How The Virus Of Neoliberalism Infected The Democratic Party

A family in a homeless shelter in Colorado ca. 2016, awaiting notice of food stamp eligibility. According to the tenets of Neoliberalism all security for citizens must be repealed and replaced by the process of free markets.  If they deliver, all is well, if not, well....suck it up and move on.

Neoliberalism is the economic bane of the planet and the primary reason that rightist nationalist populism is now spreading - from Trump in the U.S. to Modi in India, to Victor Orban in Hungary.  How did this economic virus acquire such jet fuel to spread to every nook of the globe in barely 40 years?  I suspect it began with the U.S. in the Reagan era and metastasized from there.

Anyone who's been paying attention for the last 40 years can tell you that the marginalization of lower socio-economic classes actually commenced with  the Reagan tax cuts in the early 80s. Robert McChesney in his excellent book, The Problem of the Media, Monthly Review Press, 2004, p. 49, writes:

"With the election of Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal movement had commenced. Neoliberal ideology became hegemonic not only among Republicans but also in the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Joseph Liebermann. Differences remained on timing and specifics, but on core issues both parties agreed that business was the rightful ruler over society"

Economic scholar Matt Stoller - building on this theme - notes that by the 1980s Democrats altered abandoned New Deal and Great Society liberalism in favor of the  new dogma that came to be known as neoliberalism — a view of society in which markets and financial instruments, rather than government policy and direct intervention, are seen as the best way to achieve social ends.

For his part, McChesney showed the Democrats had become their own worst enemies - seeking to advance a misbegotten, pro-business agenda even at the expense of losing many of their base, the working class. One can understand it with the naturally business-friendly Republicans, but not with the Dems who grew their original political DNA with FDR and the New Deal.

The problem with the Neoliberal, pro -free market idiom is that it denies the most basic security for the majority of citizens. In this way it feeds economic inequality while it rewards the speculator and banker class. It also helps to corrupt the political class via unregulated campaign contributions.

Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

It's also how men such as Donald Trump came to unearned power - in the U.S. - especially by promising those undermined by Neoliberalism how he'd save them.  So he made enormous promises like the con man he is, including: bringing back jobs to rust belt states, resurrecting King Coal as an energy source, cleaning out the D.C. "swamp" - which he's only added to, and oh yeah, making Mexico pay for that stupid wall.

But these vapid promises existed before Trump came along, and Obama  - bless his heart - had been one of the prime Neoliberal pushers.  As a recent NY Times piece ('Barack Obama Biggest Mistake')  by Farhad Manjoo notes:

"Obama’s biggest ideas were neoliberal: The Affordable Care Act, his greatest domestic policy achievement, improved access to health care by altering private health-insurance markets. Obama aimed to address the climate crisis by setting up a market for carbon, and his plan for improving education focused on technocratic, standards-based reform. Even Obama’s historical icons were neoliberal — the neoliberals’ patron saint being Alexander Hamilton, the elitist, banker-friendly founding father who would be transformed, in Obama’s neoliberal Camelot, into a beloved immigrant striver with very good flow."

Let's also recall Obama's admiration for Reagan himself.

 Then there was also his ill-advised "Deficit commission" - which aim was to basically cut benefits from those who needed it the most, including paring down Social Security using a "Chained CPI"scheme. See e.g.

• Time to Kick Alan Simpson to the Curb!

 All of which was designed to undermine citizen security.  Then there was his refusal to veto the extension of the Bush tax cuts - another form of Neoliberal meme - given the belief that such cuts spur economic activity - e.g.

• Why Have the Dems Turned into Weak Wusses?

Sadly, most citizens today only know Dem Neoliberalism - they've no clue about actual liberal economic policies such as pursued by FDR, and JFK.  As Manjoo observes (ibid.)

"The long history of Democratic populism is unknown to most liberals today. Only now, in the age of Sanders and Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are we beginning to relearn the lessons of the past. For at least three decades, neoliberalism has brought the left economic half-measures and political despair."

And with that despair brought an unqualified grifter, con man, mutt and traitor like Trump into power as well. The question now is whether enough dumb voters will compound their misery by giving Donnie Dotard another four years to destroy what is left of the country.