DNC and the Stringer Bell approach

The DLC Lives: “Third Way” Democrats Are Trying to Push the Party Rightward
link:http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39986-third-way-democrats-are-trying-to-push-the-party-rightward

Stringer Bell had a problem. On HBO’s show “The Wire,” the rather learned kingpin was concerned that the drugs his gang sold on the streets of West Baltimore were too weak, which jeopardized their control of the streets. So, in a memorable scene, Bell, who was taking economics courses at a community college, asked his instructor, “What are the options if you have an inferior product in an aggressive marketplace?” The instructor offered him some prescient advice, mentioning how WorldCom (now MCI Inc.) once faced a similar problem.

“The company was linked to one of the largest fraud cases in history,” he said. “So, they decided to change the name.”

Bell adopted the strategy. West Baltimore was soon flooded with the same inferior product, but with a slew of flashy new names.

The world of politics and ideas is an especially aggressive marketplace. Here, so-called centrist “New Democrats” adopted a very similar approach. For many years, Democrats proudly associated themselves with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a powerful group founded in the 1980s that sought to build a Democratic Party “liberated”­ from labor and grounded in “support for free market and free trade economics … an end to the politics of ‘entitlement’ [and] a rejection of affirmative action.”

At the height of its power the DLC was the dominant force in the party, boasting President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as its acolytes. But like Bell’s weak narcotics, the DLC, which supported the Iraq War and received money from the likes of the Koch Brothers, soon became a tainted brand. Long before 2011, when the organization dissolved, the DLC label hung around politicians like a scarlet letter. Even President Obama publicly distanced himself from the organization in 2004 as he ascended as a national figure.

So, eager to maintain power and influence, New Democrats did what Stringer Bell ended up doing. They changed the name.

“I don’t think the people who ran the DLC ever really left,” said Norman Solomon, a coordinator for RootsAction, in an interview with Truthout. “It is the same product, different name.” Indeed, the DLC agenda is carried out today by think tanks like the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Third Way, which push the same regressive agenda but under different labels, and with less public scrutiny. As the Boston Globe described in 2014, Third Way usually works “behind the scenes — in the White House, the corridors of Congress, and the office suites of lobbying firms in downtown Washington.”

Now, as Democrats face an existential crisis in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, these fundamentally conservative organizations, armed with millions in corporate donations, are working with a renewed aggressiveness in the public sphere. They are attempting to convince the party to shun its base and further embrace the so-called “vital center,” and the corporatism that has long defined these groups.

If Third Way succeeds, the Democrats will leave an opening for right-wing “populism” to thrive long after the Trump presidency. If this happens, Americans will increasingly (and correctly) see Democrats as a party run by the establishment, and serving the interests of its donors, rather than the working class. This is why progressive activists are fighting hard to rid the party of Democrats who embrace this agenda….see link