That is the question that will vex us for a while, I am guessing. At the moment, I am going to share a few links that at least offer some tentative answers. More below the fold:
First and foremost, let’s forget about waiting for the next Obama to come and save us. He was a gifted orator and politician, and he led us through a difficult time. I wished he would been more willing to break out of the economic status quo a bit more than he did, but that was always going to be an ongoing complaint with me. The takeaway message from Eugene Robinson’s column is that we need to build from the ground up, grassroots and all, and basically do this the good old-fashioned hard way. Win local elections. Rebuild our infrastructure at the local and state level. Some good folks I know in my community are starting to do just that. Time to act on that should have been long ago, but now is better than never.
Robert Reich advocates turning the DNC from a fundraising machine to a movement. Like most voters, I rarely hear from Democratic organizations until there is an election. We need more presence, physical presence – especially in the red portions of the US. But really, don’t take the blue portions for granted. That is a fool’s errand.
I am sympathetic to arguments for ditching neoliberal capitalism as a meta-theoretical approach for policy. The transfer of wealth from those of us who are workers (and that includes the middle-class) to the wealthiest of the wealthiest has been a constant in my lifetime. And it is hurting many of us, globally. Not just here. I’ve certainly been frustrated, and so have plenty of others – both voters and those who have given up altogether. Figuring out how to be a party that promotes both social justice and equity along with economic justice and equity is a challenge, but one I have always thought was doable. You don’t have to be a Marxist to get that what we call intersectionality is all about understanding that various forms of oppression – including economic – are connected. Anyway, Cornell West has his say on the matter, although I would argue that Trump is just a neoliberal by a different name – the transfer of wealth from us to the uber rich will continue. I’d give Thomas Piketty’s essay a read on the matter as well. I used to use terms like internationalism when I was younger, but globalism has been the nomenclature for a while. The concept of global cooperation and respect is more important now than ever. As Naomi Klein has noted for a long time, the climate change crisis alone will require global cooperation and trust. We can’t do that if we’re all hiding behind walls and trade wars.
Just a few things I’ve run into recently.
As a side, note, given the way what passes for conversation seems to go in the pond these days, I am increasingly inclined to fade away for a while. I’ll still put up a midweek cafe as time permits, and participate in boran2’s painting cafe. But unless or until it looks like we’re back to constructive discussions within our rather big tent, I don’t see much point of engaging. Life’s too short to spend screaming at people over the internet, and there are some folks locally who need me more, and I can use my time more constructively there. In fact these past few months I have done a bit to help influence in a positive direction a local election and will be going more in that direction I think. Maybe I’ll weigh in on something if it looks interesting to me and I think something helpful might come of it. Otherwise, the pond is now little more than videos, photos, and paintings as far as I am concerned. So this is not a good bye cruel world thing – more I just need some time to chill and take care of business. For those who care, make sure to take care of yourselves and each other.
I don’t want to completely forget my manners. As I said a moment ago, take care of yourselves and each other. We’re going to need each other more than ever.
I, I went off to the right
Without saying good goodbye
Where does it go from here?
Is it down to the lake of fear?
Ay ay ay ay ay ah
Ay ay ay ay ay ah
Chuck and the Cheetos with a hat tip to Haircut 100
Well “neoliberal” is a poorly defined term and roughly translates to “somebody who holds a less leftist political position to me”. If you look at policies that are typically labelled “neoliberal”, it’s a mixed bag on what to do:
Free trade – this is dead for some time to come. Quite probably one of the multiple things that cost us the election. Eject.
More regulations on banking and higher taxes on the rich – these are winning issues, except that the “neoliberals” were already pushing for them. There’s a good case to being louder on them, of course.
Market-oriented programs as opposed to explicitly socialist ones – well, single-payer (and a pretty good plan at that, much better than Sanders’ sketch) was absolutely crushed in Colorado. So that’s a “neoliberal” position we should generally stick to.
Worker protections like minimum wage and anti-wage theft – like banking and tax issues, probably winners, but, again, the “neoliberals” are already there.
I agree with you that neoliberalism and neoliberal are often used sloppily. I have tried very hard not to do so. When those terms are being used as a pejorative, my tendency is to tune out. My own positions probably overlap more with your own than you might be aware, and the ideas you share strike me as solid ones that any Democratic politician worth her or his salt should pursue.
Minimum wage is typically not a neoliberal thing, as most neoliberals consider it a cause of unemployment. They may want to protect workers somehow, but they prefer not to ‘impose constraints on free enterprise’ to do this – eg, they would argue for EITC as a substitute for minimum wage increases. This isn’t to say that neoliberal politicians dont push minimum wage increases for political reasons.
Neoliberals also dont push for many regulations on banking that traditional liberals would support. In particular, neoliberals are rather fond of repealing regulations that retard ‘modernization’. Repeal of Glass-Steagall was fully supported by neoliberals. They are also friendly towards whatever the finance industry wants as far as the umpteen derivatives markets that no non-insider can possibly analyze. So, no, neoliberals are not “already there”.
Curt was using the term “neoliberal” sarcastically. You are correct in how those adherents to neoliberalism as a theoretical orientation would apply to policy, and it is valuable that readers here get that is one facet of what neoliberalism really is. Minimum wage increases are more of a progressive or even left-populist position. Many of us here agree that minimum wages are way too low and need to be raised. Unfortunately, because many of us committed the cardinal sin of accepting the reality that HRC was the Democratic Presidential nominee, we became “neoliberal” sell-outs, among other pejoratives. Personally, that has left me more than a bit bitter, as I suspect it has others, and that will have long term consequences for what becomes of what we might think of as liberal or progressive or even left politics going forward.
What is the agenda? I don’t know.
–Trump repeals mostly Obamacare. Are we for re-enactment of something not very unpopular? Where is the party on Health Care after Obamacare goes?
–Trade – Trump kills TPP, does nothing. Not sure where that leaves the party
–Tax policy – we repeal his tax cuts for the rich.
–Defend Medicare and Social Security
–Raise the minimum wage – yea, sure. For it.
It’s thin. Reactive. People aren’t going to storm the Citadel over this agenda.
Bernie had free college tuition and Single Payer. The latter was annihilated in a state referendum.
I don’t know what a 2018 or 2020 agenda looks like.
Most important comment I’ve read in days.
The details of the Colorado initiative. (Incidently, what a well done web site. Reminds me of the old League of Women Voters.) https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Creation_of_ColoradoCare_System,Amendment_69(2016)
Actual policy details, sadly, don’t count for much. Not even in the blogosphere or the elite media. Hillary had great policy and it got her precisely nowhere.
Roughly speaking, we need Hillary’s policy and Sanders’ rhetoric. They’re not very far apart. Drop single-payer, which is currently a loser, ditch free trade, and add in some of the Sander’s anti-bank provisions. Then run on those policies to “stick it to Wall Street” rather than “make things fairer”.
Single payer is not a loser. It lost big in CO because Dem operatives campaigned against it. Also check the huge drop in youth vote. This is a graph of people who voted in 2012 but didn’t in 2016:
wow
Quite a crash in the under 35s.
How do you get to single payer though, Democratic donor class intransigence not withstanding?
The Clinton attempt at reform in the 1990s ran into the buzzsaw of the status quo with the insurance companies leading the aggressive defense of the existing conditions. Obama tried to get the ACA passed by buying out the Insurance companies, the AMA, and pharmaceuticals to get a weak expansion of coverage and people covered. The initial cost to buy out all the opponents would be prohibitive and probably doom any attempt, if you went the Obama route. I read “Open up the VA” and “Medicare for All” proposals that seem superficially like good ideas. However, they never address how the current Congressional makeup of the past 5 decades would pass such sweeping changes when so many lobbying interests would be able to obstruct passage. Single payer has wide support, but it is not very deep and is easily waylaid by concern trolling of the vested interests.
Single payer was tried in Hawaii and Vermont and abandoned.
California. Vermont and Hawaii are too small.
Amazing chart.
As Pew noted in early 2015 – the millennials are much less tied to party, but more liberal.
Clinton struggled with that group through the primaries – and it looks like her struggle continued.
According the exit poll, Clinton won those under 29 50-38 with Johnson taking a whopping 11%. There is no exit data for either ’12 or ’08, but her national numbers were 55-37. Obama won it 60-37. Pretty clear among millennials she under performed and lost votes to third parties.
And then these idiot democrats want to have closed primaries. Get a clue: go where the voters are.
how about some pilot programs in the states T won so heavily. try things out, see what works.
They took a run at single payer in Vermont but couldn’t make it work.
There are essentially pilots of higher minimum wages. Burlington Vermont is run on 100 renewable energy. Maybe a State could try that.
I was thinking even smaller scale. municipalities, counties. – local employment, small businesses. what I’ve seen and heard about (travel a lot for work, by car) is completely shredded social fabric in many parts of the country that went along with sending jobs overseas. but also others, fine or not too bad. many many factors involved. each area unique really.
100 renewable, for example, counties or municipalities.
health services – provides anchor employment. seen some interesting things restoring historic buildings for restaurants, in small towns.
For now, assume the worst:
Tightening of the homeland security state in extra-constitutional ways with the blessings of Congress.
Sabotaging environmental law and repealing environmental regulation.
Elimination of some long-term federal agencies.
Beefing up the military.
Expulsion of foreigners, especially native-born Americans of Latin American descent.
What to do:
Local mitigation strategies for the consequences of these extreme actions.
Local resistance strategies as successful as the the Hell No faction’s preservation of the Confederate Flag.
Local rebuilding of progressive political infrastructure and winning local elections on a consistent basis.
Suspect that may be pretty much all that’s left. I know some good can be done at the local level. Seems as good a starting place as any. If the Democratic Party is going to be a vehicle for some sort of progressive or left-populist coalition, it will need to rebuild local parties. The one in my location went fallow a long time ago. There are some efforts to revive it. Oddly enough, it might be wise to credit some very zealous Clinton supporters for initiating its revival, rather than to diss them. I hope those in my locality remember their manners in that regard. A coalition of our local businesses did something of an end run against a city council that let the community stagnate for decades and has effectively revived the downtown area and initiated some green efforts (such as bike paths for commuters). Those sorts of efforts can and should be supported and nurtured. And we elders should listen to our kids and young adults (I’m thinking mid 20s and younger). They’re going to be the ones cleaning up the mess we made of things nationally and internationally, and of the ones who voted were the ones who went disproportionately Democratic (even in my area).
The local level should have been the starting place all along for a party named “democratic”. When and why did they start writing off counties and states and not putting up candidates and making a fight?
But there are over 3000 counties in over 200 media markets that are getting continuous propaganda tailored to the market.
And the Democratic Party already writes off eleven states of the Old Confederacy and another 5 from Border and Plains states. That right there prevents having a veto-proof majority in the Senate.
I refuse to take the credit for the mess made since 1980 or the backlash that put Ronald Reagan in office. Republican politicians, get-along Democrats have done this in spite of all the mobilization of citizens, all the protests, and all of the voting for primary opponents.
Our kids and grandkids are already paying the price of the collective failure of nerve of the Boomers. It’s worse than just not being able to find a pick-up job that pays for survival. It is the perpetual feeling of what do I do next with my life and how do I get there that occurs every year or so instead of every decade or five years or so for us. But the Greatest Generation were locked into lifetime careers that for a lot of them ended in well-supported retirement and for others saw their pensions robbed from them right before they were to retire.
Most of us got distracted by raising families and trying to make ends meet in a contracting wage and salary environment.
And having succeeded in cleaning up many things in the environment (although not to actually being “clean”), we will now see all that effort and expense unwind.
Politically, securing public sources of potable water as an infrstructure that is fairly distributed to all people is the bottom line at the moment. And then secure food supplies locally. Trade is likely to be disrupted as global power shifts and corporate power intrudes. Locally, that means a huge fight with strip-mining styles of real estate development and politicians who see on a nominally rising tax base.
“There are some efforts to revive it. Oddly enough, it might be wise to credit some very zealous Clinton supporters for initiating its revival, rather than to diss them.”
I feel like I resemble that remark. Too many of us wherever we fall on the spectrum of alignment with the Democratic Party have not done enough in the past years to maintain the infrastructure. There is plenty of blame to go around, and the leadership on the national level deserves most of the blame. All of us need to do more to affect change.