Writing in The Week on Monday, Ryan Cooper argued that the Democrats have betrayed their New Deal heritage for a mess of neoliberalism. “Up through about the early 1970s, it had been a fairly straightforward working-class party, but after a generation of reform, under Bill Clinton it stood for a muddle of capitalism worship leavened with means-tested welfare programs,” Cooper contended. “At bottom, it was a left-inflected version of the same neoliberalism that comprises Republican Party doctrine.”
Cooper’s column provoked a lively Twitter canoe where some of the most prominent voices in left of center journalism weighed in:
This @ryanlcooper notion of a Democratic Party that was ideologically unified pre-1970s is, um, wrong. https://t.co/fEOsIeCYiQ pic.twitter.com/AERysdzDJO
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 4, 2018
Like there is a reason why Congress did not enact FDR’s “Four Freedoms” agenda and why Taft-Hartley passed over Harry Truman’s veto.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 4, 2018
Too much of the left has gotten invested in a romanticized version of the midcentury Democratic Party in order to dramatize their dislike of Clinton/Obama Democrats.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 4, 2018
Yes, but the larger points he makes about political economy these days in the party are indeed true.
— Richard Yeselson (@yeselson) June 4, 2018
Well, it was a working class party in 1936. Then the Southern Dems figured out that the black people were in the working class too and also wanted to join unions.
— Richard Yeselson (@yeselson) June 4, 2018
If "straightforward working-class party" is intended to describe its ideological orientation, not its voting base, that's just wrong. And his next sentence, about the party's turn toward "capitalism-worship," means-testing, etc., implies that is what he means.
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) June 4, 2018
your argument that there has been no neoliberal turn among Democrats is still absolutely ludicrous
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) June 4, 2018
If you and Jon want to fight about neoliberalism, please tag me out of the convo.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 4, 2018
Thx.
The problem of being on the side of the neoliberal sellouts is that they'll sell you out
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) June 4, 2018
Perhaps the main takeaway is that the left critique of the Democratic Party can be valid without resorting to nostalgia. After all, the New Deal had a mixed legacy and was compromised on issues like race. So instead of simply pining for a mythical labor-dominated Democratic Party of the past, leftists might be better off trying to just make that a program for the future.