The Democrats Struggle to Find their Agenda

The thing I found most striking about the 2004 election cycle was the way the Democrats so thoroughly abandon the Clinton program. This reflects my distance from Democratic politics. From my point of view while Clinton himself was an ambiguous figure, his triangulating positions and his neo-liberalism seemed like electoral winners. The problem I overlooked was that (as Clinton himself predicted) Clinton was too conservative for the Democrats. Once rid of the man, they abandon his policies too, despite the only two-election win for their party since FDR. The country had moved left in the 1960's and 70's and moved right in the 80's and 90's. A more conservative Democrat seemed a requirement (and given the election results, I was probabaly right). But there were too many socialists of various stripes who regarded the Clinton era as a capitulation to Republicanism, rather than a genuine neo-liberalism of the left.

The Clinton wing of the party didn't have a serious candidate in the primaries (or they did but the primary voters rejected them soundly) and they decided to support the party in order to stay at the table. Now that all of that is over, the New Democrats (or the DLC if you prefer), the neo-liberals in the party have decided to argue that its their policies that should guide the party. The LA Times has covered the DLC claims and the left-liberal counter claims. In the third pragraph they write, "On one front, a liberal operative at a top think tank has accused the Democratic Leadership Council, the principal organization of party centrists, of pushing the party toward a pro-corporate agenda 'that sells out America's working class — the demographic that used to be the party's base.'" This has reflections of the 1890's when the famers made their last push to control the Democratic Party, despite the urbanization of the country. The working class is shrinking, and the Democrats would be wise to be a middle class party, not a working class party. The problem they have is the abundance of left criticism of the middle class. This explains the talk from the left of selling out, betrayal, and capitulation.

Take for example David Sirota's criticism of Democratic centrists "committed to ideas on trade, taxes and business regulation that help its 'wealthy cronies' and abandon the Democrats' historic working-class base while 'pulling the party further and further out of the mainstream.'" Only ideology can make one so blind as to suppose, even after this election, that the mainstream seeks bad economic policy. [Bad for the whole country, not bad if you think your constituancy is the group who bears the greatest hardship for the forces of creative destruction.] If the Republicans are the party of free markets (and the more or less are, the protectionists are a distinct minority) and they win elections, and there are neo-liberals on the left too, it sounds like this is a clear majority, and I'll point to Clinton as evidence that its the only way Democrats win. Other than Clinton and the post-Watergate Carter, you have to go back to Mr Great Society to find a democratic winner.

Let's look closer at Carter, because some feel he might offer a strategy to electoral victory. Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America thinks that a statist, protectionist, social-democrat agenda combined with social conservatism will win elections. Who, the demographers might ask, combines these qualities? Labor. No one else. Maybe farmers, but they are smaller than the margin of error in most polls. Free markets benefit everyone, but the short term costs are mostly borne by labor. The Left is not socially conservative, and they are required for Democratic victories. The days when the unions could deliver democratic victories are over. The rest of the Democratic coalition won't buy a conservative social agenda. The socially conservative (and hawkish, another characteristic of labor and famerers) democrats are either dying off, losing elections to Republicans, or switching parties. So if this program were to work, the Democrats would have to purge the social left from their party. But its just as sensible to suggest that they purge the socialists. These guys wish it was still 1965.

So while the economic battle is fought by the social-democrats (protectionist, statist, and anti-business) and the neo-liberals (embracing markets not only in commerce but in society as a replacement for statist control and planning, and pro-business) , another axis of debate, which I alluded to above, the dove vs hawk debate emerged. Unlike the neo-liberals, the hawks don't have institutional power. The hawkish Democrats often abandon the party or lost elections in the post-Vietnam crisis on the left. Scoop Jackson is the last national politician the Dems had who was hawkish. I don't count Lieberman, because he proved to have no Joe-mentum in the party. Dems should ask, who did labor support in '72 and '76. Was it Jackson or McGovern - Carter? Its Peter Beinart who really opened this vein, with accolades from the DLC, with his recollection of how in '47-'48 the Dems purged the Communists and became strongly anti-Communist. Again the Left has such a hold on the party that I just can't see the party getting serious about national security. There are serious Democrats, but the party is not serious. Kerry is what passes for serious among Democrats, which is a demonstration of their lack of seriousness.

Part of the problem for the Dems is that most of their hawks are not thorough-going hawks. They are hawks on foriegn policy, but rank foriegn policy as a secondary or tertiary area of importance. Republicans have a constituancy that ranks foriegn policy as the most important issue. Without politicians who are both hawkish and put foriegn policy first, the best the Dems can do is a Clinton style willingness to intervene if the issue gets big enough, but an unwillingness to take chances to do much in foriegn affairs. I agree with as much of what Clinton said in foriegn policy as I am bound to for most politicians, but Clinton was content to just say pretty words and didn't enact his talk unless the issue became to obvious to ignore. This meant he never dealt directly with terrorism, but operated only on the fringes, it meant he allowed his North Korea policy to be hijacked by Carter, it meant he failed to intervene in several genocides until well after they were genocides.

American politics needs different schools of thought to apply the rigors of disputation to our various policies. If the Democrats don't manage to avoid defining their party by Leftist social policy; protectionism, statism, and central planning in economics; and dovishness, they will be irrelevant in American politics. American politics is best served by a main contest between the center-left and center-right with new ideas perculating in from every part of the political space to face the test of discourse.