New Mainstream vs. old Middle (of nowhere)

Bill Knight column for 9-9, 10 or 11, 2019

At a Springfield appearance last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have hoped to inspire unity when she remarked, “A moderate agenda can also be a progressive agenda,” but the comment was not just nearly nonsensical comment (“rough can be smooth?” one wonders), but surely caused FDR to cry from the grave.

If mainstream means what most people want, it’s not common sense to dismiss those campaigning on popular issues: progressives.

When 10 remaining candidates for Democrats’ presidential nominee speak in Houston on Thursday, Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, O’Rourke, Sanders, Warren and Yang are expected, appropriately, to address ideas and issues more than personalities and purse strings.

No longer “insurgents,” criticized by those Democrats more concerned with campaign treasuries and the next election than reform or the future of the nation, many are actually mainstream.

A Gallup poll last month showed Americans’ approval of unions is at 64 percent, one of the highest rankings in 50 years – and that even includes 45 percent of Republicans.

People want action on prescription-drug prices, the climate emergency, guns, and much more.

A University of North Carolina study found support for progressive ideas is at its highest point in 60 years.

“Initiatives such as imposing heavier taxes on the nation’s wealthiest citizens and corporations, establishing a universal health care system, and forging ahead with the proposed Green New Deal actually have bipartisan support,” said Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Polls also say 75 percent of Americans say immigration is a “good thing for the U.S.,” 58 percent support increasing the federal minimum wage to $15/hour, and 60 percent support free college tuition “for those who meet income levels.”

            Such bold ideas spark enthusiasm because they’d benefit most people, and after Clinton’s 2016 loss to Trump, the base is wary of safe, cautious and middle-of-the-road approaches.

Few Americans are consistently in the middle on issues, according to research from the Voter Study Group. Maybe more telling, a Quinnipiac poll last month found that former Vice President Joe Biden is winning just 19 percent of Democrats who said they’re “very liberal” and 28 percent who say they’re “somewhat liberal.” Among those who consider themselves moderate or conservative, Biden’s favored by 43 percent.

“The Old Guard still insists that everything revolves around ‘the center,’ but the data keep saying otherwise,” says New York magazine writer Eric Levitz.

A “Young Guard” has arisen, says author Sophia McClennan, a Penn State professor. She writes that young voters prioritize policies over “electability,” Millennials and Gen-Z adults make up 37 percent of the electorate, and in the 2018 election, they set turnout records, outvoting seniors.

Political economist David Broockman of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business says, “When we say moderate what we really mean is what corporations want.” And Ernest Canning – a retired attorney, author, Vietnam veteran and adviser to Veterans for Bernie – writes that we should “stop referring to corporate-money-compromised Democrats as ‘centrists’ or ‘moderates.’ It’s more about their relationship with corporate interests.”

But they are powerful. In fact, establishment Democrats now have a “dark money” group (House Majority Forward), which is funneling secret donations to select centrists. It can keep finances hidden from the public, the IRS says, but it also prohibits such 501(c)(4) groups – supposedly formed to promote “social welfare” – from having politics as their main purpose.

“A general rule of thumb is that 501(c)(4) nonprofits are not allowed to devote more than half of their activities to political purposes, [and] ad buys account for more than 94 percent of the fledgling dark-money group’s planned spending, according to documents uncovered by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Sadly, too many politicians feel a need for big money, but the alternative (shown by Sanders) is to appeal to many small contributors from a broad base of supporters.

“Sanders and Warren,” writes British author, political journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, “are much closer in their views to the vast majority of ordinary Americans than the [Michael] Bloombergs or the Bidens. They represent the actual political middle.”

Indeed, electoral success – and the improvements it promises – is no longer about leaning left or right but about going to the grassroots reality of regular people.

The Democratic Party may be returning to the heritage of FDR.

Or coming to its senses.