NAFTA or New Deal?

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Democratic Party is on the verge of selecting its candidate for the 2016 Presidential Election.

I do not think it is an understatement to say that this primary election is a battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party. This is not to say that one side or the other is somehow soul-less. It is rather, a sober acknowledgement that there are significant differences between the two opposing sides. This is not just window-dressing. These are deep ideological differences.

The winner will likely chart the course of the Democratic Party for at least the next 10 years. With so much at stake, it behooves all of us to take a look at our differences squarely in order to decide which type of Democratic Party we wish to be and why.

I will vote for Bernie Sanders and a renewal of the promise of the New Deal. Hillary Clinton does not earn my vote because IMHO she is the embodiment of Third Way triangulation that has taken the Democratic Party incrementally to the verge of irrelevance as a force for good in the lives of Working Class Americans.

Its time for a change in the leadership of the Democratic Party.

The New Deal

I welcome their hatred

The Era of Big Government begins. That is what you need understand when you think of the New Deal. A phrase now used as a pejorative by Reagan Republicans and scorned by Third Way Democrats was originally used to describe a means to a noble and righteous end: Broad based prosperity for those who do their part. Franklin Roosevelt took the notion of Limited Government as a means of assuring a vision of broad based prosperity and flipped it on its head. He knew that Limited Government no longer worked as the Founding Fathers intended. It no longer worked as a means of preventing economic dominion of a new corporate aristocracy. Roosevelt knew that in his era, where Big Business had “concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor-other people’s lives”, the only institution powerful enough to thwart the “Economic Royalists” was Big Government. More importantly Roosevelt thought that Big Government was the only way to save Democracy itself.

It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

There was no equivocation. The battle lines were clear and distinct. Big Business threatened our very way of life. Big Government was the only power substantial enough to save us from the predatory nature of Big Business:

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government

In 1936, FDR reinvigorated out Revolutionary Spirit and called out the enemy of hard working Americans:

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

In doing so FDR made no effort to hide the fact that this was Class Warfare and he was our General. Class warfare in 1936 as it was in 1776. It was a renewed struggle against Economic Tyranny.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization…I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war."

Like Buford at Gettysburg, FDR new the importance of holding the High Ground and was rewarded with a great electoral victory. In 1936 FDR won a massive landslide that cemented his policies into place to benefit generations to come. The enactment of these policies led to New Deal Democratic Party electoral dominance for close to 50 years. New Deal policies became the Bedrock Principles of the New Deal Democratic Party for nearly 60 years.

These policies include:

Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was the logical progression of the New Deal reforms of an earlier generation. Medicare and Medicaid were introduced along with a declaration of War on Poverty.

Of equal or greater significance was the passage of a package Civil Rights legislation that dealt with the issues of racial segregation and racial injustice in America. This includes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act.

I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

Economic Justice and Racial Justice were coming together in a way that seemed to assure that the Democratic Party would remain dominant by working to improve the lives of average working Americans.

We were on the verge of something transcendent. Tragedy in Memphis and Los Angeles put an end to such dreams.

The Empire Strikes Back

According to Newton's third law...For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.

This is especially applicable to American politics.

It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government(the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. William F. Buckley

This growing force of free-market, anti-government conservatism smashed its way back to dominance with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. Once a staunch New Deal Democrat, he had become disheartened with Roosevelt’s Big Government as a force for good in the lives of average working Americans. He espoused a version of Limited Government that warped its purpose envisioned by our founders. What he did was to excise from its meaning the original notion of Limited Government as a shield against the formation of a new aristocracy which would come to dominate political and economic life. Limited Government became a means separated from its egalitarian ends. It became perverted and instead of preventing the rise a new aristocracy it became a weapon for elite corporate power.

But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy. Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing

Excessive taxation became the mantra of Reagan Republicans. They used a version of their Southern Strategy to get voters to resent taxes, regardless of the immense progress that the New Deal programs and the taxes they imposed had achieved. Republicans bludgeoned Democratic Presidential candidates on taxes, crime, welfare and National Security in 1984 and 1988. Democrats were unprepared for the vigor of the Reagan Revolution. We were shell-shocked after 1988. We needed a winner.

The Third Way

Re-apply Newton’s Third Law and presto you have what was termed a Third Way. Into the Democratic Party leadership vacuum appeared the vehicle for Third Way thinking here in the United States, the Democratic Leadership Council, AKA the DLC. Their prescription for electoral victory was to shake off the Big Government ways of old and embrace a Free Market, Big Business friendly approach to Democratic Party rule. Social Issues would become less liberal as well.

...the DLC has been consistent on its core principles: support for fiscal discipline, free trade, reinventing government along more free-market lines, a strong military, welfare reform, a tough-on-crime approach, and a generally pro-business outlook. The organization has tended to bounce around some on social issues, such as abortion and gay rights, which went almost unmentioned in DLC policy statements in the 1980s, and on race. At its founding, the DLC's chief emphasis was on reconnecting the Democratic Party to white working- and middle-class class voters, who, the DLCers feared, had been increasingly attracted by the Republican Party's social conservatism, especially among northern ethnics and southern Protestants. To the DLC of the 1980s, that meant a message that was less tilted toward minorities and welfare, less radical on social issues like abortion and gays, more pro-defense, and more conservative on economic issues--in other words, less liberal generally. The DLC thundered against the "liberal fundamentalism" of the party's base--unionists, blacks, feminists, Greens, and cause groups generally. How the DLC does it

From the viewpoint of winning Presidential elections there can be no doubt that the DLC put the Democratic Party back on the map. Third Way policy prescriptions became dominant. Big Business was no longer seen as the economic royalists of old hell bent to once again achieve tyrannical economic dominion over us, but rather as a force to be embraced and cooperated with. New Deal regulations were no longer needed in this era of Co-operative Capitalism. Privatization would further extend the promise of economic prosperity for all beyond that of the tired old New Deal.

Many within the Democratic Party are beginning to lean toward privatization. "The party that created Social Security is best equipped to redesign Social Security for a new generation," argues former Democratic Rep. Tim Penny. Rob Shapiro, vice president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), agrees. "Only a Democrat can lead the effort for Social Security reform. The Democrats will just kill any Republican who tries to mess with Social Security. So, next year, we are going to run a big project on Social Security." (According to the Wall Street Journal, State Street is planning to help fund the DLC's think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute.) Shapiro believes that ultimately the financial markets will force the president, any president, to tackle the program. "The financial markets have become the engine of action in America in recent years," he says, noting politicians fear the negative economic consequences of their political decisions more than they fear the wrath of voters. "What the markets are saying is, 'We're gonna extract an even greater cost if you don't act.' That's how it gets onto the agenda." "It's bigger than politics," says a confident William Shipman of State Street. "Neither party owns Social Security. [But] you could see Clinton doing this." The end of Social Security as we know it?

What to triangulate next?

The solid break from the out-dated ways of FDR’s New Deal Democratic Party was announced with gusto on January 23’ 1996 by President William Jefferson Clinton :

We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.

The Era of Big Government is Over

The Third Way era was well underway. Big Business was no longer the enemy but a partner. They could be trusted to help fulfill our founders vision of a more fair and decent society. So it was that we passed the following major Third Way policies during the Presidency of Bill Clinton.

VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT ACT

DOMA

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996

PNTR CHINA

A healthy defense of progressive taxation gave the Clinton era DLC/Third Way Democrats their biggest victory, a budget surplus. An attempt to pass the Health Security Act of 1993 failed to gain support.

In the George W. Bush era, the DLC/Third Way approach led to major Democratic Party support of the AUMF-Iraq. Third Way New Democrats supported the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.

The election of President Barack Obama brought an unexpected yet invigorated embrace of Third Way thinking.

If Barack Obama prevails over Hillary Clinton to become his party’s nominee, it will mark the end of an era for the Clintons. But the agenda of the group that devised their national political identity will be just fine. At least according to Al From, the founder and CEO of the resolutely centrist—Clintonian, even—Democratic Leadership Council. “What he has done is he has certainly taken a good part of the strategy we have articulated over the years,” Mr. From said. “Which is to not polarize, but try to unite and build a coalition that understands that a Democratic victory is a coalition.” Mr. From said Mr. Obama had an intellectual, and not just tactical, connection to the D.L.C. “I mean his chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, is a fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, which is our think tank,” he said. Barack Obama, DCL Clintonite?

The bailouts of 2008-2009 focused primarily on stabilizing the Big Banks as a way save the American Economy. Working Class Americans, not so much. Wall Street was left completed untouched by the Obama Department of Justice.

I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult to prosecute them … When we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps world economy, that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large. It has an inhibiting impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. Eric Holder

A prominent Third Way lawmaker succeeded in removing the so called Public Option from the ACA. The DLC wrote the following in its policy paper in the lead up to the Public Option fight:

Executive Summary

Washington is consumed by a spirited debate about whether our revamped health care system should include a so-called "public plan," a government-run health plan that will compete with private insurers to deliver health care to some small businesses and individuals. While the fate of the public plan grabs all the headlines, three potent but less controversial reforms merit the most attention:

• Overhauling insurance rules while requiring all individuals to be part of the system;

• Assuring that health care is affordable through sufficient tax credits and robust measures to contain costs;

• Putting in place an effective insurance exchange that will create a real health care marketplace.

If Congress and the administration get these issues wrong, the health reform effort will come up short, no matter what happens to the public plan. Conclusion

In the childhood fairy tale, Goldilocks, after wandering in the woods aimlessly and lost, found a home and, once inside, spent a lot of time trying out porridges of different temperatures, chairs of different sizes, and mattresses of different softness – all things, by the way, that mattered a lot to a tired, little girl. It’s time we emerge from our policy wilderness and spend what time remains thinking about and testing the core issues – access to quality coverage, making health care affordable, and more choices and responsibilities for individuals and employers and insurers alike – that will determine whether health care reform succeeds Dead DLC Link

Moving forward, major issues of concern include the Trans Pacific Partnership, Minimum Wage, College Tuition and fighting for a Medicare for All Single Payers Health system, just to name a few.

Third Way strongly supports the TPP:

“We urge Democrats and Republicans to now grab this opportunity to write the global economic rules of the future. For the future of the middle class, Congress must now pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Third Way Statement on TPP

The Third Way opposed Single Payer:

In its presentation, Third Way argued that a focus on issues like a $15 minimum wage, expanding Social Security benefits and advocating for single-payer health care all create the political dynamics that make Democrats electorally vulnerable. Panic of Democratic Centrist

Beware of Bait and Switch

I do not take a back seat on Progressive values and commitment except when I speak before the DLC

Hillary was once a Centrist before she became the driver of the Progressive Bus but decided to cop a plea to being a Proud Centrist.

The Third Way is in a panic to keep Hillary from drifting away from their Centrist Mantra that has a death grip on the messaging arm of the DNC. Hillary was allowed to throw a bone to Progressives with her reversal on TPP, but Third Way insiders know how to read these tea leaves:

Third Way's role appears more defensive or, at least, complicated by the few candidates running for the White House. Far from cheerleading Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, it warned her not to mimic her nearest competitor."They are really going to beat her up to move further and further and further [to the left] because they assume she is going to get it and they want their piece of flesh," said Daley.

As of today the TPP sux.

Time to Choose

I release you from your spell

I am a New Deal Democrat. I have been my whole life. I have grown up steeped in the traditions of the Democratic Party here in my home state of Connecticut. I count myself lucky to have met some of the local New Deal Democratic Old Guard before they passed from this world.

I have seen first hand the rise of Third Way DLC Democrats here in Connecticut as well as nationally. I have worked for their candidates. I have given their way its due. I acknowledged what I believe to be their successes. I have railed against what I believe to be their failures.

I believe strongly that the Third Way’s time has come and gone. Their leadership of the Democratic Party must end. They have taken us incrementally to the brink of irrelevance as a political force capable of helping average working Americans.

We need to move back to what I believe are the Bedrock Principles of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders is far and away the best representative of those principles.

After the devastating results for the Third Way led Democratic Party in 2010 and 2014, we are at the same place we were after 1988. We need a winner. We need a new direction. We need new leadership. We need Bernie.

I choose Bernie. I hope you will do the same.

As Democrats, when we stand together, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.

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Hold the High Ground.