A new column from Matt Bai making a point I’ve been making for awhile. Hillary Clinton is running in an environment where she is forced to repudiate pretty much all of her husband’s record. Embracing Obama is smart, it’s something that Democrats in 2014 should have done but didn’t. But Clinton, unlike other Democrats who might try to run for President, also has her husband’s record to consider and instead of embracing it, she’s rejected it. Meanwhile, Bill isn’t on the same page, he’s out there defending his record from liberal critics, with right-wing columnists helpfully(hah!) backing him up. One almost wonders if Bill should just drop the pretense and join us on the right and then Bill and Hillary can be like James Carville and Mary Matalin.
Anyway, I think where the party is headed is a huge mistake for them. At a time when Republicans are giving up the center, the Democrats are going, “No, we don’t want the center either! You take it! We’re going left, BABY!!!”
Bai’s best excerpt, IMO:
But if Democrats were willing to tolerate Clintonism only to win, did they really even win? Democrats love to say that “We won 5 of the last 6 elections”, but it seems to me that they’ve only one two, and with only 1 unusually compelling candidate to the very voters who they usually find hard to turn out most years. The Clinton wins are washes, since Democrats were explicitly going Republican-lite because it was the only way to compete.
Will 2016 be a true test of whether a progressive candidate can win? Maybe, maybe not. A lot depends on what happens on the GOP side. If Trump is the nominee, Clinton’s likely win isn’t an endorsement of liberalism so much as a repudiation of Trump. Cruz vs. Clinton would be a clearer ideological battle, probably the most black and white since LBJ vs. Goldwater. But Cruz is so far right and so unlikeable that Clinton’s margin of victory is likely to just consist of voters who think the “real” Clinton is moderate, and thus prefer her over Cruz, whereas they might prefer a Republican if a reasonable one was running. However, if the convention nominates someone like Rubio or Kasich that strikes me as a true test for whether the Democratic Party is actually back as a progressive force. Both Rubio and Kasich are far right, but not terribly unlikeable, and so if they lose, it will be because the country actually is changing, becoming more liberal. So we’ll see.
Do me a favor and list the top 10 of Clinton’s policy achievements during his Presidency and tell me which are actively refuted by the current form of the Democratic Party. Please do not focus on refutations by activists and Sanders’ failing bid for the Presidential nomination. I am talking about the Democratic Party. Show me which of these are undergoing active opposition by the party.
To other people thinking of participating in this thread: please do not click on the link. It furthers the career of yet another talking head who writes opinion pieces for their controversial click bait value. To give you an idea of how intellectually bankrupt Matt Bai is, he was part of a round table on Meet The Press last weekend. I ask you to trust me that there was no analysis or anything of intellectual interest in the article. Just go to Wikipedia, clearly Matt Bai didn’t.
Deregulation
That’s six off the top of my head. Now you do have somewhat of a point, in that there are still conservative elements of the party that support Clinton’s stand on most of those issues, but Hillary does not.
I don’t think Democrats have any problem with “welfare reform,” “spending cuts,” or “Deregulation” to any great extent. Welfare reform is viewed by most as a success. Most people don’t even associate Bill Clinton with deregulation. If you mean banks/financial institutions, I think that’s way to obscure for the average voter. Fair or not, Clinton is remember as presiding over peace and prosperity, balancing the budget, and being attacked by a vast right-wing conspiracy.
I suggest that you post an explanation of how you got hold of the White House kitchen’s private sugar and porridge inventory records. You don’t want the guys in black suits and shades to come looking for you.
Clinton’s Presidency is looked back at fondly by Democrats. His specific policies are not. Clinton’s priorities were controversial among Democrats even then. That’s why it was called “triangulation”. An argument can be made that the Democratic Party never accepted Clintonism to begin with, it just grudgingly went along because they were tired of losing. Now that they’ve won a couple of elections, the base is feeling their oats and are itching to go to war. But that’s to be expected. What isn’t expected, or wise, as far as I’m concerned, is the former President’s own wife disowning most of his record. And the hilarious spectacle of Bill having to try not to defend his record too well lest it harm Hillary.
To save both the RepublicanParty and the Clinton legacy, what needs to happen is this — and they haven’t much time:
To destroy the Trump Revolution and face off the Sandernistas, the moderate RNC leadership needs to go to Hillary instanter,
"Look, we said things, you said things, let’s put that behind us, water under the bridge. At the end of the day both of us are equally committed to democracy, freedom and all that jazz; and we agree on 90% of the issues.
"Together we can form a new centrist party devoted to capital and a heavy justice system to punish bad people. We will betray the Tea Party loons, and you will ditch the progressives, combined the voters we can join together will crush all opposition from malcontents and idealists.
"It can be the New Republican-Democrats: we will guarantee you the presidency for 8 years: you choose Walker or Ryan as vice: we support you vocally and jointly select the same economic strategies; you get a free hand on women’s rights and all minority issues, and can make a meaningless gesture to health reform after destroying the ACA: we get a free hand on evolution, education and seeing off climate change nonsense. Plus you get four square wars a day ( our friends get the contracts. )
“This way we preserve the centre, banish Trump and the right nuts to the howling wilderness and ignore the left’s timid demands for change for decades.”
“I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money !”
People will gladly vote for a head cold if the alternate is the bubonic plague. Bill was president in the 1990s and those days are over. Gay marriage is settled law. Trade agreements are subject to a higher level of scrutiny. Some deregulation has worked, some hasn’t. Spending has pretty much been cut as much as it can. These battles are all pretty much over. We aren’t going to relitigate the 1990s, we’re deciding who has the 2020 vision. The choice is between building on the solid legacy of Obama or digging up the ghosts of Joe McCarthy and Ronald Reagan.
Is “Clintonism” a stand in for “New Democrat”? If it is, I find it hard to believe it’s been rejected even if it’s not talked about much on the campaign trail. In 2009, Obama himself said he was a New Democrat.
Matt Bai may be a fine reporter or whatever he fancies himself, but he’s been so anti-Hillary from the get go that I tend to disregard what he says about her. I know this is, supposedly, more about the party as a whole than about her, but it still just seems like one more stab of the knife.
IMO, a “New Democrat” like Clinton or Obama is the same as an “Old Republican”. They are both well to the right of where the party used to be. The only reason they’re still winning is because the Republicans went careening off the cliff on the right side of the road.
Well obviously they are more to the right of where the Dems used to be, that was the whole point. It was in response to “Old Republicans” winning elections.
NAFTA: free trade agreements have only increased since NAFTA, and this trend clearly has not slowed down under Obama. Most Democrats’ problems with the TPP is in the details; they are not against free trade as a principle.
Welfare Reform: Please find a reputable voice for the Democratic Party that is opposed to Clinton’s welfare reforms.
Crime Bill: Other than some Black Lives Matter protesters, where is the stinging rebuke of the Crime Bill? Hillary has said she finds her language regrettable. That’s about it.
Spending Cuts: You mean balanced budget? Yes, Clinton and Democrats in general have been and are for increasing taxes and limiting spending to control the budget.
Gay Rights: It’s more nuanced but I will say there has been a major change repudiating Clinton’s policies on the issue. Of course, this change in values is true of a majority of Americans in general.
Deregulation: Maybe his policy is being criticized in light of the recession, but I am not seeing a major change from the type of relationship with business and Wall Street promoted by Clinton in the Democratic Party of today.