A revolution in the Democratic party
There is a war for the heart, the soul of the democratic party happening at this very moment.
We all see it. We can all feel it. The words and voices ring out on all sides. We can hear the echoes of our discontent spilling onto the pages in words and images. They echo within the walls of this site clamoring to be heard. And it is easy to dismiss all of this. It is easy to dismiss the importance of this moment because there is so much sound and so much fury.
But I ask you to take a moment. Remove yourself from the fray. Because all of that sound, all of that fury has a place in this war but it is the heart, the core of this matter that needs to be understood. Understanding the heart gives context to everything, to every argument, to every policy decision, to every choice we make in this election cycle. At the heart, at the core of this war is a very stark and deep ideological divide within the democratic party.
Lately the internet has become full of arguments about the merits and demerits of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been discussing and pondering all the various views about this, and I’m increasingly of the opinion that most of the people engaging in this debate don’t really understand what is at stake in the democratic primary. This is in part because many Americans don’t really understand the history of American left wing politics and don’t think about policy issues in a holistic, structural way. So in this post, I want to really dig into what the difference is between Bernie and Hillary and why that difference is extremely important.
Benjamin Studebaker’s post gets to the very heart of what this election cycle is about and I urge you to read it. Studebaker takes the reader on a historical journey showing that the party is torn between two ideologies and how these ideologies were formed over decades of economic cycles and presidential terms.
The ideological divide between Sanders and Clinton.
Sanders ideology has its roots in FDR and this ideological tradition was carried on by Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and LBJ. Sanders aligns himself with the New Deal and the Great Society. The bedrock of this ideology was poured in the Great Depression and income inequality was at its very core. In the 1930’s, the left came to understand the root of the economic problems facing the country and that rising inequality stagnated consumption. This in turn led to malinvestment in unproductive uses such as stock markets, real estate, commodities as well as others and boom and bust cycles followed. Sound familiar? Like say the Great Recession.
Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist building on the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. He understands that inequality is the core structural factor in economic crisis and that growth in real wages and incomes is required for robust, sustainable economic growth.
Hillary Clinton’s ideology could not be more different.
Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal building on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. She doesn’t understand the pivotal role inequality plays in creating economic crisis and reducing economic growth. She has been taken in by a fundamentally right wing paradigm, and if she is elected she will continue to lead the Democratic Party down that path.
This is the heart.
This is why there is sound and fury.
The Democratic Party, which was once the party that saw economic inequality and poverty as the core causes of economic instability, now sees inequality and poverty as largely irrelevant. Instead of eliminating inequality and poverty to fuel the capitalist system and produce strong economic growth, establishment democrats now largely agree with establishment republicans that the problem is a lack of support for business investment.
In the end, your candidate is fighting for one of these two ideologies.
This is the 1% vs. 99%. We vs. I.
Your candidate either supports the ideology that began with FDR and the belief that economic inequality and poverty is the cause of economic instability or your candidate supports the neoliberal economic voodoo of Reagan and believes inequality and poverty are irrelevant.
It is a stark choice.
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New Deal
This is not a contest to see who will lead the democrats, it’s a contest to see what kind of party the democrats are going to be in the coming decades, what ideology and what interests, causes, and issues the Democratic Party will prioritize. This makes it far more important than any other recent primary election.
The new New Deal
Is it any wonder why the entire democratic establishment including the DNC has declared war on him? Is it any wonder why the DNC lifted the restrictions on lobbyist money for the party? Is it any wonder why the moneyed interests, the bankers, the oil companies, MIC, Big Pharma have declared war on him?
It should not be. He is threatening the very core of the ideology that feeds them grotesquely. They will try and crush this with everything they have because if they do not they could be relegated to the dust bin of history for decades.
We are making a historical decision between two distinct ideological paradigms, not a choice between flavors of popcorn. This is important. Choose carefully.
We. Us.
In this dark hour, midnight nearing
The tribulation time will come
The storms will hurl the midnight fear
And sweep lost millions to their doom
I'm going where there's no depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven
I'm going there
