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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Mr. DLC, He Dead

Open Thread: Mr. DLC, He Dead

by Anne Laurie|  February 7, 20118:53 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Assholes, Democratic Stupidity

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Ben Smith at Politico reports the immanent “death” of the DLC, and the brilliant Alex Pareene at Salon takes a leak on its yawning grave:

… The Democratic Leadership Committee was founded after Ronald Reagan got reelected, and the basic idea was that Democrats were too liberal to win elections, and they all had to be more like the Democrats who carpet bombed Vietnam to prove that they weren’t hippies. Except they got the calculation completely wrong. While that gutless old ward-heeler Hubert Humphrey certainly would’ve happily bombed all of Indochina into submission, he wouldn’t have ever crossed the AFL-CIO. The DLC, on the other hand, sided with management, because in order the “modernize” the party they had to modernize its donor list.
__
The DLC model undoubtedly helped Democrats win national elections, primarily by allowing Democrats to fundraise as effectively as the more stridently pro-corporatism party. Unfortunately, that money came with a price, and that price is “adopting a whole bunch of positions that are popular with money but not with people who voted for Democrats for a hundred years,” like the “partial” privatization of Social Security. The group helped create and maintain the Washington consensus that liberalism is dead, which makes lovely things like single-payer healthcare impossible.
__
While the New Left is typically blamed for the shattering of the post-War coalition and establishing the damning image of the Democrats as the party of elite coastal liberals, the Third Way New Democrats did the heavy lifting that led to a party that never bothers to stand up for the economic interests of people who make less than $250,000 a year, while still (occasionally) fighting for divisive things like “special rights” for “special interests.” There is broad progressive/New Democrat agreement on the cultural issues, but the embarrassing death of the Employee Free Choice Act is the real legacy of the dearly departed DLC.

Good riddance to the triangulators, and may they not have fatally wounded the Democratic Party in the process!

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Reader Interactions

48Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh32

    February 7, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    First Sign of the apocalypse, Bristol Palin to write memoir???

    http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/02/07/bristol-palin-memoir/#comments

  2. 2.

    lamh32

    February 7, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    Oh and some advice to guys, take away ur lady’s credit cards when she’s PMS’ing, or she may end up buying DJ Hero 2 & Dance, Dance Revolution for Wii, even though she doesn’t even play the damn Wii but once every blue moon (seriously, why did I buy DJ Hero’s…I guess my nephew will be getting an early christmas present…lol!)

  3. 3.

    liberal

    February 7, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    Good riddance to the triangulators…

    While I don’t think he was ever formally a member of the DLC, Obama strikes me as something of a triangulator (though as I was commenting to my boss, an employee of a Federal agency and hence possibly at risk in any confrontation with the Rethugs, it’s not at all clear whether he’ll be as effective as Clinton was).

  4. 4.

    sukabi

    February 7, 2011 at 9:06 pm

    it’s a marketing decision… the new organization is in place… it’s called The Third Way…

  5. 5.

    4jkb4ia

    February 7, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    Pitt wins by 6. If John was paying any attention to this game he would be kvetching about the officials.

  6. 6.

    Jody

    February 7, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    They didn’t fatally wound the Democratic party. They took it over.

  7. 7.

    dr. bloor

    February 7, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    @sukabi:

    Yup. Just like cockroaches, there are a hunnert of them lurking around for every one that gets squashed.

  8. 8.

    WyldPirate

    February 7, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    Good riddance to the triangulators, and may they not have fatally wounded the Democratic Party in the process!

    Good riddance? You’re kidding, right?

    Pay closer attention to what the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave does over the next two years. He’s going to have all kinds of drafting instruments, compasses, sextants and all sorts of shit to “triangulate” with.

    Hell, he just got done doing a nice fluff job on the US Chamber of Commerce today. That’s a mere tune-up, too.

  9. 9.

    T.R. Donoghue

    February 7, 2011 at 10:14 pm

    My thoughts on the DLC, in context of the awarding of the DNC to Bank of America, errrr I mean Charlotte.

    http://thefastertimes.com/topstories/2011/02/07/dlc-closing-their-mission-of-delivering-the-democratic-party-to-coroproations-complete/

  10. 10.

    edmund dantes

    February 7, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    People in here already nailed it. It didn’t go away. It just morphed into a new brand. Kind of like Valujet became AirTran because it had become so toxic after the everglades crash. Best part is the brand that spurned Valujet was recently bought by Southwest.

  11. 11.

    Karen S.

    February 7, 2011 at 10:41 pm

    Since this is billed as an open thread, I’ll post this here. A week ago, my wife and I attended the signing of Illinois’ new Civil Union legislation. We were just there to spectate, but a Chicago Tribune photog snapped a photo of us that appeared in last Tuesday’s paper as well as on the paper’s website. We looked like just what we are: a happy interracial lesbian couple. We received loads a positive feedback from friends and family who saw the pic. Well, today brought a reminder that not everyone likes the gays (or the blacks for that matter). The letter was addressed to my wife and it contained the sort of slurs you’d imagine. Oddly, the hater referred to my wife as a “faggot,” which I found baffling.
    Anyway, we called the cops and they came by to make a report and to take the letter with them to turn over to the police department’s hate crime unit. We are shaken by this, to say the least. I don’t think I’ll sleep well, which irritates me. I wish something like this didn’t have the power to be disruptive. I don’t really know why I decided to share this with you all. I think some of you are empathetic and can possibly understand what this sort of thing is like. At the very least, perhaps you can send some soothing energy my way. Thank you for reading.

  12. 12.

    Jenny

    February 7, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    @T.R. Donoghue:

    Meh.

    Obama got 62% of the vote in Charlotte.

    It is 34% black, 11% hispanic, 4% asian, 2% biracial, and 11% other. The mayor is black. The local basketball team has black ownership.

    Seems like a multicultural city. Yes it has banks, but do we tar a progressive, multicultural, pro gay city, like New York or San Franciso (HQ for BofA until 1997), because it has banks.

  13. 13.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    February 7, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    @Karen S:

    Dude, that really sucks. I can imagine what an unpleasant invasion that must feel like. What I can’t imagine is the emptiness and viciousness it takes to go to all the trouble of writing and mailing a letter that’s designed to make someone else miserable.

    If it’s any consolation, there is probably no worse punishment than being that person.

  14. 14.

    alwhite

    February 7, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Nope, too late – the DLC and their fellow travelers, the Blew Dogs and Corporate owned Dems have killed what the Democratic party stood for for over 70 years. It is now a pale imitation of what it should be.

    The choice is now to elect Republicans who will destroy everything that ever made this country great and take the world down with it as fast as humanly possible OR elect Democrats who will allow the country to be destroyed & the world made unfit for human population more slowly.

  15. 15.

    Jenny

    February 7, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    @liberal:
    DLC is so 2006. I think populist bloggers refer to him now as a neo-liberal.

    First they called him a DLCer. When that didn’t work, they called him a secret republican. When that didn’t stick they went to ConservaDem. When that flopped, they fell back and called him a centrist. That didn’t fit either, so they went with Blue-dog. Forced, yet again, to the drawing board, they’ve gone with on neo-liberal, which is quite a concession, as it recognizes that his is a liberal and not Dianne Feinstein or Zell Miller, but that he’s not a new dealer. But I don’t think it’ll catch on with the rank and file, and they’ll have to come up with something new in 6 months.

    Oddly enough, populists like Huey Long and lefties like Norman Thomas thought FDR’s new deal was crap, and with good cause. Social Security was junk when it first passed, with fractional benefits kicking in for whites only at age 65, at a time when US life expectancy was 59. They also called FDR a corporatist for not dismantling wall street and appointing raider Joe Kennedy as the first head of the SEC. I guess today, the equivalent would be appointing Jim Cramer/Ivan Boskey/Mike Milken head of the SEC.

    But over time, the man who rounded up Japanese American citizens and placed them in concentration camps became an lefty icon and the benchmark to judge and bash others.

  16. 16.

    Suck It Up!

    February 7, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    @liberal:

    Obama is not a triangulator.

  17. 17.

    Suck It Up!

    February 7, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    @Jenny:

    Indeed.

  18. 18.

    Suck It Up!

    February 7, 2011 at 11:03 pm

    @Jenny:

    Heee heee heee, you’re on a roll!!!!

    awesome.

  19. 19.

    WyldPirate

    February 7, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    @Jenny:

    Seems like a multicultural city. Yes it has banks, but do we tar a progressive, multicultural, pro gay city, like New York or San Franciso (HQ for BofA until 1997), because it has banks.

    How’s about all the rednecks in all of the counties surrounding Mecklenberg County? They sure as shit did not go for Obama by 62%.

    Obama won’t carry North Carolina again. You can take that to the bank, too.

  20. 20.

    NY Expat

    February 7, 2011 at 11:11 pm

    OK, let’s try this…

  21. 21.

    PanurgeATL

    February 7, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    @alwhite:

    That may be the choice now. But the other question is, “How do we make things so that we have the choice we want, not just the choice we have?”

    To say that the DLC has “killed” the Dems is only to demonstrate once again the pernicious power of the overused conceptual metaphor of “death”.

  22. 22.

    Spaghetti Lee

    February 7, 2011 at 11:23 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    So? You get a couple counties out from all but a few cities, and it’s significantly less liberal. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make-that we should just hold the DNC in 3 or 4 cities that are acceptably liberal?

  23. 23.

    Uloborus

    February 7, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    @WyldPirate:
    I read, quite carefully, the text of that speech. While fluffing them ever so sweetly he promised to destroy their entire way of life and every tool they’ve used to shaft the country. It was a fine example of how politeness does not equal being on someone’s side.

  24. 24.

    Jenny

    February 7, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    @lamh32:

    Bristol Palin to write memoir???

    Crayons sold separately.

  25. 25.

    Jenny

    February 7, 2011 at 11:33 pm

    @WyldPirate: from your tone, it’s almost like you’re hoping he doesn’t win.

  26. 26.

    Observer

    February 7, 2011 at 11:33 pm

    @Uloborus: Words and actions are different things.

    He also said he would “change” the way Washington works and that HCR required a public option of some sort.

    You should presume he’s in campaign mode and this is kabuki theatre. Third Way DLCer all the way.

  27. 27.

    Jebediah

    February 7, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    @Karen S.:

    send some soothing energy my way

    I’d like to, but first I have to get over being angry at and contemptuous of the sad-sack-of-crap that felt so threatened by you two being happy that the only option was to try and shit on you.
    I keep thinking we are over this type of stuff. I keep being wrong. Sorry you are having to deal with this – I hope you are able to get back to normal quickly.

  28. 28.

    Uloborus

    February 7, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    @Observer:
    …so it only counts if he’s saying something you don’t want to hear? WOW.

  29. 29.

    Jenny

    February 7, 2011 at 11:48 pm

    @Uloborus: Exactly, when he says something disagreeable, it matters. If he says something agreeable, it doesn’t. Fixxed News would be so proud of the construct.

  30. 30.

    Uloborus

    February 7, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    @Jenny:
    So if he says something agreeable in a disagreeable way, like with this Chamber of Commerce speech, it’s the tone he took that’s important and not what he actually said.

    Criminy fucking selection bias god damn.

  31. 31.

    jefft452

    February 8, 2011 at 12:35 am

    ”Social Security was junk when it first passed, with fractional benefits kicking in for whites only…”

    This is a flat out lie
    Most people who claim this are careful to phrase it in misleading weasel words (most iterant and agricultural jobs were exempt, and the majority of black people in the south had iterant or agricultural jobs. So did about half of the white people.) There was NO requirement that you be 7/8 Caucasian to collect SS

    ”.. at age 65, at a time when US life expectancy was 59”

    See, now you’re learning how to mislead

    Life expectancy was 59 AT BIRTH
    My mother had 5 siblings, 3 died before their 1st birthday, 2 and mom lived past 80

  32. 32.

    Jenny

    February 8, 2011 at 1:19 am

    @jefft452: I’m rubber, you’re glue…

    FDR himself did not live long enough to collect social security benefits. LBJ didn’t live long enough to enroll in Medicare.

    The facts stands. In the 1930 census, only 5.6% of the public was over 65. As of 2009, 12.5% of the public is over 65.

    Think about that. Today Social Security covers 12.5% of the population. In order to cover the same percentage of people in 1935, you’d have to lower the benefit age to age 55.

  33. 33.

    jefft452

    February 8, 2011 at 1:36 am

    ”FDR himself did not live long enough to collect social security benefits”

    Yeah….Polio will do that

    Grand dad was a year younger then FDR
    Died in his 90s

  34. 34.

    jefft452

    February 8, 2011 at 1:37 am

    ”..you’d have to lower the benefit age to age 55.”

    Good idea!!!

  35. 35.

    lol

    February 8, 2011 at 1:48 am

    @jefft452:

    Kind of like how’s it’s “misleading” to claim that poll taxes and literacy tests were aimed at disenfranchising African Americans, right?

    There’s a reason the NAACP described it as “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through” – it left out two-thirds of African Americans nationwide and almost all of them in the South.

  36. 36.

    lol

    February 8, 2011 at 1:50 am

    @jefft452:

    “My granddad smokes every day and he’s 90 so cigarettes aren’t bad for you!”

    Though you have a good point about life expectancy, the plural of anecdote is not data.

  37. 37.

    AnotherBruce

    February 8, 2011 at 2:45 am

    @lol: “the plural of anecdote is not data.”

    But that’s exactly what Jennifer was doing by pointing out FDR and LBJ as an example.

  38. 38.

    jefft452

    February 8, 2011 at 3:16 am

    ”Kind of like how’s it’s “misleading” to claim that poll taxes and literacy tests were aimed at disenfranchising African Americans, right?”

    Could 1/3 of Mississippi’s black population vote prior to 64?

    Look, if the New Deal in general and SS in particular sucked so much, why did he win a landslide in 36 and serve 4 terms?

    yeah, I know that dixiecrats were still a power in the D party .. in 36 the only party that enthusiastically embraced racial equality was the Communists.

    But FDR went from 20something % of the black vote in 32 to 70% in 36. Did they somehow not notice that they were excluded from the New Deal?

    If 65 was such a rare age to live to, why did voters embrace SS with such passion (as Maine goes, so goes ….. New Hampshire)? Did people in the 30’s not know how to count? Just a bunch of suckers?

    It amazes me that people can tout the watered down ACA as a historic achievement, then in the same breath call the New Deal and the Great Society weak tea

  39. 39.

    Patricia Blaine

    February 8, 2011 at 3:52 am

    @Karen S.: Soothing Energy

  40. 40.

    Jebediah

    February 8, 2011 at 3:58 am

    @lol:

    the plural of anecdote is not data

    Is it anecdata?

  41. 41.

    Xenos

    February 8, 2011 at 4:29 am

    @Jenny:

    But over time, the man who rounded up Japanese American citizens and placed them in concentration camps became an lefty icon and the benchmark to judge and bash others.

    The good he did has greatly outweighed and greatly outlasted the bad. And this rightly makes him a benchmark, a standard, to reach for. I doubt we will see his equal again.

    But if Michelle Obama went into politics…

  42. 42.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    February 8, 2011 at 5:24 am

    @Jebediah: Ha!

    Anecdatums.

    ETA: Hows the guitar coming along? Are you staying up so late to practice your scales? Yes? Good!

  43. 43.

    Jebediah

    February 8, 2011 at 5:40 am

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
    Naw, up late cuz I am at work.
    Guitar is coming along slowly, but since I have no illusions that in three months I will play like, say, you or Richard Thompson, I am OK with that. I should practice scales but lately I have been trying to go back and forth between the open chords I know and that barred major chord shape. When I can do that cleanly in less than… a long time, I will be pleased. Very nice of you to ask!
    edit: in three minutes I get to go home and to bed…yay!

  44. 44.

    Karen S.

    February 8, 2011 at 9:08 am

    @Jebediah:
    This thread seems to be dead, but thanks for your sympathy and anger. I do appreciate it.
    And thank yous also (too) to Patricia Blaine and Parallel 5ths.

  45. 45.

    IM

    February 8, 2011 at 11:16 am

    >But FDR went from 20something % of the black vote in 32 to 70% in 36. Did they somehow not notice that they were excluded from the New Deal?<

    The black vote was the northern black vote. The new deal did include blacks in the north. It also did include the south, so it did exclude southern blacks. But their right to vote was not enforced anyway. But FDR did not invent the dixiecrats he just inherited them and compromised with them.

    Gutless Humphrey, on the other hand, did challenge the dixiecrats.

  46. 46.

    A. Lurker

    February 8, 2011 at 11:44 am

    Ho ho. You think the triangulators are gone? They took over the host body known as the Democratic Party and turned it into Republican-lite. Why would they have need of the DLC anymore when their mindset has infected most of the congressional Democrats?

  47. 47.

    agrippa

    February 8, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    @Jenny:

    jenny:
    got it in one

  48. 48.

    agrippa

    February 8, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    The DLC is past its’ sell by date.
    It may have been expedient in the Reagan years. But, it is no longer.

    That entire mind set is not what is needed in 2011.

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