Hillary Clinton and The Left

[AthenaAwakened]

From The Daily Beast

Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist senator from Vermont who is considering a run for the presidency, scoffed at the notion that the difference between Hillary and the left was merely stylistic.

The opening days of the Clinton campaign “were a very good format for her. But as always the devil is in the details. The central issue we face, and I don’t want to be overly dramatic about it, is that this country is moving very rapidly towards an oligarchic society, where a small number of billionaires control not only most of the economic life of the country but the political life as well.”

Free community college, a higher minimum wage and campaign finance reform, he said, merely put Clinton in line with what 90 percent of Democrats in Congress want.

Sanders called for a trillion-dollar stimulus to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and put people back to work, the public financing of election, and a carbon tax.

“It’s one thing to give lip service to it, but what you have done, what are the specifics, and are you prepared to fight for it?” he said. “The bottom line is people are going to have to make a judgment about what candidates out there are really prepared to take on Wall Street and the billionaire class and fight for working families.”

Robert Reich, a longtime Clinton friend and former Secretary of Labor in the Bill Clinton White House, said Hillary deserved credit for her language on CEO pay and taxes, but added that most of what Clinton has discussed so far on the campaign trial would not do much to alter the structural reasons for the widening inequality.

If Clinton wants to reassure the progressive base, he added, she should call for the restoration of Glass-Steagall (which her husband dismantled) and break up the big banks.

It is one thing to call for higher taxes on hedge fund managers, a continued Democratic talking point, he said, it is another to talk about restoring workers’ bargaining power and making it easier for workers to organize.

“This is where the rubber is going to meet the road,” he said. “My hope is that as the campaign progresses she will get more specific, and get to these underlying structural problems, and I think it would be enormously helpful for her, not just for solidifying the progressive base and getting people enthusiastic. Turnout is going to be central in this campaign, it is going to determine who gets elected, and in 2016 she is going to have to motivate the base.”

But Reich said the differences in the party now were nothing compared to what they were in the ’90s, talk of a “Warren Wing” notwithstanding.

“I think it is way overstated. In the 1990s, you had the Democratic Leadership Council that was self-consciously created as a counterweight to the progressive and union wing of the party,” he said. “But now you have a grassroots that is not DLC nor knee-jerk union. It is mostly concerned with jobs and inequality, and those concerns are not limited to the Democratic base.”

from BillMoyers.com

What about the rest of us? Is it inevitable that we swallow the nomination of the neo-liberal Clinton, whose support of Bush’s Iraq madness (not to mention Obama’s Afghan and Libyan stupidity) and her husband’s recklessly pro-“free trade,” pro-banker, pro-deregulation politics ought to send reasonable liberals fleeing? Is it predestined that principled conservatives accept the anointment of the thoroughly fraudulent Jeb, whose support of his brother’s interventionist folly, along with his own outrageous meddling as governor of Florida to “rescue” brain-dead Terri Schiavo, should give pause to even the greediest oil baron seeking patronage from a Republican administration?

Like Adolph Reed Jr., I’m tempted to opt out of it all on the theory that we conserve energy by reducing “the frenzied self-delusion that rivets attention to the quadrennial, biennial, and now seemingly permanent horse races.” To echo Maureen Dowd, it is, indeed, fatiguing to urge on reluctant horses such as Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) when the only office they seem to seek these days is vice president or committee chairman.

Nevertheless, a straightforward, nationwide electoral strategy is required if the left wants to reverse the rightward trend of both parties over the past three decades. The tea party has had much success moving the Republican Party to the right through primary challenges that should be the envy of frustrated Democrats, even though liberals of the Nation magazine – Rachel Maddow persuasion appear blind to the lessons of tea party tactics. One wouldn’t want to weaken Democratic incumbents with insurgencies lest “we” lose “our” Senate majority.

Yet political logic cries out for just such a strategy.

From Slate

Now the picture is different. Since Barack Obama’s election in 2008, working-class whites—and whites overall—have left the Democratic Party in droves. At the same time, the party has moved to the left, pushed by an Obama-led coalition of young people, minorities, and socially liberal whites. One result is that, under a more liberal Democratic president, those Clinton-era policies have come under sustained assault. Before the Supreme Court struck its key provision, the Defense of Marriage Act was all but abandoned by the Obama administration, part of the rapid march toward broad acceptance of same-sex marriage. Welfare reform is still law, and the crime bill is still on the books, but as with DOMA, a new generation of liberals has challenged the underpinnings of both, with louder calls for state support of families and children and greater skepticism of the criminal justice system.

The fact of this new coalition puts Hillary Clinton, who seeks to succeed Obama on her own merits even as she’s indelibly tied to the first Clinton presidency, in a difficult place. Her task is to reassemble and re-energize Obama’s coalition, while also winning whites who may have left the party during Obama’s tenure, and even moving some whites (namely, white women) to the Democratic column.

But here’s the challenge: To do the former—and build Obama-esque enthusiasm among college students, black Americans, Latinos, and educated whites—Hillary may have to stand against the policies of her husband’s administration.

Hillary Clinton has her own paper/video trail, a husband with a presidential track record, and a political defeat by forces to her left in her human history. And now she wants to try for the brass ring again.

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

It depends. Sometimes you get a pretty much unopposed nomination for President. It's weird that the Democrats don't have an organized and powerful left wing to influence policy and leadership decisions, but all of the Democratic leadership knows that everyone will vote for the lesser of two evils to keep the GOP out of power, so they can afford to just not give a shit.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

It depends. Sometimes you get a pretty much unopposed nomination for President. It's weird that the Democrats don't have an organized and powerful left wing to influence policy and leadership decisions, but all of the Democratic leadership knows that everyone will vote for the lesser of two evils to keep the GOP out of power, so they can afford to just not give a shit.

And "just not giving a shit" is why we aren't ending the second second half of a Clinton administration now.

 

[NobleSavage]

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

You tell 'em, "Listen assclowns, do you want Jeb Bush or me?"

Ginsburg and Breyer need to retire. At least Hillary won't fuck that up.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

You tell 'em, "Listen assclowns, do you want Jeb Bush or me?"

Ginsburg and Breyer need to retire. At least Hillary won't fuck that up.

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

 

[Derec]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

I wonder if Nader wants to run again and deliver the election to yet another Bush.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

I wonder if Nader wants to run again and deliver the election to yet another Bush.

Seeing the long-term damage W did, I really don't see the humor there.

 

[fromderinside]

Seeing the long-term damage W did, I really don't see the humor there.

What long term damage? All he did was direct blowing up a lot of stuff and killing a lot of those under the yolk of Saddam. Sure he ruined the economy but that's what republicans do. Aren't we the exceptional people who love a good fireworks display.

What I'm not getting my head around is that Hillary isn't a lefty. Most Tea Partiers I know call her a communist murderer of our Ambassadors who is trying to give america to the Muslims and usher in Shari law.

 

[Terrell]

You tell 'em, "Listen assclowns, do you want Jeb Bush or me?"

Ginsburg and Breyer need to retire. At least Hillary won't fuck that up.

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

 

[fromderinside]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

Jerry Brown.

 

[NobleSavage]

You tell 'em, "Listen assclowns, do you want Jeb Bush or me?"

Ginsburg and Breyer need to retire. At least Hillary won't fuck that up.

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

I don't know, maybe forever? I think the right hates Hillary more than the left hates Jeb, which isn't good. The right will be motivated to vote against Hillary. If the left stays home we are gonna have a bad trilogy.

 

[Derec]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, even Brian Schweitzer.

 

[Blahface]

This is why we need non-partisan primaries with approval voting. You can vote for all the candidates you like without having to worry about their electability. Any candidate who is not popular is not going to make it into the top two.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

I wonder if Nader wants to run again and deliver the election to yet another Bush.

As opposed to a Bush Light

"Same shitty beer with only half the calories"

 

[AthenaAwakened]

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

doesn't answer the question posed, but then again, it's not supposed to, now is it?

I'm not moving from the question I asked until it's answered.

Try again.

- - - Updated - - -

"But we don't want you either"

And how often, how many times will the left thinking public take a slow poison before it decides it just doesn't like poison?

I don't know, maybe forever? I think the right hates Hillary more than the left hates Jeb, which isn't good. The right will be motivated to vote against Hillary. If the left stays home we are gonna have a bad trilogy.

Why does the voting public always have to move right but not one candidate ever have to move left?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

And here is the kicker to all of this madness.

The assault from the left isn't just coming from democrats

Republicans Are Suddenly Talking about Income Inequality

 

[Terrell]

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

Jerry Brown.

Perhaps, is he running?

Who is your alternative, with a realistic shot of getting elected?

doesn't answer the question posed, but then again, it's not supposed to, now is it?

I'm not moving from the question I asked until it's answered.

Try again.

No it's not, it's just to point out that you can't always get what you want. If what you want is entirely out of reach, does it not make sense to get at least someone who isn't flat out hostile to what you want? The presidency is going to go to either a Democrat or a Republican, if there's a realistic alternative to that possibility, it has yet to present itself.

As for Hillary Clinton, she should run as the person she is. The left can either go for idealism, or pragmatism. Own your choice either way.

 

[ZiprHead]

The OP gives me a thought.: Sanders/Reich 2016

 

[Ford]

Hillary Clinton has her own paper/video trail, a husband with a presidential track record, and a political defeat by forces to her left in her human history. And now she wants to try for the brass ring again.

What is a body to do when a flank of your party ain't crazy about you?

Flank is an apt choice of words. If we go back to Clausewitz and his Principles of War (gotta use war analogies for everything!) then the principle of economy of force would state that you put a minimum of power into secondary efforts.

The "left flank," if you will, of the Democratic party is certainly still secondary. The base is still pretty centrist, and Hillary lost in 2008 to a candidate who was barely to her left...or perhaps more accurately less center-right than she was. That candidate is now off the table as a challenger, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that he'll use whatever juice he has left in his office to campaign hard for his former rival when the time comes.

And while it is true that the left flank has become somewhat louder in the past couple of years, the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing of the party need only be placated by Hillary/Obama and the center right majority.

The left in the Democratic party is nowhere near as powerful as the Tea Party wing of the Republicans has become. I don't know that a Tea Party-like insurrection would necessarily help the Democrats, since I'm not at all convinced there's a left-leaning "silent majority" out there to be tapped as the Tea Party did with the disaffected folks on the right wing.

Plus there's the fact that the right wing has been very effective over the last...50 years?...of painting "the left" as a bad thing in the minds of the American people. Tea Party supporters can festoon themselves with three corner hats and pretend to be Samuel Adams. I'm thinking Che Guevara t-shirts would be less popular. Like it or not, there is a stigma associated with "left wing" in this country.

So if the left wing and/or flank of the Democratic party wants to do something about the direction things are going, they've got to figure out a new way to pull the party back towards their side.


I highly doubt that's going to happen between now and November of next year.

 

[dismal]

As for Hillary Clinton, she should run as the person she is.

Which is what?

The sort of person who come by and give you a speech about how she's going to take down the 1% if you pay her $500,000?

As someone said the other day she has an inauthenticity that's hard to fake.