At what point did the Democratic Party stop being a party of Liberals?

[Wapsie B]

Clinton was a godsend for the centrists. But how many unabashed Liberals are in Obama's administration? The Left has been shunted aside in the race for the middle. But when did this all start? McGovern's loss or even before that? What will it take for the party to truly embrace the Left once again?

[derby378]

1. Scott Brown's election in MA?

Sounds like the torches and pitchforks are being readied...

[Wapsie B]

3. One can only hope.

[Tesha]

14. I initially mis-read your reply!

I assumed you were answering the title question,
but now I assume you're answering the "What will
it take...?" question.

Is that correct?

Tesha

[DURHAM D]

2. When the "progressives" took over. nt

[Moochy]

38. When was that again?

I'm a big fan of fantasy narratives.

[LynneSin]

4. At what point did the democratic party be for liberals only?

I always thought we were the big tent - silly me??!! Where's my litmus test - perhaps I should take it to see if I pass muster with you

[barb162]

34. That's my question

I thought it was the big tent too.

[Nederland]

5. Around 1984

When Reagan crushed Mondale.

Party leaders concluded that the country had shifted to the right, making left wing politicians unelectable on a national stage.

[Cleita]

10. Don't forget Reagan also crushed the unions who were the driving force

behind liberal candidates.

[Tesha]

12. A'yup. (NT)

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I think it was the late 40's or early 50's.

[Cleita]

11. No it wasn't. Those decades and the sixties were the best for liberal politics. n/t

[Selatius]

23. I think the poster was referring to the horrendous Taft-Hartley Act that crushed labor activism.

It was all downhill from there for labor power in America.

[Cleita]

25. Yes, that's true. It was in 1947 or 1948 wasn't it?

We need to fight that now. If we can't on a federal level, maybe we can do something on a local or state level.

[Selatius]

30. Oddly enough, with the loss of the 60-seat majority, the Employee Free-Choice Act could fail.

EFCA will not survive a filibuster without 60 votes for cloture, and the odds are the Republicans will filibuster EFCA no matter what. EFCA was already watered down in preparation for passage, but this was before we now know that Ted Kennedy's seat would be lost.

[Cleita]

31. Of course they will.

Mitch McConnell was already on the news announcing that with 41 Repugs he can now filibuster.

[Selatius]

33. We've been waiting for 60 years for a shot to undo Taft-Hartley, That opportunity is now lost.

I do not have enough time to wait for another 60 years, much less 20 years.

I'm still in shock as to how somebody so milquetoast as Coakley was selected by the MA Dems for the honor to run for the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. They could've found somebody who was a people person. Massachusetts' population is not small. Surely, there exists somebody far more inspiring than Coakley than her, but in a nation that too often rewards mediocrity and failure, I should not be too surprised at this outcome.

[ShortnFiery]

7. It began during 1968 ...

The shutdown of American politics, now complete, has long been in the making, going back at least to the trainwreck of the Democratic Party over Vietnam at its 1968 national convention. Up until then, the Democratic Party stood clearly if imperfectly for greater social justice, as manifest in the civil rights and social legislation of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and the New Deal before that, and it commanded the majoritarian electoral power necessary to deliver the goods.

The crisis of Vietnam shattered the coalition of neo-imperialist cold warriorers and social activists which had sustained the Democratic Party for a generation after World War II. In the McGovern campaign in 1972, the social activist wing seized control of a shrunken party while the neo-imperialists and cold warriorers began their drift to the right. McGovern's humiliating defeat confirmed the new minority status of the Democratic Party.

The political vacuum was filled by a reenergized conservative movement focusing on patriotism,'free enterprise,' and a militarily reassertive America. Shocked by the Vietnam defeat and the 'excesses' of the counterculture of the 60s, wealthy political conservatives like Richard Mellon Scaife, Lynde and Harry Bradley, John Olin, Joseph Coors, David and Charles Koch and others, funded a series of foundations, publications, university chairs, and media outlets to promote the free enterprise system, corporate power, and renewed American leadership in the world. (Cf. "Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, a Brief History," by Lewis H. Lapham, HARPERS, September, 2004)

The minority status of the Democratic Party was disguised by its lingering control of Congress (until 1994) and the fluke election (thanks to Ross Perot) of Bill Clinton. Social activists and progressives of various sorts remained the party's base, even as party leaders, embodied in the Democratic Leadership Council, sensing the limited electoral appeal of the progressive agenda, steadily drifted to the right. Their failure to rearticulate a compelling vision of social justice and democracy sealed the party's fate. Conservative attacks on 'big government,' and their promotion of 'deregulation' not only of much of the economy but of campaign financing, solidified the corruption of the political process. As early as the Carter years, conservatives captured the leadership of the Democratic as well as the Republican parties, and created the two-party, right-wing duopoly which now confronts us.

[ShortnFiery]

8. p.s. site reference

http://www.counterpunch.org/kuzminski08182004.html

[EmeraldCityGrl]

15. +1000

This should be an OP.

[hootinholler]

17. I wish I could rec a reply! Please post thsi as an OP

Expand it a bit if you can. THIS is what we need to contemplate, how to get back to our roots.

-Hoot

[ShortnFiery]

18. Thank you.

I'm not one for posting threads very often - mainly due to the fact that my personality is so strong, my posting it doesn't truly encourage discussion. :blush:

However, If you or anyone else here would like to use the article sited below, please do not hesitate to use it as part of your own thread. :hi:


http://www.counterpunch.org/kuzminski08182004.html

[hootinholler]

22. I may have to do that tonight.

No need for blushing, I sincerely meant it.

-Hoot

[Lars39]

24. And we seem to be heading towards another political vacuum.

Could get pretty ugly.

[Cleita]

9. When Reagan destroyed the unions.

It was union power that gave us our great Presidents, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. We blame it on the media a lot, but it was the union bosses who explained politics to low information blue collar workers and taught them not to vote against their best interests. Unions spent money backing those candidates so that corporations didn't have such a big fistfuls of dollars to throw at the opposition Republican candidates. If we had powerful unions today like we had back then, they would make Fox News and company totally irrelevant.

[mdmc]

13. 1982 or 1984

:shrug:

[FBaggins]

16. It was NEVER a "party of liberals"

It's just that at times we had large enough majorities that moderate democrats didn't have the influence they now have. If you have a 100+ seat majority in the House, then 50 "blue dogs" don't keep you from implementing progressive legislation.

[Wapsie B]

32. That's what I was wondering.

I know corporate interests have controlled the political process for ages and therefore politicians being in corporate America's back pocket. But I didn't know if there was a time when the Democrats were a true party of opposition.

[Better Today]

19. Entered the DLC, nuff said.

[OHdem10]

20. Was the DLC not formed to put a new Pro-Business Face on

the Democratic Party-- thus pushing Liberals aside?

Not bashing--just asking an honest question. Why form
the DLC if not to move Liberals out of the forefront???

[progressoid]

21. Liberals have often been the bastard child in the Democratic Party.

They smile at us and sometimes let us eat at the adults table. But mostly they want us to just eat our pie and shut up.

[laughingliberal]

26. My impression is liberalism died with Bobby Kennedy and MLK

I think it was seriously wounded with the murder of JFK and pronounced dead after Bobby and Martin fell.

[557188]

27. All of this is liberal policies

If you use the actual traditional term of "liberal".

I want a party of progressives. Actually I want a Socialist Party but the Democrats lack the guts to ever be that progressive. So sad.

[Ildem09]

28. The Great left wing

was crushed under RR in 84' and When Teddy the Great passed on, the final death knell for the old guard was sounded. sure we have a new guard Fiengold, Franken, Sanders, Brown, Weiner, Grayson, ETC. however, these folks have no seniority or leadership, so they can't effectively steer the party. Durbin is a solid liberal, he is just being overruled by Reid and the WH, wait until he is majority leader in Nov

[DainBramaged]

29. When Reagan was elected, they though they had to please everyone

[Romulox]

35. Ooops! My bad!

[MisterP]

36. it's been a progressive (ha!) process:

McCarthyism in 1949-53 purged Marxist critique from public discourse: I mean, documentaries on the Spanish Civil War ended with, "Workers of the world, unite!" Arthur Schlesinger coins the "vital center" in 1949 to prop up "liberal anticommunism." Commies equated with Stalinists and everything that was not American, or even human.
in the 50s, Middle America stuck together and wanted quiet suburbs, like in "On the Waterfront" (dockworker flees unions for isolated family). Prosperity, technology, and consumerism linked. There are Beatniks and Rosa Parks, though.
the 60s were an activist era: government reforms wouldn't have been possible without protests, and those relied on a government that would listen to them (as opposed to, say, 2002-03's multimillion marches against the Iraq War). Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" kicks off libertarianism--individualist ultraconservatism as opposed to the 50s' communitarian, integralist ultraconservatism.
the 70s saw both wiretapping and the Chile coup, AND the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the Church Committee. John Reston perfects the school of sycophantic, fawning "stand-by-him-no-matter-what" journalism. Powell Memo, Hunt Brothers, AEI, Team B. Israel ramps up the rhetoric against its Muslim opponents after the Munich snafu/abbatoir: they're subhuman and can't be dealt with.
1982: Sabra and Shatila
things went south in the 80s: the fundamentalists and Cold Warriors came together to avenge Vietnam, OPEC, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis by killing people around the world: the Democrats showed their nerve in having hearings on Iran-Contra, and their spinelessness by letting everyone go. Larry Speakes publicly hopes that the government lies to the American people, since that'll protect American lives. media-packaged pseudo-events, survivalism, big oil, and union-busting.
the DLC arose over 1988-91, preaching "moderation" as the road to victory: they're Boll Weevils and Reagan Dems, and rewrite history more than Oceania did.
1991 Soviet Union breaks up: messianic visions of a global techno-neoliberal utopia ending history and bringing democracy and prosperity to all. the Gulf War promises fun, bloodless technological, annihilation of Middle Easterners at the push of a button.
Clinton conservatizes 1993-94
Gingrich Revolution 1995, busy looking into everyone's pants except their own
2000-09: Nader hypnotizes Gore into choosing creepy "moralist" Lieberman, forces Jeb and Katherine Harris to steal the election at gunpoint, instigates the Brooks Brothers Riot, and casts Imperiatus on the Dems, so that they give Bush almost everything he wants, and not impeach him for war crimes and torture. the conservadems are thus not responsible for anything, and Will Marshall is hereby not part of the great war machine that gave us Vietnam and Nicaragua. :sarcasm:
2009-10: conservadems listen to Obama's speeches instead of looking at his actions, deeming him peachy

[MicaelS]

37. After the 1968 Chicago convention,...

Then it got worse in '72 when McGovern got stomped, and worse when Reagan beat Carter and Mondale, and even worse when Bush beat Dukakis.