Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue. Neither is winning at all costs. The latter is why the Clintons and Carville sought Wall Street money and accepted Wall Street values in government. Ending big government and welfare reform pushed the stereotypical welfare queens of Reagan's imagination into the modern slavery of low wage work. It made compassionate conservatism look good. Lee Atwater made identity politics possible.
Identity politics works on both sides. White workers being exploited as the useful idiots of capitalism is a feature, not a flaw. So is the link between racial and economic justice. The reason Carville and the Wall Street liberals decry social democracy is because it is an undoing and an indictment of their governing strategy.
Obama's moderation simply brought identity politics along with Wall Street. The fusion of the two allows the Democrats to indulge in their meritocratic sin, nominating candidates based on who gets the next turn. What worked for Obama, however, did not work for Hillary, giving us Trump and leading to Sanders. My only objection to him is his advanced age. Bloomberg and Biden have the same issue. It is time for them to leave the stage and to take Mayor Pete and his anti-Washington memes with him.
Identity politics will give us the competence of Warren or Klobuchar, possibly with Booker or Harris for good measure. The waking up of social democracy will put basic economic reform back on the agenda, although real cooperative socialism is not yet ready for prime time. It needs to succeed in the private sector first. There is no other way forward from the neoliberalism of the center.
No comments:
Post a Comment