dagblog - Comments for "Biden has white men to thank for putting him in the White House"

I remember Gore abandoning

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 02:59:56 +0000

In reply to well neo-liberal grows out of

I remember Gore abandoning his tech partnership pro-Silicon Valley stance in 1999-2000 to wage a retro union label war against oldstyle lib Bill Bradley, which i thought was ceding his major forward-thinker advantage for November. And I remember Hillary making an effort to be "serious on defense" as Senator, though not quite Henry Jackson hawkish, but to bring some balance post-9/11 where the GOP didn't own any defense security discussion by default and presumption. The left hated her for that, especially post-Iraq invasion. Being anti-business, anti-security wasn't winning the party many elections, especially as every laptop and mobile phone in average people's hands connecting them to the internet emphasized the promise of technology and business. Bush's Schedule D prescription support was clever, as it bolstered the pill-popping Big Pharma presence at home, while avoiding the expensive complexities of hospital healthcare - so every time granny reaches for her pills, she's getting a campaign push for that nice Bush guy and his party making her life easier.

well neo-liberal grows out of

artappraiser — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 02:36:06 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the rundown, guess

well neo-liberal grows out of "third way" and DLC (which itself was reaction to losing so much against the Reagan Revolution) which Bill Clinton was a big part of as Gov. of Arkansas. And then classic DNC people very much hated that they took over when Clinton-Gore won, along with Bill Rubin, I would think he might be the essence of neo-liberalism to some. Hillary didn't just get stuck with it, she was never enemy of capitalism and "rising tide lifts all boats" a supporter of market-based health care back when she was in charge of trying to make it single payer, nor of interventionism.

It's easy to forget how before DLC how Bernie-Sanders-like the Democratic party was, very anti "Wall Street", very pro union worker, buy American, big FDR government, tax and spend, eat the rich. And how revolutionary DLC-neoliberal takeover was. (Wondering now when Bernie left the party to be an Independent and why--don't remember paying attention to that.)

Likewise neo-cons like Bill Kristol adore Reagan, still do. It's the shining city on the hill thing, the American Exceptionalism thing, everyone wants to be like us.

Thanks for the rundown, guess

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 02:14:00 +0000

In reply to Seemed to me to be more well

Thanks for the rundown, guess my memory's not that good or i just didn't retain the jist of that whole battle after 2007.

So how did "neoliberal" turn into "Clinton's" especially, considering her very hedged vote on Iraq (vesting more faith in the UN than Bush) and his staying out of global conflicts except for an aerial show in Kosovo? Or was it driven by Jewish neolibs thinking they could finally rearrange the Mideast a bit to their liking post-9/11, and other issues fell to the side? Still, 2005-2007 was post-failure reality check - were neolibs expectations still running high or were failures of execution put on Bush while the interventionist approach itself kept pristine and primed?

Seemed to me to be more well

artappraiser — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:09:07 +0000

In reply to Exactly - an ill-defined slur

Seemed to me to be more well defined during the Bush years, especially frequenting TPM Cafe and TPM before the 2008 primary when Josh opened floodgates of the political section of the site to TPM Cafe. It really was like NeoLiberal central, all of Josh's neo-liberal D.C. friends were blogging there. It meant: interventionist liberal foreign policy and liberal free-trade economics. It was a term meant to compete with neo-conservatism, which was still relatively new in itself, which was supposed to be a kinder gentler version of conservatism, as opposed to paleo-conservatism. And the latter was also for free trade and interventionism.

Where the trouble started was with the Iraq war. The original neo-cons were big supporters thinking America would be greeted with flowers and sweets, not "to get the oil". (If you believe in global economics, then anybody "getting the oil" doesn't make much sense anyways.) They were the naifs (as were the neo-libs that went along) fooled by the machinations of Cheney and friends.

Anyhew, Josh had a round robin blog with like 5 neo-libs on foreign policy, all wonks from think tanks, and also several pro-Israel liberals like Rosenberg, and then on economics he had free traders like Jared Bernstein

And even on domestic politics, he would have centrists like Thomas Frank (of "What's the matter with Kansas?") and of course Professor Liz Warren and her students taking on issues about consumer rights, as in "the new consumer economy, how to regulate it?" I would definitely have called her neo-liberal at the time.

And there were lots of paleo liberals frequenting in comments, attacking every single thing they'd say, just hated them all, came to the site to attack them.

For that short period in time, it really did seem like the country would go in the direction of two totally different parties, the neo's, who would be centrist free traders and global interventionists, and then joining together from opposing ends, the paleos, who would be for protectionism, strong unionism, and isolationism (no surprise to like the working class of Michigan who found both Jesse Jackson and Patrick Buchanan to be appealing candidates for prez.)

It really was like neo-liberal central, circa 2005-2007, that's why many of us spent a lot of time there. It was still "neo", new thinking.

Exactly - an ill-defined slur

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 23:41:06 +0000

In reply to "According to one study of

Exactly - an ill-defined slur. That it's not defined makes it hard to push back.

I wasn't thinking of it as

moat — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 23:28:55 +0000

In reply to Conservatism is about as

I wasn't thinking of it as popular or not. The health of economic instruments such as the banks and trade deals to establish manufacturing contracts is not just a product of one school of thought or another but the real time cooperation or struggle between corporations and the agencies who regulate them.

The big difference between the Bush to Obama transition compared to what is unfolding now is that the shared sense of urgency to protect institutions that was on display in 2008 has been replaced by one camp preparing for an avalanche of trouble while the other throws parties and pretends nothing bad is going on.

"According to one study of

Orion — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 08:40:42 +0000

In reply to Maybe "neoliberal" doesn't

"According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy."

Conservatism is about as

Orion — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 08:37:30 +0000

In reply to Maybe some of the change can

Conservatism is about as absent/unpopular now as it has ever been.

Maybe some of the change can

moat — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:52:21 +0000

In reply to The lesson in Trump is they

Maybe some of the change can be ascribed to a withdrawal by the conservatives from the work of making policy. The T administration's agencies' charts of organization were left empty in many cases. Political appointees were assigned who had little regard for the people who worked there or how decisions got made.

The return to meritocracy occurs when the brain trust of the opposition has been drained like gravy from Rudy's skull.

Maybe "neoliberal" doesn't

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 23:23:00 +0000

In reply to The lesson in Trump is they

Maybe "neoliberal" doesn't mean a fucking thing, just a way to piss off erstwhile allies with intolerant mostly indecipherable and no way achievable wokespeak.

Or do you have a definition that doesn't mean "all those selfish tightass world-destroying collaborationist Dems to the right of me"? At least "Blue Dogs" had some creed and validation to it.

And what pray tell is the "corporate approach"? Which corporations doing what? I seem to recall Trump tossing massive taxfunded contracts to recently incorporated tiny "businesses" with no track record and no ability to perform. He always complained about the Amazons and Twitters and any large corporation that made him feel small and didn't show fealty. Not sure what the philosophical lesson is in *that*, aside from "don't let insecure grifters run government.

And I knew before Obama was elected he was no progressive wet dream, despite all the unrealistic expectations many on the left had. He was always no drama, inched his way to change, and then the Crash prevented him from doing much else. Maybe Biden's gift in this situation is a) so many are seriously sick of Trump that there is a huge groundswell of support, and b) he was largely out there through luck and agreements, so he has incentive to compromise and build coalitions. c) maybe he feels a Zeitgeist, which is fine.

However, time will tell how much progressive gets passed, vs stocking gov with the diverse personnel to make those who track such things happy.