Elizabeth Warren, Third Way and the Battle Over American Liberalism

[FreakinDJ]

Since Barack Obama’s election, Democrats have been united by an increasingly reactionary oppposition. But beneath that veneer of tranquility, longstanding political and philosophical differences over the role the government should play in our economy continue to divide Clintonian “New Democrats” from those who embrace a more traditional New Deal style of liberalism. Many observers expect that a day of reckoning between these groups is coming as we approach the 2016 elections.

The contours of that debate are already being drawn. Last week, Third Way — a “centrist” Democratic group with a board of trustees full of Wall Streeters — attacked proposals to expand Social Security and warned Democrats against adopting a “populist” economic agenda. That led to a high-profile dustup with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

On Tuesday, Chuck Lane echoed Third Way’s argument in The Washington Post, writing, “[d]eeply invested in the individualistic “American dream,” and deeply divided by race, ethnicity and religion, Americans have proven less susceptible to class-based economic appeals than voters in other nations.”



Here’s the real question to raise against Lane’s argument: even if income inequality is not as much of an instant political winner as some liberals would wish it to be, why should Obama and other Democrats therefore play down the issue? Parties need a purpose and identity, and soaring inequality strikes as close to the animating core of the party of the New Deal as any other issue. Obama is talking up inequality not just because he’s grasping for an issue to ride into a midterm election year but because he seems to have genuinely believed for some time now that, as new White House hire John Podesta declared this week and as the Holy Father himself declared two weeks earlier, it is a serious problem with a clear moral dimension. And it is! As Lane himself notes, “the top 10 percent of U.S. earners claimed about half of all before-tax income in 2012, including capital gains.” Another stunning stat that Obama cited in his big speech on inequality last week: “A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top.” Meanwhile, many economists now conclude that inequality hinders economic growth and may even raise the likelihood of financial crashes like the 2008 collapse.



http://billmoyers.com/2013/12/11/elizabeth-warren-third-way-and-the-battle-over-american-liberalism/

The common denominator - Third Way uses Major Media outlets to attack anyone opposed to their agenda


The question Democrats need to ask - "Why is Third Way backing Hillary Clinton"

[Old Codger]

1. Obviously

They are in it together because they agree on how things should be...elitists don't have room for the lower castes.

[hedda_foil]

2. "Parties need a purpose and identity, and soaring inequality strikes as close to the animating core.

What the DLC/Third Way/"Corporate Dems" have worked so hard to destroy is the animating core of the Democratic party. For a long time now, the republicans have been far more spirited and cause driven than the democrats. Of course, the causes of the hoi polloi and the power and profit driven cause of their elite are radically different. And for the past quarter century, the Democratic elite have worked very hard at pretending to embrace the values of their voters, while working just as furiously as the Repukes to drain the middle-class life's blood from the corpse of the republic. Apparently, though, the peons and proles on both sides were not so keen on being led to the slaughter of democracy.

The masses have woken up on both sides of the aisle, and we find ourselves at a strange crossroad. One path leads to fascism, the other to a Second New Deal. We will not remain at the crossroads of the status quo for long, though the party establishments will use every tactic in their arsenals to control and divert us. We are legion and they are afraid.