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Showing Original Post only (View all)Thomas Franks, the Clintons and "phony" Democratic populists in the New Gilded Age [View all]
Once again Thomas Frank ("What's The Matter With Kansas" nails it in Salon Magazine.
Hillary Clinton forgets the 90's -- Our latest Gilded Age and latest Phony Poulists
Excerpt:
"...The same kind of monopoly-building was happening in the 90s in food processing and meat packing. It was happening in oil. It was happening among defense contractors, with the Clinton Administrations active encouragement. And, as we all know, it was happening in the financial sector, a process that culminated in the much-celebrated repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. Then there were Bill Clintons beloved free-trade deals; one effect of these, according to Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation, has been to expose our economy to monopolies based overseas, which have proceeded to gobble up sectors like the beer industry, 80 percent of which is controlled today by just two foreign companies....."
"In 1992 the country was basically in flames over the economic effects of Reaganism. That year, Jerry Brown, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and, yes, Bill Clinton all ran as populists who would rescue the declining middle class by one method or another.....
........Governor Clinton, the likely Democratic Presidential nominee, had been searching for months for facts to illustrate his claim that Americas middle class benefited little from 12 years of Republican rule. The explosion of riches at the top struck him as a perfect vehicle. Not only did the widening gap between the rich and the rest of Americans conflict with traditional notions of democracy, but it also went right to the pocketbook sources of middle-class discontent.
In 1992, one might conclude, the nation chose to reverse the plutocratizing effects of neoliberalism. What we got was something elsea soft Reaganism that admitted, the era of big government is over. And thats why, in the months and years to come, we will see Clinton loyalists do all they can to delete that New Gilded Age from memory even as they rail against the current New Gilded Age. Were we to judge Bill Clinton by the standards of 1992, his presidency was something of a failure, eight years of deregulation and New Economy platitudes. If we judge him by the rich rewards that his booming stock market showered on the wealthy, however, his term in the White House was a towering success.
The original Gilded Age ended when Democrats and Republicans came together around the old populist program of financial regulation, antitrust enforcement, income tax, and legitimacy for organized labor. This time around there is no end in sight, because Republicans and Democrats have come together on a program that is almost the oppositedismantling the regulatory state at the behest of the One Percent while assuring an ever angrier public that they feel our pain, that theyre Putting People First, that theyd be great to have a beer with, that Yes We Can. The heart sickens at the thought of these many long years of fake populism, and the stomach turns to imagine how little time there is before we are swept up in it all over again."