Note: It’s not that Republicans win, it’s that Democrats lose.
The lesson from McCauliffe’s defeat is clear: Democrats need to disavow neoliberalism and start delivering on their progressive promises. Thom Hartmann shares a similar perspective in his most recent Common Dreams op-ed, from which the following is excerpted.
Neoliberalism is a wounded, dying animal. America is returning to populism, whether our politicians want it or not: the big question is will it be progressive or fascist populism?
. . . Trump did a brilliant job of pretending to be a progressive populist. When he lied that he was going to raise taxes on rich people, they believed him. When he lied that he was going to bring home the 60,000 factories that Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama had sent overseas, they cheered. When he lied that he was beholden to no rich person because he was one himself and was funding his own campaign, they voted for him over the best and the brightest the GOP had to offer.
And Trump as president did the work that a populist would do to convince them it was true. He called out China for taking advantage of policies put into place by Reagan, Bush and Clinton. He traveled the country on a regular basis, meeting with the people in huge rallies, and told them he loved them and lied that he was their champion. He said he was going to keep American jobs in American hands by stopping immigrants from entering the country, and cut legal immigration to a trickle while brutally punishing those families who managed to make it into the country.
It was a fascist form of populism, but for about half of the American electorate it felt like progressive populism. And the rightwing media bubble kept them from the ugly realities of what Trump was really up to, as he cut taxes on rich people, let more poisons into our environment, suppressed wages, and crushed our kids' educational opportunities.
While Trump's racist and paramilitary base gets most of the attention, he represented a genuine populist moment in American history, one in some ways like Andrew Jackson’s (and just as ignorant, brutal, and corrupt). His puppet-master, Steve Bannon, was and is a Goebbels-level populist PR and political arts practitioner, both intellectually and morally.
Democrats underestimated the power of the overall populist backlash against 40 years of sold-out politicians. . . . Trump broke the GOP away from Reagan’s neoliberal system: Democrats like Terry McCauliffe don’t seem to have yet gotten the memo that they must do the same with their own party. The neoliberal system Reagan and Clinton pioneered is collapsing under its own weight of corruption and bloated, obscene wealth; like flowers coming out of a cow patty, two new populist movements have been birthed.
One is progressive populism, reminiscent of FDR [and alive today in the progressive wing of the Democratic party, in Bernie Sanders and The Squad]. The other is fascist populism, reminiscent of Charles Lindberg and the man he defended, Adolf Hitler [and very much alive in former president Trump, his Big Lie, and the energy that fueled the insurrection of January 6].
– Thom Hartmann
Excerpted from “Democrats Have a Choice:
Embrace Progressive Populism
or Suffer a Trumpian Fascist Future”
Common Dreams
November 3, 2021
Excerpted from “Democrats Have a Choice:
Embrace Progressive Populism
or Suffer a Trumpian Fascist Future”
Common Dreams
November 3, 2021
Related Off-site Links:
Left Coalition Says McAuliffe Campaign Was a “Controlled Experiment for What Not to Do in 2022” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 3, 2021).
Virginia Gubernatorial Winner Encapsulates the Worst Elements of the Modern GOP – William Rivers Pitt (TruthOut, November 3, 2021).
Progressives on Virginia Loss: Corporate Democrats Have Only Themselves to Blame – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 3, 2021).
John Nichols: Democrats Must Deliver on Promises or Voters Will Punish the Party – Democracy Now! (November 3, 2021).
A Message to Democrats Ahead of 2022: Make Corporations Your Enemies – Jeff Hauser (Revolving Door Project, November 2, 2021).
Noam Chomsky: Build Back Better Fiasco Exposes How Both Parties Serve Corporate Power – C.J. Polychroniou (TruthOut, November 1, 2021).
UPDATES: Progressives to Biden: If You Want to Be Popular, Take On Corporate Greed – Kenny Stancil (Common Dreams, November 4, 2021).
To Govern and Win Elections, Democrats Must Defeat Corporate Lobby – Not Surrender to It – Jeffrey D. Sachs (CNN via Common Dreams, November 5, 2021).
Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Need “Major Course Correction” to Prevent GOP Takeover – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, January 10, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Ilhan Omar: Quote of the Day – October 28, 2021
• Colin Taylor on the “Moral Obscenity” of Obstructionist Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema
• Hamilton Nolan: Quote of the Day – August 3, 2021
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – July 8, 2021
• Ilhan Omar: Quote of the Day – May 29, 2021
• David Sirota: Quote of the Day – January 26, 2021
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – December 16, 2020
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Election Results
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• Biden’s Win: “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• We Cannot Allow a Biden Win to Mean a Return to “Brunch Liberalism”
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Quote of the Day – March 10, 2019
• Hope, History, and Bernie Sanders
• The Neoliberal Economic Doctrine: A View from Australia
• Ben Ehrenreich on the Global Uprisings Against Neoliberalism
• Carrying It On
3 comments:
The corporate-Democrats meme is fairly spent as a viable election meme for progressives across the rest of the country. India Walton lost to Mayor Brown's write-in campaign in Buffalo. Defund the police is beyond dead; reform/demilitarize the police has a chance with some reform-minded DAs elected. As for so-called CRT, it is, conveniently for both of some of its erstwhile proponents and most of its critics, shape-shifting like the rogue instant pudding in Woody Allen's "Sleeper", and its effect on the political ground is asymmetrical: it strongly benefits its critics more than it helps proponents persuade the yet-to-be-converted. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Thanks for your comment, Percy.
I appreciate John Nichols insights on progressive India Walton's defeat in Buffalo.
"It’s really a notable situation in Buffalo, where India Walton won her primary fair and square. She built a grassroots campaign. She didn’t have a lot of money, but she had a lot of message. She is very, very engaged with housing issues and a lot of issues that are vital to Buffalo. She got the nomination. And then two things happened. Number one, the leadership of the state Democratic Party in New York, including the chair of the state Democratic Committee, Governor Hochul and others, failed to endorse her. They failed to come in and give her strong backing. Secondly, a lot of very, very wealthy and powerful interests, in Buffalo and outside of Buffalo, poured money into [centrist] Byron Brown’s campaign. He raised more than $1.5 million — we don’t know what the final total will be — flooded the TV airwaves with ads that were, you know, obviously, very supportive of him, but also a lot of messaging that was very negative about India Walton. And you really see a situation here where somebody won the Democratic nomination but didn’t get the level of support from the Democratic Party that might have allowed her to prevail."
Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/3/election_roundup_virginia_new_jersey_gubernatorial
I am very aware of the nuances Buffalo mayoral race. All that is quoted doesn't establish that Walton had secured the popular vote in broad, only that she won the primary (NY has closed primaries - and that can produce results like this). It's just self-soothing rationalization for progressives who think "If Only [X Were So/Y Weren't So], Then We'll Finally Win". It's magical thinking, and progressives need to stop it and the self-soothing.
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