A younger generation of Democrats is bridging the left-center divide

[Bombtrack]

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=7658

Children of Bill
A younger generation of Democrats is bridging the left-center divide.
By Kenneth S. Baer
Web Exclusive: 04.28.04

<snip>

There is evidence of this growing synthesis all around the Beltway. Recently, the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute and its main ideological rival, the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, have begun to meet regularly to hash out a Democratic agenda. In their widely read book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, whose new edition was just released, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, both leading labor-liberal intellectuals, argued that any new Democratic majority must include professionals living in suburbs across the nation

<snip>

Second, this new consensus is being reinforced by a new generation of Democratic operatives who came of political age in the Clinton era and absorbed both his political philosophy and the strategy implicit in it. They instinctively understand the need to reach out to suburban swing voters and recognize the importance of being able to speak to and in the words of middle America. While an earlier generation internalized the soaring rhetoric of John F. Kennedy, this generation has been weaned on the conversational style and understandable sound bites of Bill Clinton.

But make no mistake: Those in this younger generation are not DLC ideologues. They have a realistic and acute understanding of the importance of the Democratic base -- activists, blacks, and, especially, organized labor -- in winning elections. After all, while their role model, Clinton, was the first Democratic candidate since 1964 to win a plurality of white men and independents, his most intense support was in congressional districts in which minorities, liberals, and the elderly predominated. These Clinton-era politicos understand, as Jesse Jackson once said, that "it takes two wings to fly."

<snip>----

[checks-n-balances]

1. Hoping this is true! Maybe there's potential for a bright future

after all.

[Robbien]

2. The DLC/DNC doesn't get it. It is not the centrists Kerry has a problem

winning. It is the leftist liberals that have no use for the Kerry party except as an ABB vote.

[jonnyblitz]

4. yup

that be me. ABB 2004.

[Michael Costello]

6. You are right, this article is BS

Why do so many working class people vote Republican? Why do the Republicans keep saying Kerry has a butler on the campaign tour, or talk about how much money he has? If all the Democratic party is is the party of gay rights, abortion, gun control and watered down fiscal policy like "lower deficits", they are not going to appeal to their base. The average American worker has become more impoverished over the past few decades, and the suggestion here is to move the party to the right.

As far as "professionals living in suburbs", I guess you could consider me this, and I would not mind if the Democrats hoist the red flag and start singing the Internationale. In fact, I will probably vote for Nader this year. One argument I hear against this is I can afford to vote for Nader, but poor people in the US will really pay if Bush is re-elected now. One problem with this argument is it completely invalidates the one made here. Because here it says the party must move to the right or I won't vote for it, when the opposite is the reality. The other argument is I'm privileged enough to not see this next election as crucial to win. But in that case, if the more privileged people want the party to move to the left economically, what's the problem, as the lion's share of the benefits would be for people less well off than me. It might inspire some of that 49% who do not vote to vote.

[Robbien]

8. Yes, both the GOP and the DNC/DLC are fighting for the center vote

But there are so many people on the left who have no one to vote for. Some on the left will vote ABB because they are worried about four more years of BushCo.

But there are many on the left who are not informed about the damage BushCo can do. These people see no difference between BushCo and Kerry. They see no reason to go to the polls and vote.

Kerry needs to provide some reason for these liberals to go and vote. So far his eyes are turned to the right taking for granted these lefties will vote for him. Well, he is wrong. So many lefties will just stay home because Kerry has nothing to offer.

[Bombtrack]

9. You so completely couldn't have read the article if you're belief

about what it says is an opinion to "move the party to the right"

You're assessment is BS. It's an analysis of the party and both it's "halves". Not some ideological peice.

You probably only read the fact that the author was a moderate if that much.

[Michael Costello]

11. Huh?

The article opens with:

"Why am I writing this column?

I'm not your standard American Prospect material. I'm a New Democrat, and I wrote a book called Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton, the first and only history of the rise of this upstart party faction.

Reinventing Democrats didn't exactly tear up the best-seller list. Its readership centered mainly on those who personally have met Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) founder Al From or who attended my bar mitzvah. Yet my positive take on the subject put me clearly on the New Democratic side in this intraparty fight."

OK, he drops about 100 clues here that he is one of the DLC "new" Democrats trying to transform the Democratic party into the Republican party.

"any new Democratic majority must include professionals living in suburbs across the nation."

Then he says there is a new "consensus" (maybe there is within the Democratric party, if what he says is the consensus IS the consensus, then I am voting for Nader).

This article says the exact opposite of what you said it does. I will let people here read the whole thing for themselves and decide for themselves.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. I call Gen X "Reagan babies," raised on Reagan...

(as always, apologies to those of that generation who do not fit that description), for whom Reagan's conservatism seems to be the norm, so I love this term "children of Bill!" I have posted about this more than once, and also about Gen Y, born 1980 and after, and my hopes for them. I am the mother of a Gen Y child and am fascinated by her generation. When I have posted about these kids, I have received replies from other Gen Y parents who have children with similar traits.

Early studies I have read indicate that they are blind to race and color, global in thinking, sceptical of advertising and spin (they want their information straight, in order to make up their own minds), not terribly materialistic, tuned to computer technology and the net, interested in the continent of Africa. (Two examples: the kid who told Al Gore to halt on his way to concede, because he was looking at raw Florida returns on the net; my daughter's view that her generation would never send a manned spacecraft to Mars when a techie-produced robot could do the job cheaper, and with no danger to human life.) I believe they may see politics in an as yet undefined, different way, that may have less to do with party than in the past. I think their thinking might be more global than America-centered. I have great hopes for these kids, and if they do good for this world, then maybe their Boomer parents did something right.

[Bombtrack]

7. You were mostly right up until "not terribly materialistic"

I'm not sure there has ever been a more terribly materialistic generation than mine right now anyway. It really jumped after Bush got into office. You just have to look at MTV. MTV, while it's "news" branch and rock the vote clearly is liberal-leaning, the organization on a whole ramms a grotesque cartoonish materialism into my generation and it has stuck. Whether MTV cribs, or "the fabulous life of:" on VH1(which are both owned by Viacom), or just the whole blingin hip-hop culture, it is a very sad blight to gen Y. And I just pray for something that will happen to change it.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. You may have a point , Bombtrack --

[Vogon_Glory]

5. What Liberals and Centrists BOTH Realize

What both liberals and centrists like me realize is that we'll have a voice at the Democratic table when we make decisions to better our country--as opposed to be frozen out by the reactionaries in the GOP and trashed by their talk-show mouthpieces.

[Michael Costello]

12. What about socialists?

One of the two major parties in virtually every European country is socialist (in the UK it is not called socialist but labor - and is in power currently). Since the US is an industrialized country like them, it would make sense that there must be some percentage of socialists here. Like me. If there are two parties, and the liberals have to vye for power WITHIN one of them, where does that leave us? Voting for Nader I guess...

[Vogon_Glory]

13. Socialism....

Considering the changes in most of Europe's socialist parties since the 1980s, when many of them dropped their belief in state ownership of banks, telecommunications, and most of the means of production, socialists there have much more in common with Democrats here in the US than elsewhere.

Not only have former state-owned telecommunications been privatised in social democratic Europe, but also many airlines sold off and even some of the utilities and parts of the rail network.

If you are indeed a genuine socialist, you are, of course, free to vote for Nader. But I am perfectly free to tell you that a vote for Nader, especially in a "battleground" state where the votes and electoral college votes are up for grabs, is a vote for George Walker Bush and a reactionary Republican Party bent on repealing every proposal that the former Socialist Party stood for and fought for since 1900. The Republican Party and its "Conservative" allies are the biggest enemy facing the rest of us. After the voters wise up as to the true nature of "conservatism" and the GOP is put to rout, then there will be more time for thrashing out disagreements.

[ulysses]

14. hmm.

Bill Clinton ended welfare as we know it, deracializing and defusing one of the most divisive intraparty issues while at the same time reinvigorating liberalism's emphasis on the responsibilities citizens have to state and society.

I'll certainly agree that putting a five-year limit on welfare benefits "ended welfare as we knew it", but I must have missed how Clinton "reinvigorat(ed) liberalism's emphasis on the responsibilities citizens have to state and society". Pretty words but entirely meaningless.

At the same time, the social issues that threatened to tear apart the party no longer do so. Democrats aren't afraid to talk about the virtues of family anymore; very few politicians miss an opportunity to invoke its sanctity and centrality to American life.

Oh, happiness! The social issues are still there - we're just free now to repeat the same emptyheaded platitudes about the sanctity of the family that the GOP uses instead of talking about them.

Alongside that, Democrats are almost entirely united in their defense of personal freedom, be it their choice of religion (or lack thereof), sexual partner, or decisions about their body.

Are we really? What was that "no freedom from religion" thing a while back from one of the DLC's own?

But make no mistake: Those in this younger generation are not DLC ideologues. They have a realistic and acute understanding of the importance of the Democratic base -- activists, blacks, and, especially, organized labor -- in winning elections. After all, while their role model, Clinton, was the first Democratic candidate since 1964 to win a plurality of white men and independents, his most intense support was in congressional districts in which minorities, liberals, and the elderly predominated.

Since Clinton *epitomizes* the gap, I'm not sure how folks to whom he is a role model plan to bridge it, much less how they're not DLC ideologues. If these things are true, how soon can we expect to see denunciations of the DLC's "activist elites" language coming from these unifiers?

Have we entered a new Democratic golden age in which the lions have laid down with the lambs?

No.

A fratricidal war will wound a Kerry presidency much as intraparty battles hurt Clinton during his first two years in office.

Mr. Baer might look to his own party faction for the roots of the problem.