The Rolling Pincer Movement

How the Far-Left and Conservative Media Spheres Work Against the Centre-Left

Being a mainstream progressive political party of the centre-left is a lonely business. At both ends, we are open to attack. From the conservatives who apply pressure against us for going “too far”, to the far-left who believe we have never gone far enough. The issue is not one of policy, however; as you’ll find, neither has effective policy, if any policy at all beyond a headline. The issue is one of projection, that is to say, of getting our message out and competing against both flanks, who are more than willing to unite to destroy us in a co-ordinated rolling pincer movement. 

The rolling pincer movement is a military tactic whereby an opposing army flanks its enemy in a co-ordinated attack from the fringes to encircle them. From there, as seen with Hannibal’s use of the tactic at Cannae, they slaughter the exposed centre; in this example, Rome, fielding an army almost twice as large, was massacred, seeing casualties ranging from 67,500-80,000 compared to Hannibal’s modest 5,700-8,000 casualties^[1]. 

I’m sure you can see the parallels. The Democratic Socialists of America, as well as other leftist populist groups globally, and obviously conservatives in their many forms, are very willing to contribute to the destruction of the centre-left by encircling them together. 

The foundations of our politics are good. They are solid, and they always have been. However, we face a political challenge: that of a brick wall of conservative opposition. Because no matter the specific factional make-up of the conservatives, they hold that we, on the left, are the enemy, and all else shall come to pass before they allow us our agenda. 

But what are these ideals? Well, to quote from former Australian Prime Minister and ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd,, they have followed broadly a path, “from collective slavery to individual freedom, from monarchy to democracy, from class rigidity to individual opportunity, from poverty to prosperity, from radical inequality to collective solidarity, from things like gender inequality to gender equality, from marriage inequality to marriage equality, from environmental abuse to concepts of sustainability, from war as the natural condition of humankind, that is what states and nations did with each other, to a view that we can do a lot better than that… the idea, the inherent definition of progressive ideals, has genuine, real historical resonance.” [3:45]^[2]

And as Rudd continued, the arguments against those things have relatively been the same throughout history. Conservatives, when challenged with progressive agendas, have continued to say “Too difficult, too hard, impossible, undesirable, too expensive or against the natural order of things” [5:24]^[2].

So how then are they winning? Why has our reformist view of progressivism become toxic, among not just the right, but also the far-left? It is because we have struggled consistently to control the projection of our agenda, specifically through the media. Even before the buying up of media by Trump-aligned figures^[3] in the United States, Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire had built themselves on not even pretending to be neutral. Murdoch has explicitly stated his goal to be the “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world.”^[4] His goal, therefore, is to delegitimise the centre-left in any way possible. This is where the far-left comes in.

The far-left and the centre-left have always maintained a fraught relationship. The left-wing of politics is famous for its division and infighting, and this reality has only harmed it in the modern world, although disproportionately. The far-left work comfortably from the armchair. They see their responsibility as different to ours. Forming government is not their ideal scenario; after all, it would mean they would have to work pragmatically. Their goal, therefore, is to push the centre-left closer towards them, and their avenue for doing so is to hinder it. 

Theirs is, as Rudd says, “a politics of protest, with not even a marginal interest in forming a progressive government.”[35:29]^[5] They are an effective tool of the right, because those engaged in actual politics on the left are constantly weighed down by a flank uninterested in governing, and more interested in barking as loud as possible. 

They decry pragmatism as a road to fascism, and they seek to exclude any chance of forming the coalitions often needed to entrench sensible, long-lasting reform. After all, their entire brand is formed from outrage, apathy and discontent; should politics improve conditions such that their brand loses its necessary dire conditions, they lose all that they hold dear: the appearance of action. 

This is a global phenomenon. In Rudd’s own time as Prime Minister, the leftist Australian Greens opposed and united with the conservatives to block legislation on an emissions trading scheme in 2009, a failure which was the primary catalyst in bringing down his Prime Ministership, and causing over a decade of emissions regulation and green transition to be lost^[6]. They then withdrew in 2013 from the confidence and supply agreement with Rudd’s successor, Julia Gillard, during a hung parliament^[7]. The result of this chaos? Not reform, but nine years of conservative government.

Current Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, called a similar tactic being used to block a multi-billion dollar housing fund over likely unconstitutional rent caps and rent freezes^[8][9], stating, “The Greens imagine that their stubborn, inflexible refusal to compromise or negotiate serves their political interest… They are a party of protest”^[10], and extraordinarily, then Greens housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather revealed his motivations for their harsh opposition stating that allowing the multi-billion dollar housing bill to pass, “would demobilize the growing section of civil society that is justifiably angry” and further more, “While Parliament has debated the HAFF, the Greens have also launched a national door-knocking campaign targeted at Labor-held federal electorates… the purpose is to show Labor that if they don’t agree… they will lose seats to the Greens at the next federal election”^[11].

The centre-left plays in an unfair game. They are attacked from both sides, and have placed upon them the expectations of the world. The conservatives, meanwhile, are only reliant on doing just enough to seem as though their minimal social provision is all that is needed. Stagnation is the inevitable outcome. Investment in the future is minimal, if present at all, because conservatism is not a politics of the future; it is a politics of the past. Should they avoid war and depression, they are successful. 

Meanwhile, we hold no such benefit of low expectations. We are to govern under constant pressure to deliver the great building blocks of nations: keeping a stable, balanced security, a prosperous economy with room to grow, both in the present and in the future, even when out of government one day, a pressing forward of social justice, in the face of conservative backlash, and an innovative foreign policy, all while cleaning up years of misuse, undervaluing and gutting of all those institutions which are to make that happen. All of this in a media environment hyper-fixated on our downfall, from the right and the far-left. 

As for the far-left? They have no expectations. They may attack us from any angle; they may help whoever is against us, but we must engage seriously with them, and should we disengage, we are to be labelled impure, sell-outs or part of the “Uniparty”^[12], in alignment with the conservatives — no matter what the reality is. 

The world now moves too fast for incremental, actionable, effective change. Therefore, the positives of our politics are left in constant threat of a faux-left commentariat seeking to continue the traditions of the armchair left, in engaging with endless critique of power and, most of all, of those on the centre-left. After all, we are their immediate barrier to revolution. We reform, and we do so well. We do so as a viable and effective alternative to their calls for revolution. 

We face off against a conservative movement that always lionise their own. The right-wing commentariat want their mob in power. It is their primary objective. The left-wing commentariat wish to critique power. Should we win, we are given a lecture on why we shouldn’t have won, with the expectation that deviating from any of their specific agenda will lose us their minimal, often flimsy support. Should we lose, we are to be lectured again by the left-wing commentariat as to why we lost. We on the centre-left hold no united or consistent commentariat able to push our agenda. 

As Rudd so eloquently puts it, “there is a perverse psychology at play on the part of a number of so-called left progressive commentators, which compels them to demonstrate that they, the progressive commentariat, alone are pure, whereas those of us engaged in active hand-to-hand combat in centre-left politics are by definition impure and have fallen from grace. This is part of what I see to be a wider psychosis on the part of elements of the armchair left that always prefers to eat its own rather than attack the Conservatives”^[5][28:55].

Conservative media laps this up. The surge of the far-left has been a gift from God, as they have ample time and so-called “evidence” that their paranoid ramblings about mainstream progressives being any of the many pejoratives they have consistently used were correct. They use the far-left as a way to bash those of us on the left who actually have power. 

For the Trump-stooges over at Fox News and the New York Post, and the fake-larrikins of Sky News Australia and the Murdoch print empire, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Australian Green Party, are the jackpot of delegitimising their real competition. 

The strategic interest of the Murdoch media, and right-wing media in general, is to delegitimise the Democratic Party in America, and the Labor Party in Australia, as well as the various other centre-left groupings globally. To quote Rudd once more, their goal is to win, “by magnifying conservative attacks from the right for going too far… but also reporting the left critique of us as well for not going far enough.” ^[5][36:55] Conservative media and the faux-left commentariat delight in what Rudd called a “rolling pincer movement” against the legitimacy of centre-left politics. 

If we are to achieve an effective progressive, reformist future, we must take on both our flanks. Rudd makes note that we should move to go on the offensive against both these flanks by becoming as integrated in alternative media as they are. He states that, “I think as a movement… what I have sensed is a lack of political aggression on our part to push against the far-right and to push against the faux-left, both in ideas, ideals and policy; there's been too much silence, and I would say accommodation in terms of… sliding through with a Green Party flank.” ^[5][53:25] 

These groups are not part of our movement. We seek reform, not revolution. What business do they have under our umbrella, claiming to be part of our political project, when in fact, they oppose it and are willing to unite with the conservatives to destroy it? I doubt they would welcome us in the same way. 

Rudd makes clear that there is no media apparatus to save us by simply repeating the facts of the matter, of which we own a near monopoly. Not only is the media often hostile to us, but when they aren’t, they obsess over a false notion of balance. In the United States, this issue is also present, both with such an absurd orthodoxy in appearing “fair and balanced” to the detriment of fact, and as a result of the Trump administration's more authoritarian tendencies. 

We need to build up voices in our media and our parties for centre-left figures who can espouse the virtues of our foundational beliefs. We must stop being embarrassed to be of the centre-left, and we must broadcast our victories and acknowledge that these are our wins. We have got to be more positive about our political project, because the fact of the matter is that neither side of the pincer movement runs on positivity; they require negativity to function in lieu of unworkable or missing policy. We must aggressivley tell the public what our values are so we cannot be defined by our rivals.

Rome managed to defeat Carthage in the end and did so by utilising their own pincer movement against them at the Battle of Zama^[13]. They did not win by retreating or pretending either flank didn’t exist; they won by hitting them back and using their own strategies against them. The Australian Labor Party hit back and made note of this pincer movement against them, and it netted them 94 out of 150 seats, an increase of 17 seats and sunk the Greens from 4 to 1 seat and the conservative coalition from 58 to 43 seats^[14]. 

We have always faced a greater struggle in forging our vision, and we must realise that we cannot ignore the relationship between those to our right and far-left. They are entwined. Our losses are their victories.