Agitated by 'Pathetic Centrists,' Progressive Populists Strike Back [View all]

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/07-2


Senator Elizabeth Warren. She may not run for president, but as one of the Congress' leading proponents of fighting economic inequality, her role has become increasingly important in the battle of ideas. (Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts)

Progressives on the march? Perhaps a bit premature, but a string of DC-based headlines this week suggest that the "corporate-friendly centrists" in Washington policy circles are losing the rhetorical battle when it comes to the national discussion surrounding economic populism:

Coalition of Liberals Strikes Back at Criticism From Centrist Democrats (NYT)

‘Centrist’ think tank attacks Warren, sparks major blowback (MSNBC)

Elizabeth Warren Calls Third Way 'Flatly Wrong' In Social Security Fight (Huffington Post)

Bye-bye, fake liberals: The Warren Democrats are winning! (Salon.com)

The Wall Street Journal’s pathetic attack on Elizabeth Warren (Salon.com)

Economic Populism Still the Right—and the Winning—Choice (EPI.org)

Third Way’s Anti-Populist, Anti-Warren and Deceptive “Dead End” (CAF)

Adding evidence to the notion that progressives are willing to go on offense against the forces of the "establishment's faux centrism"—represented by former public officials, corporate-funded Beltway pundits, and the mainstays of the mainstream media—a series of scathing attacks against the group "Third Way" have continued nearly a week after two prominent members of the group published an op-ed calling for cuts to Social Security and a rejection of the populism that is bubbling up across the nation.

In just the latest hit on the Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of the week, economist Paul Krugman called the so-called "centrism" of the 'Third Way' representatives "pathetic." Describing their arguments as intellectually bankrupt, Krugman concluded:

It’s just so tired and tiring. If being a “centrist” means fact-free denunciations of progressives for not being willing to cut entitlements, who needs these guys?