Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pauses as the audience cheers during a campaign stop at the University of New Hampshire Whittemore Center Arena, Monday, Feb. 8, 2016, in Durham, N.H. (Photo: John Minchillo/Associated Press)
You will hear pundits analyze the New Hampshire primaries and conclude that the political "extremes" are now gaining in American politics - that the Democrats have moved to the left and the Republicans have moved to the right, and the "center" will not hold.
Baloney. The truth is that the putative "center" - where the Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton's "triangulation" of the 1990s found refuge, where George W. Bush and his corporate buddies and neoconservative advisers held sway, and where Barack Obama's Treasury Department granted Wall Street banks huge bailouts but didn't rescue desperate homeowners - did a job on the rest of America, and is now facing a reckoning.
The "extremes" are not gaining ground. The anti-establishment ground forces of the American people are gaining. Some are so fed up they're following an authoritarian bigot. Others, more wisely, are signing up for a "political revolution" to take back America from the moneyed interests.
That's the real choice ahead.
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Robert ReichRobert Reich, is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
You will hear pundits analyze the New Hampshire primaries and conclude that the political "extremes" are now gaining in American politics - that the Democrats have moved to the left and the Republicans have moved to the right, and the "center" will not hold.
Baloney. The truth is that the putative "center" - where the Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton's "triangulation" of the 1990s found refuge, where George W. Bush and his corporate buddies and neoconservative advisers held sway, and where Barack Obama's Treasury Department granted Wall Street banks huge bailouts but didn't rescue desperate homeowners - did a job on the rest of America, and is now facing a reckoning.
The "extremes" are not gaining ground. The anti-establishment ground forces of the American people are gaining. Some are so fed up they're following an authoritarian bigot. Others, more wisely, are signing up for a "political revolution" to take back America from the moneyed interests.
That's the real choice ahead.
