Debunking "Debunking Centrism"

It seems to me that David Sirota's latest attack on the DLC and other "centrists" is in need of a response. The problem here is not that the things he says are popular are not, in fact, popular. Rather, the problem is that he's gone off and created a straw man here, attacking the nefarious DLC for positions it doesn't hold. Discussion below the fold.

Sirota writes that "Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado and Montana this year, the DLC is claiming like a broken record that progressive policies are hurting the Democratic Party." But look, here's Ken Salazar popping up as New Democrat of the Week on the DLC website:

Ultimately, Salazar succeeded in Colorado last week, while so many Democrats struggled nationally, because he was able to stand up credibly for progressive values while closing significant trust gaps in the minds of many voters. He didn't shy away from discussing national security and homeland defense, stood by a decades-long record of substantive reform, and took clear, principled stands on cultural issues. Colorado voters trusted him.

It's no wonder that they then listened when Salazar spoke passionately about the economy, and the way in which President Bush's policies have left many of Colorado's hardest working citizens behind. He spoke explicitly about the struggles of middle-class Americans while pledging to reform the way that their concerns are addressed in Congress.

"When Washington insiders try to cut taxes for their wealthy friends, I'll stand up for the middle class, for people who work hard, play by the rules and want a better life for their kids," Salazar said.

Salazar was a speaker at their national convention. Sirota says "The DLC and the press claim Democrats who attack President Bush and the Republicans for siding with the superwealthy are waging 'class warfare,' which they claim will hurt Democrats at the ballot box." But the DLC says no such thing. He's an article from their Blueprint magazine with the subhead "Instead of the class war President Bush is fighting for the wealthy, we should help all Americans save." Here's Marshall Whittman writing in the October Blueprint:

The first few months of the Bush administration were uneventful and predictable. Despite his narrow victory, President Bush made no effort to reach out to his adversaries. After all, the donors had to be reimbursed. Consequently, the primary focus was on passing a massive giveaway to the wealthy with a few crumbs for the middle class.

A central feature of the tax cuts was what has become the blessed sacrament of the modern Republican Party -- repeal of the estate tax. This boon for billionaires has become an obsession for the Republican Party, even in the face of huge deficits and the mounting costs of war. Perhaps not surprisingly, the estate tax was a product of T.R.-inspired progressivism that sought a more equitable distribution of the tax burden. Welcome to the second Gilded Age!

Back to Sirota:

The "centrists" tell Democrats not to hammer corporations for their misbehavior and not to push for a serious crackdown on corporate excess, for fear the party will be hurt by an "anti-business" image. Yet such a posture, pioneered by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is mainstream: A 2002 Washington Post poll taken during the height of the corporate accounting scandals found that 88 percent of Americans distrust corporate executives, 90 percent want new corporate regulations/tougher enforcement of existing laws and more than half think the Bush Administration is "not tough enough" in fighting corporate crime.

And what was the DLC doing in 2002 "during the height of the corporate accounting scandals?" Why, they were proclaiming New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer their New Dem of the Week. He's one of their "100 to Watch" list of rising stars, and cited as a model for protecting public pensions. Here's what the DLC actually said about the politics of Enron:

There's no question the Enron mess, and its close proximity to the Bush administration, is a true scandal that highlights a potentially important point of vulnerability for the GOP, and even for the president. After all, George W. Bush carried two lingering negative perceptions into office in January 2001: that he might not be able to handle a big foreign policy crisis, and that he was entirely too cozy with favor-seeking special interests. While the first vulnerability is gone forever, the second remains and has been placed on the front page of every newspaper by his buddies at Enron.

Moreover, while the Enron case seemed to come from out of the blue, it represents a real and much broader problem for the administration: its genuine and systematic abandonment of the libertarian strain of conservative ideology in favor of a frank favoritism toward big business in a wide array of public policy areas, from energy and the environment to trade, taxation, and workplace issues.

To deal with Enronitis, Democrats should champion real competition in the private sector. Government has a critical role to play to ensure that capitalism works the way it is supposed to work, and that genuinely innovative entrepreneurs are not crushed by businesses that stack the deck and pursue special privileges. Ensuring corporate responsibility -- toward investors, employees, consumers, communities, and toward the law itself -- is the most genuinely pro-business and pro-growth stance possible.

In the very next paragraph we learn that "On taxes, self-described "centrists" like Senator Joe Lieberman, a senior DLC leader, attacked proposals to repeal the Bush tax cuts to pay down the deficit." First off, Lieberman voted against the Bush tax cuts in congress. Second, what he said was that it would be a mistake to advocate (as Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt did) repealing all of Bush's tax cuts, including the pro-middle class provisions inserted by the Democrats. Lieberman's actual tax platform during the primaries was the most progressive of any put forward by the major contenders in 2004. Or, as Jonathan Cohn wrote comparing it to Wes Clark's plan, "it means fewer people benefit than in, say, Joe Lieberman's tax plan, which raises taxes on the very wealthy to finance benefits for everybody else--as in 98 percent of all taxpayers." Sirota writes:

On energy policy, those who want government to mandate higher fuel efficiency in cars are labeled "lefties," even though a 2004 Consumers Union poll found that 81 percent of Americans support the policy. Corporate apologists claim this "extremist" policy would hurt Democrats in places like Michigan, where the automobile manufacturers employ thousands. But the Sierra Club's 2004 polling finds more than three-quarters of Michigan voters support it--including 84 percent of the state's autoworkers.

Someone may be doing this, but what's the DLC got to do with it? See an actual statement of theirs on the subject:

The CAFE system of the 1970s has, of course, produced important environmental benefits; burning less fuel means releasing lower levels of carbon and other harmful pollutants. But today's comparatively stable oil supply and low gas prices have undermined consensus for tough action to reduce consumption. Lawmakers are often reluctant to ratchet up miles-per-gallon requirements because automakers complain that CAFE standards require costly trade-offs in vehicle performance and safety and force them to build vehicles consumers don't want.

Little wonder that after the latest CAFE debate, Congress rejected a proposal that would have significantly raised vehicle fuel-efficiency standards for the first time in decades. This, despite war in the Middle East, ongoing threats from terrorists, and continuing problems with the undemocratic Arab regimes we depend on for most of our foreign oil. Instead, in a display of daunted courage, Congress is poised to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to study the issue.

Last but by no means least, Sirota offers this:

For instance, the DLC has issued a "heartland strategy," telling Democrats to jettison economic populism, which has been used to elect Democrats in various red regions in America. Their solution? "Talk more about reducing teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births, which have led to an expansion of single-parent families beset by poverty, welfare dependence, and other social ills." Above all else, they caution, do not turn up "the volume on anti-business and class warfare themes"--a euphemism for not discussing DLC-backed free-trade policies that have ravaged economies throughout the heartland. The strategy conveniently avoids the issues that might make the DLC's corporate backers uncomfortable.

To put that quotation in the actual context of the "Heartland Strategy" memo:

It drives liberals crazy that downscale voters who don't benefit much from GOP economic policies nonetheless backed Bush on cultural grounds. But since most voters don't neatly compartmentalize their ethical and economic concerns, simply turning up the volume on anti-business and class warfare themes isn't likely to change their minds. And heartland voters aren't likely to miss the unflattering implication that they're too dim to realize where their best interests lie.

That's rather different.

The point here isn't to become a thoroughgoing DLC apologist, and I've offered criticisms of some things they've said. But I try to restrict myself to criticism of things they've actually said. Sirota is creating a disagreement that's 80 percent nonexistent. He and the DLC disagree about trade. I think he's right to accuse the DLC of downplaying the unpopularity of free trade agreements. I think the DLC is right to say that free trade agreements are generally good policy. The DLC's actual general argument about the election -- one that Sirota doesn't seem interested in confronting in any of his voluminous writings on the subject -- is that Democrats can't get a hearing for their economic message unless they do something to simultaneously cool the fires of the culture war and talk in a more compelling way about national security. My analysis is that a more compelling national security message along would do the trick. Sirota seems to think that Democrats can afford to just ignore national security and values issues. Or maybe that's not what he thinks. I would be interested in getting his take on this.

So there are some real disagreements about policy and tactics here, but they deserve to be debated calmly and, above all, honestly. Sirota's attacks are growing increasingly vitriolic and wind up having increasingly little to do with the actually existing DLC and its real merits and flaws.