The Democrats have also embraced the basics of neoliberal market-fundamentalism, although they try to put a more human face on it. The two parties do lean toward different segments of the American oligarchy: the Democrats tend to favor the finance and digital segments while the Republicans have a famous affection for the extractive industries, for instance. But the Democrats are on board with the basic neoliberal economic menu: lower wages, weaker unions, reduced social services, privatization of government service (even including prisons!), lower pensions, weaker safety regulations, an so on.
As Andrew Bacevich helpfully describes in The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory (2020), the Democrats combined their embrace of market fundamentalism with a surprisingly strong embrace of formal legal rights and representation for women, African-Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ people, and other groups long discriminated against. Surprising, because even in 2008, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton considered same-sex marriage too controversial to endorse. And, in general, the Democrats have shown more concern for preserving democratic and Constitutional procedures and limits.
But that formal reverence for diversity also coexisted with harsh law-and-order measures with which the Clintons and Joe Biden are particularly identified, notably due to Clinton’s Crime Bill and the “war on drugs” generally. There was a bipartisan consensus on a legal regime that put large numbers of black men in prison for relatively small drug offenses, i.e., marijuana possession. Such convictions have been used by many states to support the Republicans’ Orbanist/segregationist project of suppressing minority votes by banned formerly convicted felons from voting.
The Democrats’ commitment to formal legal and symbolic equality also didn’t prevent the Obama Administration from pursuing a draconian policy against national-security leaks or giving officials of the Cheney-Bush Administration a pass on criminal conduct, mostly strikingly on the torture crimes.
Bacevich takes the post-1989 world as his age of illusions, which was famously characterized as The End of History. While both parties made their adaptation to the neoliberal era, for the Democrats it meant abandoning their New Deal/Great Society orientation and moving far toward conservative Republicans positions. For the Republicans, it meant that they could more enthusiastically pursue the conservative, pro-corporate, anti-labor politics with which they were already very comfortable.
David Edward Burke provides us an example of where this has put the Democratic Party in current politics in How Bernie Sanders Broke the Democratic Primary Washington Monthly 01/31/2020.
Burke clearly has contempt for Sanders and his political program:
But by running again and proposing many of the “boldest” but least viable plans in the Democratic field, such as arbitrarily cancelling all student loan debt, or implementing national rent control—both of which have tepid support even among Democratic members of Congress–he has shifted the debate of serious issues in an unserious direction.But later he writes, "Needless to say, it is not fair or accurate to compare Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump." Huh. Cute.
Much like Donald Trump in 2016, Sanders is standing out in a crowded field by making promises he can’t keep. He’s not giving voters an honest assessment of how he will improve their lives. Like an airbrushed magazine model who makes real people look bad by setting an impossible standard of beauty, Sanders is harmfully distorting our view of other candidates by refusing to stick to reality.
There’s nothing original about this. It’s the same kind of condescending sneering that has been standard rhetoric of conservative Democrats against those to their left. Including ones that didn’t specifically call themselves democratic socialists. It’s not worth wasting energy to be irritated or get huffy over it. Because not only is it unoriginal. He gives away the meaning here:
Sanders is not offering aspirational goals and saying he will try his best; he is making promises. He has directly told voters: “We will pass Medicare for All. We will eliminate co-pays, premiums and deductibles.” His website doesn’t say he will work to reduce medical debt. It says flatly: “We will eliminate all past due medical debt in this country.” He also promises to “Avert Climate Catastrophe and Create 20 Million Jobs,” provide guaranteed, universal, affordable child care, and more.In other words, Democrats should have no grand visions. No serious commitments to reform. No willingness to address serious existing and developing problem head-on. And, most importantly, they should be acting like they intend to fight for their own positions.
This is the asymmetric polarization on full display. The Republicans are willing to pursue radical positions, even ones that are unpopular, and fight to push them through. They haven’t been shy about pursuing a Reagan Revolution or a Gingrich Revolution.
While the Democrats, on the other hand, have spent a large part of the last four decades in a defensive crouch, adopting Republican framing of issues and afraid to aggressively push for their own expressed goals, campaigning as though they were embarrassed by their own supporters. We saw a particularly notable example in 2019, when Nancy Pelosi was swept into the House Speakership by a stunning Democratic turnout in the 2018 midterms, and then spent her first half year as Speaker strongly arguing against impeaching Trump. She even gave the Republicans a perfect talking point, that impeaching Trump would hurt the Democrats politically. She didn’t abandon that defensive crouch position until Democrats newly elected in swing districts insisted that their reelection prospects would be politically damaged if the House didn’t move on impeachment.
One of her arguments was that the House Democrats should pursue impeachment only if they had assurance beforehand that they would get a 2/3 majority for removal in the Republican-dominated Senate. “Don’t fight unless we already know we can win” is anything but an inspiring battle cry. Burke makes the same kind of argument against basically everything about Bernie Sanders:
Sanders is often praised for his honesty and authenticity. But in this respect he is actively misleading voters. Most of his promises depend on Congress to keep them. There is virtually no evidence that, even if he becomes President, he will have the votes necessary to enact any, let alone all, of these ideas. Critically, that isn’t just because Republicans are standing in the way—it’s because there is not enough support among Democrats either.For almost any important political issues to which there is any kind of opposition, “Don’t fight unless we already know we can win” is the same as “Don’t fight at all. Don’t even try.”
For the Make American Boring Again Democrats, the sentiment of the Pete Seeger song that became a major anthem for the civil rights movement in the 1960s is incomprehensible:
The only thing we did was wrong
Staying in the wilderness too long
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
The only thing we did was right
Was the day we started to fight
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band - Eyes on the Prize (Live In Dublin) 03/08/2019:
Burke's version is more like:
Don't keep your eyes on the prize
Don't even think there is a prize
Keep your eyes on defeat, give up
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