Everyone Hates Neoliberals, So We Talked to Some

[LWolf]

37. Thanks.

That makes more sense.

I don't think I was off the mark, though. You see, the current round of neoliberalism was ushered into the Democratic Party by Clinton and the DLC. It used to be fashionable here to criticize the DLC, but NOT the Clintons. In '08, DU stopped being "underground," and stopped describing itself as "left-wing," (used to be in the "about DU" text), and the newer members flooding in were more "centrist," and proud of it. I put that in quotes because it's a code word for neoliberalism. I don't know that many even knew that; they bought into the "pragmatic" characterization and other propaganda that surrounded it. The left, here, was thrown under the bus. And just like the DLC, which, yes, I know is defunct, replaced by the "New Democrats" and the "Third Way," which are both simply a continuation...anyway, just like the DLC appropriated terms like "liberal" and "progressive," the term "left" on DU began to evolve into something else.

There was a time, while we were being thrown under the bus by "centrist" DUers, that we were actually referred to as the "loony left." Just Like right wingers did. Then the "centrists" slowly began to adopt it for themselves, even if it wasn't really accurate. You see, that divorce between economic justice and social justice was in play.

What I, and a whole nation of what passes for the actual left in the United States (which isn't really all that "left," globally speaking,) have seen out in the world is that the neo-liberal establishment, who turned their backs on the wave of energy for change, and thus, in some of our views, lost the White House by nominating a "centrist," is now working avidly to retain what power they have left, and part of that involves attacking the term "neoliberal," and especially denying it. Out there, and right here.

I know that the majority of DU these days energetically disagrees with that assessment, and that this post right here is going to be subject to many vicious attacks. That doesn't negate my, and others', view or make it any less real. From the left, in my view, there's very little resembling "left" on DU in 2017. That's why I don't spend that much time here anymore. It's increasingly irrelevant.

Again, in my view, I think our party ought to be moving left. That's not an attack. It's not against DU's TOS to say that I want the party to abandon neoliberalism and move left. And that's really what this is about. The party is divided, fractured, and the party of the future depends on which side of that divide either evolves toward the other or away from the party.

Meanwhile, I'm spending the majority of my political time and energy out with people in the real world, with activists around my state, instead of at the keyboard.

I'm sorry if people who aren't really neoliberal centrists have been called neoliberal. That doesn't detract from the reality that the party establishment IS a neoliberal establishment. It could be that those who don't like having that label flung at them might want to work harder at cleansing the party of neoliberalism from the inside out instead of building a defensive wall around it to keep potential allies on the other side.

I've got work to do, and places to go. I'll be back eventually, and if anyone has anything thoughtful, rather than hateful, to say, I'll respond.