"What shocks me about neoliberalism is how utterly unapologetic it is about the misery it produces."

[Le Taz Hot]

42. After Carter's trouncing in 1980,

the "geniuses" of the Democratic Party decided the biggest factor for their loss was money as the Democrats were being out-fundraised by a 3:1 margin. They ignored the fact that the inside-the-beltway boys HATED the Carters because they were not insiders and because Carter came from humble beginnings. When Carter was up for re-election the Democrats RAN from him. They gave him NO support. Now, add to that that the Republicans decided the race was going to be so close, they needed another faction of support -- enter the right wing Christians who, before this time, were considered to be on the fringe of society (and rightly so). This gave that group legitimacy and this country has been suffering from it ever since.

So, Reagan held office for 8 years and Bush Sr. for 4 years and the Democrats-In-Charge again decided that the problem was the money and that their candidates were too far to the left. Enter the Clintons and their Third-Way -- meaning that they make nice with the Big Boy Donors (Goldman-Sachs, etc.) and that they "triangulate" which means they took over the Republicans' platform (welfare "reform," elimination of Glass-Stegall, NAFTA, etc.), leaving liberals the middle class and the poor without any representation.

The Neo-liberals now have a stranglehold within the Democratic Party and they're not about to let go. They have many prolific and vocal representative right here on DU, defending the indefensible (torture, XL Pipelne, TPP, war without end).

There's only 2 ways out of this: a) Liberals need to take back the Democratic Party of b)a solution that is not allowed to be spoken of here at DU. (PM me and we can discuss.)