Robert Reich: we may need a new opposition party if Democrats fail

[closeupready]

From his FB feed:

If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big Tuesday it’s this: Median family income continues to drop, the first “recovery” when this has occurred. Meanwhile, all the economic gains are going to the richest Americans. If the Republicans think they can reverse this through their supply-side, trickle-down, fiscal austerity policies, they’re profoundly mistaken. The public will soon discover this. But if the Democrats believe they can reverse it simply by raising taxes on the rich and redistributing to everyone else, they are mistaken, too.

We need to raise the minimum wage, invest in education and infrastructure, lift the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, resurrect Glass-Steagall and limit the size of the banks, make it easier for low-wage workers to unionize, raise taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to average worker pay, and much more. In other words, we need an agenda for shared prosperity. Over the next two years the Democrats have an opportunity to advance one. If they fail to do so, we’ll need a new opposition party that represents the interests of the vast majority.

Sorry if this was already posted.

Very strong language from someone who served in the administration of one of the most popular Democratic presidents ever. But he's correct, IMO.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. I'm about ready to start working on one.

When was the last time you heard a national Democrat mention poor people? The rhetoric is all about the middle class, but the policies seem to be all about pleasing the corporations.

[polichick]

3. Me too - been ready for a while...

Gotta walk the walk, not just talk enough to fool the people.

[Zorra]

5. Here's a ready made political platform that may save you some work.

It should already be the current Democratic party platform.

http://www.gp.org/what-we-believe/our-platform

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. Hey, that platform looks pretty good! (Am I allowed to say that here?)

Perhaps a little compare and contrast is in order?

[99th_Monkey]

27. True dat.~nt~

[polichick]

2. Reich talked about running early on...

Is he getting closer?

[closeupready]

4. Seems like he's thinking about it.

[Bandit]

6. Sign me up

I am about done completely with the so called "Democratic Party".. The "People's Party" ..What a joke. the people suffer while the wealthy thrive..Beginning in 2006 the American people wanted change. They craved it and elected Democrats in overwhelming numbers and what happened, the banks got bailed out and most everyone else could just fuck off....I am still craving change but it is obvious the Democrats won't be the impetuous for it.

[Bragi]

7. Be careful what you wish for

In Canada, we have not one, but three, national parties occupying the center-center-left, which is where most Canadians fall on the political spectrum. We have only one right wing party that attracts between 35 and 40 per cent of the vote.

The result is that the "united" right wing gets to form governments with less than 40 per cent of the vote. The parties that represent 6 in 10 voters, meanwhile, get to be the opposition.

So, multi-party systems can be quite undemocratic, as is the case in Canada. Until the NDP and the Libs decide not to beat the shit out of each other every election, the Conservatives will continue to rule Canada.

Sadly, this appears to be the case for the next election, scheduled for the fall of 2015. We are truly fucked because we don't have a united alternative.

[DonCoquixote]

8. nods

Harper has done to Canada what a graffiti punk would do to a Mona Lisa.

[Bragi]

15. That's unfair to graffiti punks /nt

[pnwmom]

11. Thank you very much for the needed reality check, Bragi. n/t

[jeff47]

21. We don't have a united alternative either. (nt)

[Nye Bevan]

9. "The party of the Reich"? Led by Robert?

Actually, I don't think that quite works.....

[rhett o rick]

18. "The 'Robert' Reich" I don't think so. nm

[pnwmom]

10. That worked so well in Canada.

Where a minority conservative was able to take over, thanks to the division among progressives.

[HereSince1628]

12. I think the idea is to retain the base, and get a new table top

the political version of up-grading a kitchen

It's the same old room, with a much better look and more easily cleaned surfaces.

[pnwmom]

19. I don't think politics are nearly that simple. n/t

[Chathamization]

23. It's like deciding you need a new kitchen, so you burn down your house and move across the country

to get one.

[HereSince1628]

25. Maybe more like fighting with a spouse who likes the kitchen the way it is

When the counter top is introducing food poisoning into every meal, it's time to really think about the pain of renovation.

[Chathamization]

38. Unless you refuse to remodel the kitchen because you say it's impossible so you need a new house

We can change the party leadership now if we choose to; most don't. And starting a new party isn't going to change that, because you're going to have to deal with internal politics if you want a specific kind of leadership no matter what the party is called.

All starting a new party would mean is years of difficult effort, division, and vote splitting that gives the Republicans control, in order to end up back again at the exact same place, with the exact same problem - except the party will be called "The Green Party" or "The Progressive Party" or something. Calling the party "The Green Party" doesn't make it immune from problematic individuals inside the party (and anyone that's been paying attention to the internal politics of the Green Party is probably aware of this). And if you're interested in changing the leadership of a political party, nothing is stopping people from changing the leadership of the Democratic party right now.

It's a silly idea that would take a lot of work and sacrifice in order to accomplish nothing. And seems more like an excuse to avoid actual substantive changes than anything else.

[HereSince1628]

43. The "leadership" is a bunch of advisors and consultants...think

about people treated like idea geniuses who have no loyalty to voters and who can actually be turncoats like Al From

We've got to face reality... the leaders of this thing we call THE PARTY are really the people the politicians look to for guidance.

They determine the direction of the party by urging their politician clients to form cliques that move in coordinated directions the advisors and consultants consider 'winners' and that can be 'sold' to groups of the donor class, from whose pockets the advisors and consultants are actually paid.

The only way to dump such an unelected "leadership" is to give them losses in the face of competing victories.

And thereby the client politicians come to not see them as geniuses anymore.

It's party renovation by introducing and backing people who are moving against the current of losing advice. In the end, the base stays put, the people who are put forward and the people at the top get exchanged for people who better match the base.

The elitist bullcrap we've lived the past 20 is simply demoralizing the base

[Chathamization]

45. Candidates are chosen by the electorate, state party members are chosen by the electorate, and

members of the DNC largely come from the democratically elected state parties. The reason why many of these don't answer much to the public at large is because the public at large has chosen to ignore these elections and accept whoever gets chosen and whatever they do.

Party renovation is great, but how does a new party help with that? It's a pointless distraction. Again, if you ever actually succeeded in getting all the Democrats to migrate over to the new party (not going to happen, but let's pretend), all you'd have accomplished is renaming the party. There's nothing about having a new party that magically protects against career politicians and insiders, and there's nothing about getting rid of the people at the top that requires having a new party.

[HereSince1628]

47. I'm not advocating a new party...I'm advocating a new leadership

It might seem like a new party to some, but it'll be the same party under a different management

It'll come by enthusiastically backing candidates swimming against the prevailing program of the advisors.

You don't have to destroy the party, you have to make a few people iconic, popular winners, the advisors will notice and their client politicians will notice.

They WILL emulate other winners.

It's the same approach that triangulation is founded on...be like the winners. Only in this version, the winners win from the left.

[Chathamization]

49. Well then, we agree.

The tactic talked about in the OP, ditching the Democratic party and trying to start again from the ground up with a new party, seems like a pointless waste of time. But you're absolutely right, we do need new leadership. Part of the problem is getting people to actually notice and participate. We have a fairly horrible local party here (they broke their bylaws and suspended elections for two years because they felt like it), but when a slate of reformers tried to change them, almost all of the reformers lost. And honestly, I think the main reason was the name of the slate (the incumbent slate was "Democrats Moving Forward&quot , which is the only thing the vast majority of the few who bothered showing up probably knew about that race.

So yeah, we need to reform the party (I think they're creating a new sub-group under "Democrats" about that), but a lot of it is going to be about getting people informed and getting them to show up. One of the big reasons why we have so many horrible people in positions of power is that most people don't know and don't care.

[Bragi]

14. Quite so!

And the divisions among Canada's progressive majority continue today such that the less-than 4 out of 10 Canadians who typically vote conservative will be able to re-elect Harper in 2015 once again, for another 4 years of misery for all of us.

My advice to my American progressives: DO NOT set up a system where you cast your votes for more than 1 party, or the GOP will be in power forever.

[shaayecanaan]

24. nonsense

The problem in that sense is the reactionary voting system. Plenty of av voting systems such as in Australia and Europe allow people to vote for third parties if they wish.

[Jim Lane]

26. Here in the reality-based community, it's not nonsense, it's stark truth.

You don't like our current voting system. Fine, feel free to agitate to change it (probably requiring a constitutional amendment). All I ask is that you recognize that it's our current voting system.

That means that, for the next election and probably quite a few thereafter, we're operating under a system that's based almost entirely on plurality elections. In 2016, if people dissatisfied with the Democratic Party stomp off and join the Greens or the Socialist Workers or start another left-based minor party, they'll be absenting themselves from the actual battle being fought. If enough people do that, a right-winger with only minority support will nevertheless win. I'm thinking most immediately of the Presidency, but it's true for many downticket offices as well.

Yes, there are other conceivable systems (such as IRV) that would let voters cast their protest votes in the general election and still weigh in on the choice between the two people who have an actual chance to win. There are also systems, such as proportional representation, in which more than two parties can end up with significant representation in the legislature. Our system is different, though. The mechanism here is that you can cast your protest vote in the primary. Then in the general, you have the opportunity (your sole opportunity) to express your preference between the two candidates with broad-based support.

[JDPriestly]

29. The Democratic Party leadership needs to change so that it can attract voters in off-year elections.

"In 2016, if people dissatisfied with the Democratic Party stomp off and join the Greens or the Socialist Workers or start another left-based minor party, they'll be absenting themselves from the actual battle being fought."

What you are not understanding is that hard-pressed ordinary Americans who haven't seen a real raise or improvement in their living standard or the security of their jobs for years now ARE ALREADY "ABSENTING THEMSELVES" FROM THE ELECTIONS.

It's the leadership of the Democratic Party that is absenting itself from the actual battle that ordinary people are fighting.

I keep hearing from young people I talk to that they can't tell the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. They both offer the corporate solution to everything.

And yesterday I read that Obama wants to be even more generous to Chinese students and the Chinese who hold temporary visas for our country. How could he be more out of tune with young Americans who have to compete with debt-free foreigners for low-wage jobs even though they have degrees and speak native English?

The leadership of the Democratic Party is not even interested in providing an even playing field for American working people.. Np wonder voters stay home or vote for the outlandish promises of Republicans.

[ReRe]

33. [phone]

[bvar22]

46. "they'll be absenting themselves from the actual battle being fought."

What "battle" is that?

[Jim Lane]

50. I'll give you just one example out of many that could be adduced.

Let's consider the expansion of Medicaid that was available under the ACA.

This map shows that some Republican governors, like Christie, have gone along with expansion, however grudgingly. In general, though, Medicaid has been expanded in states with Democratic leadership and has not been expanded in states with Republican leadership.

What difference does expansion make? Physicians for a National Health Program did this report on research on the subject:

The decision by 25 states to reject the expansion of Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act will result in between 7,115 and 17,104 more deaths than had all states opted in, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School and the City University of New York.
. . . .
In addition to the thousands of excess deaths associated with that lack of coverage, the rejection of the Medicaid expansion will have the following likely impacts:
* 712,037 more persons diagnosed with depression
* 240,700 more persons suffering catastrophic medical expenses
* 422,533 fewer diabetics receiving medication
* 195,492 fewer women receiving mammograms and
* 443,677 fewer women receiving pap smears

So, it's that battle -- the battle to save thousands of people from dying and to save hundreds of thousands of people from suffering.

In many elections, to vote for an imperfect Democrat is to enter that battle on the side of the men, women, and children who need your help. To vote for a no-hoper minor party candidate is to refuse to enter that battle.

[LondonReign2]

57. Did any of the Democratic Senate nominees run on expanding Medicare?

[Jim Lane]

58. I don't know. I was talking about expanding Medicaid, not Medicare.

The obvious way to expand Medicare would be to make more age groups eligible. It's occasionally been suggested, as one way of phasing in single payer, that the Medicare eligibility age be lowered gradually (e.g., by two years every year or by five years every year). Ted Kennedy proposed coming at the problem from the opposite direction, with his "Medicare for Children" bill. I think that had some support from other Democrats, too, but not enough to have a serious chance of enactment.

[LondonReign2]

64. Sorry, Medicaid. Did any of illustrious Senate nomiees run on expanding Medicaid?

Or any other program to help the 99%?

[Jim Lane]

69. Medicaid expansion is a state issue, but the Senate candidates should have pushed other issues.

For example, in Congress, the general pattern was that Democrats supported extending unemployment benefits, raising the minimum wage, and taking action on the student loan problem, while Republicans opposed all those things. My personal opinion is that too many Democratic candidates were afraid of hammering on these differences. The Republicans could easily have been painted as indifferent to the 99%.

I do remember seeing a TV ad that Mark Pryor was running. His father, a former Senator, talked about the time that Mark had cancer. The gist of the ad was how the ACA can literally save the lives of people who otherwise wouldn't have health insurance. Evidently, someone in the campaign thought that, even in conservative Arkansas, a Democrat could benefit by pointing out how Democratic policies had benefited ordinary people.

It seems logical to me that more of that would have been a good idea, although I must of course admit that Pryor lost anyway.

[LondonReign2]

70. "too many Democratic candidates were afraid of hammering on these differences"

Yes, that's my point exactly. The Democrats refused to act like traditional Democrats and stand up for policies that helped people. And they got hammered for it.

[bvar22]

68. Medicaid ERxpansion in Red STates was the PERFECT issue for the 2014 mid-terms.

The Red States that refused the expansion should have been placarded wall to wall with these kinds of billboards:

[font size=4] When RICH People get sick,
they go to a doctor.
YOU could too
IF you had a Democratic Governor!

[/font]

Maybe I blacked it out, but I don't remember much of a fight at all in the Red States over the Medicaid Expansion.

It was the PERFECT issue.

[font size=4] Over 8,000 (or whatever) Alabamans will DIE this year because they have no Health Insurance.
This wouldn't happen if you had a Democratic Governor!

[/font]

Do you recall ANY "battle" like that over the Medicaid Expansion this year?

[Jim Lane]

72. It worked for McAuliffe last year.

Re Terry McAuliffe's winning the Virginia governorship in 2013: "Expanding Medicaid was a central part of McAuliffe's campaign for governor, and a promise he's been working on since taking office in January." (from this story) Unfortunately for a few hundred thousand Virginians, the Republicans in the state legislature have still blocked it, except for a limited measure McAuliffe was able to implement to help a small fraction of the uninsured.

Some Republican governors, fearing the kind of campaign attack you outline, have capitulated in advance. An example is Kasich, in Ohio, who was up for re-election this year. He might have been vulnerable to the same kind of campaign that worked for McAuliffe. Kasich saw the writing on the wall, however, and went around the legislature to implement Medicaid expansion. The Freepers were absolutely furious with him over this. If he seeks the Republican nomination for President, the true believers in the base will hold it against him. The benefit to Kasich, however, was that he deprived his Democratic opponent of the argument, and he did in fact win re-election.

In terms of the "battle" that you and I have been discussing, I think this is a good example. The progressive side won that battle, in a sense without firing a shot, because Kasich knew that the Democrats were capable of firing those shots. The mere threat of an attack on the issue made it worthwhile for him to jeopardize his White House ambitions by angering the conservatives.

I was focusing mainly on the Senate this year. As a result, I can't tell you whether any of the recalcitrant governors and state legislators faced the kind of placarding you outline. I agree with you that in many states it would have been very effective -- and, obviously, people like Kasich agree with us, too.

[hifiguy]

13. The good professor is quite correct.

The institutional Democratic party is committing slow-motion suicide by moving ever farther to the right. It is now roughly where the mid-1970s post-Nixon/pre-Reagan Republican party was on all economic issues, if not to its right.

Sell your soul to the corporate PTB and you lose your soul. And that is what the DLC did and the Turd Way continues to do. Does the real Democratic party really want a nominee who is joined at the hip to Goldman and pals around with war criminal Henry Kissinger? The whirring you hear is FDR, HST, JFK and LBJ spinning, dervish-like, in their graves.

[mmonk]

56. Best post in this thread for those of us that continue to carry the torch.

[rhett o rick]

17. He couldn't be more wrong. Forming a new progressive party is exactly

what the Oligarchs want. It's bad enough that the progressives don't have many voices in Congress, but we will have far fewer with a third party.

Also, the grassroots Democrats are hard working and have principles. It's just the leadership we need to change out. Not an easy task but we can't avoid it.

Starting a third party would mean abandoning the millions of dollars worth of infrastructure via the Democratic Party.

The only way out is to kick the Conservatives out of our party and sell progressive-ism to the public.

[pnwmom]

20. +1000. Please let's not follow Canada's mistaken path. n/t

[jwirr]

31. I have a question. I know who the visible leaders of the Democratic Party are. Is there a shadow

leadership that we do not know? For instance how leads at the Convention? What are we talking about when we need to get rid of the leadership.

[rhett o rick]

42. We need a progressive administration. Pres Obama's administration is almost 100% Conservatives.

Conservatives work for the Corps and not the people.

[closeupready]

34. Sure - if you like losing.

[rhett o rick]

40. Let me see if I can guess what you are inferring. If the progressives break off and form a new

party, then they will all of a sudden start winning? Did I get it correct?

[closeupready]

44. Incorrect. I will say that if Democrats keep doing what they're doing,

they will lose ever faster. Sound good to you?

[rhett o rick]

52. I agree, but it's still not clear whether you agree with forming a third party or not. nm

[closeupready]

53. It doesn't matter what I think. Reich's opinion, on the other hand, does.

Considering he is a public figure who served as Secretary of Labor under Democrat Bill Clinton's administration.

As I've said before, I distrust Reich for his efforts in helping to sell NAFTA to a then-reluctant Congress, but considering his CV, if this isn't a wake-up call for Democrats, I don't know what would be.

[TheKentuckian]

39. I prefer this route too but don't think it will save much pain because the Turd Way is not going to

give so they will have to be removed like the cancer cells they are.

[rhett o rick]

41. There isn't going to be an easy way, but forming a third party is exactly what the Oligarchs want.

H. Clinton-Sachs would have no trouble winning the nomination if the progressives were not in the party. And a third party probably wouldn't even get acknowledged by the Corps-Media.

[merrily]

60. +1

[Chathamization]

22. What a horrible idea. If we were able to even get 10% of Democratic voters to show up to

the primaries and vote for progressive candidates, we'd have a ton of progressive candidates right now. We can't get even a fraction of the people on the left to come up and vote for progressives, so either:

1. You believe that the vast majority of Democratic voters are too apathetic to vote for Democratic progressives, but involved enough to abandon the Democratic party en masse and start organizing for and donating too a new political party. "He's too busy to give us a ride to the airport, so we should ask him to drive us all the way to New York instead."

2. You believe that progressive candidates are going to have more support amongst conservative Americans than liberal Americans.

Hopefully the insanity of these two positions, and of the suggestion of a new party in general, is self evident.

[JDPriestly]

28. Now this is the kind of plan that Democrats need to put forward!

Thank you, Robert Reich. At least one Democrat has some workable ideas and above all a vision for a new America.

[DeSwiss]

30. May?

- K&R

[deafskeptic]

32. This is why I'm registered as an independent. I lean left though. n/t

[Savannahmann]

35. Sorry

For the last week all we've been hearing is how the candidates didn't shout about the great accomplishments of President Obama and his most awesomest economic recovery in the history of history man.

Now, the message is that the economic recovery isn't that great? Man, I've seen people called RW trolls for less here.

[merrily]

61. Are you saying Reich is a right wing troll?

At this point, I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just trying to understand what you are saying.

[WillyT]

36. K & R !!!

[New Deal Dave]

37. I'm for a new party

We could call it the Progressive Party or the Labor Party.

There are a lot of one percenters in the Democratic Party driving things.

[madville]

48. I anticipate a viable Hispanic Party forming in the future

It would most likely startup in the SW, California, Arizona, Texas, and spread from there. Hopefully they would caucus with the Democrats if they won some House a seats or something.

The dangerous part of that is that it could potentially take 10-20% from the Democrats and put a state like California into play in the Presidential contest one day.

[DonCoquixote]

51. it is not enough to separate a party

because, as others have pointed out, mutiple parties will divide the left into parts that are easier to shout down; that si why Canada is run by W.s little clone, Harper.

What we need to do is take a page from the Koch playbook, make a a faction within the party that upsets tha apple cart, our answer to the tea Party. The GOP,much as Mitch McConell would LOVE Ted Cruz to shut up, knows they cannot kick the Tea party out. They also know that in places like Florida, the tea party has the Giovernor'smansion. So, lets for our faction, and take some positions that cannot be ignored.

[Orsino]

54. If there were enough of us to bail for a more progressive party...

...there would be far more than enough of us to push the Democratic Party significantly to the left.

[merrily]

62. Not necessarily.

[Orsino]

65. Necessarily.

If we can create a significant new party, the same number of us can significantly shift the Democratic Party.

[merrily]

66. No matter how many times you repeat the same notion, I still disagree.

If politicians bowed to numbers, we'd have a very different country.

[Orsino]

67. Then what would be the point of a new party? n/t

[TBF]

55. If? nt

[LeftinOH]

63. No. We don't have a Parliament. n/t

[AverageJoe90]

71. As much respect as I have for Rob Reich.....I'm afraid this won't work right now.

We're going to have to wait for the Republicans to either shape up or fade into relative obscurity before we can take such a gamble.