Posted on 07/24/2016 3:55:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Does Hillary Clinton understand that the biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left, but between the anti-establishment and the establishment?
I worry she doesn’t – at least not yet.
A Democratic operative I’ve known since the Bill Clinton administration told me “now that she’s won the nomination, Hillary is moving to the middle. She’s going after moderate swing voters.”
Presumably that’s why she tapped Tim Kaine to be her vice president. Kaine is as vanilla middle as you can get.
In fairness, Hillary is only doing what she knows best. Moving to the putative center is what Bill Clinton did after the Democrats lost the House and Senate in 1994 – signing legislation on welfare reform, crime, trade, and financial deregulation that enabled him to win reelection in 1996 and declare “the era of big government” over.
In those days a general election was like a competition between two hot-dog vendors on a boardwalk extending from right to left. Each had to move to the middle to maximize sales. (If one strayed too far left or right, the other would move beside him and take all sales on rest of the boardwalk.)
But this view is outdated. Nowadays, it’s the boardwalk versus the private jets on their way to the Hamptons.
The most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a system rigged by big corporations, Wall Street, and the super-wealthy.
This is a big reason why Donald Trump won the Republican nomination. It’s also why Bernie Sanders took 22 states in the Democratic primaries, including a majority of Democratic primary voters under age 45.
There are no longer “moderates.” There’s no longer a “center.” There’s authoritarian populism (Trump) or democratic populism (which had been Bernie’s “political revolution,” and is now up for grabs).
And then there’s the Republican establishment (now scattered to the winds), and the Democratic establishment.
If Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party don’t recognize this realignment, they’re in for a rude shock – as, I’m afraid, is the nation. Because Donald Trump does recognize it. His authoritarian (“I’ am your voice”) populism is premised on it.
“In five, ten years from now,” Trump says, “you’re going to have a worker’s party. A party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry.”
Speaking at a factory in Pennsylvania in June, he decried politicians and financiers who had betrayed Americans by “taking away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families.”
Worries about free trade used to be confined to the political left. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, people who say free-trade deals are bad for America are more likely to lean Republican.
The problem isn’t trade itself. It’s a political-economic system that won’t cushion working people against trade’s downsides or share trade’s upsides. In other words, a system that’s rigged.
Most basically, the anti-establishment wants big money out of politics. This was the premise of Bernie Sanders’s campaign. It’s also been central to Donald (“I’m so rich I can’t be bought off”) Trump’s appeal, although he’s now trolling for big money.
A recent YouGov/Economist poll found that 80 percent of GOP primary voters who preferred Donald Trump as the nominee listed money in politics as an important issue, and a Bloomberg Politics poll shows a similar percentage of Republicans opposed to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision.
Getting big money out of politics is of growing importance to voters in both major parties. A June New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 84 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans want to fundamentally change or completely rebuild our campaign finance system.
Last January, a DeMoines Register poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers found 91 percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats unsatisfied or “mad as hell” about money in politics.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to move toward the “middle.” In fact, such a move could hurt her if it’s perceived to be compromising the stances she took in the primaries in order to be more acceptable to Democratic movers and shakers.
She needs to move instead toward the anti-establishment – forcefully committing herself to getting big money out of politics, and making the system work for the many rather than a privileged few.
She must make clear Donald Trump’s authoritarian populism is a dangerous gambit, and the best way to end crony capitalism and make America work for the many is to strengthen American democracy.
Does Robert Reich not understand that if Hillary tried to portray herself as anti-establishment, NO ONE would believe her, and Trump would mock her mercilessly?
Bill Clinton didn’t have 50% of the vote in either of his elections. Hillary doesn’t have a 3rd party Ross Perot type to help divide the right wing votes.
Sorry Hillary, the math just ain’t gonna’ work for ya’.
Bobby Reisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshh seems to get it.
I despise this man, but he is calling out the obvious, here.
There is absolutely no way for Hillary to distance herself from herself, though.
What Reich doesn’t understand is that people also want ‘real’, and that just by virtue of the fact that he and the rest of Hillary’s operatives from the left are driven to find ‘the angles’, and the best ways to manipulate voters, rather than having the candidate actually say what she really believes is a huge part of the problem. One wouldn’t need so many political strategists if one actually had a central core that was predicted on principle instead of self.
predicted = predicated.
Hillary Clinton disavow big money in politics you say? Tell me more.
What we have here is a soaring opus from a Gravitationally challenged individual
She gets it but only from Huma
Reich thinks Hillary comes up a little short.
AND, along the way,off topic but interesting re Dimwitocrats we get -——Any twosome NEWSOM
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom plagiarized an attack
on Donald Trump on Friday evening, presenting work by a retired Air Force officer as if it were his own, and signing it with his name.
Newsom later admitted the plagiarism, once caught.
Hillary can’t make over herself, that would look even more desperate, but she could have gone down that path for a VP pick, if anyone authentic would have her. It would at least be an acknowledgement she is ready to fight.
She hasn’t “got it” yet but I hope she does before this election is over. POW! To the moon!
Reich is right.
Because taking advice from a malignant twisted dwarf
is the right thing to do....
ROFLMAO!!! Hey Reich, you do realize this is HILLARY CLINTON you're supposed to be talking about?!?!
Get money out of politics?
Hillary is in politics for the money.
The best she could do is lie about getting money out of politics. Of course that what little Robby really means.
It is impossible for Hillary Clinton to do this credibly.
Impossible.
But it'll be funny watching her try.
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