2 thoughts on “How the Democratic establishment shunned the left, spawned the Tea Party and moved America right”

  1. I would add to this blog story’s title: “…AND COMPLETED THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA’S MIDDLE CLASS.”

    The reason the Democratic Beltway Establishment disses and dismisses the netroots is *because* they are part of the Democratic base. It helps that the echo chamber of the Beltway media views the base with contempt. It reinforces the upper class group think.

    The base lacks credibility in their eyes because they are not *upper middle class* like the Beltway consultants, and the base cannot contribute, as individuals, hundreds of millions of dollars. Hedge fund managers can. Larry Summers can. Robert Rubin can. Their opinions count.

    The professional Democratic campaign consultants — the Mark Penns
    — value only the big contributors, especially after the Supreme Court threw open the doors after “Citizens United v. FEC.” Watch who the “Obama For America” campaign targets in 2012. It will not be the small contributors, as they did in 2008. It will be Wall Street and hedge fund managers.

    This is the culmination of 27 years of Bruce Reed’s efforts to push the Democratic Party to the right, through vehicles like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). When a pundit mentions “New Democrats” (in the US) or “New Labor” (in the UK), you need to translate it:
    It means “conservative.” The DLC created “corporate memberships” of $100,000 and up, to provide the rich and the corporate with direct access to elected Democrats. The politicians *changed* their agendas to meet the whims of the rich. Clinton and Gore (then a governor and a senator, back in the mid-1980s) were among the original golden boys, heralded by the DLC.

    If you are not rich, you are not worthy of being heard by most Beltway Democrats. In this, they are indistinguishable from traditional Republicans and most lobbyists. That was, in fact, the composition of the pre-Democratic Party of 1928. That was before FDR, the New Deal, and organized labor created a huge American middle class, based largely on well-paid unionized labor.

    But today, without unions, there is no effective progressive force in the base. The net roots are pathetically small by comparison. So they viewed with contempt by Obama’s insiders.

  2. SORRY, not “pre-Democratic Party of 1928” but “PRE-NEW DEAL COALITION Democratic Party of 1928” is how it should read.

Comments are closed.