The Democratic Party Can’t Go Back to the Clinton Era, as Much as “Experts” Claim It Should

Oh, dear God, they’re back. And, oh, dear double God, Tiger Beat on the Potomac has got ’em.

“We tried moving to the left under Biden. … It really helped shrink the party’s appeal,” [Progressive Policy Institute] president and founder Will Marshall told me a few days after the retreat. “What will work in a deep blue district is one thing. What will work in swing states and swing districts is something else altogether.” PPI’s own polling and focus groups with non-college voters over the last three years showed a more moderate or even conservative outlook on issues like immigration or policing, Marshall explained. That’s why they went to Denver: Marshall and others at PPI believe the key to the party’s future success is to be found in the unique combination of libertarian ideals, progressive programs, and pocketbook-focused governance that has become a hallmark of western liberalism. The pragmatic approach, they say, reflects the growing number of unaffiliated voters in the country.

Not to be blunt, but no Democratic-party solution ever should even refer to “libertarian ideals,” not because of the dreaded “purity tests” but because libertarianism in any form is the purest moonshine, utopian bullshit enormously popular with the woo-woo fringe of Trumpist conservatism, which is generally played for laughs by the real hardcore. Screw “libertarian ideals.” Better to rely on the phases of the moon.

I would argue, and have argued, that the two elections of Bill Clinton, while necessary in the short term to keep the wolves of the time at bay, also required adopting as gospel the strategies that did incredible long-term damage to the Democratic party. It created a permanent schism between the party leadership and its activist base. It allied the Democrats with the Republicans in some awful policy positions. Clinton and his team were complicit in the deregulatory frenzy that culminated in the near apocalypse of 2008 and, therefore, lacked credibility to hold anyone responsible for it. Ask Joe Biden how it felt to have Bill Clinton’s draconian crime bill hung around his neck in the last campaign. Clinton’s equally terrible welfare “reform” bill, which he signed to get reelected, so drained the party’s commitment to the safety net that subsequent Democratic congresses and administrations felt little compunction about knuckling the vulnerable for short-term bipartisan political “compromises.”

Thus, when the prion disease running amok in the GOP mutated into the virulent variant of Trumpism, the national immune system, represented by the other political party, was so weakened that it was overwhelmed without much of a fight. In 2024, Kamala Harris didn’t lose because people thought the Democrats stood for the wrong things and the wrong people. She lost because people didn’t think the Democrats stood for anything or anyone at all.

(Also, note to Mr. Marshall, the policies of the Biden administration were incredibly popular. So “moving to the left” likely wasn’t the problem. And there certainly was no shortage of Republican politicians horning in on ceremonies celebrating infrastructure projects.)

The piece goes on to attempt to rehabilitate Colorado Governor Jared Polis as a Democratic visionary, which, at this point, is tantamount to Jesus’ curing Lazarus of a head cold. It makes a big deal out of the history of Colorado’s education “reforms,” on which Diane Ravitch blew the whistle several years ago. But, seriously, all you need to know about this project is summed up here.

Polis, meanwhile, drew ire when he posted support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s willingness to “take on big pharma and corporate ag” instead of rebuking him for his anti-vaxx ideas. Despite the pushback, Polis is unapologetic. “Democrats need to speak to a larger coalition,” he told POLITICO Magazine. He isn’t “a fan” of what the Trump administration is doing and disagrees with Kennedy on some key issues like vaccine efficacy but wishes people would investigate RFK’s positions for themselves rather than attack Kennedy as a default. Many Colorado Democrats share Kennedy’s positions on issues like improving health and nutrition, he argued, and the party can’t win without accepting a wider range of perspectives.

Jesus H. Christ on a ten-day contract, RFK Jr. is a motherfcking lunatic who made a career of motherfcking lunacy and is now in a position to help kill people through motherfcking lunacy. That’s all ye know and all ye need to know. Exactly how wide a range of “perspectives” is Polis recommending here? All the way out to, say, Ancient Aliens or to AIDS denialism? (By the way, thanks to Mr. Secretary, we’re already there on that one.) It used to be that Democrats wounded their credibility by trying to break off pieces of Republican austerity politics they could find useful. Now Polis is looking to break off pieces of Trumpist crazy in the same vain pursuit. Nostalgia is a double-edged sword.