For 40 Years, Liberals Have Accepted Defeat and Called It "Incremental Progress"

[Scuba]

Very good read that cries for more than four paragraphs. Please visit the link. The contrast between the LBJ quote and Hillary's denunciation of Medicare for All is striking.


http://usapoliticsnow.com/?p=754

The primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders has produced the most direct ideological battle the Democratic Party has seen in a generation. It’s not just the policy differences that separate Sanders’s blunt social-democratic platform from Clinton’s neoliberal grab bag. The two candidates embody clashing theories of politics — alternative visions of how to achieve progressive goals within the American political system.

The Bernie Sanders model of change has all the subtlety of an index finger raised high above a debate podium. Lay out a bold, unapologetic vision of reform that speaks directly to people’s basic needs. Connect that vision to existing popular struggles, while mobilizing a broad and passionate coalition to support it (#NotMeUs). Ride this wave of democratic energy to overwhelm right-wing opposition and enact major structural reforms. The Hillary Clinton model of change, on the other hand, begins not with policy or people but with a politician. Choose an experienced, practical leader who explicitly rejects unrealistic goals. Rally around that leader’s personal qualifications, while defending past achievements and stressing the value of party loyalty (#ImWithHer). Draw on the leader’s expertise to grind away at Congress and accumulate incremental victories that add up to significant reform.

...

Of course, liberal incrementalists rule out this kind of talk at once: don’t you know the Republicans control Congress? 1936 and 1964 are irrelevant precedents, because the central fact of our political lives is the dominance of the Republican Party. In this view right-wing opposition is not to be dislodged, let alone defeated. At best, it is to be resisted from within the walls of the Democratic Party fortress known as the White House. “The next Democratic presidential term will be mostly defensive,” writes Jonathan Chait — no more or less than a “bulwark” against Republican extremism in Congress.

...

Seldom do establishment Democrats stop to consider whether this negative mentality — both disturbingly complacent and profoundly uninspiring — has contributed to the steady evisceration of the party at the state level. According to pollsters, political scientists, and their own tribunes, Democrats are now the dominant national party in the United States. (They have, after all, won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.) Yet since 2009 Democrats have lost a record nine-hundred state legislative seats, thirty state chambers, and twelve governorships.

[AgingAmerican]

1. Boiled frogs

[guillaumeb]

2. Not to minimize an excellent article, but

a large number of those losses came in non-Presidential elections. Part of the problem is that likely Democratic voters are less likely to vote in every election. 2010 and 2014 were both noteworthy in that the turnout was extremely low.

Here in Illinois, Bruce Rauner was elected with 52% of votes cast out of a turnout of 34% of the registered voters. SO he won with 16% of the total voters support.

[Scuba]

3. Some of us cynics suspect the DNC is just fine with low voter turnout.

[libdem4life]

4. Funny how the one Democrat (Democratic Socialist) found quite a number

of those folks and they responded. So, we must create a quick exit...get rid of him. Upsetting the Balance of Democratic Party Power.

[guillaumeb]

6. Agreed. They responded to an alternative.

But as long as 98% of incumbents are re-elected each year there is no perceived reason to change.

[Octafish]

5. Lewis Powell and that wonderful Chamber of Commerce.

Clinton’s eight-year term in the Senate produced bills to regulate video game violence and flag burning, both of which died in committee.

Before that lost bit o' history, something helped magically transform a free press into Corporate McPravda:

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)

The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971

Introduction

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="green"]Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]

Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)

So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="green"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.

CONTINUED...

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

Thank you for a great OP and thread, Scuba! And to think people never wonder how in the wealthiest times in human history they have to settle for austerity (or the sequester, Barack).

The erosion of labor unions, the retreat of social democracy, and the rise of an aggressive right are products of both contingent political struggles and larger historical transformations that extend beyond American borders.

[Herman4747]

7. Hillary: The Queen of Incremental Progress! n/t

[Armstead]

8. Good article, but wish it had a byline

[Blue_Tires]

9. A couple of decent points, but

they're few and far between...

His analysis is also rife with errors, but since that blogger didn't have enough confidence in his work to put his name on it, I won't bother to dissect it the rest...

[Ferd Berfel]

10. I've said this here several times myself

For most of the Left, Clinton-style “incrementalism” is just a code word to disguise what is effectively a right-wing retrenchment.

incrementalism is just a delay tactic to give the puppet masters time to figure out how to quietly stop the action, or, how to limit it's impact on their wallets and power.

We wouldn't be here if the Founders tried it by way of "incrementalism" - now would we.

[TheBlackAdder]

11. "Offshoring" is now "Globalization", and "Incremental Process" is now "Pragmatic Incrementalism"