The case for a new Democratic Leadership Council

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The Historical Analogy

32 years ago, Ronald Reagan, who four years earlier the liberal establishment had been convinced could never win, was re-elected in a 49-state landslide. Had it not been for a few thousand votes in Minnesota that went Democratic almost surely only because it was Walter Mondale's home state, the Democrats would have suffered the ignominy of losing every single state in the union. Post-election, former Sixties Ramparts editor Peter Collier came out to say he voted for Reagan.

The Democrats in 1984 were in better shape than today, controlling Congress. Yet a young legislative genius named Al From, who founded a nonprofit council to move the party radically to the center (the DLC), would in just eight years build a new winning coalition that would take back the White House and carry the popular vote in six out of the seven elections from 1992-2016. The Bill Clinton years were a golden age for the country, seeing massive reverses in rising crime, suicide rates, turned the tide in fighting AIDS, an economic boom that lifted up all income brackets and races, the only balanced budget in half a century, and no major wars. Their secret? Move radically to the center. This is what the Democrats should do today.

Setting the Scene

The current sad state of the opposition party hardly needs to be set. They have lost Middle America, aka non-yuppie White America. Watch this video, and ask yourself, how many of these people would be Democrats today? In 1984, this song was touted as an answer to Ronald Reagan! In places like Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Missouri -- they're getting shut out. As recently as 2003, Howard Dean could say he wanted "guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks"; now Democrats are trying to ban the Confederate flag. They need a root-and-branch transformation from the party of minorities and big cities to the party of Middle America again.

* Eject guns as a political issue. Gun ownership must be accepted as a part of American culture. The merits of owning a gun can be debated, but any government action to restrict ownership must be off the table.

* Moderate on abortion. Roe v. Wade can be moderated--to allow things like 20 week bans--without being overturned. Defend abortion rights in the early term, while de-emphasize the late term.

* Eject BLM. Police abuse is a serious issue, but it needs to be framed as an issue of police abuse of private citizens, not as an issue of race. All Lives Matter. The violent urban riots of '15-'16, viral outrage, etc. is not helping.

* Stop harassing citizens that disagree with you on social issues, like matters of sexual identity, gender or race. Disagreement doesn't equal prejudice or bad moral character. Abandon identity politics altogether.

Broadly, move to the center.

But Bernie would have won

That's conjectural. Bernie kept saying during the primaries that there was this massive wave of new voters who would turn out for him, but they never showed up. To the extent that he would have been more popular, it was because people saw him as personally an honest, decent guy. It was because some of his ideas appealed across the political "spectrum." It wasn't because he was some far-left socialist.

But progressives have been saying the DLC ushered in neoliberalism and is at fault for everything wrong today. How can the DLC be the model?

The DLC worked for its time. Moving to the center today doesn't mean neoliberalism. You can want money out of politics, to get tough on Wall Street, support nationalistic trade policies, support drug importation, and still be centrist on social issues. In many ways the task is easier now than in the 1980s. The issues they have to move to the center on are more stylistic. "Wedge" issues. Putting people who speak the language of middle America in the front and center. Not necessarily bread and butter issues.