Most chatter about the Democratic party this cycle focuses on the rise of progressive firebrands like Florida state representative Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who pulled off an upset in Tuesday's Democratic US Senate primary. But the quieter, juicier story is the slow, satisfying collapse of the corporate Democrat.
Some Democrats are wringing their hands. Old pal James Carville, the strategist who hasn't met a losing cause he didn't love, compares today's progressive wave to Bernie Sanders' 2016 run, which he claims fractured the coalition and handed Trump the presidency. "Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president," he recently declared, implying that Bernie's challenge made establishment Dems look like establishment Republicans - which, to be fair, wasn't hard.
Even if Carville were right about 2016 (he isn't), the political landscape has shifted. The silver lining in Trump's storm cloud is that his regime has yanked back the curtain on corporate America's greed, venality, and cupidity. Trump lets CEOs and Wall Street titans do whatever they want - as long as they kiss the ring. In return, they get no-bid contracts, exclusive licenses, tax loopholes, tariff exemptions, public lands, and permission to become even more monstrous monopolies.
This has exposed the truth behind the soothing blanket of corporate PR about "social responsibility" and "trickle-down" economics: these folks will throw average Americans under the bus for a few more billion. And now, shockingly, voters are noticing. They're not voting for socialism or the Democratic Socialists of America; they're voting for candidates who promise to make housing, food, healthcare, and childcare affordable - and who'll take on the billionaire backers rigging the economy.
The corporate media, predictably, is missing the point. When Dr Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's primary over Haley Stevens, coverage focused on his smaller-than-expected margin. But the real story was that El-Sayed won despite being massively outspent. Stevens had tens of millions in outside money, including the largest Aipac investment in a Senate race ever - $54m to $60m backing Stevens and opposing El-Sayed, versus just $5m for him. Pro-Stevens groups outspent El-Sayed on TV ads alone by more than 12 to one ($26.9m to $2.1m) in the final weeks. That's $95 spent per anti-El-Sayed vote versus $9 per pro-El-Sayed vote. Money talks, but apparently it stutters.
This race was a proxy war for the party's soul. Chuck Schumer and Gary Peters backed Stevens; Bernie Sanders, AOC, Chris Van Hollen, and Elizabeth Warren backed El-Sayed. El-Sayed made corporate money the issue, campaigning on Medicare for All, lower drug prices, and banning corporate PAC money. "The rich keep getting hyper-rich on the backs of figuring out how to monetize everyday people," he told the AP, as supporters chanted, "Money out of politics! Money in your pockets!"
El-Sayed's win is a turning point. I watched corporate Democrats rise in the early 1980s, when Dems in Congress started drinking from the same corporate trough as Republicans. Tony Coelho, then head of the Democratic congressional campaign committee, crowed, "Business has to deal with us whether they want to or not." They assumed permanent power, but it was a Faustian bargain. As they say, don't bite the hands that feed - and don't be surprised when those hands start steering.
Corporate Democrats then blocked an agenda that would've helped the working class. Sure, they scored some wins: the Affordable Care Act, expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, Family and Medical Leave Act. But they did little to stop widening inequality. Clinton and Obama pushed free-trade deals without helping displaced blue-collar workers. They stood by while unions got hammered, failing to reform labor laws. Union membership fell from 22% when Clinton was elected to under 10% today. Obama bailed out Wall Street but left underwater homeowners drowning. Antitrust enforcement ossified, letting corporations grow fat. And campaign finance reform? Obama was the first nominee since Nixon to reject public financing, and he never pursued a Citizens United amendment.
Combine free trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, monopoly power, and abandoned campaign finance reform, and you get an economy favoring the wealthy and a political system favoring the powerful - while workers without degrees see wages stagnate. JFK was the last Dem president to win lower-income whites; Biden lost them by two to one while winning college grads.
Trump has exposed corporate venality, and now Republicans face potential midterm defeats. Corporate Democrats are on the defensive because their cash isn't buying what it used to. The party has a chance to become, once again, the party of working Americans - as it was under FDR. It's more urgent than any time since the Great Depression. Maybe this time, they'll take it.