In the Twin Cities, the local Air America affiliate carries Al and the evening crew, but runs 2 very good local shows in the morning ... and Ed Schultz after Al. I listen to him for relatively short periods of time to see how "progressivism" sounds in that demographic.
The last couple of days, I have noticed that Ed has clearly been retained by the DLC to shill for them and for Hillary. He is consistently asking rheotrically, "Hillary is inevitable as the nominee, right?" And he keeps telling his listeners that DLC-style centirsm is the only way to fight the GOP.
(Cross-posted at MyDD.)
Now, this is not a screed. I am not particularly worried about this.
But I do think it's worth noticing. I get the strong impression that the DLC is running a GOP-style game. They are trying to create a DEM version of the GOP talking point echo chamber, with Ed playing the Drudge/O'Reilly/Rush role and seeking to make Hillary's nomination inevitable by having Ed tell people it is.
That, folks, is very, very interesting.
The DLC is making a double-sided power play. It is trying to regain control of the party while setting up what it believes will be a reprise of the Clinton 90s.
Other factions of the Democratic Party are going to have to deal with this one way or another. Obviously, Chris Bowers' post yesterday at MyDD (http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/7/25/18249/8248) was about this.
I actually have some fairly specific thoughts about this issue, but I am taking my time to draft them. I want to get that post really right.
In the meantime, I think I would say a couple of things in response:
- DLC-style progressivism, IMO, doesn't work.
- However, it does make up a substantial portion of the party we need to use to fight American fascism. And it won't vanish any time soon.
- The split between DLC-style and (what I would call) genuine progressivism is currently hindering the war against neo-fascism.
- The party--and America--desperately need to find some way of mediating the inter-necine conflict and form an effective coalition for '06. (I refuse to look past that time frame.)