Instead, argues Connor Kilpatrick, "Democratic Party liberals have been concerned not with an egalitarian reckoning to unite the have-nots against the haves but with inclusion: bringing different 'interest groups' into the professional class while managing everyone else's expectations downward."
In an effort to win elections, Democrats abandoned their working class base in favor the professional class and the riches of corporate sponsorship -- and, as a consequence, they have adopted swaths of the Republican agenda to appease, and prove themselves worthy of, this new, and far wealthier, base of support.
The Democratic Party is now, in short, doing out in the open what it has done behind the scenes for years: Shedding principled positions in favor of so-called pragmatic alternatives.
Democrats have abandoned democracy because it's inconvenient; self-styled progressives have abandoned progress because it's impractical.
The result is a party of doom and gloom, one that dismisses as fantastical proposals that once occupied the center of the Democratic program.
Hillary Clinton, while touting her personal history of supporting universal health care, declared, after Bernie Sanders put forward his Medicare for All plan, that it will "never, ever come to pass." This is despite the fact that most Americans, and even many Republicans, favor single-payer.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, has presided over the reversal of rules, implemented by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, that prevented federal lobbyists and political action committees from donating to the DNC.
She, like Hillary Clinton, has been a key partner of corporate America -- the payday loan industry, in particular.
And she has -- despite the fact that most Democrats favor open primaries -- suggested that, if she had the power, she would eliminate open primaries, allowing only officially sanctioned Democrats to have a say.
She, like many high-ranking Democrats, is far more concerned about cultivating a party in which everyone falls in line on cue -- an environment that cannot exist when independents (a significant percentage of the population) are able to influence the process. Aside from the fact that this is a brazenly anti-democratic position, it also validates the view of many -- including many on the left -- that Democratic Party liberals embody a posture of smugness and intellectual arrogance from which they so often pretend to be immune.
It is also worth noting the loyalty politics that come into play here: While Democratic leaders present their party as one of openness, inclusion, and free thought, their attitudes toward independents -- those who pay no allegiance to either major political party -- are often condescending, scornful, and dismissive, revealing their distaste for those who don't walk the party line.
This distaste has gradually emerged throughout the primary process, as Democrats have chided Bernie Sanders for not rising to the standards set by "real Democrats" -- as if this were a scathing insult rather than a compliment.
And, needless to say, this hostility is often reserved for independents on the left, those who attempt to push the Democrats toward social democracy and away from the neoliberal consensus that has worsened deep poverty and inequality while providing the framework within which the wealthy can pursue their ambitions unhindered by countervailing powers.
Sanders has angered Democrats by pointing repeatedly to these trends and refusing to "tone it down" -- refusing, in other words, to walk back principled positions to salvage "party unity."
Another accomplishment of the Sanders campaign is that he has adjusted expectations upward, against the downward pressure exerted by Democrats espousing a philosophical approach to change that Matt Karp terms "fortress liberalism," an approach that, while shrouded in the garb of pragmatism, acts to "disguise what is effectively a right-wing retrenchment."
Because of these self-imposed blinders, establishment Democrats have, as Matt Taibbi puts it, viewed the movement Sanders has sparked not "as an honest effort to restore power to voters," but as an oddity to be dismissed.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
