When you strip away all the hagiography, Senator Dianne Feinstein was an institutionalist, who embodied the union of economic elites and the political class in the United States.
These traits formed a three-legged stool on which many Democratic “leaders” continue to sit, dazed, unaware, and incapable of addressing the fundamental changes in the country, the voters, and the environment.
Feinstein remained proud of personally sentencing abortion providers to jail
It was only as an institutionalist that Feinstein could still be proud of sentencing abortion providers to prison in the early part of her career—and still be proud of that in 2022. And also how she give a post-confirmation embrace to Lindsey Graham within memory of he and his colleagues bragging of the theft of a Supreme Court seat. And also how she helped promote legislation to make the United States the leading carceral state in the world.
But wait she voted against those three Justices.
I know, I know: she voted against three right-wing Supreme Court justices that later removed federal protection for abortion. True that, but in her own words spoken in 2022 she was still proud of personally sentencing abortion providers to jail early in her career—people she described as having “committed abortions on women.” So how hard to you think she really fought?
Feinstein opposed the Green New Deal
And of course her hostility to the Green New Deal is legendary. She opposed it! Just as she opposed AOC and the entire young generation of progressives. Yes, the senior senator from the greenest state sounds like a right-wing republican in her opposition. Here she is explaining to school kids in her office that she really doesn’t much care about what they have to say about the Green New Deal.
Feinstein remained oblivious to the rise of extremism to the very end
Her political blindness was so complete that even in 2022 when asked about whether the post-Trump right had become more extreme and inflexible while Democrats have been willing to cede ground, she said, “I’m not sure.”
Here’s how one critic responded to Feinstein’s obtuse view of modern politics:
“She’s like Charlie Brown and the football,” said Dahlia Lithwick, Slate’s senior legal analyst, describing Feinstein’s unstinting belief that her institution is still functional. “But she doesn’t see that the whole football field is on fire.”
New York Magazine interviewed her in 2022
If you want to read a superb analysis and summary of Feinstein’s successes and failures as a politician (with less of my anger) then check out the excellent New York Magazine interview with her in 2022—a year before her death.
The Institutionalist Dianne Feinstein fought for gun control, civil rights, and abortion access for half a century. Where did it all go wrong?
The theme that comes across again and again from the interview is that she was a product of wealth and entirely loyal to the intersection of economic and political elites. This means that despite much praise for her as a breaker of glass ceilings for women, she wasn’t politically or personally interested in legislating systemic changes. A polite way to phrase this is that she was an “Institutionalist.”
A less polite description, and more accurate in my view, was that she was one of the democratic leaders that for decades sometimes tut, tutted, but continually failed to demonstrate a meaningful desire to oppose (or even awareness of) the growing fascism and racism throughout our country.
Is this all we get for three decades in office?
People can also rightly point out that three decades ago she co-authored legislation to ban assault weapons and two decades later she co-authored a report on CIA torture. These good if somewhat sparse achievements over a thirty-year career in the Senate beg the question: have democrats’ expectations for legislative leadership from a California senator really sunk so low?
If you want to read another summary of her political career, check out this piece in Jacobin: Dianne Feinstein Helped Lead the Democratic Party’s Neoliberal Turn.
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I welcome your comment and critique. Please read one or both articles before you do.