Centrist Democrats' New Cold War Framing on China Is a Defense-Linked Tool Against the Left, and Socialists Must Counter It
Source: Caleb Brennan. "The Left Needs an Answer to the Center’s New Cold War Program." October 17, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author argues that centrist Democrats are pushing a new Cold War with China as a way to renew American power and keep defense spending high, even though voters are tired of it. He says this is driven by old habits of thinking and by defense-industry money, and that centrists will use it as a weapon against the rising socialist left. So socialists need a clear alternative.
Conclusion
Socialists must develop and articulate an alternative to the centrist Democratic New Cold War program on China, because that program revives outdated Cold War logic to preserve US imperial power and defense-industry interests, and will be used to discipline the rising socialist left.
Premises
- The US foreign policy consensus is fracturing: public support for imperial policy is at a low, majorities see Pentagon spending as excessive (59% for the proposed $1.5 trillion budget, 56% want less defense spending), and parts of the Right and the Left are breaking with the old consensus.
- Centrist Democrats such as Slotkin, Sullivan, and Emanuel nonetheless hold to an outdated vision of American supremacy, framing politics as a Manichaean struggle between free-market democracies and authoritarians, a view rooted in the US Cold War victory.
- These centrists frame competition with China as the path to national renewal and middle-class prosperity (through tech and research investment and tech arms-race rhetoric) while avoiding the ambitious redistribution that socialists advocate, and they oppose sharp cuts to Pentagon spending.
- The center's resistance to demilitarizing is driven by ideological attachment to empire and by material interests: the US political economy is intertwined with defense spending, and defense lobbyists and donors fund centrist politicians.
- Centrists reject interventionism-skeptical proposals from progressives (e.g., Khanna) and are positioned to use anti-communist, Cold War rhetoric to discipline rising socialists such as Mamdani, Kiros, and Valdez within the Democratic Party.
Assumptions
- Centrists' stated motives (national renewal, security) are largely pretexts or rationalizations for preserving empire and defense-industry interests.
- Quotes from a handful of figures (Slotkin, Sullivan, Emanuel, Shaheen) are representative of the whole centrist faction.
- Polling showing opposition to defense spending reflects durable voter preferences that the left can mobilize.
- Framing China as a rival is analogous to Cold War framing against the USSR, and the analogy reveals the logic rather than obscuring real differences.
- Military spending is a less effective jobs and growth tool than social investment, so the centrist economic rationale is weak.
- A coherent left alternative is both possible and needed, and failing to offer one will leave the left vulnerable to the Cold War attack.