Moving Past the DLC
Thomas Frank’s book “Listen, Liberal” discusses how the post-war Democratic Party came to rely on well-meaning problem solving, and evolved into a party of technocratic experts. During this long process, increasing value was put on educational credentials, while “mere” blue collar workers were gradually written out of the picture. Unions supported Democrats, but the same relationship did not work in reverse. From the Amazon review:
“Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all… Frank’s Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party’s philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party’s old working-class commitment, he finds.”
This all started to falter when Reagan won in 1980, with the support of hordes of former Democrats. After getting whupped and losing a chunk of its base, the Democratic Party doubled down with the DLC, seeing a future that consisted of white collar, middle-manager types. Clinton won in 1992, and pushed this strategy further. He gladly went along with “entitlement” “reform,” criminal justice “reform,” and policies that appealed to middle-class resentments.
The Democrats had become the party of the professional class, not the working class. The working class was largely left unrepresented. (Frank also predicted that Hillary would lose in 2016 for just this reason — mainstream Dems had almost completely disconnected from blue collar workers, expecting their votes but not coming through for them in any real way. Even Obama offered a “Grand Bargain” on Social Security.) The Democrats favored those with elite, Ivy-level education as being more valuable to society, and Republicans played against that as well by denigrating the educated.
Bernie Sanders is our first and only post-DLC candidate.
Elizabeth Warren has some good plans. But she also appeals to wealthier, higher-educated white liberals. Speaking personally as a liberal with higher education, many in our demo still have faith in the idea that the Dems can fix our problems by relying on the top minds in a field. That’s why Warren’s “I have a plan” strategy is so appealing for many. But it only tinkers with an existing system that has already been built to bypass the working class. It’s a near-perfect embodiment of the “technocratic expert” syndrome that helped the Dems lose their spot as the dominant American party.
There’s a reason why Third Way and Wall Street are “warming” to a Warren candidacy. There’s a reason why her progressive proposals are mostly focused on her particular area of technocratic expertise. There’s a reason why she talks about Medicare for All but still hasn’t put her detailed plans on her Web site.
Warren isn’t actually unique; she’s well within the post-war Democratic Party tradition of targeting the upper middle class, and her candidacy, and would-be presidency, is vulnerable to repeating the ways that the Democratic Party has weakened itself.
