Progressivism won’t die with Hillary: Debunking myth only Bernie can foster hardcore liberal ideas

[Bill USA]

.. This is the most insightful analysis of the Clinton and Sanders candidacies/campaigns I have seen. .. Well, of course, Sanders groupies will rage the author is obviously a tool of the anti-Christ (Hillary Clinton - in case you didn't know).


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Progressivism doesn’t die with Hillary Clinton: Debunking the myth that only Bernie can foster hardcore liberal ideas[/font]

Barring some kind of miracle landslide wins in New York and California’s primaries, it looks like the Bernie Sanders campaign is going to lose the race for the Democratic nomination. So now we’re onto the phase where his supporters argue that even though he lost the primary, he is still the winner anyway, of some large and abstract and noble battle beyond the griminess of the polls.

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Mitchell isn’t wrong that left-leaning Americans have been drifting leftward, but trying to turn that into a triumphalist narrative of Sanders over the evil centrists is just wrong-headed. If anything, the Sanders campaign is a throwback, recycling 90s-era complaints about neoliberalism and claims that the Democratic party is so hopelessly corrupt that only an outsider with no loyalties to the party can fix it. It’s as if the past two decades haven’t even happened.

The reality is that Clinton’s campaign is much more representative of the liberalization trend than Sanders is. Despite the loud honking about centrism and DINOs coming from the Sanders camp, the truth is that the Democratic party is not a cluster of recalcitrant centrists and conservatives. The Democrats have been drifting leftward for decades now. Not as fast as the Republicans have been drifting rightward, because that’s impossible, but, even though it might be hard for Sanders fans to swallow, the movement to the left has been quite steady.

Clinton herself is part of this trend, with a Senate record that put her in the top third of most liberal Democrats, and even to the left of President Obama. She’s certainly more liberal than her husband, in part because her career as a politician started when his ended, meaning that she’s tracked left as the party has on issues like gay marriage and immigration. No wonder she voted with Sanders 93% of the time.

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While the Sanders base is appealingly young, there is a major problem with the assumption that his base represents some kind of demographic future: They aren’t particularly diverse. On the contrary, the Sanders base looks disturbingly like the Republican base, dominated by white men. Clinton has won women in all but three states: New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wisconsin, and in Wisconsin, Sanders only got 50% of women. Clinton continues to crush with black voters and is doing much better than Sanders with Hispanic voters, as well.

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On the gender front, the Monkey Cage pored over the data regarding the age gap between Democratic women — older women are more pro-Clinton, younger women more pro-Sanders — to see if it really is an age thing or if something else is going on. The results complicate the notion that older voters are supporting Clinton out of some kind of conservatism. On the contrary, it suggests that Clinton support is tied strongly to being more liberal on issues of gender justice.

What the researchers found was women who had faced sexism in their own professional lives were more likely to support Clinton. The older you are, the more likely you’ve dealt with gender injustice, either from having a childcare conflict or from facing discrimination at work, leading to greater levels of Clinton support in those age groups. But for women in the 18-29 age group, having experienced discrimination or childcare conflicts also led to greater levels of support. All in all, it suggests not that Clinton supporters are more conservative at all, but that they are more liberal and tuned into the issue of gender inequality.[/font]
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[GoneFishin]

1. Not on it's own. It will be starved to death.

[ViseGrip]

2. Baby steps will no longer work. She won't kill us, but will continue the status quo, more trade, etc

[yurbud]

4. it's usually baby steps to the left and moon rockets to the right

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. President Clinton will continue the countries move to the left. The real danger to the left are

Republicans.

[Nitram]

5. Rumors of the Democratic Party's lack of progressivism are greatly exaggerated.

As are the rumors that Clinton represents the status quo. Unless you accept that Obama's moves in a progressive direction are the status quo.

[Doctor_J]

6. Preposterous. The party has been moving RIGHT for decades, and Mrs Clinton's presidency will

finish off the last vestiges of the party that gave us the new deal, social security, Medicare, the voting rights act, and so on.

[Baobab]

7. Hillary isn't progressive

And Bernie's campaign isn't dying.

Also, Hillary's agenda is just as bad news for women as it is for men, actually, its likely far worse because of privatization will mean many women will lose their jobs. Nurses, teachers.. to be replaced by low wage foreign service workers. Also, her TTIP energy deal will impact affordable housing pushing many urban families out on the streets and out of cities.

Current carve outs for women and minority owned businesses will end, to be replaced by corporations from developing countries.

[Chan790]

8. That's not the myth.

I don't think anybody really thinks only Bernie can foster hardcore liberal ideas.

We just know Hillary can't and that she's the enemy of progressive values. The sooner we can force her off the political stage, the better for America and for progressive values.

[silvershadow]

9. She's a neocon and a neoliberal. The Corporate State will continue. nt

[alarimer]

10. Of course he's not the only one.

I've always admired Russ Feingold, for instance.

But too many elected Democrats are middle-of-the-road, do anything for corporations and sell out seniors and the middle class types.

The election of Hillary Clinton will result in more of the same triangulation bullshit that Bill did. They are Frank and Clair Underwood, minus the more murdery aspects. Only interested in furthering themselves at the expense of the people.

And so she will pay lip service to progressive values to get elected, but will abandon them once there. No thanks.

[arendt]

11. Clinton will sign TPP, despite her claims to the contrary...

Even the US Chamber of Commerce has said she will.

If phony liberal, Wall St. sellout Obama protected and endorsed the TPP, HRC (who is even more conservative than Obama) will sign TPP, TTIP, TISA, and any other Investor-State-Dispute-Resolution treaties - which are nothing more than a corporate coup d'etat.

Saying you are a "progressive" as you prepare to put a bullet in the heart of democracy is horseshit. She will pass the TPP and international corporations will sue any progressive law or regulation. Then, HRC will cry crocodile tears and say her hands are tied. We have seen this behavior from Third Way Democrats for 25 years.

Nobody (except the HRC koolaid drinkers) is buying the BS that HRC is anything but a neoliberal corporatist AND a neocon warmonger.

All this phony boilerplate about HRC being a leftie is completely contradictory to her public avowal of "pragmatism". What could be more pragmatic than to sell America out to the people who pay her $250K a speech?

I am so tired of all this propaganda.

[yurbud]

12. "where she differed with Sanders, she went with the crowd"

On wars, bailouts, and the like.

In other words, she was progressive when it didn't upset her wealthy patrons.