But you err in the way you’re conceptualizing history. The crisis in capitalism didn’t just shift the center to the left. There was an organized, mostly communist-led left labor movement engaging in massive strikes and resistance to evictions. There was also the Soviet Union, which was insulated from the crisis and weathered the depression well, posing an ideological threat to the legitimacy of capitalism itself.

Now, the incentive structure is fundamentally different. Most of what Clintonian New Democrats like Joe Biden dubbed “special interest groups” (unions, lgbtq, women’s rights) are captured by the Democratic Party since they have nowhere else to go, so the party has every interest in prioritizing the needs of its donor class, ie tech, health insurance companies, finance capital, etc. So to even begin talking about “moving the center left” you need a self-conscious, organized left committed to building power that can stand against these entrenched forces and challenge the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism the same way the left did in the 1930s.