Rockefeller Republicans: Joe Biden is one (May,2019)
Ok, with Joe Biden entering the race, the Democratic field thickening and the old Hillary/Bernie grievances coming to the surface, I once more feel called upon to enunciate why I don’t like this thing called Neoliberalism, also known as Clintonism or Democratic Centrism…and by extension, Obama/Biden-ism. So here goes.
I am old enough to remember Rockefeller Republicans and understand that the leadership of the Democratic Party, the people who call themselves the centrists and who wield most of the power, are in fact indistinguishable from Rockefeller Republicans.
I’ll pause here while you go look up “Rockefeller Republican” in your preferred source for reasonably fact-based historical information.
Done? Now, please tell me how a Rockefeller Republican differs from today’s “Centrist Democrat.” Having a hard time? That’s because their politics are almost identical — liberal on the cultural issues (“evolving” with the times), in favor of some social safety net to buffer of the naked cruelty of capitalism, and ok with conservation as long as it doesn’t get in the way of profit. But basically they’re free market capitalists, “pro-business,” tough on crime, weak on racial and class justice, in the thrall of the military industrial complex, committed to the idea that the US should dominate the globe, by force if necessary, and brimming over with contempt for anyone who dares to imagine that the status quo (possibly with a few minor tweaks) is not the best of all possible worlds.
I didn’t like Rockefeller Republicanism when it was in its prime (before the Republicans went in the Barry Goldwater, Ronnie Reagan and Tea Party direction, in cahoots with the radical fundamentalists) and I don’t like it any better now that the exact same philosophy paints itself Blue and calls itself the Resistance. It’s not the Resistance; it’s the Assistance. The policies are the same and even some of the faces haven’t changed.
Hillary started out as a Goldwater Girl and has not strayed far from that beginning if you look at her and Bill’s connections and loyalties to Wall Street, Big Oil, Defense Contractors, and the rest, as well as their reactionary agenda of ending welfare as we know it, crime bills that led to the epidemic of mass incarceration, militarizing the police, ramping up the security state, foreign interventions and restrictive immigration policies. I don’t care if they say they “feel (our) pain.” They don’t. The entire Clinton/Obama wing of the Democratic Party is the same, regardless of their age, gender, sexual orientation or race. My opposition is to their politics, not their identity.
If your fear is that only a “moderate” can win, I disagree, but I can only ask you why you think electing a moderate is going to save us from what the world’s top climate scientists are telling us is in our future. We have 12 years at best to bring about a radical transformation of our global economy and pretty much every aspect of modern civilization — energy use, trade, transportation, infrastructure, agriculture, how we live our lives, organize our cities and preserve our natural resources. We are out of time for incremental change and there’s no negotiating with physics.
The difference between the lunatics we have now and any “moderate” who might replace them is not whether but how much sooner our most heavily populated cities and states will be under water while huge swaths of what is left become uninhabitable through fire, drought, extreme weather events or deadly heat waves. Our grandchildren will either survive or not. You can’t be moderately dead.
The bottom line for me is that the Democratic establishment is taking us to the same living hell of environmental collapse as the most rabid Republican you can imagine. I will still vote for one if that’s the only choice I have in the general election, but it will be for the sake of harm reduction and a bit less deliberate cruelty on the way to extinction.
If you disagree, meaning if you believe the science but think we can avert what the scientists are telling us is on the way with incremental change, please explain how that is going to happen. If you don’t please explain why you are ok with supporting people who have neoliberal voting records and take money from Wall Street, the Fossil Fuel Industry, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Ag, and Big Brother. Is it really more important to feel good about their identity and their personalities than to look for our best shot (meaning the candidate who promises to deliver the most radical change) and take it? If we still lose, so be it, but if we give up before we try, then we will surely lose. I’m not ready to give up.
