Death of the Millennial Left: Interventions 2006-2022

by Chris Cutrone

The Millennial Left, facing the War on Terror, the Great Recession, the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, and the Black Lives Matter protests, as well as the Presidencies of Obama and Trump and the political discontents expressed by them and by Bernie Sanders, Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn, SYRIZA, et al, was tasked with the struggle for socialism in the core of global capital. It failed to even attempt this task. In the essays collected here, spanning the Millennial generation's many agonies, Chris Cutrone cuts through the accumulated legacy of failures that the Millennials inherited from the Left of the 20th century and that blocked their view of the socialist politics needed to turn the crisis of neoliberal capitalism into a struggle to overcome capitalism. A critique of the history of the recent and current Left, the book is also a lesson in the politics marking the 21st century and the absence of Marxism informing the Left as much as the Right. It is essential reading for anybody interested in a socialist politics of freedom.

Genres: History, Politics, Philosophy, Essays

280 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2023

Reviews

[Stephen Pinna · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all those who spent the last few decades involved in various activism and leftist projects this is an important collection of criticism. Looking at the current moment, what was accomplished? How do we not waste the next decades?

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cutrone comes across as a contrarian but really he is an old-school leftist who infuriates his supposed allies because he remembers what they said and thought in the past. This infuriates anything that is hypocritical, and few things are as hypocritical as the post occupy Left, who's main achievement is insuring that corporations and governments can continue to exploit but this time with a rainbow flag.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cutrone gives a sharp analysis of the failures and missteps of past left-wing movements in the United States. He talks about anti-war movements, the Sanders campaign, and anti-Trumpism. He comes off very provocative, such as in "Why Not Trump?". The point, however, is to provide the American "left," as they call themselves, with an honest and uncomfortable analysis of reality. The left is dead, doesn't exist in modern politics, and won't exist so long as things continue going the way they have been. Notably, some of his analyses about Iran or China might be limited since he doesn't go too in depth into history and politics outside the imperial core. Nonetheless, I would still recommend this text to anyone who wants a rundown of left-wing movements since the Bush era and why they failed.

[Blandinus · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Left is perhaps the most naively credulous audience — permanently stricken with the ugly naiveté of adolescence — gullible for any shameless political propaganda, and slapped upside the head so hard and so often by reality as to never quite stop reeling from one capitalist political crisis to the next. This has been true since the 1930s, when Stalin’s Soviet Union could never decide which way was up — or down — between FDR, Hitler and Churchill. But at least Stalin knew a “useful idiot” when he saw one.

Today there are nothing but idiots. — We are all useless idiots."

[Evan Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

As provocative as it is stentorian, Death of the Millennial Left does what the tin says. It stands above the indurated corpse of my generation with a eulogy--a time crusted tale--of a shared failure. My thoughts and heart aren't so refined nor educated to match Cutrone's polemic, yet something about his arguments snag. Maybe it's a sign that something is resonating. More likely, the specter of doubt continues it's harvest of my brain.

Recommended for those transfixed by bugs in their tiny lives.