So the children have won
Last edited Wed Dec 7, 2016, 12:51 PM - Edit history (1)
After a flurry of tantrums, the following crowds:
(1) "Oh my god, Hillary was the best candidate in the history of candidates and ran the best campaign ever and only lost because working white men are misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, homophobic (and, once an a while Islamophobic but that's not so bad because Muslims are misogynistic and homophobic too so us "progressives" don't really care that much whether they are hated and feared 
) AND so was their leader Bernie Sanders;" and,
(2) "Oh my god, Hillary lost because she was the worst corporate shill who ever ran, she didn't have an economic message, and Bernie is just so righteous, and the DNC was on Hillary's side, and Hillary stole the primary, and, and, and . . . WE TOLD YOU SO . . . BERNIE WOULD HAVE WON."
looks like they have finished their respective primal screams and retreated to their little balkanized enclaves where they can tell each other how smart they are and how evil everyone else is.
Were those little blaming fits cathartic? I hope they were, because unless we face up to some hard facts about the political theory we have been relying upon since 1992 and chart a path forward, we will literally have to wait another 40+ years for those of us who are members of the only relatively monolithic Democratic voting blocs to increase as a percentage of the population to the point where we can pretty much just tell everyone else to do a Cheney. (That is, of course, provided that the newly empowered racist minority doesn't kill all of our community in the streets or pack us into American versions of Soweto)
Unless that's what you want, you need to quit mourning and get engaged in building a future for this party.
Contrary to the early memes (accepted without question by BOTH pro-Bernie and pro-Hillary factions because it fit both of their narratives) working people who were concerned about the economy did not turn this election. In fact, they voted for Hillary in about the same percentage as they voted for President Obama. In fact, working people AND people of color stood by Hillary in a percentage which attests to their loyalty to this party. Hillary had an economic message and working people answered her call
So how in god's name did we lose?
Welcome to the story of the Third Way and their predecessor/alter ego, the Democratic Leadership Council (the DLC). Without getting into the hot-button issues surrounding the Third Way or whether they were correct, the DLC/Third Way was founded on the premise that our Party would flourish if only we could just get back those Reagan Democrats living in the suburbs who it believed had left the party because it had become "too liberal." (I mean, let's be honest here, in between McGovern, the second election - post-becoming a great human being - Carter, and Dukakis, it would be hard to argue that the Party was not much more liberal before Bill Clinton took it over).
In his first campaign, Bill epitomized the DLC strategy . . . strong on the death penalty and law and order (Bill returned to Arkansas to personally be present for the execution of a black man, Ricky Rector, who had shot himself in the head immediately after his crime and was so f'd up by the time they executed him that he left himself a slice of pie in his cell to eat afterwards AND then Bill sat there without saying a word while prison officials (NOT DOCTORS) cut deep slices in his arms without anesthesia for almost a half an hour because they were too stupid to properly set an IV line.) . . . strong on making sure that "those people" on welfare were "getting back to work" (because, as them "non-liberals" in the suburb knew, people on welfare are only there because they are lazy) . . . strong on how picking another (and not-yet liberal) Southerner as VP . . . strong on "I'm just a poor white boy who made it good (just like you folks in the 'burbs)" . . . and fundraising, fundraising, fundraising.
In 1996, he epitomized the DLC strategy but to the n'th degree . . . coming off of the Lewinsky scandal, he appropriated every MAJOR position of a Gingrich-led GOP, not just forcing them to run solely on his conduct, but making the "Contract for America" and the government shut down look petty and purely partisan. He actually pushed the most blatantly racist criminal justice reforms since those enacted at the state level in the South after/during Reconstruction, and eviscerated capital habeas corpus (which was pissing off Southerners to no end because Northern attorneys were using the federal courts to keep them from killing black folks) Combining this with a booming economy, Bill dramatically outperformed even 1992.
Setting aside whether they were, the DLC became convinced they were right . . . in other words, those Reagan Democrats were ripe for the picking as long as we just tone it down on "criminal's rights," and discrimination, and gay folks, and all those other "liberal" ideas.
Those two elections reveal the political philosophy which has dominated the Democratic Party ever since. Sticking with my promise not to focus on whether DLC/Third Way policies are correct, or represent our Party, I think we need to have a serious discussion about whether they work.
I suggest they do not.
Since Bill Clinton, our party has been decimated at the state level. It has been decimated at the Congressional level. It has lost three elections against relatively weak (and in two cases incredibly weak) GOP candidates. In every one of those elections we have had everything the DLC/Third Way thinks we needed to win. We had truckloads of money. We had candidates who played to the middle and talked about unity. At least in the general elections, we kept our mouth shut about hot-button "liberal" issues (with both Hillary and Bernie departing from this practice, BUT ONLY during the primaries).
With two important exceptions (which bear some independent discussion) the DLC/Third Way strategy has got our ass kicked. We are currently in such bad shape that not just Republicans, but hood-wearing, cross-burning, Matthew Shepard murdering, dominionist Christian "Tea Partiers" are on the cusp of being able to re-write the Constitution of the United States. How can anyone in their right mind think this is working?
Before I get any further, no supporter of the status quo should think for a second that they get to ride the coattails of Barack Obama. Yes, Obama kept quiet in 2008. Yes, he talked unity. Yes, he essentially followed the DLC/Third Way playbook. But he was Barack Hussein Obama, one of the greatest human beings, one of the most transformational human beings, and one of the most inspirational human beings (particularly to people who looked like me and had waited our lifetimes) to ever walk this planet. Obama won in spite of the DLC/Third Way, not because of it. He didn't just pull the same monolithic Democratic voting blocs as we always have, he pulled them out in numbers we will never see again. He overcame the weakness of the DLC/Third Way strategy that local, state, and congressional candidates could not overcome. HE won those elections, not the Party.
Now back to why Hillary lost and why we've been losing for decades. It's right there in the exit polls. The base assumption of the DLC/Third Way strategy is wrong. WHITE SUBURBANITES ARE NOT COMING BACK TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY and no amount of attacking righteously angry people on the streets of Ferguson, or telling rich folks that we know they are "good people" too, or not federally prosecuting blue on black crime, or not standing up for ACORN, or prosecuting the NBPP when they tried to stop right wing voter intimidation in black neighborhood in Philly, or leaving it to the courts to protect our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, is going to change that. These are the people who moved out to the suburbs to get away from us. They are the people who make sure that the only black or brown faced kids their kids see in school has been "screened" to make sure their parents "care about education as much as they do." They are the people who have been scarfing up guns like there is no tomorrow because they actually believe that their privileged lives are in danger WHEN IT IS REALLY OURS. A majority of THOSE PEOPLE walked into a voting booth and put a check mark next to the name of one of the most reprehensible people in the United States. While I hate to sound alarmist, but if you look like me, or you're a Muslim, or you're a Spanish-speaking immigrant, they voted for a man who is going to try to kill us, imprison us, and disenfranchise us. AND they voted for a man who openly admitted that HATE is exactly what he was running on.
What's more, they did this when there was no reason whatsoever to vote against the person on the other side of the ballot (whether you think she is courageous hero or a corporatist shill). She went to great pains not to offend anyone during the GE. She hammered an idea that SHOULD (save for something which I admit I did not consider until it was too late) have convinced EVERY sentient human being that she was the right choice (sexual predators don't get to be POSU should be something everyone can agree upon). They voted FOR hate, not against Hillary.
The DLC/Third Way is wrong. The Reagan Democrats are not redeemable. No amount of "middle of the road-ness" is going to bring them back. They hate black people, brown people, gay people, Muslim people, women (well, women who expect to be treated as the equal of men) on an innate and visceral level. They hate anyone and everyone who is trying to get ahead. THEY'VE PROVED IT.
IMHO, we are a party of the oppressed, the poc, women, religious minorities, immigrants, the poor, and the worker. We are the coalition envisioned by Dr. King. We can have equality AND advancement. We just need to remember who is our enemy. What's more, WE ARE THE MAJORITY not just overall, but in almost every congressional district in the country. We may not be a full 99%, but we're close enough that there is no reason why we are not in power.
Quit crying. Start fighting.
= new reply since forum marked as read
You bring up some good points.
Let me just touch on the ones where we might not be on 100% agreement.
How do I conclude that white suburbanites won't come back?
Partly for the very reasons you mention (combined with their overtly racist behaviors), partly because of the post-Bill elections, a lot because of the last election. Let me talk about them in reverse order.
Trump had only one message, hate. I know the "still Bernie" folks want to say Trump pushed the anti-TPP idea too, but he really didn't and, besides, Bernie was out pushing the same message for Hillary. The simple and I think indisputable fact is that every single (euphemistically, not literally) person who put a check next to Trump's name was driven by hate. What's more, they believed so strongly in hate that they didn't vote for a candidate who (even if you were the staunchest Hillary opponent during the primary) was, at very least (and we know she was much more), as acceptable as any other Democrat who has run. They showed they were one issue voters of the most reprehensible kind and that issue was keeping us down. You don't come back from that.
If you take that revelation and look at the post-Bill demise of our party, you start to realize that, over that period of time, we ran lots of candidates who were very similar to Hillary to the extent that they were not overtly "liberal" and often times vastly superior to their opponents. They also failed to bring in the suburban vote. I think it logical to conclude that what was, at least in my mind, conclusively proven reasons for their rejection of the astoundingly better Hillary Clinton, was what also drove them away from other Democrats.
Finally, I think when you combine your observation about the Democratic Party becoming the champion of "the very poor, feminists, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, and other groups" with long lines of suburbanites cuing up to by guns when the only "danger" is the racist myth perpetrated by the NRA, their support for anti-gay referendums (even in states like California), the virulent anti-mosque demonstrations in the suburbs, and the (again, primarily suburban) rise in hate crimes, it's hard to deny that hatred is the driving factor in white suburbia. This is especially true when you recall that, unlike the <$50K working folks who voted for Hillary who have seen hardships even during the recovery, suburbanites have seen their 401Ks explode, their home values bounce, and their cost of living stay low. In other words, they have ZERO reason to be anything to be disgruntled over (other than hate) and they still voted for a psychopath.
As for Stan Greenberg's analysis, I thought is was pretty result-oriented at the time (evidence, limiting his sample pool to union workers), but even assuming that he was correct then, those people don't exist in significant numbers any more. We're not looking at a big mass of union workers who watched their jobs go overseas while Obama was president (and by Stan's theory, working for "us folks"
. These are folks who either never made a union wage in their life or, if they did, haven't made one for two decades. These are now the sub-$50k workers who Hillary actually did bring back to the fold.
I have to tell you that on everything else, we couldn't agree more.
I do think there is one other path which can get us back at every level and maybe sooner than a generation (which may just be wishful thinking because I won't live to see another generation). It is what somehow became a "dirty word" around here . . . "identity politics." If we take up the mantle of "the very poor, feminists, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, and other groups" (AND the working class voters Hillary already kept in line) with the kind of vigor we've been too scared to do for years upon years. If we stand up not just for the bright-eyed high achiever who has been kept down by overt racism but the also the Michael Browns who have been kept down by subtle racism even before they were shot down in the street; if we stand up for the right to vote of not just the ninety year old daughter of slaves, but also of the black man who just got out of prison for murder; if we tell working people of all races colors and creeds that THEY are the "producers" of wealth and that the controllers of capital are the "takers;" in short, that there is "good" and there is "bad" and they are the "good," we might just stop the haters in their tracks.
Thank you so much for getting back to me. I honestly appreciate it more than you can imagine.
And it looks like you are pissing off all the right people!
ROCK ON 
