A world without Elizabeth Warren: Why attacks on today’s Democrats miss the mark

[DonViejo]

Adolph Reed tells a depressing story of Democratic decline that reads as if it was written in the doldrums of 2011

JOAN WALSH

I’m late replying to Adolph Reed’s depressing Harper’s cover story, “Nothing left: The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals.” (It’s in Harper’s, so it’s not online, but Michael Winship has a smart overview here.) I’ve frankly resisted it, because Reed hits themes I’ve covered often, and a lot of the reservations I have about the piece have been expressed well by others. Harold Meyerson brought Reed up to date on genuine examples of populist energy within and outside of electoral politics, from fast food worker strikes to, yes, the elections of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (neither leader is even mentioned). Reed’s piece would have been more resonant, say, in the summer of 2011, after the depressing debt-ceiling showdown that President Obama, at least partly, brought on himself. Progressive politics is more encouraging today.

Michelle Goldberg, meanwhile, did a good job refuting what she calls Reed’s “electoral nihilism” — he voted for Nader in 2000 and famously sat out 2008 — that denies or downplays differences between Republicans and Democrats. Reed is, to put it mildly, not an admirer of Barack Obama, and he’s been a persistent African-American critic of Democrats who put identity politics before economic populism. I often agree with Reed on that point, while wishing his take on Obama and his Ivy League African-American supporters was a little less acerbic and absolute. But then he wouldn’t be the formidable Adolph Reed.

Still, I think that in my knee-jerk response to Reed, and that of other progressives – to defend genuinely populist Democrats, decry Republicans and point to green shoots of life in progressive organizing – we risk missing some of his bigger points that are undeniably true and important. So before taking on a couple of things I think he gets wrong, I want to consider some of what he gets right.

Certainly he’s right that neoliberalism and corporate centrism captured the Democrats in the 1980s and ’90s and made it easy to downplay differences between the two parties. It is undeniably true that Democrats have become much more united on issues of racial diversity, gay rights and women’s freedom than on economic populism. All of these issues matter, of course, and yet – as I wrote about Jan Brewer’s capitulating to business pressure and vetoing the anti-gay SB 1062 last week – our failure to make the same progress on economic equality is troublesome. It’s not because left-wing Democrats haven’t tried to make progress on those issues, although it could be argued they haven’t tried hard enough. It’s also because the party is genuinely split on such issues, and the Wall Street wing has been ascendant for too long.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/05/a_world_without_elizabeth_warren_why_attacks_on_todays_democrats_miss_the_mark/

[greatlaurel]

1. Thanks for the link. Great read!

This was a very interesting column by Joan Walsh. Very thought provoking with several really astute points that Democrats should really take to heart.