States. It is a social-democratic political group that remains the biggest opposition to the Tories, or the conservative party. They support unions and a free market economy and promote themselves as a party for the people. The Labour Party from the last parliamentary election in 2019 looked starkly different from the one of 2024: it was heavily divided between various factions that all represented different levels of left-wing politics. They had been losing power in traditional Labour strongholds for years, shedding seats to Tories or to an independent party. Labour was divided between the party membership and the members of parliament, or MPs, with the general party members leaning much further to the left than their MP representatives. As a result, the Labour Party of five years ago was divided in a way that crippled its ability to make any substantive change, which was losing them parliamentary power. This is where new Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepped in. 

Starmer became leader of the Labour Party in 2020 and went in with a radical plan to increase the efficiency and popularity of the party once again. He saw a party plagued by dissent and infighting—a party lacking a common goal or a shared identity. In the four years since he became leader, he has remodeled the party into one that purports policies he believes can win elections, including a plan for wealth creation among the working class and building more homes. However, in the process of crafting this new version of Labour, he has sidelined and ousted many of the far-left members of the party in the name of unity. In one of his earlier acts as leader of Labour, Starmer increased the threshold of nominations required for new MPs and made it more difficult to deselect current MPs. In doing so, he decreased the power of membership and more firmly solidified his own power over the party. Labour members who fell further to the left were held off of shortlists to run in the 2024 elections despite holding the support of unions or other trade groups, which is an unprecedented move that critics are saying is proof of Starmer’s rejection of progressives. 

In his campaign for leader of the party, Starmer promised a higher income tax on the top 5% of earners, the nationalization of the mail and energy systems, and cutting university tuition fees. Since his election as leader, however, he has dropped many of these promises in favor of moderate positions, which critics see as a way to generate broader appeal for Labour among those who are dissatisfied with the Tory party. Instead of the vast tax policy he proposed before, he now proposes much more targeted policies against UK residents who live abroad and individuals in private equity. For many big political issues, such as immigration and foreign policy, the new Labour Party is making a blatant shift towards the right. Despite internal pushback from the left wing of the party, Starmer’s plan has succeeded. He won the popular vote and has regained control of Parliament by a wide percentage, proving that this process of redefinition towards a centrist stance is effective in generating popular support. It is this very strategy that I believe is being employed by Kamala Harris in her campaign for President in the United States. 

I am not the only one who noticed the similarity between what Prime Minister Starmer was able to accomplish in the United Kingdom and what Harris must attempt come November. Starmer’s chief strategists behind his reshaping of the Labour Party paid a visit to the United States during the Democratic National Convention in August to meet with members of Harris’ campaign team. Starmer’s sweeping victory for the Labour Party was a show of unprecedented success following the 2019 elections. To American Democrats, Starmer’s makeover of the Labour Party into a center-left (or just center) political party is something worth emulating if it means a Republican defeat. With Vice President Harris looking across the pond to find a path for success come November, it poses the question of whether Labour’s victory was just a one-off or if it may be replicable by left-wing parties around the world. 

Part of the success behind Harris’ campaign thus far has been due to the popularity of the “Generic Democrat.” The generic ballot was invented by polling companies to see how the candidates for either party compare to the “generic” member of that party.  A poll from 2023 conducted by the New York Times and Siena College indicated that while Trump was leading Biden by four points, an “unnamed Democratic candidate” held an eight-point lead over the former President. Of course, once you actually attach a name to the “Generic Democrat,” their popularity will likely decline, but the appeal of the generic democrat is interesting. People like the idea of a democratic candidate, but once their opinions on their person become involved, they develop more negative connotations. However, it does raise an interesting question: if someone were able to identify themselves as a generic democrat in the 2024 election, could they win? 

Harris’ campaign seems to be actively trying to position her as the “generic Democrat” of the race, which is an interesting choice for a candidate who is already making history simply with her nomination. If elected, Harris would be the first female president and the first Asian president. There is truly nothing “generic” about her, yet her campaign is underplaying all of these aspects of her person in an effort to make her palatable to the moderates and independents whose votes are so crucial in this election. They are pulling away from the “identity politics” that Republicans often accuse Democrats of playing into. In contrast to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, which put her gender at the forefront of her campaign, Harris has never tried to define herself as the “future first female president.” In fact, she has tried not to define herself as anything, but rather let herself be a reflection of what people want from her. And what most Democratic voters want is someone who can defeat Donald Trump come November. 

The tactics she uses to show voters that she can do this are similar to what Starmer succeeded within the United Kingdom: she is redefining her role as a leader in the Democratic party by sidelining progressives and adopting more moderate policies. In this way, she is attempting to fit into that mold of the “generic Democrat” by appealing to the masses rather than to the most ideological members of her own party. Most of the policies she has proposed so far are aimed at making life easier for the average American, with economic reforms like child tax credits and the controversial price gouging ban being cornerstones of what she has promised during her rallies. There are few sweeping reforms on her agenda, with much of what she discusses at her rallies focusing on her “opportunity economy,” lowering costs of medication, and improving housing.  Moreover, critics of her campaign point to her promise to reinstate Roe as it was rather than with any of the provisions proposed by progressive abortion activists, such as protections against waiting periods and clinic regulations, as further indication of Harris’ self-moderation of her policies. Additionally, she is at the center of the debate surrounding the current antitrust policy, which progressives argue is important for economic competition but is opposed by top donors from Harris’ campaign. Further still, Harris, like her predecessor President Biden, is facing a split Democratic party when it comes to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The current party line is a general condemnation of the loss of civilian life while also reasserting support for Israel and its right to defend themselves. This position is increasingly unpopular among progressives in the Democratic party, who see this as a failure on the part of the United States to protect against civilian casualties while monetarily supporting Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the West Bank. However, it is a position that Harris is unlikely to abandon due to the contentious nature of the topic in the Democratic party. 

Harris’ shift towards the center-left of politics may come as a surprise to those who were following her 2020 presidential campaign. In fact, her policies have shifted so much since then that Trump and members of the GOP have called her out for “flip-flopping” on her previous stances. Some examples of this are seen in her previous call to ban fracking, her support for a government buy-back program for assault weapons, and decriminalizing border crossings. All of these proposals have been abandoned in her 2024 campaign in favor of much more moderate policies or nothing at all. In the presidential debate on September 10th, moderator Linsey Davis asked her a pointed question about the changes in her policy proposals since her 2019 campaign. She responded by saying that her “values had not changed” before moving into a comment about the importance of the oil industry in America and attacking her opponent. While she was lauded by progressive Democrats during her ill-fated 2019 campaign for her policies, she is now receiving criticism from the same people for her shift away from her old policy proposals towards ones that are meant to appease moderates instead of the left. In short, it seems that she wants the electorate to forget about her past support of these progressive policies. 

Harris’ shift towards the center may also be a strategic move in an effort to counter the complaints that she is too progressive. Republicans have been quick to label her a “DEI Vice President,” using her race and gender as a way to invalidate her political experience and label her as a member of the radical left. Even among the broader public, however, there is still a conception that Harris is “too liberal.” An August New York Times & Siena College poll of likely voters found that forty-two percent of respondents thought that Harris was too liberal. Members of the GOP often share Harris’ past politics with their supporters in an effort to define Harris as “out-of-touch with the working class” and as a member of the liberal California elite. Of his opponent, Trump has said, “Everyone knows she’s a Marxist,” a refrain he has used at his rallies and repeated in the September debate. She has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname of “Comrade Kamala” among Trump’s base. His rhetoric surrounding Harris’ politics is an attempt to paint her as someone who is fundamentally unrelatable to blue-collar workers and the working class of America, who are generally supporters of Trump. In response, Harris often emphasizes her middle-class upbringing and her support of small businesses in an effort to generate appeal among the primary support base for the current GOP. Harris’ redefinition of her platform to take a moderate stance seems to have alienated progressives while failing to convince the majority of American voters that she isn’t “too liberal.” What, then, are the wider implications of this shift towards the center? Will it be an election-winning choice or one that starts Democrats down a path of further division and infighting? 

The pattern visible in both the United Kingdom and the United States is that traditionally left-wing political organizations are being pulled towards the right and into the middle, where they adopt more moderate policies in place of progressivism. While this trend is reshaping liberals, the conservatives are similarly being pushed further to the right. Under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom and former President Donald Trump in the United States, the respective conservative parties became more conservative and showed visible influence from alt-right movements. Johnson stood for the anti-immigration rhetoric surrounding Brexit and built up a right-wing cabinet in the Tory party during his time as Prime Minister, which aligned the values of the party more with the extremist fringe members. A similar story played out nearly simultaneously in the United States with Trump’s presidency, where he legitimized and platformed members of the alt-right movement who had previously been ostracized from politics for their offensive opinions. In this way, both Johnson and Trump served to pull their parties further to the right. In response, the opposition parties in the United Kingdom and the United States were pulled to the right with them. The Labour Party and the Democratic Party have become parties for those who were left behind in the transitions of the opposition parties. They have begun to cater less to their core bases and focus more on gaining the support of voters who support conservatives for their economic policy but have a moral conscience that doesn’t allow them to vote for a criminal or a bigot. 

While this tactic of shifting to the center has proved successful for Prime Minister Starmer and appears to be working well so far for Harris, it is unclear how well it will serve either party in the future. As in 2020, this year’s election in the United States is another where progressives continue to give up their most important values to vote for a moderate administration in an effort to save our democracy from autocracy. The Democratic Party values short-term electoral wins over the long-term goals of the party. For the past eight years, a common refrain has been the importance of this election, which is often prioritized over the ideals of the party itself. While the Democratic party used to lend a voice to members like AOC and Bernie Sanders, their contributions to the political landscape are often written off as untenable or overly optimistic. Even President Biden, who has been labeled a moderate for most of his political career, was forced to make concessions on his student loan debt forgiveness program and in his environmental policy plan. If progressivism continues to be pushed aside for the sake of appealing to the undecided to win an election, who will continue to push for change? 

While I understand the importance of winning over uncommitted voters and independents in swing states, especially considering the stakes of winning or losing in November, it makes me wonder what the Democratic party is giving up in order to generate this appeal to swing voters. With core values and policies on the line, how much are Democrats willing to give when it comes to winning Pennsylvania or Michigan? If positioning the Democratic nominee as a moderate is the only solution to defeating Trumpism in the United States, it might be time to reconsider our two-party system. 

In her speech at the DNC, Harris pronounced, “I promise to be a president for all Americans.” Although this is certainly a promise that has been made before, it takes a different tone with Harris. Her campaign is meant not only to appeal to Democrats, but to moderates and independents as well. In contrast with Trump’s campaign, which seems structured around fan service more than a bipartisan appeal, Harris truly means that she wants to represent all Americans. However, this type of broad appeal is hard to generate and even harder to keep. If she does win the presidency in November, she will be faced with a splintered support base between progressives, who voted for her with the intention to protest and push her to take action for their causes, and moderates, who will be expecting her to deliver on her less-radical policies. The Democratic party knows that it needs progressive voters, but it also needs the moderates to win. Thus, they are locked into a game of pandering to both sides and praying that neither looks too hard at the other. Harris’ campaign for presidency begs the essential question: do you end up losing everything if you try to appeal to everyone? I suppose only November will bring the answer.