The Proof That Centrism is Dead

[applegrove]

The Proof That Centrism is Dead

by Mike Konczal at the Nation

http://www.thenation.com/article/207833/proof-centrism-dead?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow


"SNIP...............


Centrists also predicted that the only way to control federal healthcare costs was personal responsibility. Centrist groups, such as a task force formed by former Republican senator Pete Domenici and former CBO director Alice Rivlin, sought to replace Medicare with a coupon for the elderly to buy their own private insurance, known by the anodyne term “premium support.” Yet it turns out the government is good at providing social insurance: Instead of exploding, healthcare costs have remained flat. Mass privatization, as called for by centrism, would have been a terrible decision in retrospect.

Centrists have also read our current economic malaise as a temporary blip. The weak recovery required a few short-term fixes, they argued, but reducing long-term spending and restoring business confidence were equally important. As Orszag wrote in 2010, centrists believed “the current antagonism” existing “between business and government” was a major factor in the weak recovery. Workers, they argued, were being left behind because of weak skills and education, deficiencies that would be rectified in the long run.

Yet six years into the recovery, wages are still down for most workers. Since 2000, median family income has dropped by 7 percent. Workers have never been more educated, but the result is just fiercer fighting for jobs. Corporate profits have skyrocketed, and 76 percent of the recovery has gone to the top 1 percent. How can centrists continue to focus on the long term and business confidence when all the fruits go to such a small group?

This failure explains why liberal politicians will sound more confidently liberal in 2016: The dominant ideology pulling them toward business interests has failed. Thus, liberals can analyze the economy within a structural framework that isn’t muddled by a commitment to wrongheaded corporate prerogatives.



...............SNIP"

[scarletwoman]

1. You should add the link to the full article in your OP. nt

[applegrove]

3. Thanks.

[upaloopa]

2. I think it was Hillary who fought for health

care for all even when the country was sold a bill of centrist bull shit.

[jwirr]

4. I remember that she had public hearings and there were a lot of big business people invited to

testify before her committee. I have not idea what her final plan was going to be but she was asking the corporations and big medicine for their ideas.

[DonCoquixote]

7. here proposal was NOT single payer

sadly the only one who did that was Bernie.

[Doctor_J]

17. And now she's all in on privatized insurance

Yet another issue she's flip flopped on.

[JHB]

5. "How can centrists continue to focus on...

...the long term and business confidence when all the fruits go to such a small group?"

Because for the most part they belong to that small group.

[guillaumeb]

6. Who are these centrists? eom

[billhicks76]

14. Bernie And Rand Aren't

They are examples that people in each party respectively are fed up with the status quo in each party. Today Rand blamed right wing hawks for ISIS and Bernie knows centrists in our party giving arms to Syrian rebels also pumped up ISIS. Whether it's NSA, the Drug War forfeiture and mass incarceration, foreign wars etc the lies aren't holding up anymore as common sense is overwhelming. They don't like Bernie and we don't like Rand but it's an inescapable truth that the bubble is breaking because of both of them.

[daleanime]

8. Over due correction.....

is over due.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. "Workers, they argued, were being left behind because of weak skills and education"

We STILL hear that crap.

How much "education" does it take to operate a shovel?

We need a new WPA!!

[Recursion]

20. The WPA never got unemployment below 15%, or 3 times what it is now

Direct hiring, as satisfying as it is in theory, is difficult to make work in practice.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. You don't HAVE to make everyone a government employee....

All you have to do is propose a project and private construction companies will step on each other to get the contract.

[Recursion]

22. Which gets back to your "how much training does it take to handle a shovel": lots

Or, rather, we don't really need that many people to use shovels anymore; we need them to operate backhoes or whatever those are called now. And we need them to do environmental and zoning assessments. There's a good reason we don't just build stuff willy-nilly like we did 80 years ago, but that means it's harder to just pour money into infrastructure and see immediate results.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. Trust me, there are PLENTY of worksite jobs that don't require even a high school diploma....

You don't need one to operate a backhoe either.

[mythology]

42. But you should have some training

Even something as "simple" as a backhoe is vastly more complicated than a shovel.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. That kind of training isn't done in a lecture hall.

[Jamastiene]

31. College graduates often find themselves taking jobs that

require no education and have nothing to do with their field of study. That is, IF they can find jobs at all.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Hence, this...

[clarice]

10. I think that there are many factors in the "weak recovery" nt

[slumcamper]

11. Not least of which is conservative obstructionism and hatred of government. n/t

[clarice]

12. Did you read that in the sheep handbook? nt

[Duppers]

25. That's rude.

What's wrong with what he said?

[clarice]

27. ooooops my bad...sorry. i responded to the wrong post.....nt

[Jamastiene]

32. But, you didn't delete it and repost it in the right place.

Why not?

[clarice]

37. nunya. nt

[Jamastiene]

39. Ah, being passive aggressive, I see. n/t

[clarice]

44. Ok...are you purposely trying to pick a fight with me?nt

[betterdemsonly]

13. Wishful thinking. If it were a political stategy rather than an ideology it should have died in 08

It is also empirically false. Look at what Rahm Emanuel did to Chuy Garcia. Look at what the Democrats are doing to Alan Grayson potential Senate run. That is all centrist bullying. Look at how the Dems are choosing Schumer and Hollande to be the leaders in Congress. All of this is evidence that centrism is alive and well despite repeated failures.

They adopt centrism because they are true believers not because they think it wins them anything.

[applegrove]

15. Centrists were moved to the right as the middle moved. Turns out even the milder centrist policy

prescripts of the GOP are bullshit.

[betterdemsonly]

19. That presumes centrists means middle. It doesn't

centrists are repreatedly to the right of the public on Wall Street bailouts, foreign intervention, Free Trade Agreements, taxes on the wealthy, and Public Option. It is a Beltway view, popular with donors, which is why it won't go away soon. Centrist simply eliminate other candidates, so dems are left with them as lesser evils. That is why Bernie Sanders, Chuy Garcia and Alan Grayson are being attacked.

[cascadiance]

28. Take out the "entr" and replace those letters with "orporat", and the term would be more accurate.

The corporatist element of both parties is what is running America these days, and the wealthy "buys the field" to give them this "party".

They call themselves "centrist" just to make them sound nice, much like that "progressive coalition" name they gave themselves on that group that is pushing the TPP.

It's all marketing. And centrist implies that is in the middle of issues, when on many corporate interests it is a very EXTREME FRINGE group of people that legislate against the 99% of us!

[treestar]

16. How could that be?

There will always be a center. It might drift leftward over time, but it's the median of the most extreme opinions.

[Scootaloo]

26. And you just inadvertently illuminated the inherent problem with "centrism"

[treestar]

29. the center is where the mass of the voters

are surrounded around. Being against those voters is like being against Democracy. Extremism is what never works and apparently people in it are blind.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. The Beltway considers the "Center" to be when Democrats cave to Republicans.

[treestar]

35. The republicans probably consider it to be when Republicans cave to Democrats

People are against compromise but the US government requires it.

[YoungDemCA]

40. When their side does it, it's bad

When our side does it, it's good.

[PETRUS]

41. That may be what you and I would like it to mean.

But the term is generally used to sell policies that represent compromise/consensus among political and economic elites and has little to do with the will of the people or where the mass of voters stand.

[Scootaloo]

45. Actually they're not.

The majority of votes are clustered around "more-or-less Left" and "more-or-less right." This is because there are no actual positions in "the middle." This is because most issues are actually fairly binary; for or against. The arguments within "for" or "against" can of course be quite diverse, but there's not really a "maybe, a little, i guess" third option.

"Centrism" is a game played by cynical politicians to hedge their bets while playing off the weird American obsession with "middle" and "average." I have a post about that particular topic floating around somewhere, but i can't find it.

The center is an ideological desert.

[YOHABLO]

18. "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos" Jim Hightower

[Duppers]

24. +1

Gotta love Hightower.

[MosheFeingold]

38. +1

There are, however, things that the principled left and radical right can agree on:

War on Drugs, for example. It's the squishy middle that thinks its a good idea.

Not invading countries (the neo-Nazi "Pat" Buchanan, for example, is good on this issue --- mainly because he hates Israel, but happens to reach the correct result)

Restricting trade with countries that have de facto slaves (them because they don't want the competition, us because we care about unions and the slaves)

I have no problem getting things done that are mitzvah, even if the motives of my fellow travelers are piss poor.

[Jamastiene]

30. I wish someone would tell the centrists that.

They are still in high gear, beating down anyone left of center who stands in their way. They don't seem to mind the right much at all. They side with them on most of the important issues that affect the rest of us. They seem enamored with them, actually. I hate wishy washy people who won't get the fuck off the fence and spare the rest of us their bullshit.

They are not fooling anybody. I think about half the centrists are really right wing moles sent in to keep the left down by berating us, telling us the left can never win, and diluting our primary votes. They are only in the Democratic Party to do just that; dilute our primary votes. They vote for their conservative cohorts, the Dixiecrats and "moderate" and "centrist" Democrats in our primaries.

Those Dixiecrats and DINOs run to keep the left from ever having a seat at the decision making table. "Centrist" and "moderate" and "conservative Democrats" vote in our primaries to make damn sure to dilute the vote in favor of their buddies who are running. That leaves the rest of us holding our nose to vote for their cohorts while they run off and vote for the damn Republicans in the general elections. Then, when the "centrist" DINOs lose, they turn around and tell us we didn't even fucking vote.

The proof is in the pudding. Look at the numbers. How many people vote in Republican primaries compared to how many people end up voting for Republicans in the general elections is where to start. How many people vote in the Democratic Primaries compared to how many people vote for Democrats in the general elections is next. When are people going to wake up to the fact that they are doing that and have been doing that for decades now?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. But, the "Why Even Bother" Bloc is doing quite well.