Carlos Osorio/AP Photo
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden in Detroit last July
More than 60 former leaders of Students for a Democratic Society recently signed “An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left.”
This is my generation. Many of the signers have gone on to be influential mainstream progressives. Several are my friends and several have written for the Prospect.
These onetime youthful radicals now regret making a grave mistake in 1968 when they allowed their fury at the Vietnam War to overcome their sense of practical alternatives, and they refused to vote for Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon. The letter says in part:
Now we fear that some on the left cannot see the difference between a capitalist democrat and a protofascist. We hope none of us learn this difference from jail cells …
Some of us think “endorsing” Joe Biden is a step too far; but we who now write this open letter all know that we must work hard to elect him.
I was not invited to sign the letter, nor to comment on the draft. Like the signers, I regret having refused to vote for Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and I agree with the general sentiments. However, the letter comes close to suggesting that progressives should be a soft touch, and it left out one crucial paragraph. If I may:
We also pledge that we will press Biden hard to run and govern as a progressive, in both his policies and his appointees. We will vote for Biden as a small-d democrat against an aspiring dictator. But we do not control how others vote. If Biden expects the wholehearted backing of every possible progressive voter, he will need to earn it.
