'All Politics is Gah-tha'

There was a time when it was said 'all politics is local' - a line often attributed to Tip O'Neil (AI'd in image here). Now it all seems to be MORE local than 'local' - it's all in one place, all in some strange abstraction called 'gah-tha.' At least if you're DSA pseudo-'progressive.'

Just a few years ago my progressive comrades and I in both DSA and Justice Dems were all about greenification, industrial revitalization, economic democracy, public banking and M4A. Now, again, almost all seems to be psychotic street theater and platform warring - about 'gah-tha.'

My first inclination in seeking to understand this strange development has been to attribute it to #Entryist hostile takeover of DSA which, after all, I witnessed from inside in real time both in the lead-up to and then especially after 10/7. For if most of your funding derives from a petrostate, then a Green New Deal might start looking to you as it did to Nancy Pelosi.

And if your actual voters are mainly secure-salaried #PMC and trust fund babies, then like the Clintons before you you now will be mainly  about, when not about 'gah-tha,' what those guys called 'soccer mom' and 'kitchen table issues' that you'll just rebrand as 'affordability.'

But friend Haviv Rettig Gur today suggested another possibility I hadn't thought of before - yet which happily is quite compatible with mine: he notes how CHEAP this all is now. (He means inexpensive; I'll add the other meaning as well - this is tart-tawdry shite.)

When my comrades and I pushed the GND, we regularly had to slap down the tiresome 'how ya gonna pay for it?!' challenge. I spilled a lot of ink in the day whacking that one. (Will add a sampling in the Comments.)

But if all you've got to say is 'AIPAC!,' 'zio!,' 'gah-tha!,' ... well, that costs you nothing. Nothing but your soul and your civilized future - as Jew-hate has cost every society that's succumbed to it over the past 3500 years.