Shifting Political Dynamics in the Democratic Party

Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour...

Key Insights:

* A number of years ago, Brad DeLong said that it was time to “pass the baton” to “The Left”. How’s that working out for us? #actually, he had said that we had passed the baton—that the absence since January 21, 2009 (or possibly January 21, 1993) of Republican negotiating partners meant that sensible centrism produced nothing—that Barack Obama had proposed John McCain’s climate policy, Mitt Romney’s health care policy, George H.W. Bush’s entitlement-and-budget policy, Ronald Reagan’s tax policy, and Gerald Ford’s foreign policy, and had gotten precisely zero Republican votes for any of those. Therefore the only choice we had was to pass the baton to the Left in the hopes that they could energize the base and the disaffected to win majorities, and then offer strong support where there policies were better than the status quo.

* But my major initial take was that the major task was to resurrect a sensible center-right, in which I wished the Niskanen Center good luck, but was not optimistic.

* But everyone heard “Brad DeLong says neoliberals should ‘bend the knee’” to THE LEFT…

* That is interesting…

* Should neoliberals bend the knee?

* How has the left been doing with its baton? Not well at all, for anyone who defines “THE LEFT” to consist of former Bernie staffers who regard Elizabeth Warren as a neoliberal sellout.

* It has, once again, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

* But the conditions that required passing the baton to the left—High Mitch McConnellism, Republican unity saying “NO!” to everything by every Republican to make the Black president look like a weak failure—no longer hold.

* And the principal adversaries to good governance and a bright American future are reactionary theocrats, neofascist grifters, and true-believer right-neoliberals to the right and cost-disease socialists to the left.

* But in the middle, made up of ex-left-neoliberals and nearly all other right-thinking Americans, are we supply-side progressives.

* Instead, there is a governing coalition, in the Senate, composed of 70 senators, 50 Democrats and 20 Republicans, from Bernie Sanders through J.D. Vance—a supply-side progressive or supply-side Americanist coalition.

* It is therefore time to snatch the baton back, and give it to the supply-side progressivist policy-politics core, and then grab as many people to run alongside that core in the race as we possibly can.

* The Niskanen Center cannot be at the heart of the supply-side progressivist agenda because they are incrementalists and critics by nature.

* The principal business of “Leftist” activists over the past five years really has been and continues to be to try to grease the skids for the return of neofascism—just as the principal business of Ralph Nader and Naderites in 2000 was to grease the skids for upper-class tax cuts, catastrophic financial deregulation, and forever wars.

* &, as always, HEXAPODIA!

References:

* Beauchamp, Zack. 2019. "A Clinton-Era Centrist Democrat Explains Why It's Time to Give Democratic Socialists a Chance." Vox. March 4, 2019. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190304123456/https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/4/18246381/democrats-clinton-sanders-left-brad-delong>.

* Black, Bill. 2019. "Brad DeLong's Stunning Concession: Neoliberals Should Pass the Baton & Let the Left Lead." Naked Capitalism. March 5. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/03/bill-black-analyzes-brad-delongs-stunning-concession-neoliberals-should-pass-baton-let-left-lead.html>.

* DeLong, J. Bradford. 2019. “David Walsh went to the Niskanen Center conference. He got hives…” Twitter. February 25. <https://twitter.com/delong/status/1100166150845939712>.

* DeLong, J. Bradford. 2019. "Carville & Hunt: Two Old White Guys Podcast." Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality. March 11. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/03/carville-hunt-two-old-white-guys-podcast.html>.

* DeLong, J. Bradford. 2019. "I Said 'Pass the Baton' to Those Further Left Than I, Not 'Bend the Knee.'" Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality. March 27. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/03/i-said-pass-the-baton-to-those-further-left-than-i-not-bend-the-knee.html>.

* Elmaazi, Mohamed. 2019. "Famous Neoliberal Economist Says Centrism Has Failed." The Canary. March 15, 2019. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190315123456/https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/03/15/famous-neoliberal-economist-says-centrism-has-failed/>.

* O’Reilly, Timothy. 2019. "This Interview with Brad DeLong is Very Compelling." LinkedIn. <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timo3_this-interview-with-brad-delong-is-very-compelling-activity-6508399270297767936-86Hd/?trk=public_profile_like_view>.

* Douthat, Ross. 2019. "What’s Left of the Center-Left?" New York Times. March 5. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/opinion/democrats-liberals-socialists-cultural-left.html>.

* Drum, Kevin. 2019. "A Neoliberal Says It's Time for Neoliberals to Pack It In." Mother Jones. March 5. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/03/a-neoliberal-says-its-time-for-neoliberals-to-pack-it-in/>.

* Hundt, Reed, Brad DeLong, & Joshua Cohen. 2019."Neoliberalism and Its Discontents." Commonwealth Club. March 5. <https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/neoliberalism-and-its-discontents>.

* Konczal, Mike. 2019. "The Failures of Neoliberalism Are Bigger Than Politics." Roosevelt Institute. March 5. <https://web.archive.org/web/20190305123456/https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2019/03/05/the-failures-of-neoliberalism-are-bigger-than-politics/>.

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* Vinge, Vernor. 1999. A Deepness in the Sky. New York: Tor Books. <https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536355>.