The Democratic Socialist Congresswoman’s answer to well-heeled Republicans who claim that environmental concerns are “elitist” was inspiring. But …

Dear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes,

You probably won’t read this, which is fair enough, given that I’m an OWM living in France who has never set foot in the US.

What’s more, not only do I have zero influence on American politics, my influence over the politics of the country where I was born (the UK) and the one where I now live is pretty much zero, too. But then I have that in common with most citizens of those countries.

Nevertheless, as a lifelong left-winger, I would like to say how encouraging it is to see a professed socialist elected to the US Congress and how impressed I was by your takedown of Republican sneers that concern over climate change is “elitist”.

But – you knew there was going to be a “but”, didn’t you? – I must take issue with your statement that climate change “should not be a partisan issue”.

Of course many US politicians, and practitioners of other equally respectable professions, are “more concerned about helping oil companies than helping their own families”. Not only are they corrupted by lobbies, as you showed so effectively in another gone-viral speech, but defending the rich and powerful is actually what their politics is about.

True, in the long term climate change will threaten all human civilisation but capitalism is all about the short-term. Increasingly so, as Thomas Piketty has shown, with companies frittering away their own future by paying out bigger and bigger dividends to shareholders.

Furthermore, interests that will in the long-run endanger the whole kit and caboodle of humanity have become so entrenched they can dictate current policy.

And, let’s be honest, politics, like human consciousness, is formed by the past, which is a handicap when it comes to planning for the future.

I was tempted to describe Sean Duffy’s remarks as “stupid crap” but it’s not, it’s cunning and disingenuous crap designed to convince middle-class and working-class people that their interests converge with those of big business and its political, legal and media courtesans.

That’s what their politics is about.

So climate change, like everything else of any importance, is a partisan issue, although the partisan divide may also appear within the Democratic Party.

This may seem like nitpicking but in France we have an illustration of why it is important to be clear about what are left-wing values and what are right-wing ones.

That’s the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.

Starting as a reaction to a decree from on high that adversely affects the vulnerable, the kind of action your Green New Deal warns against, it has become a mass protest that is diffuse and difficult to define but essentially against inequality.

That’s a left-wing concern, right? Fighting inequality and eventually establishing a classless society is what socialism is all about, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, not for many Gilets Jaunes. As one young activist told me the other day, the experience of France’s Socialist Party in government, carrying out a pro-business programme that has increased inequality and left many feeling ignored or despised, has emptied the idea of socialism of its meaning for a large number of the people it is supposed to be fighting for.

So, at the same time as that young man outlined what seems to me a very clear-sighted analysis, an older woman was declaring that the fight against inequality is “above politics”.

In France today the chattering classes have a tendency to throw around the terms left and right without any reference to actual policies, as if they were tribal loyalties. The disillusionment with that sort of politics is such that both candidates in the final round of the last presidential election – one a far-right hate-monger, the other a social liberal with a right-wing economic programme – declared themselves to be neither on the left or right. (They are also both millionaires, by the way.)

We on the radical left used to think that after attempts to reform capitalism had failed the masses would turn to us. It’s proved a little more complicated than that. Various experiences of “socialists” and “communists” in office, as well as the arrogance and callous indifference of EU bureaucrats and traditional politicians, have led to a kind of anti-political demagogy that exploits disillusion and has allowed xenophobic, far-right movements to grow in several European countries.

So I don’t think we should make any concessions to the idea that because something’s important it is non-partisan or not political.

Socialist politics are about serving the interests of the majority and protecting the future of all humanity.

I imagine that’s why you took up the political cudgels.

We owe it to our adversaries to refrain from distorting what they stand for. But we owe it to humanity not to give them credit where credit is not due.

Yours in solidarity,

Tony Cross