5. The long-term shift of the Democratic Party, from a focus on working people to a preoccupation with the “professional class”, leading to centrist, expert-driven incremental policies, and the “myth of the middle”.
Over the past forty years, there has been a fundamental shift in the Democratic Party, away from the concerns of working people to a preoccupation with, as Thomas Frank says, the professional class. This is reflected in multiple ways, including the choice of cabinet officials and top advisors, the focus on meritocracy and education as the answer to poverty, and even the language and cultural affectations of liberals and Democrats. This shift has also led the Party away from bold, radical solutions to a reliance on incremental changes, often highly complicated policies such as Dodd Frank and the Affordable Care Act.
Simultaneous with this re-orientation has been the full-throated embrace of ‘centrism’ and centrist candidates, in spite of a poor record at the ballot box and tepid results when in office. The idea that most Americans are in the middle between extremes of left and right, and that they prefer moderation and cautious tweaks to the system now dominates the Democratic Party and innumerable liberal pundits and media outlets. Yet in Merge Left, Ian Haney Lopez convincingly demonstrates that most of the people in the political middle are not moderates looking for incremental change, but persuadable people holding views that are both right and left leaning. What these folks want is respect for who they are and bold answers to their problems.
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
David Wong, “How Half of America Lost Its Fucking Mind”
Matt Stoller, “The Hamilton Hustle”
Paul Rockwell, “A Look Back at Seven Centrist Defeats”
David Leonhardt, “How ‘Centrist-Bias’ Hurts Sanders and Warren: The Media Have More to Worry About than Liberal Bias”
FOR A DEEPER LOOK:
Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? 2016, Henry Holt and Company
Joan Walsh, What’s the Matter with White People? Why We Long for a Golden Age that Never Was, 2012, John Wiley and Sons