The Word "Moderate" Has Been Perverted To Cover Up The True Meaning In Democratic Party Politics: "Conservative"

Do you ever read Historic.ly? You should. A couple of days ago they asked Paul Rockwell to write about the history of moderates. He began by reminding readers that "In 2016 Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton, not because she was a visionary, certainly not because her agenda generated enthusiasm among young voters, but because Democrats-- influenced by media-- simply assumed that centrists are automatically more electable than progressives. That assumption has no basis in reality. Even worse, the centrist viewpoint could well lead to another Clinton-like fiasco. Many voters may be too young (or too old) to remember the sorry record of centrist failures. I am 82 years old," continued Rockwell, "and I have painful memories of seven ignominious defeats of Democratic nominees. And prior to all the nominations, pundits and press insisted that Democrats needed to move the party to the right in order to defeat their Republican adversary. They blamed the misfortunes of the Democratic Party on excessive liberalism. However, when we actually look at the historical record, a different story emerges, a story that dispels the myth of centrist electability."

Example 1:
Moderate Loser: Adlai Stevenson
Progressive Winner: Dwight D. Eisenhower

I was a teenager when Democrat Adlai Stevenson ran a pitiful, overly intellectual campaign against Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower ("Ike"). Stevenson was a liberal from Illinois who, in order to win the presidency, became a centrist in his campaign. Centrists are afraid to confront the war machine that sucks wealth and treasure out of our domestic economy. Stevenson never had the guts to call for an end to the Korean War. I remember when my father, a Democrat, voted for Eisenhower in 1952, after Ike wiped out Stevenson with a single announcement: "I will go to Korea. The time has come to bring our boys home." Stevenson's wimpy centrism lost big in 1952.

Despite that loss, the Democrats didn't change their agenda or strategy in 1956. The party nominated Stevenson again. During the 2nd campaign against Eisenhower, a black woman asked Stevenson to take a clear stand on the historic Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools. Stevenson choked, and he refused to support the use of federal troops to enforce the ruling. As a result of his default on civil rights-- a subject on the mind of most Americans-- Stevenson lost by a bigger margin in 1956 than in 1952.

Eisenhower’s Winning Platform:

Example 2:
Moderate Democratic Loser: Hubert Humphrey
Republican Winner: Richard Nixon

In 1968 Hubert Humphrey, once proud of his liberal record, campaigned as Lyndon Johnson's proxy. His centrist campaign, his refusal to make a clean break from LBJ's war, made Nixon's victory possible. Republicans know how to goad liberal Democrats into war, only to leave them with blood on their hands, the consequences of their own right-wing follies.

Notwithstanding his record as a hawk and witch-hunter, Nixon became-- by default of the Democrats-- the "peace" candidate. Nixon offered a "secret plan" for ending the war. The Democrats, so far gone in their pro-interventionist policy, were outflanked again.

Moderate Loser Hubert Humphrey Loses To "Anti-War" Nixon

Example 3
Moderate Loser: Walter Mondale
Right-Wing Winner: Ronald Reagan

Antipathy to progressive politics dominated the conservative money-drenched leadership of the Democratic Party throughout the 1980s. The thrilling grassroots campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson caused panic in the halls of Congress. Democratic insiders nominated Walter Mondale, as right-wing as Joe Biden today. When nominated, Mondale rejected all of Jesse Jackson's platforms at the convention. Mondale went on to engineer the ugly system of "superdelegates," designed to prevent progressive candidates from ever winning a nomination. The Congressional Quarterly called Mondale's platform "economically the most conservative platform in the last fifty years." It promoted cuts in social spending and an increased military budget. Mondale expected he could win the election by appeasing militarists and conservatives. He won 40% of the popular vote.

Example 4:
Moderate Loser: Michael Dukakis
Progressive Winner: George H.W. Bush

The 1988 Democratic primary was far more exciting than most. Seven million Americans supported Jackson's second bid for the nomination. Not one United States senator or governor endorsed the African-American candidate. But the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont-- Bernie Sanders-- not only endorsed Jackson, he won over the majority of Vermont delegates for the Rainbow Coalition.

Michael Dukakis ran a typical centrist primary: he leaned to the left to win the nomination, only to turn to the right to campaign in the general election.

Awed by pundits and self-proclaimed pragmatists, Dukakis tried to look conservative. He organized a dramatic, histrionic photo operation.





He invited national TV to capture him riding around in a tank. You could barely see his tiny head in the cockpit. The media loved it. And while Dukakis won the "asshole of the year award" from a group of anarchists, our mastermind of centrist tactics lost the election.

Example 5:
Moderate Loser: John Kerry
Right-Wing Winner: George W. Bush

Of all the centrist defeats, none is sadder than John Kerry's campaign against "W" Bush, the man who initiated the 2003 invasion of Iraq and facilitated the rise of ISIS.

Kerry was actually beating the drums for intervention in the Mideast even before Bush launched the invasion. On July 2, 2002, Kerry gave a speech to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council: "I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq."

During the 2004 primary, I remember sitting on the couch watching TV with my wife. A reporter pressed John Kerry to answer George Bush about whether, "knowing what we know now" (that there were no weapons of mass destruction), would he have supported the Bush decision. "Yes, I would have voted for the authority."

"Oh my God!" I turned to my wife and said, "He just lost the election!"

Euphemism is inherent in centrist realpolitik. Kerry would tell reporters: "I think it the right decision to disarm Hussein."

Disarm? The U.S. did not just disarm Hussein. The U.S. Air Force bombed Bagdad and other populated cities. Thousands of children were injured or killed. Museums with 2,000-year-old artifacts were looted. Muslims were tortured at Abu Ghraib. Rivers were drenched with oil and set on fire. Refugees fled into Syria. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians became sick, and babies were born with deformities from U.S. depleted uranium.

(Kerry now supports the candidacy of Joe Biden, who also voted for the war in Iraq and, like Kerry, equivocates about the real meaning of his vote.)

Example 6:
Moderate Loser: Hillary Clinton
Right-Wing Winner: Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton ran against the most unpopular candidate in the history of presidential elections. And lost. Until we recognize how such an ignominious defeat was possible, voters are likely to make the same mistake again, to run the Clinton campaign one more time-- with a new face, of course, Joe Biden.

Let us recall the pivotal debate between Trump and Clinton over foreign policy. When Trump denounced Clinton's infamous Iraq war vote, he was able to present himself as a kind of peace candidate who would halt endless wars. Trump understands centrist vulnerability. He put Clinton on the defensive, and she was helpless. Everyone knew she was a hawk. And it was disingenuous of her to portray her war vote as some isolated mistake, something out of the ordinary, when all Washington knew she was an interventionist, voter for military budgets, for sanctions, arms sales to dictators, a foreign policy wheeler-dealer with experience.

Why George McGovern Lost
Democratic Sabotage of Progressive Candidate

Richard Nixon's defeat of George McGovern, the anti-war candidate in 1972, is often cited as an excuse for choosing centrists over progressives (regardless of the litany of centrist presidential defeats).

Nixon's victory is not especially difficult to understand. His monetary policies, which caused inflation in the long run, fired up economic growth prior to the election. The incumbent's approval ratings were high.

Nixon was a master of timing. He claimed to be winding down the war. In February he made his historic trip to communist China and met with Mao. After George Wallace was shot, Wallace supporters went over to Tricky Dick.

  The Democratic Party was still in disarray from the Johnson-Humphrey betrayal of their mandate for peace and social justice. Humphrey and other centrists continued to attack McGovern.

  In sum, as Joshua Mound wrote in the New Republic (Feb.29, 2016): "Any Democratic nominee was doomed in 1972."

Audio Recording of Hubert Humphrey Admitting He Sabotaged McGovern On Election Day

Don’t pick Moderate Losers. Pick Progressive Winners

I believe Sanders has a better chance of defeating Trump than Biden or any centrist candidate. Sanders does not just dwell on the white middle class. His campaign reaches beyond the party establishment to the chronically unemployed, to the poor, the unhoused, the young, rising electorate of the time. Victory over Trump requires a mass coalition strategy.

The Green New Deal is often compared to the New Deal of FDR and Truman in the '40s and '50s. However, the old New Deal was deficient. African Americans were denied access to college, turned down for home loans, and domestic and agricultural workers were not even covered. In essence, minorities were excluded.

In contrast, the Green New Deal is inclusive. Its preamble calls attention to the "large racial wealth divide in the U.S. amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and average black family."

Representative Barbara Lee, one of 90 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution, writes: "Black, brown and low-income communities bear the brunt of pollution and environmental degradation from accelerated climate change.…That is why addressing climate change is not just an environmental issue, but also an imperative to achieve racial and economic justice."

Bernie's "Economic Bill of Rights" is clear:

"Every person in this country must have a right to:

• A decent job
• Quality health care
• A complete education
• Affordable housing
• A clean environment
• A secure retirement
• It's time for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights."
• It's time for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights."

With our help, history will vindicate the message of Bernie Sanders: "Not me, Us."

Wednesday morning, Boston progressive congressional candidate Brianna Wu felt she needed to fire up her troops after Status Quo Joe's wins in Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho. "I know a lot of women and progressives are feeling frustrated this morning. We started with the most diverse field in history with bold ideas for our party. The good news is-- those ideas are still on the ballot this year. But instead of betting on the presidency, we need to support downballot progressive candidates to keep our movement going. It's about more than just the presidency. It's about electing local, state, and federal progressive lawmakers that create the legislation we need to change the course of our country... The president signs bills that Congress writes. True change that will benefit us, and not the establishment, starts there. So please don't lose hope! Continue fighting!"

Or, in the words of our own Thomas Neuburger...

Stop Calling Conservatives "Moderates." They're Not

Unless you're new here, you know the misuse of the word "moderate" to describe conservatives is a pet peeve of this blog's. I was happy to see someone else tackle the topic this week-- Norman Solomon for Common Dreams: There’s Nothing Moderate About "Moderates." A Primary Example Is Joe Biden. "Biden’s record of words and deeds is 'moderate,'" wrote Solomon, "only if we ignore the extreme harm that he has done on matters ranging from civil rights and mass incarceration to student debt and the credit card industry to militarism and war." I was delighted-- am delighted--to see someone as pissed off as I am by the media cabal's expropriation, some consciously, others unconsciously, of a positive-sounding word like "moderate" to use as a weapon against progressives.

As a practical matter, in the routine lexicon of U.S. mass media, "moderate" actually means pro-corporate and reliably unwilling to disrupt the dominant power structures. "Moderate" is a term of endearment in elite circles, a label conferred on politicians who won't rock establishment boats.

"Moderate" sounds so much nicer than, say, "enmeshed with Wall Street" or "supportive of the military-industrial complex."

In the corporate media environment, we're accustomed to pretty euphemisms that fog up unpretty realities-- and the haze of familiarity brings the opposite of clarity. As George Orwell wrote, language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

If Joe Biden is a "moderate," the soothing adjective obscures grim realities. The framing was routine hours after the debate Wednesday night when the front page of the New York Times began its lead story by reporting that Biden "delivered a steadfast defense of his moderate policies in the Democratic primary debate."

But, how are policies really "moderate" when they perpetuate and increase extreme suffering due to vast income inequality? Or when they support U.S. wars causing so much death and incalculable anguish? Or when they refuse to challenge the fossil-fuel industry and only sign onto woefully inadequate measures in response to catastrophic climate change?

Biden's record of words and deeds is "moderate" only if we ignore the extreme harm that he has done on matters ranging from civil rights and mass incarceration to student debt and the credit card industry to militarism and war.

Although Biden again tangled with Kamala Harris during the latest debate, she is ill-positioned to provide a clear critique of his so-called "moderate" policies. Harris has scarcely done more than he has to challenge the systemic injustice of corporate domination. So, she can't get far in trying to provide a sharp contrast to Biden's corporate happy talk on the crucial issue of healthcare.

Harris began this week by releasing what she called "My Plan for Medicare for All." It was promptly eviscerated by single-payer activist Tim Higginbotham, who wrote for Jacobin that her proposal would "further privatize Medicare. . . keep the waste and inefficiency of our current multi-payer system. . . cost families more than Medicare for All. . . continue to deny patients necessary care" and "fall apart before it's implemented."

In keeping with timeworn rhetoric from corporate Democrats, Harris repeatedly said during the debate that she wants to guarantee "access" to healthcare-- using a standard corporate-friendly buzzword that detours around truly guaranteeing healthcare as a human right.

No matter whether journalists call Harris "moderate" or "progressive" (a term elastic enough to be the name of a huge insurance company), her unwillingness to confront the dominance of huge corporations over the economic and political life of the USA is a giveaway.

Whatever their discreet virtues, 18 of the 20 candidates who debated this week have offered no consistent, thoroughgoing challenge to corporate power. Among the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are providing a coherent analysis and actual challenge to the realities of corporate power and oligarchy that are crushing democracy in the United States.

And let's not leave out the other faux-moderate in the race, Mayo Pete. Wall Street certainly isn't. The guiding hand of Big Money has opened the coffers to the 3 conservative candidates in the primary they judge as possible nominees: Status Quo Joe, Mnuchin's pal Kamala Harris and Mayo, formerly known as McKinsey Pete, McKinsey as in the elitist cult he used to work for and was completely molded by, molded so he knows exactly how to legitimize mass layoffs with an innocent, sympathetic smile on his face. Like Status Quo Joe and Kamala, Mayo will never challenge the status quo. Biden was the only one stupid enough to admit it out loud, but all 3 candidacies are a backup against any kind of fundamental change.

After graduating Oxford, any career path in the world was open to him, and Buttigieg chose McKinsey & Company, the cult-like management consulting firm. Buttigieg writes in his memoir, Shortest Way Home, that he became a consultant because he “wanted to get an education in the real world.” The real world exists in many places on this planet; McKinsey & Company is not one of them. People seek to join the world’s number one consulting behemoth to secure a place in the ranks of the American elite.

In 1993, Fortune magazine put it this way: “These fellows from McKinsey sincerely do believe they are better than everybody else. Like several less purposeful organizations-- Mensa, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, the Banquet of the Golden Plate-- McKinsey is elitist by design.”

The firm has produced at least 70 Fortune 500 CEOs. Buttigieg’s three-year stint is par for the course at an organization that takes pride in “counseling out” 4 in 5 hires before they become partner. They then proudly join what McKinsey calls its “alumni network,” and what Duff McDonald, author of The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business, calls “the McKinsey Mafia.” As they fan out among the world’s C-suites and B-suites, they remain McKinsey loyalists. “There is no McKinsey boneyard, in other words; you’re still McKinsey after you’ve left,” McDonald writes. “Perhaps the only alumni network with more reach and life.

McKinsey’s internal churn fits perfectly with the company’s consulting philosophy. McKinsey, which in 2003 advised 100 of the world’s top 150 firms, “may be the single greatest legitimizer of mass layoffs,” writes McDonald. “Its advice: Identify your bottom 10 percent or 25 percent or 33 percent, and get rid of them as soon as possible.”

McKinsey is also an infamous mercenary for the world’s most unethical corporations and authoritarian governments, from China to Saudi Arabia. McKinsey allegedly advised Purdue Pharma, the progenitor of today’s opioid crisis, on how to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales and keep users hooked.

“We are now living with the consequences of the world McKinsey created,” writes a former McKinsey consultant in an exposé for Current Affairs. “Market fundamentalism is the default mode for businesses and governments the world over.”

So what kind of presidency would the McKinsey mindset produce? Former McKinsey consultant Anand Giridharadas observes, in Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, business consultants ignore how political and economic power actually works. “These elites believe and promote the idea that social change should be pursued principally through the free market and voluntary action,” Giridharadas writes. “And that the biggest beneficiaries of the status quo should play a leading role in the status quo’s reform.”

As McKinsey comes under heavier scrutiny for its role in the crimes of governments and powerful corporations, any “progressive” who worked there and wants to be taken seriously should have a rather critical perspective. Buttigieg has shown no such reflection. Instead, he calls his time at McKinsey his most “intellectually informing experience”; he left only because it “could not furnish that deep level of purpose that I craved.” Buttigieg has said he didn’t follow the story of McKinsey’s OxyContin push. On McKinsey’s Saudi and South African government ties, he said: “I think you have a lot of smart, well-intentioned people who sometimes view the world in a very innocent way. I wrote my thesis on Graham Greene, who said that innocence is like a dumb leper that has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

This excuse is remarkable. Buttigieg suggests that the savvy Harvard grads who populate McKinsey are childlike innocents who simply don’t notice they’re working for Mohammed bin Salman.

It is not terribly surprising that Wall Street has embraced Buttigieg, a product of their world. But anyone who hopes to be president should have a better-tuned moral sense. They should have no doubt where they stand on that old labor question, “Which side are you on?” Buttigieg’s roots in elite consulting suggest, at best, he doesn’t know; at worst, that he’s chosen poorly.

Centrists May Look Good On Paper, But They're Not Offering What Voters Want

How important are tax cuts to the very wealthy? Very, very, according to the Center for Public Integrity. "In late June 2017," writes the Center for Public Integrity team, "Texas political mega-donor Doug Deason had a stern message for Republicans seeking  campaign donations: The 'Dallas piggy bank' was closed until they repealed Obamacare and passed major tax cuts. Deason said he had urged about two dozen of his wealthy Texas friends to do the same. The billionaire Koch brothers Charles and David also hinted at withholding money. Just weeks later, the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare collapsed. Tax reform, which one Republican senator said would make repealing Obamacare look like a piece of cake, ominously loomed as the next item on the GOP agenda, and time was running out. Panic set in. By November, as Congress struggled to push a massive tax cut bill forward, Rep. Chris Collins from New York summed up the stakes: 'My donors are basically saying: Get it done or don’t ever call me again.' Lawmakers got it done. Just days before the holiday break, relieved Republicans delivered those wealthy donors what they wanted: one of the biggest tax cuts in history, one that would almost exclusively benefit the wealthy."

And the pay-off? "From the time the tax bill was first introduced on Nov. 2, 2017, until the end of the year, a 60-day period, dozens of billionaires and millionaires dramatically boosted their political contributions unlike they had in past years, giving a total of $31.1 million in that two months... The Center’s analysis found that 144 wealthy donors, some household names and some behind-the-scenes, contributed at least $50,000 to Republicans and conservative groups in that time frame. For 87 of those, three out of five, the surge of giving at year’s end reflected a marked change in their giving behavior. Most telling, say campaign finance experts, is that 25 wealthy donors gave all their 2017 money in the final two months of the year, the first time they did so during the previous four off-election years-- 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015... The evidence shows that big donors, collectively, acted to leverage their clout to help push through the tax cut law that would enrich the kinds of corporations, limited partnerships, real estate holdings and huge investments that many of them own, campaign finance experts say."

The Wall Street banksters who want to see Trump rotting in prison-- like most normal Americans do-- have a problem. They know Trump is driving the U.S. over the cliff but they are getting panicked about the prospect of an ultraliberal Democratic nominee bent on raising taxes and slapping regulations on their firms. They especially can't abide the progressives who are in it for real, not like faking like Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris. Their bête noires are Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. And their knight in shining armor is Bloomberg, of course, even as they now realize that Bloomberg isn't going anywhere in a Democratic Party coming under more and more control from an animated grassroots outside the Beltway.

“I’m a socially liberal, fiscally conservative centrist who would love to vote for a rational Democrat and get Trump out of the White House,” said the CEO of one of the nation’s largest banks, who, like a dozen other executives interviewed for this story, declined to be identified by name for fear of angering a volatile president. “Personally, I’d love to see Bloomberg run and get the nomination. I’ve just never thought he could get the nomination the way the primary process works.”

...On Wall Street, executives love Trump’s tax cuts and soft-touch regulatory posture. But as the nation comes off the longest shutdown in American history amid warnings of an impending economic slowdown, there is also a clear preference for a change to more predictable leadership.

...After mentioning Bloomberg, Wall Street executives who want Trump out, list a consistent roster of appealing nominees that includes former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California. Others meriting mention: former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, though few really know his positions.

Bankers’ biggest fear: The nomination goes to an anti-Wall Street crusader like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) or Sanders. “It can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders,” said the CEO of another giant bank. “It has to be someone centrist and someone who can win.”

This was a much-discussed poll Gallup took in November (above). It doesn't really mean anything because everyone has a different definition of "moderate" and the other descriptors. PPP did a survey of Democratic primary voters last week and, as you can see, the liberal v moderate question yields the same answer as the Gallup poll. Now look at how these voters came down on specific issues:

Now those are my kind of moderates!

Don't Be So Sure The Democratic Party Has Moved Left The Way The Corporate Media Says It Has

The Morning Consult poll released by Politico this morning shows an electorate moving sharply left... at least on taxing the super-wealthy. The two party establishments may not like the progressive tax reform ideas Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and AOC are bringing up, but the voters do-- overwhelmingly. The Morning Consult poll shows 76% of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70% of Americans favor AOC's proposal that taxes need to go up on those earning over $10 million-- including 54% of Republicans. Warren's wealth tax proposal is opposed by just 20% of voters, while 61% want to see it enacted. "It’s not surprising to me at all," said Senator Warren. "Washington has been working so long for the billionaire class that people around here cannot imagine crossing them. It never even becomes a topic of conversation. The ultra-millionaires have gotten so much from this country that it’s not unreasonable to ask them to give back a little bit."

The numbers suggest the political ground upon which the 2020 pres-idential cam-paign will be fought is shifting in dramatic ways, reflecting the rise in inequality in the United States and growing concerns in the electorate about the fairness of the American system.

“There is a deep wellspring in terms of perception of unfairness in the economy that’s been tapped into here that either didn’t exist five years ago or existed and had not had a chance to be expressed,” said Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management who has studied the latest tax proposals. “This is quite a moment in American economic history where all of a sudden in a matter of months this thing has kind of exploded like this.”

Voters seem to be moving left a lot faster than the status quo-oriented Democratic Party establishment is. Nevertheless, writing for The Intercept early Sunday morning, Shaun King exclaimed cautious optimism about the 2020 Democratic Party. Obviously, no one needs King to tell us that 2016 was a disaster that "caused real harm to legions of everyday Americans." One of the reasons he's optimistic is because he sees the party embracing progressive ideas.

A few years ago, if you supported “Medicare for All,” you were probably either a hippie, a Bernie supporter, or both. Today, polls show that 70 percent of Americans like it, and mainstream Democrats are finally embracing it publicly. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began talking about how essential it is that the United States embrace a “Green New Deal,” on Day 1 her idea only had support from a few of her closest allies in government. In just a few weeks’ time, you’d now struggle to find a Democrat who doesn’t support it. Speaking of Ocasio-Cortez, she’s got the entire country talking about finally making the ultra-rich pay their fair share of taxes. And a few years ago, I struggled to find a single mainstream Democrat talking about ending cash bail or decriminalizing weed-- now those are basic talking points for presidential candidates.

I’m glad about all of this, but here’s why I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s easy as hell to talk about your bold policy choices when your party doesn’t have the power to enact them. I just want to make sure the Democrats don’t lose their nerve when it matters most.

Not 70% of the Democrats in Congress-- not even half

I'm less optimistic than Shaun. He thinks that because the presidential candidates have been hiring minority staffers there's a better chance that they won't-- let's call it-- sell out or wimp out. Good luck with that, buddy. That Julián Castro hired an amazing black woman, a highly skilled organizer named Maya Rupert, as his campaign manager, is a good thing on many levels. That it's a reason to be optimistic, even cautiously, about the Democratic Party... I wish I could find the new MSNBC promo for Chris Hayes' show. Or even just remember it exactly. It's about how his show will cut through all the bullshit and noice to get to what's really important in the election: who candidates are going to fight for and how believable and capable they are.

A couple of days ago, Les Leopold, writing for CommonDreams.org warned readers to Beware the Moderate Democrat. Like me, Leopold resents how the corporate media has given the word "moderate" over to those on the right of the Democratic Party. "Such a soothing political word," he wrote. "It conjures up a reasonable, considerate person who seeks the middle ground between ideological extremists: Works well with others, crosses the aisle to make good policy, knows how to win incremental change rather than issuing jarring proclamations that jump too far ahead of the electorate. A moderate is pragmatic, gets things done and doesn't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Oh, in these troubled times, aren't such moderates-- beloved as they are by right-wingers like Bret Stephens-- desperately needed?"

Get ready to hear more and more of that from mainstream media pundits as the Democratic Party moves more towards the kind of progressive populism put forward by the Sanders/AOC wing of the party. We'll be asked by centrist journalists to take a careful look at more reasonable moderates like Gillibrand, McAuliffe, Bloomberg, Biden, Booker, Landrieu and many more (e.g. Is There Room in 2020 for a Centrist Democrat? and The Loneliness of a Moderate Democrat).

But what is the substance of all this centrism and moderation?

First and foremost, these moderates are united by their unwillingness to take on Wall Street. And because of that unwillingness, they are unable to confront the defining problem of our era-- runaway inequality.  They cannot face up to the fact that the wages of the average worker have been stagnant for an entire generation. Meanwhile the pay gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker has risen from 40 to 1 in 1980 to an obscene 800 to 1 today.

The centrists run away from this problem in large part because they are in a desperate race to win the very first primary-- the fundraising primary. And it is no secret that victory goes to the candidate who garners the most financial support from Wall Street/corporate Democrats.

Rather than discussing runaway inequality and ways to ameliorate it through Medicare for All, free higher education, and higher taxes on the super-rich, these moderates instead will stress enhancing "opportunity," and "removing barriers" to race/gender advancement.  Rather than confronting billionaire oligarchs they want to "partner with business" and, in some vague way tame their excesses while also building a robust and fair economy with "opportunity for all." No conflict needed. No diatribes against the billionaire class. Hear the melodious tones of moderation.

From this coziness with Wall Street flows the trope about being "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative."  The moderate centrists, and their Wall Street donors, support LBTQ rights, the advancement of women in business, immigration and criminal justice reform, gun control, and abortion rights.  At the same time, they believe the entire progressive runaway inequality platform is an affront to economic reason: High taxes on the rich will discourage initiative and innovation; single-payer health care and free higher education will bankrupt the country; breaking up the big banks will cripple investment and jobs.

Of course, the moderates must ignore the reams of data from all over the world that show that these progressive reforms would reduce inequality and enhance the well-being of nearly everyone, though it is true that reducing inequality would harm-- at least to some extent-- the precious privileges of the very few. The super-rich would have to pay more. They would no longer be able to financially strip mine the rest of us through wasteful stock buy-backs.  Their billions would be reduced a bit. But most alarming would be their deflated egos: No longer could they bask in the false narrative that what is so very good for them is good for all of us.

But do "moderates" represent anyone other than their Wall Street donors? Is there a mass base for the kind of moderation they are putting forward?

Let's take a look at the eye-popping data from the 2016 presidential election, put together by the Voter Survey Group, which polled 8,000 Americans (a very large sample which is eight to fifteen times larger than most of the surveys we usually see in the news.) A study of these voters showed that they could be divided into four major groups.  (See Lee Drutman, Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyond. Note: the title names used below are mine not his.).

• The first group, Left Populists, are those who are both social and economic progressives. They support immigration, women and minority equality, LBGTQ rights and immigration. They also worry about rising inequality and support proposals that would attack it.
• The second group, Nativist Populists, also worry about rising inequality and support proposals that attack it. But they are more comfortable with traditional gender roles, have qualms about abortion, see immigration as a problem and are not particularly supportive about LBGTQ rights.
• The third group are the Arch Conservatives who are not interested in reversing economic inequality or social inequality.
• And finally we have the Socially Liberal/Fiscal Conservatives. This is the home base for the "moderate" politicians who are wooing Wall Street and see themselves as the sensible alternatives to the extremist populists.

So more or less, that's who we are.  If the electorate were equally divided among these four groups, the "moderates" might have an argument. The facts tell a different story:

• Left Populists account for 44.6 percent of the electorate according to this study.
• 28.9 percent are Nativist Populists. This means that nearly three-quarters of all voters fear runaway inequality and want to reduce it. But these economic populists are divided on identity issues.
• Arch Conservatives account for another 22.7 percent.
• And that leaves a miniscule 3.8 percent for the Socially Liberal/Fiscal conservatives.

How pathetic is that? It goes to show how out of touch these billionaires and their accolades are from political reality. They have no base. Nada. There's no one there... except very rich Wall Street/Corporate funders and centrist pundits who feel compelled to find a judicious balance between left and right.

Danger Ahead

The data shows why Trump's nativist, race-baiting, immigrant-bashing base-building makes some electoral sense. If he can hold both the Nativist Populists and the Arch Conservatives he can win again. And he can do that most easily against a candidate with virtually no natural base-- the "moderate"-- the Socially Liberal/Fiscally Conservative Democrat.

Given enough financial support, a "moderate" might be able to buy her or his way through the Democratic primaries, especially if many candidates split the progressive populist vote. One could imagine one of the "moderates" becoming a media darling of the center, which might further enhance his or her status.

But should one of them squeak through to become the nominee, we might have a Democratic debacle. The nativist economic populists on the right might flock back to Trump along with the arch conservatives who will never leave him. Trump may look incredibly weak now, but a Wall Street-backed Democratic "moderate" with a natural base of 3.8 percent could give the worst president in American history a real chance.

Jim Hightower, the great Texan populist, turned a phrase that comes to mind every time a Wall Street "moderate" is touted.

"There's nothing in the middle of the road," he famously quipped, "but yellow stripes and dead Armadillos."

And even Jim Hightower fully embraced Beto, even as Beto, an unabashed New Dem, was one of the minority of Democrats in the House, when he was a unaccomplished backbencher there, refusing to support Medicare-For-All. Don't even ask about the Green New Deal. I can barely wait to hear him discussing AOC's proposal for a 60-70% marginal tax rate on annual earnings of over $10 million.

Middle Of The Road For President?

Who should be next in the popular series, "The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President?" Part III, at the end of November, was all about multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. A mutual friend tells me he wasn't pleased with what I wrote about him. I'm sure he's gotten over it. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that he's still mullin' whether or not to run. I hope he asks people who don't stand to make small fortunes if he does run. The Post report indicated that he thinks he has some kind of clue about what Democrats want. "I think," he claimed, "most Democrats want a middle-of-the-road strategy. They want to make progress, but they’re not willing to go and to push something that has no chance of ever getting done and wasting all their energy on that." What a pitiful clown!

Like Biden, Bloomberg is a tired old centrist with no vision and nothing to offer the country. And, like Trumpanzee, he thinks it would be just awesome to be president.

There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos

Bloomberg, of course, was referring to Bernie's platform-- i.e., things people want, like free state universities, Medicare-For-All, $15 minimum wage, etc. You know some of the other things that have been pushed by visionary progressive Democrats, each and every one of them something Bloomberg would have deemed to have "no chance of ever getting done" and wasting all that energy on? Let's skip the American Revolution, since there can be no doubt which side Squire Bloomberg would have been on. Also might as well skip the Bill of Rights. However, there was a time when free public education was looked at as an insane unattainable dream, a unicorn, not to mention land grant universities, yet each of them came into being after great battles between progressives and conservatives. And, of course, ditto for the whole concept of a minimum wage, which people like Bloomberg didn't just not want to waste money on, but had workers who demanded a minimum wage murdered. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were all deemed "impossible, out of the question" by people like Bloomberg and each was a struggle to achieve against all odds.

A few other "impossible" things progressives achieved by fighting people like Michael Bloomberg: food safety, the breakup of monopolies, the 8 hour workday, rural electrification, the emancipation of the salves, civil rights for minorities and then voting rights for minorities. None of those things grew on trees-- and none were achieved by a rich shit-head who thought they were too utopian to waste any energy on. How about consumer protection? Cleanup of water and air? Consumer protections? Workplace safety? The weekend? Do you think any of those things came easy? Thank God we had people unlike Michael Bloomberg fighting to make them realities. Michael Bloomberg would be an absolute catastrophe as a Democratic Party nominee. Why doesn't he run as a Republican again?

Republican-Lite Democrats Are Only Good At One Thing: Losing

You think Democratic primary voters want this as their candidate against Trump?

A silly new poll from Morning Consult purports to show something about how the 2020 Democratic nomination is shaping up. The same kind of lo-info, identity politics idiots who saddled the party with Hillary Clinton in 2016, want Joe Biden in 2020. Will Democratic primary voters ever think about where a candidate might actually want to take the country rather than the color of their skin or the shape of their genitals? I think so. But it takes some kind of concentration, which isn’t easy when you’re talking about something years in the future (even just 2). Anyway, that list up top is the latest iteration of the laughable horserace tabulation, different from Monday’s. What! No groundswell for the Starbucks guy? No Mayor Buttfuck Buttigieg? No Terry McAuliffe? Where’s The Rock and Hillary, all the governors who want to form unity tickets with John Kasich and the backbencher congressmen no one ever heard of like John Delaney who’s been living in Iowa campaigning for a year and only tangentially more absurd than Seth Moulton or Tulsi Gabbard?

Note: This is stupid, so don't take it seriously

Have you read Steve Phillips’ NY Times’ OpEd about why a conservative Democrat is not going to win in 2020? He implores Democrats to learn “the right lessons from the midterms. He wrote that conventional wisdom dictated that both Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams “did not give Democrats their best chance; more traditional, moderate white candidates were seen as the most competitive. In this view, moderate candidates can better appeal to and win over ‘swing’ white voters. And yet, and yet… “Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.) This year, Ms. Abrams dramatically increased Democratic turnout, garnering more votes— 1.9 million— than any other Democrat running for any office in the history of Georgia (and that includes Jimmy Carter, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton).”

Midterm results laid bare the fallacy of that view. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill, the incumbent Democratic senator, lost to Josh Hawley by six percentage points, 45.5 percent to 51.5 percent. Senator McCaskill campaigned by highlighting her moderate credentials and ran a radio ad distancing herself from her party: “Claire’s not one of those crazy Democrats,” a narrator said. “She works right in the middle and finds compromise.”

In Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, the state’s former governor, lost his bid for the Senate by over 10 points despite his attempt to peel off Trump supporters by coming out in support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

The day Bredesen came out in favor of Kavanaugh— leading in nearly a dozen consecutive polls at the time— I wrote that Democrats could kiss base enthusiasm and the Tennessee Senate seat goodbye. Bredesen, a mainstream conservative, outspent extremist Marsha Blackburn $15,246,145 ($5,516,942 from his own fortune) to $11,819,522 and Schumer’s Majority Forward SuperPac and Senate Majority PAC threw another $18.5 million into Tennessee on behalf of Bredesen. But no amount of money could save him after that stupid, pointless statement. So… will Democrats learn the right lesson? Out of the question— at least for life-long know-it-alls like Schumer (and Pelosi, Hoyer and other party leaders).

Phillips suggests looking more closely at Georgia, contrasting the 2014 election and the recent midterm. “The strategy of wooing supposedly moderate whites was put to the ultimate test when Democrats fielded nominees from two of the most prominent Democratic families in the history of Georgia-- the Carters and the Nunns. Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason Carter ran for governor, and former Senator Sam Nunn’s daughter Michelle Nunn ran for Senate. Together their campaigns spent more than $20 million, pouring enormous sums into television advertising seeking to persuade moderate whites to back their bids.”

They both lost, with about 45% of the vote each. This cycle Stacey Abrams is governing around 49% as more voters are counted in an incredibly corrupt electoral environment. And in the 6th district, where ultimate milquetoast moderate Jon Ossoff— with every dime the Democratic establishment could raise for him-- lost last year, “riding the swell of turnout inspired and organized by Ms. Abrams, the Democrat Lucy McBath flipped that seat.”

Clearly success required a different strategy. Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum embraced the Obama playbook for winning elections: It starts with emphasizing mobilization over persuasion. Ms. Abrams’s campaign defied conventional wisdom by spending early and big on a vast mobilization effort that involved calling, texting and knocking on the doors of nearly 600,000 infrequent Georgia voters a full year before the election.

Mr. Gillum took a similar approach and was buoyed by the backing of organizations such as New Florida Majority, which hired community-based canvassers to knock on tens of thousands of their neighbors’ doors to identify and mobilize Gillum supporters long before the rest of the country caught on to his candidacy.

These campaigns laid the groundwork for future Democratic success, because the thousands of volunteers, operatives and new voters will pay dividends for the 2020 Democratic nominee.

Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams did exactly what Mr. Obama did: They inspired people across the racial spectrum to participate and vote, and they did it by being unapologetically progressive. They did not shy away from championing Medicaid expansion, pursuing criminal justice reform and promoting gun control policies.

Does this strategy require a candidate of color? No, but it does call for candidates who can inspire voters of color. Beto O’Rourke in Texas is an excellent example, and his inspiring and well-organized campaign brought him closer to winning statewide than any Democrat has come in Texas in years. And nationally, the Democrats reclaimed a majority in the House by winning in nearly a dozen districts with large populations of voters of color.

Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum were also not afraid to tackle the not-so-silent racist “dog whistles” emanating from their opponents and the president. Ms. Abrams refused to shirk from condemnation of racism and condemned the ways in which honoring racist imagery like the Confederate monument at Georgia’s Stone Mountain monument-- called out by name in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech-- undermines democracy and distances entire groups from being part of the body politic. Mr. Gillum offered one of the greatest lines in the history of American politics when he offered, about his opponent, Ron DeSantis, during a debate: “I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”

Notably, this approach of tackling racism head-on is also the best way to woo many white voters. According to the exit polls, both Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum received more support from whites in their states than either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton did. White people-- all people-- want to believe in something. Challenging them to reject racism and embrace their highest and best ideals is the most effective way to secure their support.

Yes, the strategy of mobilizing voters of color and progressive whites is limited by the demographic composition of particular states. But what Mr. Obama showed twice is that it works in enough places to win the White House. And that is exactly the next electoral challenge.

Democrats can go the old route that has consistently failed to come close to winning and demoralized supporters down the line, or they can do the math and follow the example of Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum and Mr. Obama before them. Invest in the infrastructure and staffing to engage and mobilize voters. Stand as tall, strongly and proudly for the nation’s multiracial rainbow as Mr. Trump stands against it. And mobilize and call forth a new American majority in a country that gets browner by the hour and will be even more diverse by November 2020.

"Moderate" Is A Valued Political Term-- But What Does It Mean And Who Gets To Define It?

America's most popular political leader is pushing positions popular with voters but not with billionaires

The word "moderate" is more popular with voters than words like "liberal" or "conservative," and politicians always try to claim the word for their own agenda (which is rarely much more than careerist). The Republicans-- and their media allies-- relentlessly define their reactionary agenda as "moderate." Repeating a lie often and passionately enough, especially with lots of money behind that lie, will make it so. Even Democrats, who have issues on their side, start too believe the GOP definition of "moderate." And the members of Congress referred to as "moderates" always seem to be the Wall Street-owned New Dems and right-of-center Blue Dogs who make up the foot-dragging Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Their policy agenda is set by their corporate donors and they ruin the progressive agenda and the Democratic Party brand. Remember, it was the New Dems and Blue Dogs who ruined Obamacare by killing the public option. Republicans had no seat at that table. And that decision brought on the 2010 debacle that gave us close to 2 decades of reactionary rule and, ultimately, Donal Trump. “Beware the latest call,” waned Matt Taibbi, “to ‘move to the center’— which is just the same old tune, re-packaged.” Taibbi:

The New York Times meanwhile said the results were a “vindication of the party’s more moderate wing,” and that Democratic winners “largely hailed from the political center.”

NBC said the results were a “gut punch for progressives,” although at the bottom of the piece it noted that high-profile incumbents who “tacked aggressively to the center” also lost-- like Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin concluded, “It’s a good idea to go with a moderate,” and avoid a “fire-breathing progressive.”

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically the same post-mortem we get all the time: Democrats must move to the center, capture the suburbs, and embrace a less policy-specific, more personal-profile-based approach to politics, often pushing candidates with military records.

Meanwhile, after every loss, Republicans insist that moving to the center hurt them (“Conservatives join Trump in blaming moderates for House loss,” was a typical red-audience headline this week).

This results in an entire electorate that appears to continually move right, which in turn accelerates the cycle. Because the electorate is increasingly crazy and conservative, the thinking goes, Democrats need to be even more careful not to stand for anything that might scare “moderates.”

What is a “moderate,” exactly? Nearly every election cycle, the press comes up with a neat catch-phrase that purports to describe this person. The moderate is said to live in the suburbs and can be captured without offering much on the policy front. Implicitly, this voter is white.

…The point is, conventional wisdom is pretty much always wrong, and often spectacularly so. Invented media storylines too often dominate elections. The worst was probably the infamous “beer standard,” i.e. America always picking the candidate it most wants to have a beer with (Slate last time, in a headline it would probably like to forget, declared “There has never been a better candidate to have a beer with than Trump”).

Voters are not skittish, brainless creatures afraid of strong policy proposals. That more accurately describes the politicians and corporate donors who are invested in things staying as they are. Most actual people are living on the edge financially, are angry, and will take policy help from anywhere they can get it.

Polls today show Americans in large majorities now support expanded Social Security, drug re-importation, single-payer health care, free college, and they want Medicare to be able to negotiate lower drug prices. These positions would do well if any party threw its support behind them.

But conventional wisdom, once again, will likely insist heading into 2020 that something other than policy will matter, when it comes to picking candidates. CNN earlier this year, quoting pols and consultants, actually said that “in the era of Trump, where uniqueness is prized,” Democrats should search for “candidates with distinct backgrounds.”

Two days earlier, Taibbi had published his interview with Bernie in which he warned against the Democratic establishment’s core: “complacency and insisted it would be a ‘very, very serious mistake’ if Democrats did not at least try to pass progressive legislation, so as to call Trump’s populist bluff. Failure to do so, he implied, would mean ceding vital territory to Trump, a man with ‘no core beliefs.’ By now Bernie should know that plenty of careerists in his own party have the same allegiance to core beliefs that Trump does. He told Taibbi that Tuesday “night was a significant rejection of Trumpism. Not only did the Democrats regain control of the House, which was the most important development, Democrats won seven governors’ races. Democrats won 300 races at the state legislative and in the four states that Trump won in order to get his Electoral College majority— Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan— all four of those Senate Democratic candidates won. And three out of the four [Democratic] candidates for governor won…

Bernie told him that all the ‘moving to the center bullshit’ “was the line that they had which enabled Republicans to gain control of the Senate and the House and the White House and for Democrats to lose almost 1,000 seats in the previous nine years. Of course, that’s what the establishment will say, and that’s what the establishment Democrats will say. But the truth is that what has happened in this election is a significant step forward in terms of the revitalization of American democracy. It wasn’t moderate Democrats or conservative Democrats who got young people into the political process. It wasn’t moderate Democrats who increased voter turnout in this election compared to four years ago, I think by almost 50 percent. It wasn’t just moderate Democrats who won incredibly great victories for the House. There were some moderates, to be sure. But I think the Washington Post is going to be very surprised at who shows up on the first day of Congress and gets sworn in, because that is going to be the most progressive freshman class in the modern history of the United States. Many of these folks are not just women, not just people of color, who campaigned on Medicare-for-all, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks, campaigned on making public colleges and universities tuition-free, of undoing Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires. The political establishment notwithstanding, the future belongs to progressives.”

He chose not to comment on the battle over House leadership but did say that “the Democrats in the House have got to come out with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working people. And that leads to— as you know, the Medicare-for-all bill I introduced, which is to be implemented over four years, lowers the eligibility age from 65 to 55, covers all of the children, and lowers the cost of prescription drugs. My guess is that about 80-percent of the American people would support a proposal like that. It’s wildly popular. And that’s what the Democrats have got to do. They’ve got to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, they’ve got to make public colleges tuition-free and they’ve got to lower student debt. All of these proposals are enormously popular. And they’re good public policy. And here’s what I think, Matt, that maybe nobody else in the world believes. As you know, Trump is a 100-percent political opportunist, who has no political views other than how he can win elections… He has no core values. I would not be shocked that if the Democrats passed popular, good legislation, that Trump would look around him and say, ‘Hey, why not? What do I give a damn?’ And he may come on board, because ultimately he doesn’t believe in anything except winning. So I believe it’s terribly important that the Democrats come out of the gate full-steam ahead and start passing really good legislation that puts Trump and the Republicans on the defensive.”

He continued, “[P]eople can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. Democrats can do that. And if all they’re going to do is investigate Trump, that would be, in my view a very, very serious mistake. I think finally we are going to have oversight over Trump’s behavior. And I think investigations are absolutely appropriate. But simultaneously, people who are making $11 an hour are not worrying about investigations. People who have no health care, or can’t afford prescription drugs, are not worried about subpoenas. People who can’t afford to send their kids to college are not worried about another investigation. So it would be a tragic mistake in my view if all the Democrats did is focus on investigations. They must, must, must go forward with a progressive agenda to win the support of the American people. Is Pelosi listening or just running around and sweet talking freshmen about her ultra-conservative plan to re-institute PAYGO and kill all hopes of a progressive agenda?

For progressives to cede the word "moderate" to the New Dems and Blue Dogs, let alone Republicans, what does that make forward thinking Democrats like Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Judy Chu, Jamie Raskin, Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, Katherine Clark and Jan Schakowsky? Radicals? Extremists? How is that possible, since these are the people who are pushing the ideas that are most popular with the most voters?