| In
2016 Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton, not because she was a
visionary, certainly not because her agenda generated enthusiasm
among young voters, but because Democrats—influenced by
media—simply assumed that centrists are automatically more
electable than progressives.
That
assumption has no basis in reality. Even worse, the centrist
viewpoint could well lead to another Clinton-like fiasco.
Many
voters may be too young (or too old) to remember the sorry record of
centrist failures. I am 82 years old, and I have painful memories of
seven ignominious defeats of Democratic nominees. And prior to all
the nominations, pundits and press insisted that Democrats needed to
move the party to the right in order to defeat their Republican
adversary. They blamed the misfortunes of the Democratic Party on
excessive liberalism.
However,
when we actually look at the historical record, a different story
emerges, a story that dispels the myth of centrist electability.
ADLAI
STEVENSON
I
was a teenager when Democrat Adlai Stevenson ran a pitiful, overly
intellectual campaign against Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower
(“Ike”). Stevenson was a liberal from Illinois who, in
order to win the presidency, became a centrist in his campaign.
Centrists are afraid to confront the war machine that sucks wealth
and treasure out of our domestic economy. Stevenson never had the
guts to call for an end to the Korean War. I remember when my father,
a Democrat, voted for Eisenhower in 1952, after Ike wiped out
Stevenson with a single announcement: “I will go to Korea. The
time has come to bring our boys home.” Stevenson’s wimpy
centrism lost big in 1952.
Despite
that loss, the Democrats didn’t change their agenda or strategy
in 1956. The party nominated Stevenson again. During the 2nd campaign
against Eisenhower, a black woman asked Stevenson to take a clear
stand on the historic Supreme Court ruling against segregated
schools. Stevenson choked, and he refused to support the use of
federal troops to enforce the ruling. As a result of his default on
civil rights —a subject on the mind of most Americans—Stevenson
lost by a bigger margin in 1956 than in 1952.
HUBERT
HUMPHREY WAFFLES
In
1968 Hubert Humphrey, once proud of his liberal record, campaigned as
Lyndon Johnson’s proxy. His centrist campaign, his refusal to
make a clean break from LBJ’s war, made Nixon’s victory
possible. Republicans know how to goad liberal Democrats into war,
only to leave them with blood on their hands, the consequences of
their own right-wing follies.
Notwithstanding
his record as a hawk and witch-hunter, Nixon became—by default
of the Democrats—the “peace” candidate. Nixon
offered a “secret plan” for ending the war. The
Democrats, so far gone in their pro-interventionist policy, were
outflanked again.
McGOVERN
Richard
Nixon’s defeat of George McGovern, the anti-war candidate in
1972, is often cited as an excuse for choosing centrists over
progressives (regardless of the litany of centrist presidential
defeats).
Nixon’s
victory is not especially difficult to understand. His monetary
policies, which caused inflation in the long run, fired up economic
growth prior to the election. The incumbent’s approval ratings
were high.
Nixon
was a master of timing. He claimed to be winding down the war. In
February he made his historic trip to communist China and met with Mao.
After George Wallace was shot, Wallace supporters went over to
Tricky Dick.
The
Democratic Party was still in disarray from the Johnson-Humphrey
betrayal of their mandate for peace and social justice. Humphrey and
other centrists continued to attack McGovern.
In
sum, as Joshua Mound wrote in the New Republic (Feb.29, 2016): “Any
Democratic nominee was doomed in 1972."
MONDALE
Antipathy
to progressive politics dominated the conservative money-drenched
leadership of the Democratic Party throughout the 1980s. The
thrilling grassroots campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson caused panic
in the halls of Congress. Democratic insiders nominated Walter
Mondale, as right-wing as Joe Biden today. When nominated, Mondale
rejected all of Jesse Jackson’s platforms at the convention.
Mondale went on to engineer the ugly system of “superdelegates,”
designed to prevent progressive candidates from ever winning a
nomination. The Congressional Quarterly called Mondale’s
platform “economically the most conservative platform in the
last fifty years.” It promoted cuts in social spending and an
increased military budget. Mondale expected he could win the election
by appeasing militarists and conservatives. He won 40% of the popular
vote.
RIGHT-WING
POSTURING OF DUKAKIS
The
1988 Democratic primary was far more exciting than most. Seven
million Americans supported Jackson’s second bid for the
nomination. Not one United States senator or governor endorsed the
African-American candidate. But the Mayor of Burlington,
Vermont—Bernie Sanders—not only endorsed Jackson, he won
over the majority of Vermont delegates for the Rainbow Coalition.
Michael
Dukakis ran a typical centrist primary: he leaned to the left to win
the nomination, only to turn to the right to campaign in the general
election.
Awed
by pundits and self-proclaimed pragmatists, Dukakis tried to look
conservative. He organized a dramatic, histrionic photo opp. He
invited national TV to capture him riding around in a tank. You could
barely see his tiny head in the cockpit. The media loved it. And
while Dukakis won the “asshole of the year award” from a
group of anarchists, our mastermind of centrist tactics lost the
election.
KERRY
FLIP FLOPS ON IRAQ
Of
all the centrist defeats, none is sadder than John Kerry’s
campaign against “W” Bush, the man who initiated the 2003
invasion of Iraq and facilitated the rise of ISIS.
Kerry
was actually beating the drums for intervention in the Mideast even
before Bush launched the invasion. On July 2, 2002, Kerry gave a
speech to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council: “I agree
completely with this administration’s goal of a regime change
in Iraq.”
During
the 2004 primary, I remember sitting on the couch watching TV with my
wife. A reporter pressed John Kerry to answer George Bush about
whether, “knowing what we know now” (that there were no
weapons of mass destruction), would he have supported the Bush
decision. “Yes, I would have voted for the authority.”
“Oh
my God!” I turned to my wife and said, “He just lost the
election!”
Euphemism
is inherent in centrist realpolitik. Kerry would tell reporters: “I
think it the right decision to disarm Hussein.”
Disarm?
The U.S. did not just disarm Hussein. The U.S. Air Force bombed
Bagdad and other populated cities. Thousands of children were injured
or killed. Museums with 2,000-year-old artifacts were looted. Muslims
were tortured at Abu Ghraib. Rivers were drenched with oil and set on
fire. Refugees fled into Syria. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians
became sick, and babies were born with deformities from U.S. depleted
uranium.
(Kerry
now supports the candidacy of Joe Biden, who also voted for the war
in Iraq and, like Kerry, equivocates about the real meaning of his
vote.)
HILLARY
CLINTON, THE HAWK
Hillary
Clinton ran against the most unpopular candidate in the history of
presidential elections. And lost. Until we recognize how such an
ignominious defeat was possible, voters are likely to make the same
mistake again, to run the Clinton campaign one more time—with a
new face, of course, Joe Biden.
Let
us recall the pivotal debate between Trump and Clinton over foreign
policy. When Trump denounced Clinton’s infamous Iraq war vote,
he was able to present himself as a kind of peace candidate who would
halt endless wars. Trump understands centrist vulnerability. He put
Clinton on the defensive, and she was helpless. Everyone knew she was
a hawk. And it was disingenuous of her to portray her war vote as
some isolated mistake, something out of the ordinary, when all
Washington knew she was an interventionist, voter for military
budgets, for sanctions, arms sales to dictators, a foreign policy
wheeler-dealer with experience.
THE
FUTURE IS PROGRESSIVE
I
believe Sanders has a better chance of defeating Trump than Biden or
any centrist candidate. Sanders does not just dwell on the white
middle class. His campaign reaches beyond the party establishment to
the chronically unemployed, to the poor, the unhoused, the young,
rising electorate of the time. Victory over Trump requires a mass
coalition strategy.
The
Green New Deal is often compared to the New Deal of FDR and Truman in
the '40s and '50s. However, the old New Deal was deficient. African
Americans were denied access to college, turned down for home loans,
and domestic and agricultural workers were not even covered. In
essence, minorities were excluded.
In
contrast, the Green New Deal is inclusive. Its preamble calls
attention to the “large racial wealth divide in the U.S.
amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average
white family and average black family.”
Representative
Barbara Lee, one of 90 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution,
writes: “Black, brown and low-income communities bear the brunt
of pollution and environmental degradation from accelerated climate
change.…That is why addressing climate change is not just an
environmental issue, but also an imperative to achieve racial and
economic justice.”
Bernie’s
“Economic Bill of Rights” is clear:
“Every
person in this country must have a right to:
- It’s
time for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights."
With
our help, history will vindicate the message of Bernie Sanders: “Not
me, Us.”
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