The Huffington Post's senior politics editor, Sam Stein, says President Obama oversaw "the destruction of the Democratic Party," leaving it "in a much worse position" than before his presidency started.
PBO, even as he has represented national progress in reducing inequality, has always been a captive of centrists in the sense that he could appeal to the natural sensibilities of the party of Civil Rights even as there has been a party apparatus that still carries dominant and lingering aspects of the centrist ideology of the Carter administration.
Social scientists Theodore Caplow et al. argue, "the Democratic party, nationally, moved from left-center toward the center in the 1940s and 1950s, then moved further toward the right-center in the 1970s and 1980s."[4]
...The ideological differences between the two candidates represented the ideological divide within the Democratic Party as a whole. Clinton, who cast herself as a moderate and a progressive, is ideologically more of a centrist representing the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama Third Way New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, who remained an Independent in the Senate throughout the primaries (despite running for President as a Democrat), is a self described democratic socialist and is ideologically more of a progressive representing the Elizabeth Warren populist wing of the Democratic Party.[104]
The electoral costs were always borne by the HRC elements that have persisted in the party and who, for whatever localist reasons, did not attend to the failures of 2010 and 2014. Blame the chairs of the DNC, which has never been PBO’s to lead, and where the division between Sanders and HRC in 2016 demonstrated its structurally historic downfall because of policy ambivalence and poor tactical support of GOTV in critical regions.
If Democrats are tempted to seek alibis, Republicans want to read the outcome as a vindication for their strategy of obstruction to Obama’s program and a ratification of right-wing ideology. (2014)
The destruction of the Democratic Party now goes back several decades. Its reconstruction remains to be seen as even the leading candidates for DNC chair play it safe on PBO’s UN vote.
The Huffington Post's senior politics editor, Sam Stein, says President Obama oversaw "the destruction of the Democratic Party," leaving it "in a much worse position" than before his presidency started.
"You look at the destruction of the Democratic Party under Barack Obama’s leadership and you have to wonder, what was the political — what were the electoral benefits that he gave to the party?” Stein asked on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
- Republicans will control the presidency and both chambers of Congress after Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
- The GOP will also hold the governor’s office in 33 states starting in 2017, the most in 24 years. And Republicans control both chambers in 32 state legislatures, while Democrats have control of both chambers in only California, Delaware, Hawaii, Oregon and Rhode Island.
- Democrats had control of Congress when Obama was elected, but lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. The party made slight gains in both chambers in this year’s elections, but not enough to overcome Republican majorities.
Chairman and (state)—Democratic |
Term |
Terry McAuliffe (Va.) |
2001–2005 |
Howard Dean (Vt.) |
2005–2009 |
Tim Kaine (Va.) |
2009–2011 |
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) |
2011– |