My plan was not to post this diary until after the November elections. I realize how important these elections are, and do not like being accused of stealing attention away from 2014 by writing about 2016.
But I feel strongly that we need to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible.
Because I think in these next two years, now will be the time that the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party will be fighting one of its toughest battles against the Plutocracy.
Because I think that, for all the interest the Presidential campaign garners when talking about 2016, what we should actually focus on is making sure the Democratic Party's primary target is enacting major Economic Populist policies.
And the reason the time for this is now, is because the only chance we have of returning this to prominence in the Democratic Party's priorities, is right now, right as we are actually starting to make some in-roads into these long-ignored Progressive avenues.
And the reason we can't wait, the reason we must make this case as soon as possible, is because the Wall Street Party - with its tentacles in both major parties - is already hard at work trying to quash Economic Populism, set back income equality, and continue their depraved profiteering at the expense of Middle America.
To understand why now is the time we must embrace Economic Populism, I look both to what media pundits said would happen, and what has actually happened.
According to pundits, 2012 was supposed to be a referendum on Obamacare, which would drag the entire Democratic Party down, including the Presidency.
Instead, President Obama was re-elected, Democrats picked up 2 seats in the Senate (including none other than Elizabeth Warren), and 8 in the House.
Last year, 2013, being an off-year and even off-midterm year, was also projected to be nothing but lose and lose for Democrats.
Instead, we saw a Democratic candidate running on a Populist platform elected mayor of New York City. We saw Democrats take all state-wide offices in Virginia, and briefly control the state Senate. We saw a Socialist elected to the Seattle City Council, which also had a local ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 succeed.
And then this year, 2014, a mid-term election, where Democrats were expected to lose big. These predictions were based on historical trends, such as the predictable dropoff in Democratic base turnout in non-Presidential years. And it was based on structural disadvantages, such as the number of Democratic-held compared to GOP-held Senate seats being contested, and the Republican gerrymanders that resulted in their continued control of the House, even though Democrats beat them in the popular vote in 2012.
Instead, it looks like we have a good shot at maintaining control of the Senate. We may even pick up seats in the House. Even against the gerrymanders, even against all the voter suppression efforts, even against Obama's unpopularity which was supposed to drag everybody down into the dumps, 2014 is not looking as dire as the media wants us to think.
We have a Senator in Alaska running on Obamacare. We have one in South Dakota running on Populist values and rhetoric. We have candidates running in Georgia and Kentucky and Louisiana, who, let's face it, none of these are going to push the Party to the Left; but the very fact that they are neck-and-neck in these races, where all the factors say shouldn't even be races, speaks volumes on the resurgence of the Democratic Party.
The idea that any of these Senate seats would be held or won by Democrats was not just unlikely, at times it was downright inconceivable. If you listen to mainstream media, that is. All the pundits have Dems losing the Senate, and rather than running from the challenge, many of these Democrats ran aggressively Progressive campaigns around the country. Rather than talking about losing the chamber, more should be talking about what would happen if we saw it get even more Democratic.
In Texas, we have a female Democrat on the cusp of becoming Governor - in Texas - and yet she never hid her Liberal colors, her views on abortion and equality, and frankly, her leadership potential, to assuage the hostility of the GOP voters in her state. Overall, Republicans are poised to lose governorships around the country, from Maine and Michigan, down to Florida and Georgia. Which, as kos often points out, significantly improves the Democratic Party's positioning in the next major round of redistricting.
These successes, in spite of pundit prognosticating, will be due in large part to massive GOTV efforts, and Democratic base mobilization. Things like Dailykos's own backing of GOTV in South Dakota's reservations. Things like the Bannock Street Project. If Democrats want to be politically successful, it's possible with great base enthusiasm and empowerment. It is not just a possible route. It is a safe route.
Supposedly, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats would have to wait until 2016, the next Presidential year, to see any big success. Some had it even later, until 2020, when demographics would do most of the big lifting for the Democrats.
And yet, here we are with major successes on the economic populist front. The minimum wage increased in municipalities and states around the country. Taxes went up on the wealthiest Americans, despite Republicans fighting tooth and nail, holding the American economy hostage, to prevent it. We have seen several banks acknowledge wrongdoing in connection to the Great Recession, and even face some form of penalties. And as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out recently, recent Democratic efforts, many to the credit of President Obama, will likely having a lasting Progressive impact, in banking reform, income inequality, and beyond. We are witnessing a real paradigm shift.
And yet, as great as these triumphs have been, most Americans know in their hearts that there is still so much more that needs to be done on the economic front. Too many people are still hurting. None other than Fed chief Janet Yellen recently declared as much herself. We need big action, and we will not get it with the usual players holding the reins.
But the Plutocracy is busy re-writing these successes for actual Democrats as something different than what they actually are.
Economic Populism is not politically viable. It will doom the Democratic Party. It will damage the American Economy.
That is what the Plutocracy is hard at work trying to push as truth, though that is not what the recent results indicate.
They are busy re-writing history, because for the longest time, they felt that they could finally do what they wanted with impunity from us uncouth masses.
The Corporate Wing has spent the last few cycles molding the Tea Party into their personal vehicle to electability, but it has backfired. While the Tea Party was replete with Corporate yeomen willing to kowtow to the plutocrats, they couldn't resist pushing their own personal causes that exposed their lunacy. They allowed too many crazies to gain prominence, and now that carefully nurtured cloak of electability has gotten away from them. They lost control of the monster they created. So now they are turning their sights back on the Democratic Party, which has never been able to fully go cold turkey from the money spigot itself. The only thing standing in its way of regaining its stranglehold over the political process in America are the Populists.
The Corporate Wing is using every means possible to staunch the flow of Economic Populism from the wounds it has inflicted on the Middle Class.
Just look at last year's attack by the Third Way on Elizabeth Warren and other Economic Populists.
I wrote back then that the the story we hear is backwards: Democrats don't need the Corporate Wing, the Corporate Wing needs the Democratic Party.
Now is the time to prove it, and reclaim the Democratic Party from the Third Way and their ilk.
As to the idea that Economic Populism is not politically viable, in reality, it has always been a righteous fuel to the fire that brings Democrats success at the polls.
Attacking Wall Street, on the other hand, is excellent politics in conservative districts. Hammering against unrestricted bailouts and cocaine-freebasing, prostitute-expensing billionaire vulture capitalists in Manhattan makes for a compelling argument in rural Missouri. Taking broadsides against outsourcing, Cayman Islands tax havens and corporate welfare queens is a superb strategy in suburban Colorado. It was Democrats who ran on these and similar campaign themes who won against the odds in 2012. Most Americans, including in conservative districts, are strongly in favor of reducing income inequality, raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. Yes, they're also concerned about deficits in part because the Third Way coalition of Democrats helped the public believe that deficit hysteria is a bipartisan feeling. But if you ask even swing voters whether they would rather close the deficit by cutting Social Security and unemployment benefits, or by raising taxes on billionaires and on Wall Street, the answers are clear.
And because we still live in much the same system as what led to the Great Recession,
the rhetoric of Economic Populism is still shown to be powerful.
This week a new ABC News/Washington Post poll asked voters: “what do you think is the bigger problem in this country -- unfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthy, or over-regulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperity?” Fifty-two percent answered “unfairness,” while only “37 percent” mentioned “over-regulation.” A December 2011 Pew poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe the US economic system “favors the wealthy,” with 36 percent saying it was “generally fair.” In a November 2011 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 61 percent of the public said the federal government should “pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less-well-off Americans,” with 35 percent saying it should not. So much for the canard that income inequality is an issue the public doesn’t care about.
Economic Populism is an issue that, if the Democratic Party embraced it, would spell victory at the polls, just not for the Corporatist Dems.
Look at New York's recent Democratic Primary. Incumbent Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo barely managed 60% of the vote, and all against a late-entry, largely unknown, underfunded, and outgunned challenger.
If Democratic leaders think the Third Way talk is any way to gun for 2016, they are walking on very thin ice.
Sure, Wall Street wants Democrats in office who are sympathetic to their interests. They clearly favor Republicans, but they also know to hedge their bets, and not have all their eggs in one basket. I mean, just look at who gets talked about by Corporate Media as if they are the only viable candidates the Democratic Party has to offer. Hillary? Cuomo? Biden? Third Wayers, one and all. But let's not fool ourselves. While Wall Street would take one of their Dems in the White House any day, there is no way they want Democrats, let alone Progressive Dems, to control Congress.
What better example do we need than New York, where rogue Democrats took majority control of the state senate out of the hands of their own party, and gave it back to the Republicans. And all under the watch of Mr. Wall Street Dem himself, Andrew Cuomo. Adding insult to injury, campaigns for these same rogue Dems, and chose a Conservative running mate, while dissing other Dems.
These will not be the saviors of the Democratic Party. If anything, these are the charlatans, the wolves in sheeps' clothing, who have been allowed to shear the sheep and sell their wool back to them as clothing, that have driven much of the Democratic base away for so long. For too long.
It is time to send the message that the Democratic Party will no long do the bidding of the plutocracy. If you do not support the ideas of Economic Populism, you cannot carry the Democrat brand. The two must be melded together once and for all.
As to the idea that Economic Populist agendas are bad for the economy, what we actually see is that it is income inequality, just the thing Economic Populism is meant to combat, that is what hurts our economy. But again, that's not the narrative that the Wall Street Wing wants to tell.
Which is not to say that there can't be any flavors of Moderate Democrats, for example, running in Deep-Red territories. But if there's any lesson such Democrats should have learned these past few cycles, it's that running as the Republican-lite in these areas is not the path to victory for Democrats. And even if you can't win in these areas on an unabashed platform of Economic Populism, it's been shown time and time again that even the most Conservative of areas like Liberal ideas - as long as they are presented in a non-Liberal manner. Being able to uphold your Democratic values while avoiding that pernicious labeling, that should be the true measure of a Democrat's political craftiness, not how well they imitate the other side.
Forget Warren or Hillary. The kind of transformation we need is bigger than any one office. What we need is to change the game plan across the entire Democratic Party.
We need to cement the notion that to be Democrat means to support Economic Populism.
End. of. story. Whether you are running for President, or City Council.
To that end, here is my preliminary proposal for the planks in a Democratic Party Economic Populist Agenda. I have centered it on 10 main points:
1. Raise the minimum wage
2. Strengthen and grow labor unions
3. Strengthen social safety net programs like Social Security and Unemployment
4. More progressive tax system - Close corporate tax loopholes, such as tax inversions
5. Break up monopolies in all business sectors - promote competition in all sectors
6. Prosecute more banks for corrupt practices; harsher penalties when banks are found guilty
7. End the incentives for outsourcing jobs overseas
8. Stimulus jobs programs, including rebuilding infrastructure and modernizing transportation systems
9. Make higher education more affordable
10. Comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship
These are open to modification, and are not in any real order. But the overall point is this: In two years time, there will be a lot of Democrats trying to pander to the Liberal base, and saying they are true Liberals. If their record over these next two years does not reflect the above values, do not expect the base to fall over themselves to get behind you. We have had too much of your deceptions for one lifetime. No empty promises like what Cuomo gave to the WFP, without any results.
These should not be empty promises. These should be accompanied by solid examples of proposed legislation, executive actions, and championing of Liberal values.
2016 should not be about Hillary, or Cuomo, or Warren, or whoever. It should be about a real Democratic Economic revival, the likes of which have not been seen since FDR and the New Deal, perhaps even not been seen since ever. It is time for the people to take back their government, to take back their party, to take back their economy, from the clutches of the greed and villainy that have been content to pull the strings from the shadows for so long.
To see real progress on these fronts, we need more than just a Democrat in the White House. We need to retake Congress. Which means getting more Democrats elected in the House, which means a lot of tough battles, even without taking on the plutocracy.
When we have more Democrats in the House voting against the Progressive Caucus's Budget instead of in favor, it is time to call for a major House cleaning.
Now, naysayers would look at this and say that I am calling on us to abandon the Presidency to the Republicans, and that infighting in the House would actually sacrifice seats. Far from it. After all, winning the Presidency in 2016 will have lasting repercussions, so it is a chance we cannot afford to lose, and I would never push an idea that I think jeopardizes our chance at the Presidency.
I wouldn't be calling for Democrats to take up the Economic Populist banner if I did not think it was a real political winner. After all, what I am calling for is a widespread mobilization of the Democratic base. To say that focusing on getting a Democratic majority in the House - More and Better - would not also help Dems get the Presidency is ludicrous, as if that would not also mean major votes for the Presidency on the very same ballot.
But of course, bashing Economic Populism has never been about what was in the best interests of the Democratic Party, its loyal base, or blue-collar Americans. It has never been about what historical evidence says. It has always been about preserving the kickbacks of Corporate America, and their willing marionettes.
But imagine, if Economic Populism were in the Democratic Party to stay, and empowered many key victories in the Legislature. Even if the Presidential nominee ends up being Clinton, ends up being Cuomo, the message will have been sent, loud and clear: the Democratic Party belongs to the Populists, not the "Moderates." We may not be able to get rid of every rogue Democrat and Blue Dog, but they will no longer effect a mutiny over our Democratic values. We can organize enough to retake both Chambers despite the countless hurdles. If you do not live up to your end of what it means to run as a Democrat, we will not hesitate to give the reigns over to someone who will.
There is a reason everybody calls it Populism. It is because it is the only ideology that intends to spread economic prosperity to all classes of Americans. Anything else should be considered Republican.