corporate and progressive Democrats

From left to right, Democrat and Republican candidates circa April 2016.

The Democratic Party is one of the two main political parties in the US. From 1933 to 2016 it was capitalist but reformist, what passed for the left in Washington. But in 2019, as the Republicans lurched further right under President Donald Trump into White nationalism, the Democrats are lurching further left into socialism.

The two main wings (using left-wing terminology):

• Corporate Democrats (centre right) – the Clinton wing, what used to be called moderate Republicans back in the 1970s. In fact, in 2018 many moderate Republicans voted for them instead of Trump’s (far-right) Republicans.
  • notable people: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, most White Liberals and Black Liberals.
  • represents: the richest 1%, aka donors, especially Wall Street (the big banks). AIPAC too.
  • media outlets: New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, the White Liberal press generally (their owners and advertisers are often donors themselves).
  • policies: soft on banks and banksters, “tough on crime”, mass incarceration, deportation raids, DACA, drones, imperialist wars, Obamacare (forced private health insurance), gay rights, gun control, FBI consent decrees to reform police departments (but only really since the rise of Black Lives Matter).
  • Black outreach: Rented Negroes, symbolism, pandering, hot sauce, having a Sister Souljah moment, talk of “lifting all boats”. All boats matter.
• Progressive Democrats (left) – the Warren/Sanders wing. What Europeans would call social democrats. Sees itself as going back to the party’s pro-labour roots. Sanders sees Denmark as a model.
  • notable people: Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Rev. William Barber.
  • represents: the bottom 80%, aka voters, or so they say.
  • media outlets: The Young Turks, Democracy Now!, Secular Talk, etc.
  • policies: Green New Deal, Medicare for All (universal health care), free university education, $15/hour minimum wage, overturning Citizens United (the Supreme Court case that says huge campaign donations are free speech), generally anti-imperialist but not anti-drone.
  • Black outreach: Killer Mike.

Business model: Labour unions used to be the donor base of the Democratic Party. But as they weakened, especially after 1980, Democrats have been kissing up to Wall Street instead. Thus corporate Democrats. Republicans paint them as limousine liberals out of touch with the masses – which is true. Obama, for example, does not know anyone who has trouble paying the rent. The reason why their speeches are so bad, apart from Obama, is because they are talking to the donors – or are too used to talking to donors. Think Hillary Clinton.

Progressives hope to get by on millions of small donations, thus being able to broaden their message to appeal to millions more, and so on. Sanders in 2016 and AOC in 2018 used this model.

Rented Negroes: Corporate Democrats not only have Rented Negroes as media shills (Angela Rye, Joy Reid, Symone Sanders, etc), but even as candidates, like Obama, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker, putting a Black face on White power.

Progressives do not even have that. Their policies, because they are class-based, would do more good for Black people, but would leave racism pretty much untouched.

– Abagond, 2019.

See also:

• Democrats
• Black People: The White Liberal User’s Guide
  • Rented Negro
  • Sister Souljah moment
• Black Lives Matter
• AIPAC
• Is Obama a Rented Negro?
• Bernie Sanders and Black voters
• Hillary Clinton and the news media
• should be required reading:
  • Martin Luther King, Jr’s Riverside speech against the Vietnam War – a progressive speech against a corporatist policy

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