Democrats, like progressive parties across the transatlantic world, are struggling to find an answer to populist nationalism. Could that answer lie in reviving another old political creed, socialism?
Some young Democratic activists, inspired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, are flirting with “democratic socialism.” But they have nothing on Britain’s Labour Party, which consummated its on-again relationship with socialism in Liverpool last week.
The occasion was the party’s annual conference, which I attended when not wallowing in Liverpool’s trove of Beatles memorabilia. The gathering presented an oddly incongruous picture: a reinvigorated party with lots of young faces hawking old ideas.
The Merseyside Conference also capped Jeremy Corbyn’s improbable odyssey from Labour’s hard-left fringe in the early 1980s to party leader today. Having survived media ridicule for his retro views, several attempted ousters and a recent imbroglio over charges that he’s tolerated anti-Semitism among left-wing Labour members, Corbyn at last seems to have his party firmly in hand.
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