When I originally saw this aarticle a few days ago, I thought that it is
wishful thinking on the part of the author. The powers in the party are
still centrist. Debbie Wasserman Scholtz's manipulation of the number and
timing of the debates to favor Clinton is one sign. Schumer's power in the
party, even though he voted against the Iran deal is another. The fact that
there's no real peace presidential candidate is a third. The left wing of
the Democratic party will attract staying Progressives back to the fold, but
the party will nominate a hawkish president who has been funded by the
billionaire class to whom she will continue to pander.
Miriam
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From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles Krugman
(Redacted sender "ckrugman" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 3:21 AM
To: Blind Democracy
Subject: [blind-democracy] New Democrats confront a new reality
The "New Democrats" Confront a New Reality
By Richard Eskow
New DemocratsSeveral recent news articles have suggested that, in the words
of a Washington Post headline, "there's . a big economic fight happening in
the Democratic Party."
It's true. The corporate-friendly policies of the party's more conservative
wing have fared poorly, both as policy and as politics, and as a result the
party has moved to the left. The insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders is
the most conspicuous sign of this shift. It's a major setback for the
so-called "New Democrats" who have dominated the party since the election of
Bill Clinton in 1992.
Nearly twenty-five years after they rose to power, the ideas of the "New
Democrats" don't seem so new. Hence, the phenomenon that The Huffington
Post's Sam Stein describes as "the panic of Democratic centrists."
Now they're fighting back. A Wall Street-funded Democratic think tank called
Third Way has released a lengthy report that argues an inequality-based,
populist theme will doom Democrats. Its board member, former White House
Chief of Staff (and JPMorgan Chase executive) Bill Daley, even insisted to
HuffPo's Stein that Sanders' political positions are "a recipe for
disaster."
The Third Way report is available online. It introduces a number of
catchphrases, often paired in threes: the Hopscotch Workforce, the
Nickel-and-Dimed Workforce, and the Asset-Starved Workforce; Stalling
Schools, the College Well, and Adult Atrophy; the Upside-Down Economy, the
Anywhere Economy, and the Malnourished Economy.
Sadly, most of the content amounts to Misleading Minutiae, Gimmicky
Wordplay, and Downright Deception.
Third Way's argument against inequality as a leading source of our current
economic woes puts them directly at odds with leading economists, including
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.
Here's an example of the latter: The paper's authors use a poorly sourced
Wall Street Journal article, rather than solid economic data, as a citation
for their claim that Bernie Sanders' Medicare For All plan would cost the
economy $15 trillion over 10 years. This figure is flatly false, and that
article's gross inaccuracies have been documented by a number of economists
and commentators (including Robert Reich, among many, many others). It is
surprising that any policy group, much less one comprised of self-professed
Democrats, would use it as a citation.
In an attempt to dismiss the harm caused by inequality - and by its own
preferred policies - the Third Way paper dwells at length with the story of
Kodak's "disruption" into bankruptcy by new technologies. The Kodak story is
a familiar one to readers of popular business magazines and Silicon Valley
websites. (It is sometimes accompanied by the observation that Kodak, which
once employed 145,000 people, has largely been replaced by Instagram, which
employs 13.)
In telling this story, the authors are suggesting that technology, not trade
or unequal wealth, is killing American jobs. Unfortunately, Kodak's
anecdotal evidence is not borne out by solid economic data. As the Economic
Policy Institute (EPI) reported in August of this year:
"The United States lost 5 million manufacturing jobs between January 2000
and December 2014. There is a widespread misperception that rapid
productivity growth is the primary cause of continuing manufacturing job
losses over the past 15 years. Instead, as this report shows, job losses can
be traced to growing trade deficits in manufacturing products prior to the
Great Recession and then the massive output collapse during the Great
Recession."
This directly refutes the "Kodak argument." What's more, both of the
job-destroying events cited by EPI can be directly traced back to New
Democratic policies. The trade deficits in manufacturing products was
spurred by NAFTA and other trade deals, while the financial crisis that
triggered the Great Recession was the product of a fraud-riddled Wall Street
left unsupervised by deregulation.
Third Way's argument against inequality as a leading source of our current
economic woes puts them directly at odds with leading economists, including
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. "Politicians typically talk about rising
inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena," Stiglitz wrote
in 2013, "when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains
and holds back our growth."
The evidence is in, and the key economic policies of the "New Democrats'"
have failed. Consider:
.Wall Street deregulation. When Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
bill in 1999 he said it would "enhance the stability of our financial
services system." We now know better.Estimates for the total amount of
national wealth lost as a result of that crisis range from $12.8 trillion to
$25 trillion - or, by another measure, from $20,000 to $120,000 for every
man, woman, and child in the United States.
.Trade. The "free trade" deals they have promoted have led to the loss of
American jobs, as the EPI and others have demonstrated. One deal alone,
NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), is estimated to have caused
the loss of one million jobs in this country.
.Austerity. "New Democrats" urged cuts in government spending, especially in
the wake of the 2008 crisis. The result, as Paul Krugman puts it, has been
"catastrophic . going far beyond the jobs and income lost in the first few
years." As Krugman notes, the long-run damage could easily "make austerity a
self-defeating policy even in purely fiscal terms."
.Welfare reform. When he signed the "welfare reform" bill in 1996, President
Clinton said that it would "end welfare as we know it and transform our
broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work,
responsibility, and families." We now know that poverty increased as a
result of this bill, and there is compelling new evidence which shows that
welfare undermines neither the work ethic nor the personal values of its
recipients.
The Third Way authors are as misguided on politics as they are on policy.
They argue that "the narrative of fairness and inequality has, to put it
mildly, failed to excite voters." This is precisely backward. As the polls
make clear, populism is popular.
President Obama was foundering in the polls after embracing the "New
Democrat" agenda for much of his first term. His political fortunes were
restored when he tacked somewhat further left rhetorically - in response to,
among other things, the rise of the Occupy movement.
The Democratic congressional debacles of 2010 and 2014, on the other hand,
can be directly attributed to the reluctance of many candidates to embrace a
populist agenda. Many insisted that they needed to lean right in order to
reach "swing voters." But that's a demographic that, by and large, doesn't
exist. (From political scientist Corwin D. Smidt: "The observed rate of
Americans voting for a different party across successive presidential
elections has never been lower.")
The Democrats' shift to the right suppressed turnout among the base and
failed to reach disaffected unaffiliated voters. As a result, they lost the
House in 2010 and were routed again in 2014. Under the tutelage of Third
Way and their fellow New Dems, those disasters are likely to be repeated
again and again. Fortunately, fewer Democrats seem to be listening.
rj-eskowToday's real "New Democrats" can be found among the many thousands
of people who have turned out for Bernie Sanders' rallies, many excited by
the political process - and the Democratic Party - for the first time. Other
potential "New Democrats" can be found in the nation's minority communities,
and among the non-college-educated white Americans whose lives are being cut
short by despair and self-destruction.
But Democrats won't win these voters with a Third Way agenda. It will take a
platform that speaks directly to them - to their needs, their hopes, and
their pain.
There are grains of truth to be found in the Third Way's report. Automation
is a legitimate concern, even though it is not yet a major driver of
unemployment. Several of their minor proposals could be useful, even though
they would not offer significant relief to large numbers of Americans.
rj eskowThat does not change the fact that, once again, Third Way and its
allies are gravely misreading the economic and political moment. If their
influence continues to wane, perhaps one day Americans can stop paying the
price for their ill-conceived, corporation- and billionaire-friendly agenda.
RJ Eskow
Campaign for America's Future
Posted on November 14, 2015
Third Way's argument against inequality as a leading source of our current
economic woes puts them directly at odds with leading economists, including
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. "Politicians typically talk about rising
inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena," Stiglitz wrote
in 2013, "when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains
and holds back our growth."
The evidence is in, and the key economic policies of the "New Democrats'"
have failed. Consider:
.Wall Street deregulation. When Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
bill in 1999 he said it would "enhance the stability of our financial
services system." We now know better.Estimates for the total amount of
national wealth lost as a result of that crisis range from $12.8 trillion to
$25 trillion - or, by another measure, from $20,000 to $120,000 for every
man, woman, and child in the United States.
.Trade. The "free trade" deals they have promoted have led to the loss of
American jobs, as the EPI and others have demonstrated. One deal alone,
NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), is estimated to have caused
the loss of one million jobs in this country.
.Austerity. "New Democrats" urged cuts in government spending, especially in
the wake of the 2008 crisis. The result, as Paul Krugman puts it, has been
"catastrophic . going far beyond the jobs and income lost in the first few
years." As Krugman notes, the long-run damage could easily "make austerity a
self-defeating policy even in purely fiscal terms."
.Welfare reform. When he signed the "welfare reform" bill in 1996, President
Clinton said that it would "end welfare as we know it and transform our
broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work,
responsibility, and families." We now know that poverty increased as a
result of this bill, and there is compelling new evidence which shows that
welfare undermines neither the work ethic nor the personal values of its
recipients.
The Third Way authors are as misguided on politics as they are on policy.
They argue that "the narrative of fairness and inequality has, to put it
mildly, failed to excite voters." This is precisely backward. As the polls
make clear, populism is popular.
President Obama was foundering in the polls after embracing the "New
Democrat" agenda for much of his first term. His political fortunes were
restored when he tacked somewhat further left rhetorically - in response to,
among other things, the rise of the Occupy movement.
The Democratic congressional debacles of 2010 and 2014, on the other hand,
can be directly attributed to the reluctance of many candidates to embrace a
populist agenda. Many insisted that they needed to lean right in order to
reach "swing voters." But that's a demographic that, by and large, doesn't
exist. (From political scientist Corwin D. Smidt: "The observed rate of
Americans voting for a different party across successive presidential
elections has never been lower.")
The Democrats' shift to the right suppressed turnout among the base and
failed to reach disaffected unaffiliated voters. As a result, they lost the
House in 2010 and were routed again in 2014. Under the tutelage of Third
Way and their fellow New Dems, those disasters are likely to be repeated
again and again. Fortunately, fewer Democrats seem to be listening.
rj-eskowToday's real "New Democrats" can be found among the many thousands
of people who have turned out for Bernie Sanders' rallies, many excited by
the political process - and the Democratic Party - for the first time. Other
potential "New Democrats" can be found in the nation's minority communities,
and among the non-college-educated white Americans whose lives are being cut
short by despair and self-destruction.
But Democrats won't win these voters with a Third Way agenda. It will take a
platform that speaks directly to them - to their needs, their hopes, and
their pain.
There are grains of truth to be found in the Third Way's report. Automation
is a legitimate concern, even though it is not yet a major driver of
unemployment. Several of their minor proposals could be useful, even though
they would not offer significant r
https://www.laprogressive.com/new-democrats/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+Newsl
etter&utm_campaign=97d37106ec-LAP_News_17April12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0
_9f184a8aad-97d37106ec-265727073
