In his New York Times column today (7/19/10), Paul Krugman offers a prediction about the likely pundit response to the drubbing Democrats are expected to take in the November elections:
What I expect…if and when the midterms go badly, is that the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal–when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs.
Krugman is on solid historical ground here: There is indeed a longstanding pattern of Democratic politicians, previously praised by pundits for their determinedly centrist policies, later being attacked by the same punditocracy for their self-defeating left-wing tendencies. As Extra! wrote back in 1992, in “Conventional Wisdom: How the Press Rewrites Democratic Party History Every Four Years”:
According to mass media, [Bill] Clinton is running as a moderate who appeals to the “middle class” — a plan that is seen as a contrast to previous Democratic runs. “The platform is not Mondale-Dukakis liberal, but Clinton moderate,” reported the Christian Science Monitor (7/17/92).
Actually, both Mondale and Dukakis tried to win by moving the party to the right. “Look at our platform,” said Mondale in his acceptance speech. “There are no defense cuts that weaken our security, no business taxes that weaken our economy, no laundry lists that raid our treasury.” At the time, journalists agreed: “Democrats’ Platform Shows a Shift From Liberal Positions of 1976 and 1980,” ran the headline of the New York Times‘ analysis (7/22/84). “The minority planks that could have crippled his campaign were blocked,” said the Christian Science Monitor (7/20/84).
It was the same story with the 1988 platform. Wrote the Washington Post (7/19/88): “The expansive promises of Democratic Party platforms of earlier years–the crowded bazaar of special interests and special pleadings–have been streamlined into the version that will go before the convention here Tuesday.”
The piece concluded:
Why is it that Democratic party history gets revised every four years? It’s largely because the “left” perspective in mainstream debate is represented by centrists who identify with the establishment politicians who dominate the Democratic Party leadership and feel estranged from the party’s progressive constituencies. These pundits and political journalists seem reluctant to acknowledge that it was insiders, not activists, who led the party to crushing defeats in 1984 and 1988.
After describing the 1988 convention as a transition between the “Old Party” dominated by liberal “special interests” and the “New Party” characterized by post-ideological “problem-solvers” like Dukakis, William Schneider made a prediction (L.A. Times, 7/24/88): “If the problem-solvers can’t win…there is every likelihood that Democrats will go back to what they really believe in.” What actually happened, of course, was the same move that was made in 1984: When the “pragmatists” lose badly with their centrist approach, they are repainted after the fact as radicals, so the strategy of tilting to the right can be tried again and again.
And, in fact, when the Clinton administration’s centrist policies, particularly NAFTA, resulted in the political disaster of the 1994 midterms, the Democrats’ trouncing was indeed blamed on Clinton’s supposedly left-wing policies (Extra!, 1-2/95).
It looks like history is going to repeat itself once again in November 2010.
Jim, the Demorats really don’t need any encouragement from the corpress to move rightward, do they?
To me, it seems that from FDR on, the party has served as a safety valve for the rapacious excesses of a profit-based system, employing wholly inadequate social programs to keep the lid on a fundamentally unequal society. Of course, issues of war and empire have been dealt with essentially identically by both major parties.
As you point out, over the last thirty years, the Demorats have gradually abandoned the bulk of that scheme. Perhaps the feeling is that the populace has been so propagandized and stripped of any sense of power that there’s little need to maintain the facade, apart from rhetoric.
Same with Labor in the UK, and, I’d imagine, maybe to a lesser extent, other ostensibly “social democratic” parties in the developed world.
I guess I’m trying to say that there was never the “golden age” of the party that liberals like to claim existed by pointing to the New Deal, civil rights and other important, but limited, advancements.
Those occurred because folks pushed the politicians to enact them. That belief in being able to effect change has shrunk demonstrably over the last decades, and empirically, you’d have to say there’s precious little chance of recovering and augmenting it, wouldn’t you?
Please don’t take this as the voice of despair, though. The future is bleak, but it’s not yet history, and what seems inevitable at present may appear so because we haven’t found a piece of the puzzle that changes the equation.
Regardless, we do what we can, ’cause if there’s any reason why we’re here, that’s it – to give a damn.
So let’s do it, dammit.
This is a spot-on, usefully-historical analysis of how the ruling conservative political class has used its media to help push the political spectrum ever rightward in the neoliberal era. Thanks.
Latimer responds, “Those (limited social advancements) occurred because folks pushed the politicians to enact them. That belief in being able to effect change has shrunk demonstrably over the last decades…” Incisive. That decimation of popular ability to effect change is exactly why we cannot resist tyranny or build a better world now, whereas people were able to do so in the past. There’s insufficient mobilization; there’s insufficient progressive organization; capitalist propaganda has too many resources at its disposal; capitalist state repression (the law and order system) has too many resources to deploy; en masse, people are just individually holding out for the hope that they’ll get a managerial job, and what benefits elites will trickle down to them. Around the world, we have forged a capitalist peasantry.
But I wouldn’t say our agency has simply shrunk. I would say it is currently dismantled. By and large, we are able to choose cereals from a supermarket aisle and that is about it. Go ahead and ask yourself: If political elites and their corporate media announced today (or any time in the foreseeable future) that even an old, very basic liberal right–say, popular voting–takes too much wealth away from Wall Street, and will be henceforth discontinued, would the public object? Small business owners would need to be reassured that they could still lobby political elites, and the Chamber of Commerce was still involved in elite decision making. But the honest answer is: Only in small, insufficient, exceptional pockets of progressive activism would there be resistance. Effectively, the diverse working class’ capacity to lead is broken, and *given the one-way class war from the top,* nothing can adequately substitute for it.
You know it’s true. There is phenomenally-insufficient capacity for progressive organization in the West/North. Try to get progressive peers to understand the necessity of organized disruption of neoliberal institutions. They no longer can. (Eg. they’ll simply crowd to McLean’s (Canada’s Newsweek) propaganda lead, crying and moaning like Burson-Marsteller interns about the anarchists ruining the teevee show staging. God forbid somebody rudely disrupts anything going on around here. Maybe conservatives were briefly afraid of the Vietnam effect; but progressives are *still* hopelessly paralyzed by the 1968 popular conservative backlash. Move on from it, and keep trying!) Meanwhile the rich old men would continue their collective demand for the continued impoverishment of everyone else, via their Teaparty organization. The Anglo tradition is brilliant at one thing: controlling masses of people for the benefit of its ruling class. Actually, though, inasmuch as the social democracies are rotting from the same neoliberal paradigm, I hold out hope that people who don’t have as strong feudal traditions will retain their social movement capacities and ultimately carve out a different path.
So change the DEM centrightists’ NAPPYS (No Account President and Party of Yoo’re Screwed) and Drive HARD LEFT, For ONCE! At least then the far right’s charges would represent a first foray into truth for nearly 5 decades!!
Good points by everyone above. We do need groundroots social activism; we need crusading journalists like William Lloyd Garrison of the 19th century; and we need one or more third parties that truly represent people’s interests and the public good. That could be the Green Party, or some new party. It sure ain’t the Tea Party (though many tea party supporters are just mad as hell and don’t know what to do about it) and it ain’t the Libertarian Party (whose only answer to every problem is “less government,” as though people left to themselves will magically solve all their problems in a fair and just manner). All of this activism is hard work. Activists often burn out if they don’t have lots of help. We all need to do our part. Support a third party candidate near you or start a third party (or support an independent or the rare progressive Democrat–there are a few out there). Join a social activist group and help them canvass, educate, knock on doors, write letters, protest injustice. We have enough diagnosis: now we need to heal ourselves!
The above people are all much more eloquent than I could ever be and make very specific and detailed arguements about our current situation. All I can say is that even I know that most of what is said to be news is only pro-piganda
Steve:
We do NOT need a 3rd party. That could split the liberal vote and help elect more Repugs.
We need Dems who have the guts to propose BOLD solutions.
Like more nuclear power plants, to the point where we can tell the Saudis to take their oil and get lost.
And a national mission to require at least half the cars on our roads be either electric or hybrid by 2025.
That and lots more.
And leaders with the guts to propose a HEFTY hike in the gasoline tax to discourage gas use.
Europeans pay twice as much for their gasoline.
Yet their countries are not falling apart because of it.
So when will something b e done about all this Un-American activity that created a secret bureaucracy including private armies and intelligence gathering. Sounds like we have been Bushwhacked and Cheneyized to a new era of paranoia so they can play with bigger toys than ever. I thought we might have escaped when they actually left office but instead they have left behind everything they need to make sure Jeb Bush gets his chance at running things. Likely he will be Cheney to Palin’s W. does Deibold still make the voting machines?
Makikijoe Says:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Joe, I think you are part of the problem. The Dems will just keep pulling the same trick on you if you keep voting for them.
Obama is the classic Dem liar.
Makikijoe presents the unthinking, lack of focus on anything, point of confusion…just call anyone you have been told to oppose a liar.
Do you have ANYTHING positive to propose?
The America that I love and respect is a Can Do attitude.
Let’s get on with it. Make it better, fix it, or dump it.
That includes corporations like BP, CitiCorp, AgCorp, NewsCorp, all corporate attitudes that say:
“this is the way we have always done it, and there aint no better way.”
It is possible to shift from the “Global” fix, to a neighborhood social focus-
the We can do better together paradym.
At best, the MSM titlts to the right. Their idea of equal coverage reminds
me of the recipe for rabbit and horsemeat stew in equal proportions–
one horse, one rabbit. Their idea is to cover truth and misrepresentation
the same way–in equal proportions.
State CAPITAL-ism , the root of all evils must be taken down, or all the adjustments, reforms, and fixes, will be like “fixing” rotten meat. As always, it IS the problem, no amount of bandaids can or will ever make it “right”.
CAPITAL_ism is, as the name clearly indicates, is a system soley dedicated to the enrichment of CAPITAL-sts, NOT to serve society, people, the COMMUNITY of humanity. It takes from families, workers, from the earth’s enviroment and gives nothing back but deprivation and poison.
Just doing what it is designed to.
You all mostly KNOW this and are afraid to SAY it, even think it- fearful of being branded socialist or communist. Try to think past the propaganda you’ve been fed your entire lives. (By CAPITALISTS…)
We all have brains capable of thinking for ourselve. Start using them!
EVERY group, every community that approches community, -bottom-upwards decisions making makes out well. As they become successful, they are destroyed by CAPITALIST forces, often military. Even MODERATLY socialist states as the Scandinavian countries as disparaged and LIED about constantly, their success covered over.
Use those brains, or continue Losing them
~John L.