Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
- 15,135
Does the election show it's 'in the air.' I'm referring to a nest of issues around "the middle class" and/or the skilled or more highly paid workers. Does the flock of Democratic winners reflect these issues, for example economic pressures on the middle class. Export of manufacturing jobs.
David Sirota:
NYT: Dems Learn Difference Between Dobbs' Populism & Faux Centrism (7 comments )
From a Sirota article: "Cultural liberalism focusing on social issues that have only varying degrees of support among the general population is far different from full-throated Dobbs-style economic populism. It is undeniable that aside from Dobbs and a few politicians, America's political debate is almost entirely devoid of economic populists.'War on the Middle Class' confronts this problem head-on -- and thanks to Dobbs's passion and charisma, it succeeds in sounding an alarm that cannot be ignored."
Sirota: Dobbs-style populism, along with opposition to the Iraq War, was the overwhelming theme of the 2006 elections. There is no denying it. In the last few days, there have been a barrage of right-wingers and DLCers trying to hide this very simple fact. They have said the election was about Democrats pretending to be Republicans, citing people like Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb - even as Webb himself has appeared on Dobbs' show to give voice to the very kind of economic populism many of us have been pushing for years.
And, of course, even in the face of the New York Times' own news page admitting the rise of populism, we are asked by the Establishment revisionists to simply forget about the election of red-region economic populists like Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Heath Shuler, Nancy Boyda and others.
Writers like Tom Frank, Chris Hayes, Matt Taibbi, Bill Greider and I have for years been pushing this brand of politics, and for our efforts we have all been attacked by Washington insiders and Big Money interests. I remember vividly the DLC attacking me for publishing The Democrats' Da Vinci Code back in 2004 that proposed a populist national campaign strategy, citing real-world examples of how this strategy works in red regions of the country.
But we have stuck to our guns because polls show populism (aka. challenging economic power) is the "center" position in the public, even though it may not be the "center" position in a K-Street-owned Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, the true "center" won out over Washington's faux "center" - whether our status quo opponents in Washington's think tanks, cocktail parties, congressional cloakrooms and lobbying firms like it or not. [...]
...all in all, there is no denying that if Democrats want to hold a governing majority for the foreseeable future, they cannot continue to deny the populist outrage seething all over the country and highlighted by Dobbs book. They cannot continue to listen only to the former Clintonites now on K Street. They cannot continue to listen only to executives on Wall Street. They cannot continue to openly brag about how close they are to corporate lobbyists. They must see election 2006 for what it was: a mandate for economic populism and a battle cry against the hostile takeover of our government and against the War on the Middle Class.
David Sirota:
NYT: Dems Learn Difference Between Dobbs' Populism & Faux Centrism (7 comments )
From a Sirota article: "Cultural liberalism focusing on social issues that have only varying degrees of support among the general population is far different from full-throated Dobbs-style economic populism. It is undeniable that aside from Dobbs and a few politicians, America's political debate is almost entirely devoid of economic populists.'War on the Middle Class' confronts this problem head-on -- and thanks to Dobbs's passion and charisma, it succeeds in sounding an alarm that cannot be ignored."
Sirota: Dobbs-style populism, along with opposition to the Iraq War, was the overwhelming theme of the 2006 elections. There is no denying it. In the last few days, there have been a barrage of right-wingers and DLCers trying to hide this very simple fact. They have said the election was about Democrats pretending to be Republicans, citing people like Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb - even as Webb himself has appeared on Dobbs' show to give voice to the very kind of economic populism many of us have been pushing for years.
And, of course, even in the face of the New York Times' own news page admitting the rise of populism, we are asked by the Establishment revisionists to simply forget about the election of red-region economic populists like Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Heath Shuler, Nancy Boyda and others.
Writers like Tom Frank, Chris Hayes, Matt Taibbi, Bill Greider and I have for years been pushing this brand of politics, and for our efforts we have all been attacked by Washington insiders and Big Money interests. I remember vividly the DLC attacking me for publishing The Democrats' Da Vinci Code back in 2004 that proposed a populist national campaign strategy, citing real-world examples of how this strategy works in red regions of the country.
But we have stuck to our guns because polls show populism (aka. challenging economic power) is the "center" position in the public, even though it may not be the "center" position in a K-Street-owned Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, the true "center" won out over Washington's faux "center" - whether our status quo opponents in Washington's think tanks, cocktail parties, congressional cloakrooms and lobbying firms like it or not. [...]
...all in all, there is no denying that if Democrats want to hold a governing majority for the foreseeable future, they cannot continue to deny the populist outrage seething all over the country and highlighted by Dobbs book. They cannot continue to listen only to the former Clintonites now on K Street. They cannot continue to listen only to executives on Wall Street. They cannot continue to openly brag about how close they are to corporate lobbyists. They must see election 2006 for what it was: a mandate for economic populism and a battle cry against the hostile takeover of our government and against the War on the Middle Class.
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