WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

 Harry Targ

 The essay linked below begins to talk about the historic rise and fall of the Democratic Party. I think part of the explanation for what I call Trumpism, for lack of a better term, has to do with the significant shifts in the public policies of the Democratic Party: from New Deal liberalism to the “Third Way.” Richard Perlstein in Reaganland documents that shift in the Carter Administration. We can see the institutionalization of that shift in the debate around NAFTA. Candidate Clinton in 1992 promised workers he would oppose NAFTA and he became a skilled advocate for it as traditional Democrats were cajoled to support it.

When I studied voting behavior in the 60s, the received wisdom and statistics referred to 1932 as a transformative election. From then until 1968, or perhaps 1972 about 44 percent of voters identified as Democrats, and those identifying as Republicans were in the high 30 per cent range. This was also paralleled, particularly by the early 60s, with a “trust in government” as measured by polls at an all-time high. In 1964 85 percent of people polled said they had some or high “trust in the president.”  By the 70s all this began to decline: Trust in government by 1976 was lower than 40 percent and despite a slight increase in the 1980s dipped again to way below 40 percent in the 1990s.

What happened: a shift away from the “Golden Age” of capitalism (high mass consumption, good paying jobs for sectors of the working class, children of workers planning on going to college, etc. etc.). Democrats, unable to deal with the contradictions of capitalism, shifted to the right: neoliberalism meaning austerity and deregulation, rejecting ties to organized labor, ending welfare “as we know it,” riding the “growing crime” bandwagon etc. At the same time Democrats gave modest support to an emerging identity politics. And Nixon’s Southern Strategy was sanctified by Reagan and Reaganomics, and later fully endorsed by Clinton. And with the new century this all was exacerbated by colossally disastrous policies; wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the frittering away of government surpluses and some of workers’ gains. This century has been a disaster for reasons of economic immiseration, racism, war, domestic violence, and environmental devastation.

Now add to this capsule summary the long history of slavery, the ideology of white supremacy, a foreign policy based on American exceptionalism, and a gerrymandered political system that guarantees the power of the rich/white minority (usually male). This is a toxic history and environment which fuels poverty, inequality, powerlessness, profound alienation AND the exacerbation of the history of genocide and racism in the United States. And, in our own day, this has led to the rise of violence and the threat of violence in our political system.

In my view, all these dimensions need to be addressed as we ask ourselves the question: “Where do we go from here?”  The history is complicated, the factors shaping our current political circumstances are varied; class, race, and gender figure prominently in the analysis; and the answers require us to address the twenty-first century capitalist economic system and institutionalized racism today.

 https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2020/12/progressive-mobilizations-in.html