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Democrats Boosting Right-Wing Populism
In his triumphant speech on election night, the next senator from Massachusetts should have thanked top Democrats in Washington for all they did to make his victory possible.
For a year now, leading Democrats have steadily embraced more corporate formulas for "healthcare reform." In the name of political realism, they have demobilized and demoralized the Democratic base. In the process, they've fueled right-wing populism.
The Democratic leadership on healthcare and so much else -- including bank bailouts, financial services, foreclosures and foreign policy -- has been so corporate that Republicans have found it easy to play populist.
Fixated on passage of something that could be called "healthcare reform," the Democratic establishment has propagated the myth that enacting such a law is vital to the political viability of the Obama presidency.
With few exceptions, the most progressive members of Congress have twisted themselves into knots to move with the choreography from the White House. The worse the healthcare bill got, the more they strained to lavish incongruous praise on it.
Defenders of the current healthcare legislation don't like to acknowledge how thoroughly corporate it is. In the wake of the Senate election in Massachusetts, we're sure to see a new wave of mass emails from progressive groups urging a renewed fight for a public option. But the Obama administration threw a public option under the Pennsylvania Avenue bus well before the GOP victory in Massachusetts finalized its burial.
Key provisions -- such as a mandate requiring individuals to buy private health insurance without a public option -- are giveaways to mega-corporations on a scale so vast that it boggles the mind.
Such a federal healthcare law -- massively combining an intrusive government mandate with corporate power -- would be a godsend to right-wing populism for decades.
Government power should be used for the common good, not for humongous profiteering. But on the near horizon is a law that would further bloat already-bloated corporate coffers while undermining basic precepts of a social compact.
The mandate places legal, financial and ideological burdens on the individual for healthcare. In the process, at best, many low-income people would only have access to inferior coverage with plenty of holes.
Rather than affirm the principle of healthcare as a human right, the current scenarios for healthcare reform lay out limited federal subsidies for private insurance premiums -- in effect, an entitlement program in political terms, sure to be vulnerable to the kind of safety-net shredding that has done so much harm in recent decades.
The current versions of healthcare reform, New York Times economics writer David Leonhardt noted on Jan. 20, "are more conservative than Bill Clinton's 1993 proposal. For that matter, they're more conservative than Richard Nixon's 1971 plan, which would have had the federal government provide insurance to people who didn't get it through their job."
One of the biggest themes -- repeated endlessly by pundits and meme-prone Democrats -- has been the assertion that getting "healthcare reform" signed into law is essential for the political viability of a Democratic Congress and the Obama presidency. But at this point, given what's on the table under the Capitol Dome, the opposite is likely to be the case.
If Obama signs the kind of healthcare legislation now in the pipeline, it will be a political gift to the Republicans -- and a crowning negative achievement of bad leadership for the congressional majority.
Key House Democrats declared throughout most of 2009 that they would only support a healthcare reform bill with a "robust" public option. Now the same members of Congress are saying they'll be pleased to vote for a final bill with no public option at all.
Meanwhile, at the grassroots, many progressives are apt to buy into a false choice between capitulating inside the Democratic Party or staying away from it. But there's another option: an inside/outside strategy that involves openly fighting for progressive power within the party while also organizing outside of it.
If we want more progressive officeholders, then elections are part of the process: beginning with Democratic primaries this year. Support genuine progressive candidates -- and if you don't see any, maybe you should do some recruiting. There's no time to lose.
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147 Comments so far
Show AllNice to see an author here that seems to overall get it and is not apologizing for the Democrats.
After watching the Democrats in action for the last year, they really don't even resemble a political party. I thought the "negotiations" around health care reform could only be regarded has a total embarrassment.
IMHO, in it's current state the Democratic party is pretty much useless.
It is all orchestrated to swing the masses into the corporate line.
There is no competion between the parties.
If you want progress, then form a Progressive Party.
Soloman is full of beans.
Yes, the Democratic Party has accepted so many bribes from investment banks, insurance companies, drug companies and war profiteers that they have no choice except to deliver unprecedented corporate welfare or the Godfather will send Vinny out to kneecap them.
This is the point that any House or Senate Democrats who claim to be liberal or progressive need to put up or shut up by leaving the party and going independent, or being sucked underwater as the party sinks in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
No matter how hard true liberals/progressives try to make the party work, Rahm will keep them veal penned and saturated with his kool aid to keep them in line. Rahm witnessed how well the tactic worked for Karl Rove and he isn't going to change.
There is a Progressive Party:
http://sites.google.com/a/progressivepartyofamerica.org/www/homepage
There is an Independent Party:
http://www.usiap.org/Beliefs/Platform.html
Of course the Greens and Socialist Parties.
For progressive power, we are divided with many 3rd parties.
Party has come to mean division and the results are in.
We need a peace movement that parties and individuals can get together to support.
Coakley was a laugh as a candiadte. She was a pale shadow of Kennedy. Brown deserved to win -- dammit.
The Democrats in Congress have indeed "lost their base" with their craven and quisling maneuvering to the right. Even so-called progressives got on board in the Senate while Blue Dog senators held poor old Harry Reid over a barrel.
The Democratic Party is as bad a joke as Coakley's campaign. Is is reformable? At this sorry stage, Mr. Solomon, I don't think so. We need a blank sheet of paper -- a new party. A progressive party. Not a rightist copy of the Republican Party in sheep's clothing.
ABC News asks: (Is) Scott Brown Victory a 'Repudiation' of Obama, Health Care? Hell yes! Of course it is. Even for the Fawning Corporate Media that's a silly question.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/michael-steele-
david-plouffe-brown-defeat-coakley-means/story?id=9609602
Gary
Why succumb to the party thing at all? Why not hold direct elections. We could directly vote as to whether we wanted half our taxes to go to pay for armaments... We could directly vote on whether we thought education and health should be a larger portion of our blood sweat and tears equity...
One representative for a hundred thousand constituents is a joke... one for a million is beyond believable. It is time for a change. A Big change.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
A two party democracy is a strictly limited form of democracy and as it has evolved it has become very much like the old soviet union with the only differences between candidates being one of personality for the most part. When the citizens become enraged with government they turn to the alternative party which they hated no longer than a year ago.
Democracy works with an intelligent and informed population neither of which is present here so instead we see the rise of ignorance, religion, militarism and the most vicious form of monopoly capitalism. The American Empire is definitely on a downward spiral.
"Democracy works with an intelligent and informed population neither of which is present here so instead we see the rise of ignorance, religion, militarism and the most vicious form of monopoly capitalism. The American Empire is definitely on a downward spiral."
No truer words were ever typed...
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
It's not just health care. It's rewarding and protecting the thieves and frauds in the banking and banking "regulatory" establishment. It's carefully crafting legalistic frameworks to allow any future Executive Branch to resort to torture with impunity. It's pissing away the last few years we have left to do anything meaningful about global warming and critical losses in biodiversity. All sacrificed to make even more obscenely rich those who are already obscenely rich. That once-in-40-years golden majority was the Dimocrats' to lose and they blew it.
Now is the test of whether or not America has enough authentic progressives left with sufficient integrity and brains to seize the opportunity presented by the astonishingly rapid political suicide of the Dimocrats. Now it's on us and we cannot afford to fail to unite and present a better policy platform to progressive voters, alienated Democrats and the 80 million mostly poor and minority voters who were abandoned by the GOP and DLC in 1980.
It's time to decouple the Progressive movement from the corrupt corporate Democratic party.
Go Green!
Cygnus: absolutely right---and trying to hitch the Progressive movement or party to that of the pissed-off "populists" who powered the Brown victory would be a grave mistake. Their victory is not our victory, although it may be, in some kind of dialectic way, a necessary condition to our ultimate victory. The Green Party that you urge to go! (and of which I am a member) is diametrically opposed to the "gummint"-hating yahoos who troop to the polls to support the likes of the torture-approving Brown. You'll never get the Green agenda for protection of the COMMONS from the yahoo-populist protectors of their own freedom to exploit others as they damn well please and their disdain for general peace and justice for all people, not just those "like themselves." So sure, I celebrate this morning the whacking that the Democratic side of the corporate duopoly took last night; but that's just a tiny opening for true, collectivist populism of "the people," not the populism of let's keep jobs at home, don't touch my gun and don't say anything snide about the gas-guzzling pickup that Brown used to ride his way into the Senate.
So I second your GO GREEN! admonition---or at least GO SOMETHING ELSE modelled on the Green ideology but maybe a tad better organized and less old-white-man oriented (unless we can improve the organization and demographic reach of the Green Party itself.)
I like your ideas Phoenix20 except for the part about "keep the jobs at home". I think keeping jobs here is a very legitimate desire. The exported jobs go to countries that use grossly underpaid labor, sometimes child labor. Exporting jobs is a way to sidestep wages and labor conditions that people here fought for. The jobs go to places where the local oligarchies conspire with the corporations to get people off the land and pack them into cities in a state of desperation where they will work for next to nothing. It is very similar to the land enclosure era that populated England's miserable cities with potential workers for industrialization in the 1800s. But now it is global. Haiti is a perfect modern example.
Exporting jobs does not benefit ordinary people here, there, nor the environment. It goes along with ruining small local agriculture in the target country, destroying the culture and psychology of the farmers. Look at the suicides in India. It allows corporations to run rampant and pollute and destroy the environment. They create toxic health conditions for the workers and the communities. The Green Party should stand with workers here and abroad to demand better working conditions and more responsible environmental practices by corporations. This is not me-me-me American nationalism, but part of an internationalist response on behalf of the people who are being exploited by predatory corporations under the banner of globalization.
Joe
Sure, Norman, one more attempt at giving "the kiss of life" to the bloated corpse of the Democratic Party.
Tony Vodvarka
What do people like Solomon or places like the Nation think the Democrats$$$ are? A potential opposition to corporate America? You got to be kidding?!!!!! PLEASE>>>>>>>>>
They are corporate America every bit as much as the Republicans$$$ are, and they spend all their time together with the Republicans formulating government policy together. Much of our liberal dumbgencia doesn't seem able to fully comprehend that? I'm talking about you, Norman, amongst many, many others.
Seems like Solomon's 'got to hold his (Obama's) feet to the fire' thing isn't working out so well.
How cheaply do you think that I for example could run an effective grassroots primary challenge to BlueDog Jason Altmire in a swing democratic 4th PA congressional district? People with some experience tell me $750,000 for the primary and equal or more for the general. Are they correct? How do you raise that much money without, you know, selling your soul? Or is that always part of the bargain?
tammons: Don't even get me started on this one. I have a whole soap box on which I will climb to assert the possibility of conducting a low-budget campaign way, way below the $750k that "people of experience" say is necessary for a successful congressional candidacy. To begin with, having a truly populist stance of a "people's seat" in Congress (which even the regressive Scott Brown rode into a Senate seat on his pickup) gives you a tremendous advantage from the start, especially if you can attract "earned (unpaid) media" by the newsworthiness of your campaign. Then you make an issue of the very amount of corporate money that Altmire or any other corporatist opponent has amassed, building on the populist anger against the wealthy in a suffering economy that the Masschusetts miracle demonstrated. It can be done; and it's the only way we are going to take "the money out of politics": by finding economical and effective ways to campaign. I live nowhere near Pennsylvania (except by internet) but I'd be more than glad to share more ideas along this line---if we can find a way to communicate in more depth. Even ONE successful truly populist campaign can give all those "people of experience" some new experience on the basis of which to make their judgments about the viability of candidacies; might even trickle through to our gate-keeping media.
You seem to forget that the even the most powerfully eloguent left-populist is going to be completely dissapeared from the media, while the opponent runs TV ads along with free news coverage. And, even an army of volunteer door-knocking canvassers does no good - if USAns don't see something on TV, it doesn't exist.
I worked a bit on the campaign of a progressive populist-Democrat - hung-out to dry by teh Party, in Republican Tim Murphy's district. It was futile. Even the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO endorsed the Republican.
A primary challenge against the party-blessed candidate is far more difficult.
pjd412: So what do you propose we DO?
Well, it might be better to concentrate on local political offices first - school boards, city and county councils, then state legislatures. This is particularly true in suburban areas, where lack of community-solidarity makes a campaign organized outside of the mass media practically impossible.
This was the strategy of the emerging new-parties of the Clinton years - The New Party, The Working Families Party, the Labor Party, and at that time, the Green Party. If Gore had won in 2000***, they may have continued to grow - not for the reasons a democrat supporter would think, but because the discontent with the Democrats would have continued to grow. Instead, they collpased under Bush as everyone rushed back to the Dems like frightened children.
So, it is starting from scratch time. I still have some neat left-labor memorabilia from fundraising auctions put on by the now-defunct Labor Party USA - including what became an ironic Japanese T-shirt promoting a "Global Peace Festival 2001"...
***To be clear, I worked for and voted Nader in 2000. Gore can only blame himself for allowing the judicial coup to happen.
"And, even an army of volunteer door-knocking canvassers does no good - if USAns don't see something on TV, it doesn't exist."
I disagree. Americans know that corporations are running the show. The healthcare mandate! - for example. Look at the polls. The time is ripe for a new progressive party and a powerful movement behind it.
"A primary challenge against the party-blessed candidate is far more difficult."
But it must be done! Lots of things are difficult. No one said this would be a cake walk. But if we keep on it, it will gain momentum. Look at the polls! This country wants a true progressive party - they just don't know it yet! that's our job.
rvrwalker
I agree with you about Americans, but....
"Look at the polls! This country wants a true progressive party"
I do not see how you come to that conclusion? The poll's are indicating a movement away from liberals/progressives. The elections seem to be confirming it.
What are you seeing I'm not, or how are you interpreting it differently?
"What are you seeing I'm not, or how are you interpreting it differently?"
Americans are far more progressive than the MSM would have you believe. It's just that the cameras and the corporate/political media shills focus on the minority so as to "disappear" We the People. Turn off your TV! They lie.
I did a days worth of research last month and posted some of what I found here at CD. It's similar to what David Swanson and Sarah van Gelder found.
I'm in the middle of reading David Swanson's newest book, "Daybreak - Undoing the Imperial Presidency." Swanson lists some poll figures from Sarah van Gelder, "Our Own Agenda: 10 Policies for a Better America," Yes! Magazine; Fall, 2008
website: http://yesmagazine.org/purpleagenda
Also look here: http://surveys.ap.org
You can also research at The National Constitution Center poll.
The following is from Swanson's book, published in 2009. There's a lot more I could list but my fingers are tired.
73% say corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.
67% favor public works projects to create more jobs.
80% favor increasing minimum wage
70% favor habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo prisoners
64% favor government national health insurance, even if it would raise taxes
79% say the UN should be strengthened
63% want out of Iraq now
7% (yes, 7%)favor military action against Iran
67% to only 29% favor giving the president more power in the name of improving national security
"Americans know that corporations are running the show."
No, Americans "think" Nancy Pelosi and the Hollywood liberals like Barbara Streisand are running the show. Seriously. They want to turn us into Homosexual Veggan Atheists on Welfare, ruled by the new World order that will impose a Stalinist government run by Pelosi, Obama and Reid.
Sadly, your attempt at parody is actually an accurate description of the views of a couple siblings of mine...
Phoenix, you have great ideas.
I would think once someone has enough signatures on the ballot they could ask for radio interviews. The person would have to be able to unite people on issues and then start building a network from the ground up, which is the way it should be all the time.
You do it with people like me and others I know who will be out there for you, on the sidewalks, door to door, emailings, benefits, letters to the editor, letters to friends and families, banners, signs, chit-chat at parties, public access tv, speakers, more benefits! posters around town, student groups, churches, ....... add your own ideas.
Yeah, it'll take some work. What else is this life of ours about? There are people suffering horribly who desperately need us to act now!
Otherwise, we can just stuff our fruitless hope into a big black hole.
Several years ago, I attempted, here in NYC, to connect with the Green Party, to become involved -- to do some volunteer work, or whatever. However, no one ever got back to me. I talked to a couple of my friends who also tried to get in touch with the party, and they also received NO response.
"So I second your GO GREEN! admonition---or at least GO SOMETHING ELSE modelled on the Green ideology but maybe a tad better organized and less old-white-man oriented (unless we can improve the organization and demographic reach of the Green Party itself.)" -- Phoenix20
Phoenix20: Well said!
At the same time, over the past several years, I have voted for a 3rd party as often as possible.
"Now is the test of whether or not America has enough authentic progressives left with sufficient integrity and brains to seize the opportunity presented by the astonishingly rapid political suicide of the Dimocrats. Now it's on us and we cannot afford to fail to unite and present a better policy platform to progressive voters, alienated Democrats and the 80 million mostly poor and minority voters who were abandoned by the GOP and DLC in 1980." -- metal
metal: You raise very important issues!
A couple of years ago, I attended a couple of socialist meetings at CUNY, and it was democratic in a sense -- we all had an opportunity to speak, and the room was filled to capacity. However, with all of the issues on the table -- all of us left without any organized effort for immediate or future action, except the announcement for another meeting in another month. I even asked about taking action, but received no reply or response -- just blank stares.
How can we, here on CD, connect?
Kay Johnson: "How can we, here on CD, connect?" An extremely important question. How can we not be atomized by our inability to make direct contact with people of like progressive minds? Maybe the people who monitor CD comments boards could address this question for us.
phoenix20: Thank you so much for your reply! I would like to see the monitors of this site address this issue!
Since I live in NYC, I would be interested in actually meeting others who also live here, who might have ideas about how to connect, as well as actions we might take as progressives.
BTW, Jonathan Tasini is running against Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary for senator of NY state. He is leading a Wall Street rally on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at NOON -- in front of Goldman Sachs. If I can switch my schedule around, I plan to attend.
Kay Johnson: thanks for the heads up on Tasini; I looked at his campaign website, looks good. His "Wall Street rally" is the kind of "earned media" event that I was recommending to tammon re: shoe string campaigns. It will be interesting to see if, having "earned" NYT coverage, he will get it. Let us know how that goes.
Tasini ran against Hillary Clinton for her senate seat, and although he was shut out of all media coverage in the city, was completely ignored by Clinton (who also refused to engage in any debates with Tasini), and ran a low-budget campaign, he still managed to win 17-20% of the primary vote.
"Tasini ran against Hillary Clinton for her senate seat, and although he was shut out of all media coverage in the city, was completely ignored by Clinton (who also refused to engage in any debates with Tasini), and ran a low-budget campaign, he still managed to win 17-20% of the primary vote."
Very encouraging and a sign to remain optimistic. That's great he's running again and holding a rally on Wall Street!
Isn't Schumer up for re-election this year? Why doesn't Tasini try for his seat?
Yes, Schumer is up for re-election. However, Gillibrand is NOT as well-known as Schumer, and she's not as entrenched with the "powers that be." At least, that would be part of my guess. Schumer's money is never-ending. He received more than $15 million from the finance industries, as reported by Bill Moyers.
"and she's not as entrenched with the "powers that be."
Are you joking?
I would happily go Green if I could be sure that doing so wouldn't give me eight years of Brown/Palin and the Rapturists. I feel our survival is at stake.
I every progressive and every progressive Dem would go Green, it wouldn't be an issue. The Dem would get a minority of votes, the Repuke would be under 40% and the Green would squeak through; a win.
Keep being afraid. It keeps things the way they are.
When you're stuck in a corner, only the "radical" is gonna get you out of there.
"When you're stuck in a corner, only the "radical" is gonna get you out of there."
Like Stalin is the antidote for Hitler
Not accepting a delusion is being afraid?
Unfortunately, it's people like you who threaten our survival by continuing to support the one-party system with two right wings. Evolve or die!
I don't agree. The Greens are very active, there are just so few of them! Start a new party with even fewer? Doesn't make a lot of sense when there is already a party with a ballot line in most states. Do you realize how much time and effort that takes?
The Greens lost a lot of people after the 2000 and 2004 election. The party has been struggling with that reputation - the Democratic Party lie that Greens handed the election to Bush.
Getting ballot lines in most states is a huge accomplishment by the Greens. Why invent a new party that would have to do the petitioning, all the work to organize it, and with Democrats - scrutinizing every signature, sabotaging every inch of the way - holding things up. The Greens have been through it. If you join up with the Greens now, we can get this already formed, solidly progressive party off and rolling. But it takes work and commitment.
Why isn't the Green Party "viable?" Answer: Because you haven't joined up .... yet.
Given how glibly Obama fooled us into "believing in him and the possibility of change," and then, after being elected, completely caved in on his promise, I have completely given up on the Democratic Party!!!! With that, I have completely given up on our Congress and our Administration.
And I would never vote for a rePUGlican!
We need a genuine third "People's Party" who will fight for the rights and needs of the American citizens.
Will that ever emerge??? I will not vote again until it does! Ralph Nader, you need to run again!!!
Not voting is not a good idea, don't give the impression that you're not interested. You can always use a "write in" ballot, as I did for Nader in Delaware in 1996.
Republicans will be happy to hear that.
Poor ezeflyer is like a shell-shocked WWI veteran who in old age goes looking for his old Enfield every time there's a rumble of thunder, dutifully seeking to resist the approaching Hun hordes.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Indeed. And we shall all relish the day (which should come soon, the way Obombem continues to screw up) when ezeflyer finally succumbs to the mustard gas, and moves on to meet his old pal "Joe Hope" (remember him?) in that battleground in the sky....
We need a genuine third "People's Party" who will fight for the rights and needs of the American citizens.
-------------
The Republicans, thinking two steps ahead, created a third party, the Tea Baggers, to channel support back towards themselves.
They understood that public outrage would continue to balloon as their very policies, co-opted by democrats, continued to hollow out the country.
Of course Tea Baggers are simply the most extreme wing of the Republican party and thus will continue to vote for Republicans.
Much time will be wasted in the drive to create a truly independent viable third party which is, of course, the other primary purpose of the Tea Baggers.
Criminals are always thinking about how to buy themselves more time to do even greater looting.
I agree wholeheartedly with your insightful description of the Teabaggers as the GOP's right wing "thinking two steps ahead", creating a faux third party to co-opt righteous populist anger, and then to ultimately channel voters back to the Republican Party on election day. I don't buy your last point though: I think the primary purpose of the Tea Baggers has nothing whatsoever to do with stirring up progressives to expend energy and time trying to create a truly independent, viable third political party.
The primary purpose of the Tea Baggers is (as you say) to channel votes back to a GOP rehabilitated from the widespread public backlash against the Bush/Cheney regime, simultaneously focusing grassroots anger over the economy and other frustrations back against Obama and the Dems. Period.
Karl Rove and friends could care less whether progressives go third party, or opt for more efforts to reform the Democrats from within.
Either way, the right wingers sense they have a winning game plan, solidifying their ideological hold within the Republican Party as they dance with delight over splitting the base that elected Barack Obama in 2008.
The strategy is very likely to work, even in blue states like Massachusetts.
Bill from Saginaw
The US apparently has to learn the lesson that present-day social democratic countries learned when they chose fascism.