2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's Al From's Democratic Party..the rest of us just live here. The takeover. (madfloridian DU
September 22, 2015) Yep, another critical repost for those of us in the real DU reality-based community and all who love the truth.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027191121
Let's talk about the DLC/Third Wayers influence-put your comments in this thread--not the hyperlink.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)Thanks for looking out, Bob!
think
(11,641 posts)Armstead
(47,803 posts)They have hijacked and perverted the Democratic Party.
Clintonism will only further embed them, and make the Democratic Party less democratic.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)brooklynite
(94,499 posts)1992: 32 States won.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)1972, 1980,84 totally different eras
Democrats responded by trying to be more like the GOP when it comes to issues of wealth and power, and letting Coprporate America and Wall St. call the shots....Brillllliant strategy. Has turned out so well for America.....and (before their current implosion) has treated the GOP quite well in terms of driving the agenda.
By all means let's continue moving to the right.
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)...the question is whether we propose lurching to the left AND LOSE, vs build on the Obama legacy and move left gradually.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)That's been the boogeyman that's been thrown up in every election since the DLC got their corrupt claws into the Democratic Party.
And is used as the excuse to not actually fight the GOP in a substantial way when the Dems are in power.
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)Umm, the DNC -IS- the Democratic Party. It's elected by State Committees which are elected by County and local Committees, which are made of.....DEMOCRATS.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)corrected it in the post
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)think
(11,641 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)favor (among others) those "too big to fail", corporate welfare, deregulation/no accountability, endless war...just like GOP
Rep. Ron Kind (DINO-WI) and DLC hack Al From complain that progressives exist (DownstateDemocrat via 11-18-15 Daily KOS)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/18/1451865/-Rep-Ron-Kind-DINO-WI-and-DLC-hack-Al-From-complain-progressives-exist
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Inconvenient truths about the New Democrats, the Third Way, Democratic Leadership Council, etc
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027630485
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)A contribution that I also hoped would open some eyes.
[font size ="1"]President Bill Clinton with Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, at a conference in 2000.[/font size]
New Democrats, in the politics of the United States, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are identified with centrist social/cultural/pluralist positions and neoliberal fiscal values. They are represented by organizations such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrat Network, and the Senate and House New Democrat Coalitions
After the landslide electoral losses to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists. They advocated a political "Third Way" as a method to achieve the electoral successes of Reaganism by adopting similar economic policies (Reagan Democrats and Moderate Republicans would provide burgeoning new constituencies after adding these new economic policies and politicians to our tent they contended) While hoping to retain, woman, minorities and other social issues allies with long ties to the party. Such would be their new Democratic coalition forged between fiscal right and social left under the "New" Democratic banner. The DLC disbanded in 2011 during an apparent re-branding of the New Democrat movement when money ties to the Koch bros. and Koch representatives placed on the DLC's board embarrassingly became common knowledge among the Democratic left. The DLC is survived by the Third Way, The New Democrat Coalition, and Al From's Progressive Policy Institute among other corporate funded groups that continue to sell their Economic-Right/Social-Left brand of "Centrism" to America.
The term Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies.
Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various center-right progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularized by Keynesianism and contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity for neo liberalism and the New Right. In a sense, 80s Moderate Republicans are almost identical to "Third Way" Democrats.
I strongly believe it's time for a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various center-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the neoliberal corporate policies previously popularized by Reagan and Thatcher! For thirty years we have all but abandoned liberal solutions to economic problems, chasing instead the snake oil of supply side economics, austerity and neoliberal trade policy. These right wing policies have failed miserably, and rather than learn from the New Democrats failed experiments, the center-right faction of the democratic party has chosen instead to double down on failure with more free trade and austerity measures (to include cuts to Social Security).
In the face of a new gilded age of extreme wealth contrasted by an exponentially growing rate of poverty, a rapidly shrinking middle class and the emergence of an elite class of bankers, politicians and other predatory behemoths that are held firmly above the law and enabled to steal the remaining crumbs of wealth held by the masses without repercussion, it is not only time to return to Democratic principles of old that created the strongest most prosperous middle class in our history, it is time to reverse the damage done by the right thinking "New" Democrats and their failed policies with a new populism based on the needs of the people over the elite.
We do not need a "Fourth Way" to accomplish this, all we need is a return to the fundamentals of Keynesianism, a strong commitment to labor, increased spending on social programs (rather than cuts), progressive taxation, and an end to the cancer of privatization that would reduce the commons and the basic needs of the populace (such as health care and drinking water etc.) into the cash cows of profiteers of human suffering
Time to dump the "Third Way" for the unquestionably effective "Democratic way" made successful by the New Deal, The Great Society, and civil liberties. Our party can not serve two masters, the choice is clear, they must serve the financial elite, or the economically struggling populace
My choice has already been made
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12774832
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)Special thanks to madfloridian and a host of others who have educated us.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Blair, isn't it? This is New Dem shit is unsustainable for US.
VulgarPoet
(2,872 posts)Clintonism is unsustainable; and I'll be damned if I let such a base, petty woman's supporters browbeat me into voting for her.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)...plus, you have to 'Make your Bones' before you can even empty the Royal Chamber Pot.
merrily
(45,251 posts)into a neoliberal/neocon New Democrat Party (then again "neocon" may be redundant) that sought to disassociate itself from the party of the New Deal and the Great Society.
Bernie Sanders is not DLC or Third Way and never was. Hillary is and always has been philosophically, except when she was a conservative Republican.
What else is there to say?