tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/progressive-movement-15868/articlesProgressive movement – The Conversation2021-09-10T12:27:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676222021-09-10T12:27:48Z2021-09-10T12:27:48ZCalifornia recall: There’s a method to what looks like madness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420306/original/file-20210909-23-1056rga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C7%2C5154%2C3389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">California Gov. Gavin Newsom (standing) talks with volunteers who are phone-banking against the recall on Aug. 13, 2021, in San Francisco. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/california-gov-gavin-newsom-talks-with-volunteers-who-are-news-photo/1333995829?adppopup=true"> Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/2021-ca-gov-recall">The California governor recall election</a> has been yet another opportunity <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/california-recall-election-gavin-newsom.html">to portray California as a strange place</a> with very odd practices. </p>
<p>And the recall truly has bizarre quirks that could, for example, <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/2021-ca-gov-recall/newsom-recall-faqs?ltclid=4cc29b6b-6cc2-4250-98f2-055dc9ef7a1cif%20it">produce a replacement governor with much less voter support</a> than the incumbent governor – Gavin Newsom – facing recall. With <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Gavin_Newsom_recall,_Governor_of_California_(2019-2021)">46 recall challengers vying for Newsom’s job</a> and only a plurality required to win, it’s possible a winning candidate could become governor with far less than 50% of the vote. </p>
<p>But California’s direct democracy, which is <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/03/editorial-california-needs-to-change-recall-law">being savaged by writers from within California – “Elections are supposed to represent the will, not the whim, of voters” says a Mercury News editorial</a> – as well as from the usual suspects who are outside the state, reflects an important, even if flawed, vehicle to update America’s durable but staid democratic institutions. </p>
<h2>Founders not keen on direct democracy</h2>
<p>By the standards of the American republic founded in 1789, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/all-about-america/todays-democracy-isnt-exactly-what-wealthy-us-founding-fathers-envisioned">direct democracy is, much like California itself, a new kid on the block</a>. </p>
<p>The founding doctrine of American government was a stable representative republic in which elected leaders would <a href="https://nccs.net/blogs/our-ageless-constitution/separation-of-powers">check and balance each other</a> by their service in governing bodies that were formally separate, but with shared authority. In other words, the officeholders would hold their fellow officeholders accountable. This same plan forms the basis of all 50 state governments today.</p>
<p>The Founding Fathers hated any type of direct democracy and made their feelings known about it. “Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy,” <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0098-0004">wrote Alexander Hamilton</a>. “Their turbulent and uncontrouling disposition requires checks.” </p>
<p>The Progressives of the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, thought that direct democracy was the essential solution to a problem the Constitution did not address: What if elected leaders were neither willing nor able to hold one another accountable? </p>
<p>In more contemporary terms, direct democracy also addresses cases in which the popular will is frustrated by the arcane, slow and even obstructive legislative process. Checks and balances can mean no progress at all.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gov.-election Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Gray Davis standing behind Davis' desk at the state Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420322/original/file-20210909-16-pq8he0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) meets with Gov. Gray Davis, who lost to him in a recall election, on Oct. 23, 2003, at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/governor-elect-arnold-schwarzenegger-meets-with-governor-news-photo/2634336?adppopup=true">Rich Pedroncelli-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Protecting the peoples’ needs</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/The-Progressive-era">The Progressive movement</a> enjoyed great popularity in the western and southwestern states that were not part of the original 13 states. It built on a deep suspicion that representative government could not protect the needs of the people because it could not resist the power of special interests.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.openedition.org/siecles/1109?lang=en">In California, where the Progressives put down deep roots</a>, reformers loathed the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105158910">Southern Pacific Railroad, which managed to corrupt elected leaders</a> all over the State Capitol. No matter how many elections could be won by well-intended candidates for state assembly or state senate, the railroad would still dominate. </p>
<p>To the Progressives, the solution was to vest some legislative power directly in the hands of the voters, where presumably the Railroad could not reach through its control of elections and lobbying. As a result of a <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/History_of_Initiative_and_Referendum_in_California">voter-approved constitutional amendment passed in 1911</a>, California voters gave themselves the power to make a law – initiative – or to remove a law – referendum. Those were the original pillars of direct democracy envisioned by the Progressives. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Forms_of_direct_democracy_in_the_American_states">Many other states</a>, not just those in the original Progressive stomping grounds, adopted direct democracy. The initiative proved to be the workhorse of direct democracy, used far more often than either the referendum or the recall. Voter initiatives have even managed to get <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Utah_Proposition_3,_Medicaid_Expansion_Initiative_(2018)">Medicaid expansion onto the legislative agenda in a state like Utah</a>, whose elected officials refused to expand the program. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six photos of candidates in a magazine story about " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420325/original/file-20210909-21-9u8hwp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">With almost four dozen candidates in the race to replace Newsom, the recall has been easy to poke fun at.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/colorful-recall-election-candidates/">Screenshot, LA Magazine</a></span>
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<h2>Big stick</h2>
<p>The recall, which vested devastating power in the hands of the voters, joined the Progressive agenda rather late. Its adoption was pioneered by a leading Los Angeles philanthropist, doctor, socialist and Progressive named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1937/10/31/archives/dr-john-r-haynes-surgeon-dies-at-84-civic-leader-in-los-angeles-and.html">John Randolph Haynes</a>. His advocacy led voters in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-13-me-history13-story.html">Los Angeles to create the first recall provision in the nation</a> in its 1903 city charter. Haynes tirelessly pushed state Progressives to <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=303">include the recall in the landmark 1911 constitutional amendment</a> – and they did. </p>
<p>The California recall applies to <a href="https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/recalls/recall-procedures-guide.pdf">all statewide elected officials, members of the state legislature and judges of the appellate and supreme courts</a>. There’s a low bar to get a recall of statewide elected officials on the ballot: signatures from 12% of the number of those who voted in the previous election for the same office. The provision features simultaneous recall and replacement elections: If the voters choose to remove the incumbent, the candidate who receives a plurality of the votes becomes governor.</p>
<p>The recall is a powerful device to hold over the heads of state elected officials. Recall elections usually happen outside of the usual election cycle, when voters are not expected to be called upon to participate. It has more in common with “snap elections” in parliamentary democracies than the more predictable American election cycle. </p>
<p>Compared to the widely used initiative, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_(political)">state recalls are very rare</a>. Since 1911, only 11 California state officials have faced recall campaigns that gathered enough signatures to make the ballot. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_campaigns_in_California">Of those, only six were actually removed from office</a>: Sen. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Marshall_Black_recall,_California_(1913)">Marshall Black</a>, a Republican-Progressive, was removed in 1913 on charges of embezzlement. A year later, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Edwin_Grant_recall,_California_(1914)">Democrat Edwin E. Grant was removed for sponsorship of Red Light Abatement legislation</a>, which was wildly unpopular in his San Francisco district. Republican assembly members <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-17-mn-2826-story.html">Paul Horcher</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-19-mn-25636-story.html">Doris Allen</a> were recalled in an effort spearheaded by their own party in 1994 and 1995, respectively, for crossing party lines in the vote for speaker. </p>
<p>The most famous recall campaign came in 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, beleaguered by a power grid crisis, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Gray_Davis_recall,_Governor_of_California_(2003)">was driven from office and replaced by actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>, who received more votes than Davis received for staying in office. </p>
<p>While the success rate of state recalls is small, there seems to be an acceleration in effective efforts, driven by Republicans facing a deep electoral hole in regular elections. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Recall_campaigns_in_California">The last three recalls to make the ballot</a> have been aimed at Democrats: Davis in 2003, a successful recall of Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman, and the current campaign. </p>
<p>The California state recall may be on its way to becoming the low-visibility political tool of the minority party looking for vulnerable incumbents. Of all four governors in the nation who ever faced recall elections, <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall-history-california-1913-present">two were California Democrats during the heyday of their party’s ascendancy in state politics</a>.</p>
<p>While the public may love direct democracy, it has <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/92-S.-Cal.-L.-Rev.-557-CALIFORNIA-CONSTITUTIONAL-LAW-DIRECT-DEMOCRACY.pdf">more critics than defenders</a> among students of politics. But it remains one of the few long-term structural reforms that has the potential to fix some of the problems of the American governmental system.</p>
<p>Voters may be able to improve direct democracy, keeping in mind its original purpose: to activate and mobilize a well-informed citizenry to correct the flaws of a democratic system of surprising longevity, but with a deep resistance to change.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand what’s going on in Washington.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphael J. Sonenshein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s easy to make fun of California politics. But a longtime scholar of those politics says the attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom is part of a long-running attempt to hold government accountable.Raphael J. Sonenshein, Executive Director, Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, California State University, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701732017-03-01T11:13:37Z2017-03-01T11:13:37ZHow to resist the political rise of the global nativist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158883/original/image-20170301-5504-1x43l32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For whom?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/manheim-pa-october-1-2016-people-530768224?src=CqgyEXw58yNYAS4rL9zxIA-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The victories of Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016 brought an explicitly racist brand of nationalism back into the political mainstream. It is a toxic populism that mixes legitimate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support">criticism</a> of globalisation with xenophobic scapegoating and political authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/donald-trump-executive-order-immigration-full-text">signed an executive order</a> banning Muslims from certain countries from entering the US, and Britain’s vote to leave the EU was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/15/poorer-voters-worries-immigration-fuelled-brexit-vote-study-finds">noticeably coloured by fears</a> over foreign immigration. That victory has emboldened right wing political parties across the continent from <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/12/08/is_france_going_fascist_extreme_right_national_front_is_now_the_most_popular_party">France</a> to <a href="https://bostonreview.net/world/sindre-bangstad-norway-populist-right">Norway</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/22/world/europe/europe-right-wing-austria-hungary.html">Austria</a> to <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/sweden-democrats-jimmie-akesson-far-right-europe/">Sweden</a>.</p>
<p>Global communication only strengthens the political bonds between these movements. Because while this strain of politics is strongly nationalist in focus, its causes are decidedly global. It is part of a broader <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12210652/donald-trump-european-right">international reaction</a> to the economic insecurity and political disempowerment associated with corporate globalisation and <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/far-right-parties-always-gain-support-after-financial-crises-report-finds/">financial crises</a>.</p>
<p>Racism is undoubtedly another important driving force for this movement. Trump’s aim to “make America great again” is a not-so-secret <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-suh/the-racist-nostalgia-behind-make-america-trump_b_8145962.html">call</a> to return to a perceived halcyon time of white privilege. Yet to simply reduce this nationalism to racism, or explain it away as a predictable outgrowth of capitalist exploitation, is to miss its distinctly global character. It is not simply a celebration of the “white” race or Western culture. It is a universal reaction to the economic and political ills of the international free market.</p>
<p>Economic globalisation had promised to usher in an era of peace and prosperity linked to economic interdependence and common development. In reality, it created a “race to the bottom” that severely weakened labour rights and environmental regulations. It left many citizens economically vulnerable, while channelling the vast majority of new wealth to the very top.</p>
<p>The emerging authoritarian populism directly speaks to those “left behind”. Trump <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/20/donald-trump-inauguration-day-president-white-house/96782700/">promised</a> in his inauguration speech to fight for the “forgotten men and women of our country”. </p>
<p>The 21st century return of the native is framed as a popular “taking back” of national identity and self-determination. We are facing a new solidarity between so-called “indigenous” citizens who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/23/alt-right-movement-white-identity-breitbart-donald-trump">want to protect</a> their “culture” from the threat at their borders.</p>
<p>And it is ironic that this resurgent nativism is increasingly global in scope. While it seeks to preserve specific cultural identities, it is an ideology that is threatening to <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-wing-populism-is-surging-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic-heres-why-47876">sweep the world</a>. The “real people” must be defended, whether they live in the US, Europe or Asia.</p>
<p>Xenophobia has been transformed into a cure for globalisation – one that each country and its “native” population can and should embrace. Global nativism is about preserving the purity of an “indigenous” American, British, Swedish or Chinese culture against the threat of condescending cosmopolitan elites and unsavoury barbarian invaders. They see their very way of life literally and figuratively under threat – an imperilled condition that they share with other endangered “natives” all over the world.</p>
<p>They are also forging new international networks that span continents for connecting “indigenous” populations. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/12103602/America-to-investigate-Russian-meddling-in-EU.html">Vladimir Putin</a>, for instance, has been accused of funding extreme groups for the sake of pushing Russia’s geo-political advantage in Europe, while the Kremilin is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-government-officially-accuses-russia-of-hacking-campaign-to-influence-elections/2016/10/07/4e0b9654-8cbf-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html?utm_term=.285313f6434b">said to have interfered</a> with the US election. </p>
<p>As bad as all this sounds, it may only be the beginning. The broader danger in the long term is that this will coalesce into a fully networked global “native” movement. </p>
<p>The rise of the global natives raises a profound challenge to progressives. How to build a mass movement and consciousness that is international, anti-capitalist and post-colonial? Where is the direct response to a right wing global movement whose populism is championing nationalism, corporate power and ethnic division? </p>
<h2>Better together</h2>
<p>The women’s march protesting Trump’s inauguration was a clear step in the right direction. In cities around the world people massed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/women-march-diversity-minorities-working-class?CMP=share_btn_fb">to resist</a> the forces of misogyny, xenophobia and nativism. It revealed the growing solidarity around these universal values and the willingness to fight for them across national borders.</p>
<p>Yet it also highlights the lack of internationalism in much contemporary progressive economic discourses. While religious fundamentalists and nativists are always seeking to become more global, mainstream “socialists” are commonly content to remain <a href="https://www.google.be/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Sanders+supporters+focused+on+domestic+concerns">fixated</a> on domestic concerns.</p>
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<p>It also requires a sharing of progressive identity. Global natives are in their own way significantly multicultural – openly sharing and borrowing from each other the best practices for achieving political sovereignty and cultural hegemony. Progressive groups must be similarly coordinated and learn from local experiences to successfully spread power and strength.</p>
<p>The choice of the new millennium appears to be between an exploitative neoliberalism (open markets, low taxes) and a regressive neo-nativism. Both roads lead ultimately to a future of capitalist repression, divisive racism and oppressive colonisation. In order to challenge this dual threat of capitalist oligarchy and global nativism, progressives must create their own international movement that draws strength from its diversity and fraternity. Corporate globalisation is colonising the world. Perhaps the most urgent question of our times is: who is going to liberate it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can the world’s progressives build their own international movement?Peter Bloom, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Department of People and Organisation, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/685232016-11-11T17:44:21Z2016-11-11T17:44:21ZTrump victory comes with a silver lining for the world’s progressives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145585/original/image-20161111-9050-qzhxvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2044%2C1149&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/walter12345/25303336356/in/photolist-ExYdkW-cXNj3h-GPbtJS-Qgjq-HDkeNK-DnKbm7-bhAmw-AKBvx-5qY7j-B2fmcE-JgLC4f-C6qqgP-Cz6yph-HvPTSG-APATj-yiLiW-zyi8S-ax2D4N-FtkeR-CDVE3c-CcNcNy-C6qpRk-5sQFHr-E61uMW-pnKuW6-6Aw7aG-PbNc7-qLdx8t-54G2Fh-DkBb6o-8uN4fb-9hgCRf-G3EA7d-Duwcc9-4s5pAY-CnCkzq-9hgxgh-Jpibu9-6nM8gR-6Rasup-H1zLaG-xnk7CG-54FXRA-GvkLGL-C3sPCy-EEcJoV-GDhaC9-GkvG8s-Cbe9BR-Cbe9e6">Michael Hogan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/2016-us-presidential-election-23653">election of Donald Trump</a> symbolises the demise of a remarkable era. It was a time when we saw the curious spectacle of a superpower, the US, growing stronger because of – rather than despite – its burgeoning deficits. It was also remarkable because of the sudden influx of two billion workers – from China and Eastern Europe – into capitalism’s international supply chain. This combination gave global capitalism a historic boost, while at the same time suppressing Western labour’s share of income and prospects. </p>
<p>Trump’s success comes as that dynamic fails. His presidency represents a defeat for liberal democrats everywhere, but it holds important lessons – as well as hope – for progressives.</p>
<p>From the mid-1970s to 2008, the US economy had kept global capitalism in an unstable, though finely balanced, equilibrium. It sucked into its territory the net exports of economies such as those of Germany, Japan and later China, providing the world’s most efficient factories with the requisite demand. How was this growing trade deficit paid for? By the return of around 70% of the profits made by foreign corporates to Wall Street, to be invested in America’s financial markets. </p>
<p>To keep this recycling mechanism going, Wall Street had to be unshackled from all constraints; leftovers <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/usa/newdealrev1.shtml">from President Roosevelt’s New Deal</a> and the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7725157.stm">post-war Bretton Woods agreement</a> which sought to regulate financial markets. This is why Washington officials were so keen to deregulate finance: Wall Street provided the conduit through which increasing capital inflows from the rest of the world equilibrated the US deficits which were, in turn, providing the rest of the world with the aggregate demand stabilising the globalisation process. And so on.</p>
<h2>What goes up</h2>
<p>Tragically, but also very predictably, Wall Street proceeded to build unfathomable pyramids of private money (also known as structured derivatives) on top of the incoming capital flows. <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/schoolsbrief/21584534-effects-financial-crisis-are-still-being-felt-five-years-article">What happened in 2008</a> is something small children who have tried to build an infinitely tall sand tower know well: Wall Street’s pyramids collapsed under their own weight.</p>
<p>It was our generation’s 1929 moment. Central banks, led by US Fed chief Ben Bernanke, a student of the 1930s Great Depression, rushed in to prevent a repetition of the 1930s by replacing the vanished private money with easy public credit. Their move did avoid a second Great Depression (except for weaker links such as Greece and Portugal) but had no capacity to resolve the crisis. Banks were refloated and the US trade deficit returned to its pre-2008 level. But, the capacity of America’s economy to equilibrate world capitalism had vanished.</p>
<p>The result is the Great Western Deflation, marked by ultra low or negative interest rates, falling prices and devalued labour everywhere. As a percentage of global income, the planet’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/business/dealbook/as-europe-and-asia-hoard-cash-economists-see-echoes-of-crisis.html?_r=0">total savings</a> are at a world record level while aggregate investment is at its lowest. </p>
<p>When so many idle savings accumulate, the price of money (ie. the interest rate), indeed of everything, tends to fall. This suppresses investment and the world ends up in a low-investment, low-demand, low-return equilibrium. Just like in the early 1930s, this environment results in xenophobia, racist populism and centrifugal forces that are tearing apart institutions that were the Global Establishment’s pride and joy. Take a look at the European Union, or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).</p>
<h2>Bad deal</h2>
<p>Before 2008, workers in the US, in Britain and in the periphery of Europe were placated with the promise of “capital gains” and easy credit. Their houses, they were told, could only increase in value, replacing wage income growth. In the meantime their consumerism could be funded through second mortgages, credit cards and the rest. The price was their consent to the gradual retreat of democratic process and its replacement by a “technocracy” intent on serving faithfully, and without compunction, the interests of the 1%. Now, eight years after 2008, these people are angry and are getting even. </p>
<p>Trump’s triumph completes the mortal wounding this era had suffered in 2008. But the new era that Trump’s presidency is inaugurating, foreshadowed by Brexit, is not at all new. It is, indeed, a post-modern variant of the 1930s, complete with deflation, xenophobia, and divide-and-rule politics. Trump’s victory is not isolated. It will no doubt reinforce the toxic politics unleashed by Brexit, the undisguised bigotry of Nicolas Sarkozy and <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/yes-president-marine-le-pen-is-now-more-possible-trump-clinton/">Marine Le Pen in France</a>, the rise of the <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/alternative-fur-deutschland-forced-german-politics-right/">Alternative für Deutschland</a>, the “illiberal democracies” emerging in Eastern Europe, Golden Dawn in Greece. </p>
<p>Thankfully Trump is not Hitler and history never repeats itself faithfully. Mercifully, big business is not funding Trump and his European mates like it was funding Hitler and Mussolini. But Trump and his European counterparts are reflections of an emergent Nationalist International that the world has not seen since the 1930s. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Weimar-Republic">Just as in the 1930s</a>, so too now a period of debt-fuelled Ponzi growth, faulty monetary design and financialisation led to a banking crisis that begat deflationary forces which bred a mix of racist nationalism and populism. Just like in the early 1930s, so too now a clueless establishment aims its guns at progressives, such as Bernie Sanders and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/01/syriza-cave-in-elites-regime-change">our first Syriza government in 2015</a>, but ends up being upended by belligerent racist nationalists. </p>
<h2>Global response</h2>
<p>Can the spectre of this Nationalist International be absorbed or defeated by the Global Establishment? It takes a great deal of faith to think that it can, in view of the Establishment’s deep denial and persistent coordination failures. Is there an alternative? I think so: A Progressive International that resists the narrative of isolationism and promotes inclusive humanist internationalism in place of the neoliberal Establishment’s defence of the rights of capital to globalise.</p>
<p>In Europe this movement already exists. Founded in Berlin last February, <a href="https://diem25.org/">the Democracy in Europe Movement</a> (DiEM25) is attempting to achieve that which an earlier generation of Europeans failed to do in 1930. We want to reach out to democrats across borders and political party lines asking them to unite to keep borders and hearts open while planning sensible economic policies that allow the West to re-embrace the notion of shared prosperity, without the destructive “growth” of the past. </p>
<p>But Europe is clearly not enough. DiEM25 is encouraging progressives in the US, who <a href="https://berniesanders.com/stream/">supported Bernie Sanders</a> and <a href="http://www.jill2016.com/">Jill Stein</a>, in Canada and in Latin America to band together into a Democracy in the Americas Movement. We are also seeking progressives in the Middle East, especially those shedding their blood against ISIS, against tyranny, and against the West’s puppet regimes to build a Democracy in the Middle East Movement. </p>
<p>Trump’s triumph comes with a silver lining. It demonstrates that we are at a crossroads when change is inevitable, not just possible. But to ensure that it is not the type of change that humanity suffered from in the 1930s, we need movements to spring out and to forge a Progressive International to press passion and reason back into the service of humanism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanis Varoufakis served as Greece’s Finance Minister (January to July 2015) and is co-founder of DiEM25.</span></em></p>The US election confirmed the death of an extraordinary economic era. Now, control of the next must be wrested from the emboldened nationalists.Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics, University of AthensLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622412016-07-26T14:35:53Z2016-07-26T14:35:53ZAfter Bernie Sanders: how progressives can actually change America<p>After almost a year of primaries and the threat of a contested convention, Hillary Clinton is being <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/politics/hillary-clinton-nomination-2016/">officially nominated</a> for President at the Democratic National Convention. Even her rival Bernie Sanders has <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/13/bernie-sanders-why-i-endorsed-hillary-clinton-commentary.html">publicly endorsed</a> her. </p>
<p>But as the convention got underway, plenty of Sanders’s progressive supporters were far from happy with the outcome. Clinton and her allies have shifted leftwards on a number of issues, among them <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickclements/2016/07/07/5-student-loan-promises-from-hillary-clinton/#371d7f87710f">student debt</a> and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/09/politics/democrats-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton/">the minimum wage</a>. Yet one recent poll showed that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-22/nearly-half-of-sanders-supporters-won-t-support-clinton">nearly half</a> of Sanders’s supporters are still unwilling to vote for Clinton, and plans for large and conspicuous <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/dnc-rnc-police-repression-protests-conventions-philadelphia-cleveland/">progressive protests</a> were very much borne out as the convention opened. </p>
<p>The head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had just been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/debbie-wasserman-schultz-resigns-dnc-chair-emails-sanders">forced to resign</a> after leaked emails showed that she and other party leaders had discussed undermining the Sanders campaign during the primaries. Meanwhile, many of Sanders’s supporters <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/dnc-speakers-protests-sanders.html?_r=0">loudly booed or openly wept</a> when he made an impassioned appeal from the stage to get behind Clinton. Outside the convention hall, protesters were far from ready to embrace the nominee, chanting instead “<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/07/24/bernie-sanders-supporters-chant-lock-her-up-in-philadelphia-protest-against-clinton/">lock her up</a>”. </p>
<p>It’s easy to overstate how big a problem this is for Clinton. But it goes to the heart of a serious question about the continuing prospects of American progressivism: Bernie’s movement, its leaders and those it has inspired, need to figure out how they can actually change America. If they want to be more than the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-rallies-new-hampshire">anti-establishment protest movement</a> they’re often reduced to, they have to start thinking about how to take real power.</p>
<p>Helpfully, the Sanders campaign is itself proof that true progressivism is no longer a “fringe” politics. After all, its self-declared “democratic socialist” standard-bearer ran a very strong second in the Democratic primary – this on the back of over 13m votes and with next to no corporate backing. Progressive values are also getting more popular, particularly among <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/19/were-screwed-gop-pollster-laments-losing-millennial-voters-socialism-and-sanders">the younger generation</a>. </p>
<p>So the immediate task is to translate this progressive energy into real political representation and influence. It’s already happening to some extent: thanks to input from voices on the left, the Democrats now have what’s been called <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/democrats-advance-most-progressive-platform-party-history-n606646">their most progressive party platform in history</a>. It calls for expanding social security, serious Wall Street reform, opposition to the death penalty, and support for a living wage. </p>
<p>And on the back of Sanders’ success, a new group appropriately entitled “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-congress_us_5720e608e4b0b49df6a9c933">Brand New Congress</a>” has formed to promote left-wing candidates nationally without corporate funding.</p>
<p>These things imply that the movement is genuinely starting to embrace reality, and to learn the lessons of the campaign just concluded. Sanders himself apparently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0">missed an opportunity</a> to become the Democratic nominee by not taking his own chances seriously enough until mid-spring, when it was too late. The left cannot make the same mistake again; if it wants to make a real impact, it must be committed to building a progressive establishment now.</p>
<h2>Back from the fringe</h2>
<p>Politics, of course, is much more than simply winning elections. A tough criticism of “moderate” parties throughout both the US and Europe, the US’s Democrats and Britain’s Labour among them, is that they have traded their core progressive values for the sake of “electability”. What is required is a new political narrative of how left wing values can pragmatically address present problems.</p>
<p>The opportunity for doing so has arguably never been so ripe. These times we live in might ultimately be looked back at as an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/opinion/cohen-a-dangerous-interregnum.html">interregnum</a>; the current system’s days are numbered, but a new one has yet to emerge to take its place. </p>
<p>More and more people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/its-not-just-trump-voter-anger-fuels-outsider-candidates/2015/08/12/cd3fdb06-40f8-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html">across the political spectrum</a> are realising that orthodox economic and political ideals are no longer sufficient. Issues of racism, inequality and terrorism seem to be getting worse, not better. The prevalent feeling is one of hopelessness and insecurity, and the danger is that this desperation will turn reactionary – as it has on the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/05/31/yes-a-trump-presidency-would-bring-fascism-to-america/#697690992a75">American right</a>.</p>
<p>That means it’s essential to articulate how only a strong, realistic progressive agenda can help. It means highlighting that the status quo is dangerous: just as the War on Terror is implicated in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/nov/30/why-a-war-on-terrorism-will-generate-yet-more-terrorism">the rise in terrorism</a>, so surrendering the War on Poverty has opened the door to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/neoliberalism-is-increasing-inequality-and-stunting-economic-growth-the-imf-says-a7052416.html">endemic social and economic blight</a>. To stick to politics-as-usual is to embrace the risk of social, political and economic ruin.</p>
<p>This critique must be the basis for credible progressive alternatives. The Black Lives Matters movement is an example of this approach in practice. Its urgent criticism of law enforcement has already started congealing into a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/25/the-black-lives-matter-policy-agenda-is-practical-thoughtful-and-urgent/">constructive program for deep policing reform</a>, and as a result, once-dismissed ideas are becoming mainstream – as is radical thinking about a “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/policing-is-a-dirty-job-but-nobodys-gotta-do-it-6-ideas-for-a-cop-free-world-20141216">cop-free world</a>”. </p>
<p>Taking this strategy further, progressives must put forward genuine and technically practical policy proposals for increased public investment, stronger labour rights, a stronger welfare state, drug liberalisation, and <a href="http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/about-participatory-budgeting/what-is-pb/">participatory budgeting</a>. </p>
<p>This could finally overwrite the American left’s image as an anxiety-inducing melee of umbrage, intransigence and even violence, and replace it with an exciting ethos of experimentation and innovation.</p>
<h2>Building a progressive future</h2>
<p>The left’s focus on whether leaders are “hypocrites” or if existing institutions are fit for purpose can be useful, but it is no substitute for envisioning what a progressive society could be and how it can be made reality. First of all, that means getting to grips with the reality of a rapidly globalising world.</p>
<p>Authoritarianism is very much alive, and active on every continent. Various wars and their spillover crises are feeding the politics of fear the world over, and suck resources into the military and security services rather than public goods. Nascent global free trade agreements threaten environmental and workers’ rights in the US and most of its partners – a global “<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/11/labour-standards">race to the bottom</a>” that will bring us all down unless we have the international solidarity collectively to end it.</p>
<p>However, it also means harnessing global progressive networks to empower their members. There are concrete lessons to learn from the real experiences of progressive experimenters, from the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/11/labour-standards">communist community in Marinaleda, Spain</a> to the “<a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2011-radical-cities">radical city</a>” projects throughout Latin America and the <a href="https://roarmag.org/magazine/reclaiming-the-american-commons/">creation of radical co-operatives</a> all over the world. </p>
<p>So a real progressive transformation will begin with a realistic, achievable and yet exhilarating vision. To be truly “revolutionary”, the left has to demonstrate to the sceptical masses how a radically different world is not only desirable, but also possible.</p>
<p>The 2016 election has already been historic, from the astonishing rise of the US’s first socialist candidate in almost a century to the nomination of the first woman to top a presidential ticket. It also leaves progressives at a crossroads; thwarted in their struggle to win the presidency, but nonetheless confronted with the chance to build a progressive American and global future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bernie Sanders may have endorsed Hillary Clinton, but politics as usual has had its day. It’s time for progressivism to move fast.Peter Bloom, Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Department of People and Organisation, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/539302016-02-12T13:17:01Z2016-02-12T13:17:01ZWhy are today’s progressive political heroes still old white men?<p>On both sides of the Atlantic, a reawakening of progressive politics is underway. In countries where until recently socialism was considered a “dirty word”, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are inspiring a growing number of American and British citizens with a message of economic equality and social justice. And both have concrete achievements to show for it: Corbyn swept to victory with a huge margin in the Labour leadership contest, while Sanders achieved a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sanders-wins-new-hampshire-why-the-time-is-again-ripe-for-american-socialism-54317">22-point victory</a> over Hillary Clinton in the recent New Hampshire primary.</p>
<p>To their supporters, both represent the possibility of a different kind of politics, one that offers to convert grassroots energy into electoral success and genuine progressive change. As Sanders <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10853502/bernie-sanders-political-revolution">declared</a> in 2014:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The major political, strategic difference I have with Obama is it’s too late to do anything inside the beltway. You gotta take your case to the American people, mobilise them, and organise them at the grassroots level in a way that we have never done before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both men’s appeal also rests on their unconventional images, their ruffled styles and candidness standing out in an age of polished, professionalised politics. “The problem isn’t Bernie Sanders is a crazy-pants cuckoo bird,” <a href="http://mic.com/articles/119606/watch-jon-stewart-prove-just-how-brilliant-a-candidate-bernie-sanders-really-is#.WpY6JIpNp">according to former</a> Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart, “it’s that we’ve all become so accustomed to stage-managed, focus-driven candidates that authenticity comes across as lunacy”.</p>
<p>Yet in one way, Corbyn and Sanders are actually utterly conventional: they’re both older white men. </p>
<h2>A new generation of progress?</h2>
<p>The West’s progressives are speaking to as wide a sector of the population as they can and preaching solidarity across the lines of race, gender, and age, but they are still being led by rather familiar-looking figures.</p>
<p>One of the most interesting aspects of the 2010s’ progressive resurgence is its mass appeal among <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/whos-backing-jeremy-corbyn-young">young people</a>. It is not surprising that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/20/bernie-sanders-millennials-young-voters">this new generation of voters</a> would be drawn to idealistic visions of radical social change, especially in a world of economic stagnation and a political class that has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-to-a-tax-increase-for-the-rich.html?_r=0">protected the needs of the top 1%</a> instead of effectively dealing with climate change or inequality.</p>
<p>And yet even as contemporary politics is becoming increasingly dominated by youth-driven <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/31/1374652/-Politicians-now-embracing-the-social-media-The-effect-of-their-posts-on-their-position">social media</a> and viral campaigning, the young people involved are embracing candidates old enough to be their grandfathers – and in Sanders’s case, one with a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/bernie-sanders-socialism-franklin-roosevelt-four-freedoms-economic-bill-rights/">distinctly 20th-century message</a> of social democracy (or in his preferred phrase, “<a href="https://berniesanders.com/democratic-socialism-in-the-united-states/">democratic socialism</a>”).</p>
<p>More awkwardly still, Corbyn and Sanders have respectively defeated or are threatening to defeat female opponents, albeit more moderate and centrist ones. </p>
<p>Corbyn’s mainstream opponents Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall were both broadly committed to the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11859889/Labour-isnt-dead-Blairism-is.-Jeremy-Corbyn-finally-killed-it.html">style, tactics and ideals of New Labour</a>. Sanders, meanwhile, is running very strongly against the supposedly “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/why-hillary-clinton-win-democratic-nomination">inevitable</a>” frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton. He stands in opposition not only to to her pragmatism and <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/29052-five-reasons-no-progressive-should-support-hillary-clinton">arguably very centrist record</a>, but her <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/why-wall-street-loves-hillary-112782">closeness with Wall Street</a>, her <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hillary-clinton-neoconservative-hawk-what-iraq-and-libya-decisions-tell-us-about">hawkishness</a> and her position with the political establishment. </p>
<p>So far, his appeal has proved broad and deep – and in the New Hampshire primary, women chose Sanders over Clinton in a “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/new-hampshire-women-chose-bernie-sanders_b_9200174.html">landslide</a>”. All the while, the Clinton campaign’s efforts to court younger female voters have seriously backfired. </p>
<p>Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright did Clinton no favours with her <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/albright-special-place-in-hell-for-women-not-backing-clinton-a6858811.html">reiteration</a> that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other”; Clinton backer and second-wave feminist icon Gloria Steinem did even worse with her <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10955042/hillary-clinton-feminists">tone-deaf pronouncement</a> that young women only support Sanders because “the boys are with Bernie”.</p>
<p>And so the two old white men are not only riding high, but assembling some of the most diverse ranks of supporters that top-tier political campaigning have ever seen.</p>
<p>So in both the UK and the US, citizens are increasingly faced with a choice between the genuinely progressive white male candidate or the mainstream centrist candidate who offers some alternative to the standard cast list. </p>
<h2>Speaking up</h2>
<p>This has hardly gone unnoticed. Various progressive voices from marginalised groups are demanding more than just a politics of representation: already Sanders has inspired an “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/129047/bernies-army-running-congress">army</a>” of new political candidates that combine this commitment to progressive principles with a commitment to improving diversity within government.</p>
<p>Both have also had to confront serious questions about the inclusiveness of their “revolutions”. Corbyn’s laudable effort to make sure his shadow cabinet was gender-balanced was greeted with scepticism when it became clear that <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-holds-the-power-in-corbyns-majority-female-shadow-cabinet-47516">most of its powerful figures would be men</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, early in Sanders’s campaign, he was <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/a-dialogue-about-black-lives-matter-and-bernie-sanders/401960/">loudly protested</a> by the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, prompting him to put more work into voicing the group’s concerns. </p>
<p>But that hasn’t ended the scepticism of his passion for racial issues. Noted writer Ta-Nehisi Coates <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/">decried Sanders’s rejection</a> of the idea that the US should issue some form of reparations for slavery. And the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus have not only endorsed Clinton over Sanders, but described the Vermont senator as “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/congressional-black-caucus-slams-bernie-sanders-219132">missing in action</a>” on core civil rights campaigns. Polls still show black Americans and Latinos support Clinton over Sanders by a huge margin (though that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/18/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-black-voters-south-carolina">may yet change</a>). </p>
<p>The progressives organising for Sanders and Corbyn want a clear vision of radical change that will take back a democracy held hostage by economic and political elites. Still, these nascent democratic revolutions must not be content with calls for class solidarity or broad appeals to racial justice and gender equality: they must be just as committed to changing the familiar white male face of progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Left-wing grassroots movements are swelling their ranks and winning elections – but their standard-bearers are same old, same old.Peter Bloom, Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Department of People and Organisation, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/543042016-02-09T10:03:15Z2016-02-09T10:03:15ZClinton, Sanders and the changing face of the Democratic Party<p>Last week’s debate in New Hampshire between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over who is the “real progressive” said a lot about how they and the Democratic Party have changed over the past half-century. </p>
<p>When Clinton and Sanders first came of age politically during the mid-1960s, neither was a natural fit for the Democrats as the party was then. </p>
<p>Taking a look at how these two very different people and the party they now want to lead have evolved can help clarify the philosophical divide on display in the Democratic Party today. </p>
<h2>Hillary: from midwest Republican to moderate liberal</h2>
<p>In the mid-1960s, Hillary Clinton wasn’t even a Democrat. She was the child of upper middle-class Republicans living in Park Ridge, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. </p>
<p>That world, like the <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/91346374/the-lost-city-the-forgotten-virtues-of-community">nearby suburbs in DuPage County</a> which Park Ridge resembled, was strongly Republican then. To most people living there, the Democrats were the party of Mayor Richard Daley Sr., a <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/91346374/the-lost-city-the-forgotten-virtues-of-community">big-city machine politician</a> whose somewhat corrupt organization mostly championed the interests of working and lower middle-class whites living inside Chicago’s city limits.</p>
<p>The twin upheavals of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement transformed both Hillary Clinton and the Democrats over the following 10 years. By the mid-1970s, she had become a liberal Democrat of the Great Society/George McGovern variety who embraced such new liberal causes as the civil rights movement, détente with the Soviet Union, feminism and environmentalism.</p>
<p>As the country moved to the right in the later 1970s and ‘80’s, Hillary Clinton became a more moderately liberal Democrat, somewhat more skeptical of big, expensive government programs, tougher on crime and more supportive of military strength as a way to deter aggression. This is the position she and her husband Bill have adhered to ever since.</p>
<h2>Bernie: from Brooklyn socialist to independent</h2>
<p>Bernie Sanders’ road to where he is today, politically speaking, was even stranger. </p>
<p>He grew up in a tightly knit Brooklyn neighborhood where the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?vid=9780814736852&hl=en">immigrant Jewish socialist tradition</a> was still strongly felt. The residents there had mostly embraced Franklin Roosevelt during the 1930s, but tended to be New Deal Democratic voters of the most left wing sort. For them, Progressive Party candidate <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-7852.html">Henry Wallace</a>, who opposed a confrontational stance toward the Soviet Union, better reflected in 1948 what the New Deal stood for than did Democrat Harry Truman. </p>
<p>Having grown up in that radical milieu during the 1940s and ‘50’s, Bernie Sanders appears to have moved easily into the New Left in the 1960s and '70’s, which disdained the Democrats as too “conservative.” </p>
<p>Lots of New Leftists like Sanders <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kaliner/files/art10.1007s11186-010-9132-2.pdf">moved to Vermont</a> in the 1970s and <a href="https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1dy8mRmSGO4IonwEmYJV4VFq7zciCECH1zXII-rEX#card:id=2">built their own “democratic socialist”</a> movement there, as they called it. That base of support lifted Bernie Sanders (running as an independent) to three major public offices in Vermont: mayor of Burlington, congressman and then senator. </p>
<p>Serving in the U.S. House and Senate obliged Sanders to form some kind of relationship with the Democratic Party (lest he be shut out of the committee seniority system there), and so he chose to caucus with them while remaining officially an independent. Only when he decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination did he register as a Democrat.</p>
<h2>'The party that never dies’</h2>
<p>That both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were able to find a home in today’s Democratic Party not only reflects the more fluid nature of American political allegiance when compared with the electorate of such similar nations as Britain and Canada. It also says volumes about the shape-shifting nature over time of the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>Political scientists have dubbed the Democrats <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Party_of_the_People.html?id=8Z-HAAAAMAAJ">“the party that never dies,”</a> because it has enjoyed a continuous existence since its founding in the late 1820s, even though what the party has stood for and who votes for it have changed greatly since then. The Democrats have used the word “progressive” since the early years of the 20th century. Indeed, Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1912 famously <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=GZ5IpwgQ0jMC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=wilson+a+progressive+with+brakes+on&source=bl&ots=4LTrwonBNZ&sig=O92mGhbwXq9FJQrdHUuFMmJD61g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1k7jZwunKAhXGox4KHSTPBeEQ6AEIIjAC#v=onepage&q=wilson%20a%20progressive%20with%20brakes%20on&f=false">described himself</a> as “a Progressive with the brakes on.”</p>
<p>When Clinton and Sanders were coming of age politically 50 years ago, the Democrats were basically the party of the cities and South, a somewhat bipolar coalition forged during the Roosevelt presidency.</p>
<p>Since then, the Democrats have become the party of <a href="http://www.citylab.com/politics/2013/02/what-makes-some-cities-vote-democratic/4598/">the country’s big metro regions, cities and their suburbs.</a> </p>
<p>There has also been a change in the class background of the party’s electoral support. </p>
<p>Unlike 50 years ago, when the Democrats were much more a party of workers and the lower middle class, today’s party enjoys less of that kind of support, <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/12/the-democrats-white-male-problem">especially from the males </a>in those groups. </p>
<p>Upper middle-class suburban liberals of the 1970s variety and aging New Leftists who see the Democrats – as disappointing as they are in some ways – as infinitely preferable to today’s Republicans are the relative newcomers to the Democratic fold. </p>
<h2>More than one ‘real progressive’</h2>
<p>Keeping all that in mind helps explain the Clinton-Sanders dispute over who is the real “progressive” in this year’s race for the Democratic nomination. Who is the person most able to bring about social change – and what kind of change? </p>
<p>To Hillary Clinton, the term “progressive” is synonymous with moderately liberal middle-class reformer, of which she is a leading example. </p>
<p>To Bernie Sanders, “progressive” evokes the spirit of the left wing of the New Deal coalition.</p>
<p>This reminds us that “progressive” is a word that means different things to different people, and that has been true for a long time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Stebenne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Clinton and Sanders first came of age politically, neither was a natural fit for the Democrats. How they and the party have changed helps explain their philosophical divide today.David Stebenne, Professor of History and Law Faculty, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396202015-04-03T10:12:59Z2015-04-03T10:12:59ZChicago 2015: The Prince or the Populist?<p>In early fall 2010 when Richard M Daley announced that he would not stand for a sixth four-year term as mayor of Chicago, most observers of the city’s politics were caught by surprise. One of the prevailing assumptions about Chicago politics is that mayors — especially with the surname Daley — do not willingly give up their office on City Hall’s fifth floor.</p>
<p>Mayor Daley’s decision, nevertheless, might have been foreseen. His wife Maggie was in failing health and she would succumb to cancer in late 2011. Then there was the International Olympic Committee’s unanticipated (at least locally) rejection, in October 2009, of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, a decision that Mayor Daley did not take at all well. And perhaps Daley anticipated that a fiscal crisis was likely to swamp his administration if he carried on for another term. </p>
<p>Of equal surprise to most aficionados of Chicago politics was the unfolding of the post-Daley mayoral election in early 2011. With Richard M Daley on the sidelines, smart money presumed that a large field of candidates – each catering to a particular racial/ethnic constituency – would contest the first round of the nonpartisan mayoral contest, and assuming that none of the candidates would win a majority of the votes cast, a run-off election would pit the two top vote-getters from the first round. </p>
<h2>Emanuel’s new plum job was not so rosy</h2>
<p>There were multiple candidates – former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun, former school board president Gerry Chico, and Daley administration veteran Miguel del Valle to varying degrees sought to mobilize those racial/ethnic blocs. But, in fact, President Barack Obama’s chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, stepping down from the pinnacle of national political power, quickly raised campaign funds in the millions and turned himself into a serviceable-enough retail politician to win the mayoralty outright in the first-round ballot.</p>
<p>Whether or not Rahm Emanuel could foresee that his new plum job would not be so plum after all is an open question. </p>
<p>For much of Richard M Daley’s mayoralty, Chicago was widely presumed to be a city that was, so to speak, on the make. Chicago added residents in the 1990s, the first time that had happened since the 1940s. Daley earned accolades as a public school and public housing reformer. Even what might have been a great civic disaster – the $400 million over-budget Millennium Park project – won the praise of architecture critics and became a wildly popular gathering place for Chicagoans and tourists alike.</p>
<p>But all was not well in Daley’s Chicago. Beginning in the early 2000s the city government had increasingly relied on debt to fund its operations. Indeed, Daley’s administration quietly issued bonds to pay for the day-to-day operations of Millennium Park. More gravely, Daley pushed back against fiscal reality by deferring billions of dollars in promised contributions to city employee pension funds.</p>
<h2>City of Big Shoulders hit with big losses in revenue</h2>
<p>Then, the crash of 2008 undermined many of Chicago’s revenue streams. This included a drop in the property tax, of course, but also in levies tapping real estate transactions and directed at the local tourist and convention economies.</p>
<p>Into this deeply compromised house of cards walked newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel. </p>
<p>The current mayor’s policy preferences appear to be a blend of the business-friendly New Democrat playbook authored by his original political mentor, Bill Clinton, and sheer, fiscal crisis-inspired desperation.</p>
<p>Emanuel unctuously courts corporate leaders considering a headquarters relocation to Chicago, and when his overture succeeds, holds a celebratory <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-04/business/ct-biz-0104-clayco-hq-20130104_1_chicago-infrastructure-trust-construction-firm-chicago-area">press conference</a> to highlight the economic development triumph. </p>
<p>He has pushed into high gear the privatization of Chicago’s schools, provoking a strike by the Chicago Teachers Union in the fall of 2012. And the following spring, the Emanuel-controlled school board closed four dozen neighborhood schools, the majority of which were in African-American neighborhoods on the South and West sides. </p>
<p>One of outgoing Mayor Daley’s least popular policy tools was <a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dcd/provdrs/tif.html">Tax Increment Financing (TIF),</a> a neighborhood development technique often used to leverage public resources for upscale commercial and residential development but rarely bringing private investment to neighborhoods away from Chicago’s near-downtown and north lakefront gentrification zone. With much fanfare, newly elected Mayor Emanuel appointed a task force to study TIF, but in the three years since the task force produced its report and recommendations, implementation of the TIF program is little changed.</p>
<h2>Challengers play odd role in one-party city</h2>
<p>In one-party Chicago, the emergence of challengers to an incumbent mayor is a curious process. There is never a Republican with either the personal reputation or organizational support to mount a campaign. So, challengers will be Democrats, presumably pushed forward by some disgruntled faction (usually a racial/ethnic constituency). </p>
<p>But in fact, challengers rarely succeed, and even in 2014 – with a mayor whose temperament was not widely admired and whose city was not thriving – it was unclear who might step forward to oppose Rahm Emanuel.</p>
<p>For a time the most formidable prospective challenger was the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis, but in late summer, Lewis, just diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, announced that she would not make a run for mayor. Picking up Lewis’s mantle was Cook County Commissioner <a href="http://jesuschuygarcia.com">Jesus “Chuy” Garcia,</a> a community activist and “independent Democrat” who in the 1980s had been among then-mayor Harold Washington’s city council allies.</p>
<p>To the surprise of many, Garcia and two other principal challengers to Mayor Emanuel won enough votes in the February first-round election to force a run-off on Tuesday.</p>
<h2>Garcia’s initial success in tagging ‘Mayor 1%’</h2>
<p>Presenting himself as the candidate of the neighborhoods, and as such attempting to re-mobilize the old Harold Washington coalition of African-Americans, Latinos and liberal whites, Garcia refers to Emanuel as <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/17685/chicago_election_runoff_chuy_rahm">“Mayor 1%,”</a> pegging him as a downtown-oriented ally of the city’s elites.</p>
<p>But in the aftermath of the euphoria generated by his first-round performance, Garcia’s run-off election effort has sputtered. Vastly outspent by an Emanuel campaign with the capacity to flood the air waves with defamatory TV and radio <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-mayoral-candidate-chuy-garcia-met-0311-20150310-story.html">ads</a> the Garcia policy team has hesitated to articulate a detailed program for addressing the city government’s fiscal problems. </p>
<p>No doubt the Garcia team is hobbled by the following anxiety: the near-certainty that, post-election, tax increases will have to comprise a large part of the solution to the city’s fiscal woes. This is a poison pill for the candidate candid enough to state this perfectly obvious truth. </p>
<p>However, tax reticence does not seem to have served the Garcia campaign. In the weeks since the first-round ballot, public opinion polling finds Rahm Emanuel pulling away from his populist challenger.</p>
<p>Irrespective of the voters’ choice next week, the 2015 Chicago’s mayor’s race has been deficient in one key respect. Though more competitive than expected, the mayoral race has not produced the quality of debate necessary to begin to define real solutions to such deep-seated problems as the longstanding decline of so many South and West side neighborhoods, the challenge of balancing public safety versus community confidence in the police, or how to sustain a public school system that is both effective and inclusive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Bennett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opposition politics by progressives have long played a role in Chicago’s mayoral elections. Now incumbent Rahm Emanuel seems to have the role once held by the legendary Mayor Richard J Daley.Larry Bennett, Professor of Political Science , DePaul UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396212015-04-03T10:12:58Z2015-04-03T10:12:58ZA game of intramural Democratic Party politics plays out in Chicago<p>Tuesday’s run-off mayoral election in Chicago has captured national attention, and highlights tensions within the nation’s Democratic coalition. </p>
<p>Within Chicago, the election has been framed as a study in contrasts. On one hand, the incumbent Rahm Emanuel represents downtown-centric “growth machine” policies, which he frames as fiscal responsibility. On the other side is a movement supporting a neighborhood focus and a more inclusive style of government, which challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia advocates. </p>
<p>Viewed through a broader lens, this is a game of intramural Democratic Party politics. The forces in Chicago reflect tensions between purist progressives and more pragmatic centrists. While the progressives maintain primary ties with unions, the centrists’ alliances with the business community complicate their position on many traditional “Democratic” positions such as the reduction of inequality and support for organized labor.</p>
<h2>Emanuel and his neo-liberal approach</h2>
<p>Emanuel, in his first term, has governed with a substantial policy continuity with his predecessor, Richard M Daley. </p>
<p>Over the two decades in which Daley (for whom Emanuel was once a key fundraiser, and whose brother succeeded Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff) governed the city, a market-based approach – or neo-liberal governance – was increasingly applied to many areas of government. But the city’s financial house was never fully in order, and fiscal problems remained. The main policy challenges of Emanuel’s first term were preparing for looming pension crises and perennial attempts to improve services. Neither of these major issues have been resolved, and they won’t be soon. </p>
<p>Overall, Emanuel has generally governed from a business-friendly, center-left perspective akin to that of Michael Bloomberg in New York. He has consistently and self-consciously boosted the city for business development, while also advocating for the progressive position on issues like gun control, expanded early-childhood education, immigration and minimum wages. The result is a blend of increasingly neo-liberal political economy combined with generally inclusive or progressive social politics (as opposed to the openly divisive racial politics of 1980s Chicago or 1990s New York).</p>
<p>Under Daley, and now Emanuel, Chicago made significant strides to avoid the worst of the post-industrial decline common among Rust-Belt cities and maintain its credentials as both a regional capital and significant node in the global economy. This approach helped the city retain its population and wealth, and it seems unlikely that Chicago as a whole will descend into a Detroit-style spiral. </p>
<h2>Election underscores the ‘two’ Chicagos</h2>
<p>But the pursuit of global city status also contributes to the stark inequalities inherent in the “two Chicagos” narrative that is central to Garcia’s campaign and evident from even a casual exploration of Chicago’s sprawling territory. </p>
<p>Some areas – particularly the shining downtown, the always-wealthy near north side, and a few rapidly gentrifying areas – are flush with signs of investment and development. Other areas show the effects of underinvestment, population loss, and the suite of problems common in concentrated urban poverty. </p>
<p>From a political perspective, Emanuel’s reign has been quite different from Daley’s.</p>
<p>By the end of the previous administration, there was very little visible competition in Chicago politics (Daley won a majority in every neighborhood in his last re-election campaign). Emanuel’s term, in contrast, has been characterized by an increasingly vocal and pervasive progressive critique of the mayor’s positions. </p>
<p>And while Daley enjoyed consistent overwhelming support (or simple acquiescence) in the city council, Emanuel has had to contend with two separate progressive caucuses within the council, each of which articulates its key positions as opposed to the mayor’s policy agenda. </p>
<p>These loci of opposition were amplified by Emanuel’s key policy confrontation, the teacher’s strike in the summer of 2012, a dispute that would color his tenure and ultimately mobilize the opposition in this election. </p>
<p>The major political and philosophical disputes of Emanuel’s tenure and of this campaign, touch on significant tensions that have always been present in city politics but which often remain just below the surface of debates.</p>
<h2>Daley’s departure left fissures among Democrats</h2>
<p>Daley’s departure left Chicago’s political forces relatively unorganized for the first time in decades. The fissures that have re-emerged reflect broader tensions within the Democratic Party as the progressive agenda has changed and party leaders have shifted to the center on economic issues. This is especially true at the intersection of labor and education, where a policy conflict has emerged between Chicago progressive activists who supported the teachers’ union while advocating for more parity in educational resources overall and neo-liberal centrists who advocate educational reforms that apply market logic to education – often in the form of charter schools. </p>
<p>Charter schools are a key element of the reform agenda promoted by national Democrats, including prominent Chicagoans like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, but their promotion is often at odds with the support for collective bargaining rights that has been a core value of the Democratic Party since at least the <a href="http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=67">Wagner Act of 1935.</a></p>
<p>Emanuel won his first election in 2011 rather handily against limited opposition, with strength on the North Side, but also majorities in the overwhelmingly African-American sections of the South and West Sides. </p>
<p>In February’s nonpartisan preliminary race for mayor, however, his numbers fell across the board. Turnout declined dramatically in almost all areas of the city (from about 42% of registered voters to 33%; though both of these numbers are relatively high for local elections), as did his share of the vote. While he beat Garcia on the South and West Sides, he suffered significant losses of support there. </p>
<p>What drove this drop in support among African Americans? </p>
<p>Disillusion with Emanuel is often articulated in terms of a “neighborhoods” perspective. This position focuses on the ways in which the issues relevant to Chicagoans – public safety, aggressive policing tactics, underfunded schools and poor educational outcomes and a lack of basic services – are neglected by a government that focuses on Chicago’s global city status. </p>
<h2>The lingering impact of the teachers strike</h2>
<p>Emanuel, who spent most of his career as a national leader and an investment banker and has now brought those dispositions to Chicago, is a perfect lightning rod for criticism by progressives. They are frustrated by leaders who are no longer responsive to what used to be the most powerful elements of the Democratic Party. The teachers’ strike has been the most visible sign of conflict and a sign that he was unable or unwilling to avoid such public sector labor strife. Politically, this certainly hurt.</p>
<p>Not only did the mobilization of progressive groups (including the Chicago Teachers Union, Service Employees International Union, and United Working Families) give rise directly to Garcia’s candidacy, but also Emanuel’s drop in support was greatest in the areas where he closed 50 public schools in 2013. <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150224/downtown/chicago-election-2015-live-blog-race-results-updates-from-hoods">His losses</a> were particularly intense – about ten percent greater, on average – in those areas where schools were closed than in places where they were not. These “neighborhood” frustrations are a kind of populist revolt against a city hall that doesn’t seem to care – an echo of the Occupy movement that has drawn attention to income inequality.</p>
<p>The final broad trend illustrated by this election is the increasing <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2012/11/07/changing-face-of-america-helps-assure-obama-victory/">importance of Latino voters</a> for electoral politics. Latinos, who have provided the main competition for Emanuel in both of his runs, are a fast-growing group in Chicago’s electorate, and they are increasingly organized to flex their political muscles. Such changes are often fraught. African Americans, for example, do not always see Latinos as natural allies on all issues.</p>
<p>Garcia has longstanding alliances with black leaders going back to the 1980s, but to win this election, he needs to create a cross-racial alliance. Whether African American voters will rebuild the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-mayor-race-latino-vote-met-20150401-story.html#page=1">“black-brown” </a>coalition that once powered Mayor Harold Washington’s victories will be seen after Tuesday’s election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Ogorzalek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tuesday’s Chicago mayoral run-off reveals fissures within the city’s Democratic infrastructure and demonstrates potential divisions in the national Democratic PartyThomas Ogorzalek, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.