Bill Clinton and Tony Blair Have a Warning for Progressives

[brooklynite]

Politico

Bill Clinton and Tony Blair no longer have power, but they still have advice. They perceive plenty of people in need of it.

The needy include progressives in the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party has not had power in a long while, and the United States, where the Democratic Party has power for now but looks likely to lose lots of it in midterm elections this fall. Together, they offered a fitness program of sorts for members of their own parties that they fear are getting badly out of shape.

Clinton urges progressives to rebuild atrophied muscles of persuasion. “I think one of the ways you win elections is by talking straight with people and giving them permission to vote against you,” he explains in the most recent edition of his podcast. In other words, don’t hector and moralize, as though the merits of your position should be self-evident to any decent person. Assume a position of modesty that argues, “If you really disagree with this, then you will go out and take another choice, but here’s why I think it’s better for you.”

Blair urges progressives to rebuild atrophied muscles of self-discipline. For much of the left, Blair said on Clinton’s program, it’s not clear that their main goal is really to win power or wield it: “Its primary purpose is to make itself feel good about itself, right? To convince itself that it’s principled, right? But that is in the end, something that leads you to self-indulgence.” Unless progressives commit to reclaiming the center in “culture wars,” Blair added, they’ll remain vulnerable to “some loose remark from someone” being exploited by the right and will be “hammered day in, day out. That’s just not competent politics.”

A reasonable question: Who cares what these superannuated politicians have to say? A reasonable answer: Even now, a generation after they came to power, Clinton and Blair are still the emblematic representatives of a distinct brand of progressive centrism.

[gab13by13]

1. I agree, we need more Joe Manchins and Joe Liebermans.

Bill Clinton ran as a progressive, was elected as a progressive but didn't govern that way. He reformed welfare, abolished Glass Steagall.

[In It to Win It]

2. From my view, I don't think we have much of a choice

but to embrace moderates if we hope to expand our Senate majority. There aren’t many states left, if any, where we can win or pick up a seat with a more liberal candidate.

[gab13by13]

6. What about Pennsylvania?

Are you telling me I made a mistake when I voted for the "liberal" Democrat Fetterman over the moderate Lamb?

Maybe Democrats win elections when they embrace Democratic values?

[In It to Win It]

11. You picked one state out of many

…and no I’m not specifically talking about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is 1 seat. I’m talking about gaining more than a 3 or 4 seat majority, which requires we win in more conservative states.

I think Pennsylvania is winnable with a more liberal candidate like Fetterman. I’m not from Pennsylvania but, personally, I thought Fetterman was the better choice.

[48656c6c6f20]

4. Funny

You're a funny person.

[betsuni]

5. Republicans had control of Congress for six years of his presidency.

[Mad_Machine76]

20. Crucial context

which I don't feel like a lot of people appreciate, just in the same way that the Democrats held Congress for 2 years under GWB, Obama had to deal with a divided Congress for 4 years and then a Republican Congress for the last 2. The way things seem to be bending, it looks like we may be looking at a Republican Congress again under Biden for at least the next 2 years. Whereas, Republicans had the WH and Congress for an almost unfettered 6 year period where they got to pass bills, tax cuts, and put Judges on the courts, including Alito and Roberts, starting the tilt of the court to the far right. A lot of people just think that Democrats suck because they can't control Republican obstructionism and then attack Democrats and refuse to vote because they think that their votes don't matter, thus practically giving more election cycles over to Republicans and then getting upset AGAIN that things suck more and more. I try to explain this to people on the left and they act like I'm just making excuses or being a party loyalist.

[Mad_Machine76]

21. All of which (in some cases)

would have been worse if Republicans were able to pass their own bills (possibly veto-proof) without his signature.

[Polybius]

23. Bill Clinton ran as a progressive?

Were you alive in 1992? He was always labeled as a New Democrat.

[Buckeyeblue]

27. That's not what Bill is saying

He is saying make your case based on the merits of your policy. Don't demean. Don't preach.

I think he's right.

Clinton was a very good president.

Like Obama, he saved the economy. He had both chambers of Congress flipped because his base didn't show up for him.

Honestly, if people hadn't turned so hard on Hillery, I think Clinton would have brought great reforms to Healthcare. The Wing-Nuts made Healthcare reform about Hillery and it was never able to get traction.

[Samrob]

28. I agree with you 100%.

Clinton wasn't a perfect man but he was a damned great president. He actually cared for the working man and marginalized citizens.

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Austerity as necessary!

And forget about Social Security, you lazy oafs.

[gab13by13]

8. Yeah, we must vote for 3rd Way neoliberals,

I get tired of hearing that nonsense.

[betsuni]

9. LOL Third Way Neoliberals. You forgot "status quo."

[AZSkiffyGeek]

19. Corporatist and DINO too!

[Hortensis]

7. Typical Politico hit job on liberalism, progressivism, and of course Democrats.

You know, you don't HAVE to post these, Brooklynite.

Politico's using its standard tool of weaponized, dishonestly redefined political terminology to confuse people about who Democrats are and what the Democratic Party stands for.

According to this, the genuine liberal progressivism that IS the core of Democratic Party ideology doesn't exist. The 80M liberal progressive Democratic voters who elected liberal progressive Biden don't exist.

This is their standard smear of Democrats, defining us as a conflation of the very unpopular radical anti-Democratic Progressives and socialists with a characterization on the other side of the spectrum of liberal progressive presidents as "failed centrists," i.e., using the loaded trigger term "centrism" to mean neither liberal nor progressive.

This "rebranding" of who we are works, of course. We lost 16 congressional seats alone to the Republicans in 2021, the main cause believed to be faux Prog and hostile media (Politico all in) successfully branding Democrats with "defund the police" and socialism to frighten away moderate swing voters, while branding Democrats as "third way" not-real-progressives to repel those who want the kind of progressive action the Biden administration and our congressional caucuses (all but a couple of senators) promised and are committed to.

[betsuni]

10. +1

[brooklynite]

13. I don't share the "right wing rag" "hit job" platitudes of some folks here.

They write positive and negative stories about both Parties.

I post things that are politically topical. Comments on the political situation by a former two term (and popular) DEMOCRATIC President fall into that category.

I'll also note that Clinton didn't criticize progressive POLICIES; he focused on progressive MESSAGING.

[Hortensis]

14. Obviously, you choose not to. Differences about where the line

should be drawn between hostile agitprop and honest discussion are assisted by the very confusion articles like this work so hard to create. Otherwise, imo anyway, hit-job articles meant to trigger and exacerbate wrongful anti-Democratic fears and prejudices would instead trigger a lot more protests and alerts.

Is an article a presentation of thoughtful, valid ideas or a delivery vehicle for anti-Democratic agitprop disguised as the former?

[CentralMass]

12. The progressive ideas that Biden has adopted are popular with the American people.

There were some bad ptogressive ideas like calling police reform/training "defundinhg the police". Although I acknowledge there are those who do actyally want to defund the police.

Going back to status quo third way politic is not going to achieve much. It helped put us into the downward economic spiral that brought the country to its knee
The republicans seem to get their agenda passed with or with a republican in the Whitehouse and get their supreme court pick etc.

We don't need to mold the party in Joe manchins image. 48 or 49 of our 50 Senate votes were onboard with the bills supporting Bidens agenda and that agenda has popular public support. Fighting for bipartisan solutions is useless when the repulican party has nothing to offer worth supporting.

[CTyankee]

26. If we need to "explain" the defunding police wording, we are losing the argument.

I'm glad we changed it, though. "Working with our police and other local agencies" expands the idea we are trying to get across. Everyone wants safe communities.

[CentralMass]

29. +1

[Autumn]

15. I'll put their warning in the file.

I think maybe they have confused Manchin and Sinema with progressives.

[gab13by13]

17. I live among the Magats in central Pa.

I used to write letters to the editor of the local right wing newspaper. There were only 3 or 4 Democrats who wrote letters. The editor of the paper even called me his commie pinko buddy. It didn't deter me from writing letters, I embraced the name calling.

Finally they started editing my letters and refusing to print them. I went to the office of the paper and handed then a letter that would never be published, it also told them not to renew my subscription.

[blogslug]

18. Progressives move center and center-right politicians to the LEFT

Where they should be.

[Hortensis]

22. Progressives believe in progressive government.

Most tRumpists are progressive lite, wanting a whole slew of government programs to serve them, just don't know it by that term. There's nothing new about RW progressivism. President Eisenhower ran on it.

Now, if you're talking about Progressives as a labeled political movement, I have to disagree. Recent history demonstrates indisputably that the LW populist Progressive movement has been helping move the nation far right by electing hard-core anti-progressive, anti-tax, anti-regulation Republicans and advancing trumpist fascism.

ACTIONS define. Not slogans. Not good intentions in people who didn't read the small print their leaders never published.

[CentralMass]

24. Hell no.

[JI7]

25. Clinton is right. Didn't read the part about Blair but Labour has

been out of power and it's their own fault.

[AZProgressive]

30. These are 2 I don't listen to

Especially Bush’s poodle. How do you claim the center in a culture war? The right is pushing bans on CRT, LGBT, and abortion so what is the center to that? We want to ban CRT too!

How could I forget the Iraq war which Bill Clinton wasn’t responsible for but Blair was.