Sunday, April 07, 2013

The Democratic Party Transformation

People know the GOP has gone hard right in pursuit of its ideology. The Democrats used to have an ideology, instilled by FDR and the Great Depression, which embodied keeping capitalism regulated, limiting the power of elite financial interests, preventing extreme inequality of wealth and income, using government to do what it must do to promote the general welfare and secure a stable society, promoting a strong middle class, and providing a safety net for people struggling to maintain a decent living, including retired and disabled people on limited incomes.
The Clinton administration and the Democratic Leadership Council changed all that. They compromised with Republicans in dismantling welfare programs, promoting globalization, and relaxing regulations on Wall Street and corporate America. Since the Clinton administration the Democrats has become largely driven by politics to regain and consolidate power. This has been possible became a sizable contingent of the Democratic base has become affluent in the last several decades and now are part of the investor class that is sympathetic to capitalist dogma. The media and the current administration are classic examples of this contingent.
The principle remaining ideology in the Democratic Party is its fight against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation. The DLC contingent now largely shares the GOP ideology on globalization, deficits, war, and global hegemony. It is likely to cause a schism in the Democratic Party similar to what has occurred in the GOP.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hats off to Elwood Anderson who writes a great piece! Today’s so called ‘Moderate’ Democrats are not moderate at all. They are Conservative Republicans in Democrats clothes compared to 1980's Democratic standards.
In December 2012, Barack Obama came out of the closet and even said that his economic policies would make him a 1980's Moderate Republican. However, this was before Obama propsed to cut Social Security. After proposing to cut social security, Obama today would be considered a Conservative Republican compared to 1980's Democratic standards.
Neocons and DLC Democrats who now call themselves ‘New Democrats’ have brought with them Neoliberal economic policies which have destroyed the poor and middle classes. Their Neoliberal economic policies have caused great inequality making workers wages stagnate while CEO’s salaries increase to 325 fold. Unions representing the working class have dramatically declined since the rise of the Neocons and DLC (New Democrats) over the past 30 years. Neocons and New Democrats continue to push onto us their Neliberal economics of Privatization, Deregulation, and Free Trade which has made peasants out of the working class and Barons out of the 1%. The poor has no representation today as the leadership of both parties cater to the wealthy. Today, the three richest people in the world possess more financial assets than the lowest 48 nations combined.
Neocons and New Democrats are funded by the same special interests, Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and big business. They control Mainstream media and brainwash the American public with their propaganda daily. Today, we live in what amounts to a Corporate Plutocratic Oligarchy rather than a representative Democracy.