2016 Postmortem

portlander23

(2,078 posts) Wed Sep 16, 2015, 05:48 PM Sep 2015

Matthew Yglesias: Why a resurgent, unapologetic left is on the rise globally

Why a resurgent, unapologetic left is on the rise globally

Bernie Sanders is currently beating Hillary Clinton in polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire. By conventional standards, he still probably won't win. Then again, it certainly seemed at the start of the recent UK Labour Party leadership campaign that it was extraordinarily unlikely Jeremy Corbyn would win. And yet he did. Meanwhile, up in Canada the social democratic New Democratic Party — perennial third-place finisher in Canada's two-and-a-half-party system — has opened up a small but persistent lead in the polls.

Hillary Clinton is campaigning on a platform that is significantly more left-wing — in terms of both its policy content and its themes — than her 2008 campaign or her husband's administration in its 1990s heyday. She's cagily declined to endorse the Trans-Pacific Partnership and is promising zero-debt college tuition, a new treatment-first approach to drug abuse, universal preschool, a 700 percent increase in installed solar capacity, and a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform.

There's no "the era of big government is over" here.

But while it's true that Clinton is attuned to the spirit of the times, the converse is that Sanders and Corbyn were preaching from this book when it wasn't in keeping with the spirit of the times to do so. It means they offer a clean break with the neoliberal third-way past in a way no close associate of Blair or Bill Clinton possibly could. Establishment figures may start singing a somewhat different melody, but they're never going to disavow a 1990s-vintage centrist turn that they sincerely believe saved progressive politics.

In a slightly different universe, new leaders (Elizabeth Warren?) might have stepped up to fill that void. Instead we got veterans of the losing side of old intraparty clashes. But whether or not this particular cohort of leaders succeeds, their ability to garner support from younger voters speaks to a deep craving by a younger generation forged in the Great Recession for a less apologetic form of left-wing politics.