Mass incarceration? When Bill Clinton was emphasizing enforcement, it was the left that warned that social measures were needed to reduce crime. (The Justice Policy Institute has assembled the evidence.) Hillary Clinton repeated frightening myths about youth crime, saying: "They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called 'super-predators.' No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way but first we have to bring them to heel ..."
We now know that the "super predator" myth is nothing more than the product of junk science, urban legend, and some unconscious biases. In fact, the left was already saying so in the '90s.
The Left is Popular
The left hasn't just been right. It has also been popular.
Some centrist Democrats like to say they'd govern more liberally, but the United States is a "center-right" country. There is very little truth in this. It's true that relatively few Americans describe themselves as liberal or progressive (although that number is rising), but Americans hold progressive positions on many issues.
Vox said it best: "Bernie Sanders's ideas are so popular that Hillary Clinton is running on them." Polls show that, issue after issue, Americans support a leftist agenda of economic populism -- that is, as long as is presented to them on an issue-by-issue basis. (See PopulistMajority.org for more.)
The Price of Success
It's a paradoxical situation: within the Democratic Party, those who have most often been right continue to be held at arm's length by those who -- at least in most cases -- were so often originally wrong.
Part of it appears to be a genuine feeling of contempt, despite the left's enviable record. There seems to be a belief among some top Dems that ideological progressives are merely less sophisticated versions of themselves. They argue that liberals are "stuck in the 1960s," not considering the possibility that they remain stuck in the 1990s. "If they knew how the world really works," they seem to be saying of progressives, "they'd be more like us."
And yet, the left has arguably shown a deeper understanding of how the world really works, one that has been tacitly accepted at times. Centrist Democrats are adopting progressive rhetoric because it works politically. They're talking about inequality because they know the left's analysis is correct.
The left's successes may, in fact, may have made it more of a threat. President Obama's resentment towards Warren, for example, is probably only exacerbated by her growing influence and credibility.
Secretary Clinton certainly can't be enjoying Warren's "wait and see" posture toward her candidacy. And while she praises Warren to the skies, she has yet to fight for any of Warren's key initiatives -- or defend her from Obama's heated attacks.
Canary in a Coal Mine
Democratic Party insiders will sometimes remind independent leftists that they are few in number, and that most Democrats are happy with their leaders. That's missing the point.
The independent left may not be an important voting bloc. But it holds the key to energizing disaffected voters across the political spectrum. They're the voters who believe that neither political party is speaking to their most deeply-felt needs: for a living wage, a secure retirement, a chance to put their kids to college and keep their families healthy.
For economic populists, those views have cohered into a "left" political perspective. For millions of other Americans, they remain little more than a vague and inchoate disaffection. They know that today's political debate isn't addressing their issues. They're sick of candidates who eat hotdogs at Iowa barbecues while telling them they know what they're feeling. They've heard a lot of rhetoric, but not much in the way of specifics.
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