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cali

(114,904 posts)
Mon May 18, 2015, 12:58 PM May 2015

The DLC didn't just vanish. It was reformatted and repurposed

It's a major reason why corporations now have their talons almost as embedded in the Democratic Party as the Republican Party. And the trajectory is toward more and more corporate influence and control within the democratic party.

Where does this fit with the DLC and today's most prominent Democratic think tank?

The DLC was set up to advance the third way. It was heavily funded by corporations and corporate interests. Promoting social liberalism over economic liberalism is classic third way politics.

In politics, the Third Way is a position that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies.[1][2] The Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularized by Keynesianism and contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity for economic liberalism and the New Right.[3] The Third Way is promoted by some social democratic and social liberal movements.[4]

<snip>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

The DLC closed its doors in 2011. Why? For one thing, policies that it pushed were part of the reason for the 2008 crash. Also, democratic voters were moving in a more economically liberal direction. Not to mention the DLC looking more and more republican.

But DLC ideas and personnel didn't fade away. They adopted different language, focused more and more on social issues and tried to co-opt the Progressive movement. Did they move away from center right economic policies? Not really. They just tarted things up. Everything was labeled Progressive- from trade agreements to a chained CPI.

The biggest mover and shaker is undoubtedly the Center for American Progress with its nifty liberal sounding name and its liberal blog. The Center for American Progress focuses heavily on social issues publicly and more privately, pushes the same old same old economically. It uses language like shared prosperity and steers clear of advocating for progressive measures like raising the income cap on Social Security. CAP functioned as arm of the Obama WH for the last few years until it recently transitioned into an arm of the Clinton campaign. CAP isn't a clone of the DLC, but it's a damn close relation.

<snip>

CAP’s founder is John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Clinton who ran Barack Obama’s transition team following the 2008 election and became an informal adviser to the new president. Podesta is a former lobbyist, and it’s no exaggeration to say that influence-peddling is the family business. His brother, Tony, and sister-in-law, Heather, each head separate lobbying firms that are among the most powerful in Washington. In late 2011, Podesta stepped down as the think tank’s president (he remains as chair). He had good cause to think that his main mission at the helm of CAP had been accomplished: by 2012, and the onset of Obama’s second term, CAP had clearly emerged as the most influential think tank of the Obama era

<snip>

On its website, CAP explains that its mission is to “critique the policy that stems from conservative values, challenge the media to cover the issues that truly matter, and shape the national debate,” and cites “progressive pioneers” such as Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. However, when visitors to the site toggle over to the actual content of the group’s policy portfolio, they meet a barrage of platitudes that sound as if they were lifted directly from the collected works of Ronald Reagan. “As progressives, we believe America is a land of boundless opportunity, where people can better themselves, their children, their families, and their communities through education, hard work, and the freedom to climb the ladder of economic mobility,” CAP states. “We believe an open and effective government can champion the common good over narrow self-interest, harness the strength of our diversity, and secure the rights and safety of its people. And we believe our nation must always be a beacon of hope and strength to the rest of the world.”

Such self-advertised vacuity makes perfect sense for an institution like CAP, for the simple reason that these pious word clouds are also the standard argot of corporate America. CAP’s board and roster of scholars are stuffed with the most rancid elements of the Democratic Party, many of them Clinton administration veterans or key political supporters. Last December, it named Lawrence Summers, formerly Clinton’s treasury secretary and Obama’s National Economic Council director, as a distinguished senior fellow. “As our country continues to confront challenges to establishing economic growth that is more broadly shared, there are few thinkers with Larry’s insights, keen intellect, and policy creativity,” Tanden said at the time.

Summers was, of course, famously named by Time magazine in 1999 as one of the three members of “The Committee to Save the World,” along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. They earned that title for pushing through the near complete deregulation of financial markets—which then worked, in fairly short order, to engineer the collapse of the global economy. (In a sort of sideline gambit of epic managerial incompetence, Summers also managed to squander hundreds of millions in endowment funds during his Bush-era tenure as president of Harvard, by putting together an enormous 2004 interest-rate swap predicated on a disastrous reading of market trends.)

Unlike his two superhero colleagues, Summers has since mildly repented for his worst deregulatory excesses and now calls for greater oversight of the financial industry and some limited government intervention in the private sector to spur recovery and growth. Of course, nothing in his revisionist policy playbook is disturbing enough to prevent him from continuing to make millions by consulting for and speaking to financial giants and hedge funds, and accepting perks such as free jet rides from Citigroup. (This firm, you may recall, was the first major merged financial titan of the post–Glass-Steagall age, which Summers’s pal Rubin matriculated back to after his own term as treasury secretary in the Clinton White House; Rubin, clearly determined to follow in Summers’s distinguished footsteps, nearly bankrupted the flailing investment bank before departing as a “senior counselor” in 2009 after pocketing more than $100 million.)

<snip>

http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/they-pretend-to-think-we-pretend-to-listen



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octoberlib

(14,971 posts)
1. How is Larry Summers even
Mon May 18, 2015, 01:27 PM
May 2015

still around? He's been wrong about everything and he's a misogynist to boot.

QC

(26,371 posts)
2. He's always wrong in ways that benefit the ruling class.
Mon May 18, 2015, 01:30 PM
May 2015

That's why zombie ideas--and those who advocate them--have such staying power. Austerity, trickle down, and so on benefit the very rich.

MADem

(135,425 posts)
4. No, it wasn't. It was disbanded and the records are all at the Clinton Library in Little Rock.
Mon May 18, 2015, 02:08 PM
May 2015

This is just not accurate. These are not the same organizations.

DLC was, in effect, killed by Obama's victory in 08--anyone associated with it went into exile for quite a while and some are still in the political wilderness (Harold Ford, e.g.). The minute Obama won the primary, that was the DLC death knell. Everything after that was just keeping people paid until the cash ran out, and tying up loose ends.

The "thing" that survives from the DLC is the PPI--the Progressive Policy Institute. It is a think tank, and it was founded by the DLC, and it survives as a separate entity today.

CAP lined up with Obama, while PPI lined up with Clinton in 2008. CAP was founded to push back against Heritage, initially.


This is like trying to find a relationship between Richard Nixon and John Kerry because they were both in the Navy.

Oilwellian

(12,647 posts)
5. Who needs the DLC...
Mon May 18, 2015, 02:51 PM
May 2015

since they've taken control of the DNC? Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was DLC and now leads our party's national committee. Schumer was DLC and is next in line to lead in the Senate. And you bring up Harold Ford? LOL

MADem

(135,425 posts)
6. Please read the post. I brought up Ford because he's out of politics, working on Wall Street now.
Mon May 18, 2015, 02:57 PM
May 2015
And he was the LAST HEAD of the DLC.


LOL that you didn't know that, apparently....bring him up? He was the last honcho of the outfit!


Here's a DLC essay written for the WAPO a year away from the 08 election by former Chairman Ford and Martin O'Malley....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601158.html
 

cali

(114,904 posts)
8. Of course I knew that.
Mon May 18, 2015, 04:19 PM
May 2015

Ford is one person. And he's hardly the be all and end all of the DLC. Sorry that complexities are so far out of your reach.

And wow, good job ignoring the facts about Sperling and Summers and others.

MADem

(135,425 posts)
9. Is Oilwellian a secondary account of yours? Because that's who I was responding to--not you.
Mon May 18, 2015, 04:51 PM
May 2015

Hmmmm. "Oilwellian" asked a snarky question, and I responded to it.


Oilwellian (11,306 posts)
5. Who needs the DLC...

since they've taken control of the DNC? Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was DLC and now leads our party's national committee. Schumer was DLC and is next in line to lead in the Senate. And you bring up Harold Ford? LOL

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Response to Oilwellian (Reply #5)Mon May 18, 2015, 02:57 PM
MADem (110,967 posts)
6. Please read the post. I brought up Ford because he's out of politics, working on Wall Street now.

And he was the LAST HEAD of the DLC.


LOL that you didn't know that, apparently....bring him up? He was the last honcho of the outfit!


Here's a DLC essay written for the WAPO a year away from the 08 election by former Chairman Ford and Martin O'Malley....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601158.html


And these kinds of comments:
Sorry that complexities are so far out of your reach.
say way more about you than perhaps you realize--none of it terribly recommending. Defensive, much? So much that your first instinct is to lash out with an accusation that I'm some sort of dullard because you don't like my response to "Oilwellian"--assuming, of course, that Oilwellian isn't you?

I'd say so.

 

cali

(114,904 posts)
7. I didn't say they were the same organizations
Mon May 18, 2015, 03:08 PM
May 2015

and sorry, no all of the DLC members did not just go off into the political wilderness and neither did the all of the ideas they promulgated. And yes, the PPI and Third Way are mentioned in my OP, but no, CAP is not unrelated to the DLC- try as they might to hide the connections. Just the fact that Gene Sperling and Larry Summers are senior fellows at CAP is enough, but it's more than that- the language about "inclusive prosperity", the dearth of progressive economic proposals, the strong push for ftas in the TPP vein, and the stress on social rather than economic issues as reflected in "Think Progress".

Rubin, Summers, Michael Barr and others, are all involved with policy formulation there, and all have histories that have more in common with DLC style economics than progressive economics- not to mention Gene Sperling, who was DLC and a fellow at CAP. You remember Sperling, right? President Obama's former Chief Economic Adviser, who lobbied heavily for entitlement cuts. These people have practiced and advocated for the same kind of economics that the DLC pushed. They're all heavily pro-FTA in the vein of trade agreements like the TPP- and that was also a big plank in the DLC platform.

So, no the DLC and CAP aren't twins, but it's silly to claim that they have nothing in common.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/25/1250673/-No-White-House-advisor-Gene-Sperling-entitlement-cuts-are-not-necessary
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6709


MADem

(135,425 posts)
10. To use your analogy, Richard Nixon and John Kerry aren't twins, but it's silly to claim that they
Mon May 18, 2015, 04:54 PM
May 2015

have nothing in common.

You could substitute JFK or LBJ or Jimmy Carter for John Kerry if you'd like--they were all in the Navy as well.

To anyone of average reading ability, "reformatted and repurposed" is what you do to a single thing. You might want to edit your OP if you didn't want to claim that.

 

hifiguy

(33,688 posts)
11. Kick and Rec.
Mon May 18, 2015, 04:54 PM
May 2015

The reptiles who couldn't stand the batshit religulously insane brigade in the repuke party bought the Democratic party from the Clintons and the DLC, who were richly rewarded. They brought their plutocratic economics along with them.

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