The Corbynization of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party’s current festival of re-examination is both necessary and justified. They have just lost to the most unpopular presidential candidate in recent memory. Lockstep media support and a much larger war chest were not enough to save them from losing not only the presidency, but also in state races across the country.
Since President Obama’s first election, Democrats have lost control of the House and Senate, as well as a dozen governors’ houses and roughly 900 state legislative seats. Republicans have control of all levels of government in 24 states, while Democrats have total control over six. Overall, the party seems incapable of reaching out to the middle part of the country, white and middle-class voters.
This contrasts with the 1990s, when a group of party activists consciously rebuilt the party to appeal to middle-class Americans. Groups like the Democratic Leadership Council — for whose think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute, I worked for several years — pushed notions of personal responsibility, welfare reform, tough crime policies and economic growth that, embraced by Bill Clinton, expanded the party’s base in the Midwest, the Appalachians and even the Southeast.
Leftward Ho!
Such a shift to the middle is unlikely today. Progressives generally see Hillary Clinton’s loss as largely a rejection of her husband’s neoliberal policies and want to push the party further to the left.
This parallels developments in the United Kingdom, where, following their defeat in 2015, the Labour Party promoted a far-left figure, Jeremy Corbyn, as its leader. This was driven by grassroots progressives — deeply green, multiculturalist and openly socialist. Many, including several high up in Labour’s parliamentary party, believe the party has little chance to win under such leadership.
Democrats face a similar dilemma. Driven by their dominant academic and media “thought police,” any shift to the middle on issues like crime, climate change or regulation now seems unimaginable. Self-described progressives who now dominate the party generally adhere to a series of policies — from open borders to draconian climate change policies — that are unlikely to play well outside the coastal enclaves.
Some of the criticism of Clintonian neoliberalism is somewhat justified. As the emergence of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump suggests, support for globalization and free trade has weakened in both parties. This reflects the fact that economic gains have become increasingly concentrated since Clinton left office, and even under the progressive hero, Barack Obama. It’s hard to argue, as the DLC did 25 years ago, for a more market-based system when the vast majority fail to benefit while the upper echelons do much better.
So it is no surprise, then, that the hyperregulatory and redistributionist agendas epitomized by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are now ascendant. This pattern is exacerbated by the party’s increasing indifference to economic growth, in large part, due to their embrace of draconian climate change policies. Climate change policies, as now constituted, tend to suppress higher-wage, blue-collar employment. If you give up on growth to save the planet, the only real solution remaining is massive redistribution, including a web of subsidies to make up for the lack of income growth, affordable housing and economic opportunity.
The multiculti trap
The Corbynization of the Democratic Party also turns on militant multiculturalism. This agenda is shaped, as in Britain, by a disjointed concert of grievance groups, ranging from gender activists to those who claim to represent Latinos, African Americans, Asians, Muslims and others, whose alienation has been exacerbated by Trump’s triumph. Trump’s nationalist rhetoric is particularly disliked by progressives who, as author and New America fellow Michael Lind notes in a recent National Review column, find the very idea of borders and national interests reactionary and inherently racist.
This identity politics, some liberals note, has driven many whites into a defensive crouch and pushed them toward the Republicans. Yet, there is little sign that the party will move in their direction. After all, Hillary labeled them “deplorables” — not much of a sales pitch. After the election, progressive journalists have portrayed Trump voters as irredeemably racist, misogynist, stupid and even too “fat.” Summing up, suggests Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, there’s no such thing as a “good Trump voter.”
Inside the progressive echo chamber, many still believe that an alliance of minorities, gender activists and millennials will make their victory inevitable. This can be seen in the tendency of Democrats, just as there is a palpable rise in crime, to invite the militant Black Lives Matter movement into their tent.
Perhaps nothing more illustrates the Corbynite trend than the proposal to make Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Ellison does check off the diversity boxes, but also would place in party leadership someone who has embraced the Nation of Islam, supports the boycott of Israeli products and has compared 9-11 to the Reichstag fire that facilitated the Nazi dictatorship.
Going left may be emotionally satisfying to Democrats who feel abandoned by their less progressive fellow citizens. But abandoning the middle of the spectrum does not seem an effective way to get back into power.
Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).
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