The hallmark of the conservative agenda over the past quarter century has been the ceding of power and resources from the government to corporations. The election last week may signal a reverse course away from corporatism toward a brand of liberal populism that has been out of favor since the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Populist themes that resonated with voters this year included raising the minimum wage, slowing the transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas, making healthcare affordable, ending corruption of elected officials by lobbyists for corporate interests and the stopping the rise of undocumented immigration and its perceived strain on local economies and social services.
Even the conduct of the Iraq war, with the unprecedented outsourcing of war operations to Halliburton and its subsidiaries, has played into the idea that Republicans are hellbent on handing the government over to Big Business.
The Old Media has been quick to label Democrats who were elected on populist platforms as “conservative.” While they are certainly well to the right of socialists, it is hard to make the case that newly elected Sen. Jon Tester of Montana or Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina are more “conservative” on economic issues than the free-traders from the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Clinton Administration.
What the liberal media seems to ignore is that the return to power of populist politicians like Sen. Tester and Rep. Shuler suggests a pendulum swing back from the corporatist governments of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II toward the political philosophy embodied by Pres. Jimmy Carter, a Baptist Sunday School teacher who was (and is) a world leader in the cause of social justice and human rights.
If the trend toward putting the needs of individuals and families ahead of corporatist policies takes root over the next two years, the dynamics of the presidential race in 2008 could shift in favor of candidates who are identified with populist themes.
As it stands today, the chief beneficiary of the new dynamic would appear to be Al Gore, who belatedly introduced populist themes into his 2000 campaign, and who has advocated for these issues during his time out of office.
In 2004, Gen. Wesley Clark and former Sen. John Edwards, the vice presidential nominee, also campaigned on populist themes.
Looking ahead, the new paradigm would tend to undercut campaigns of the DLCers like senators Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh, and, to a lesser degree, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
The return of Carter style populism, if it takes root, could have the unexpected positive consequence of helping Democratic candidates up and down the ticket in the region where they need it most: the South.
Since Reagan’s campaign in 1980 when the GOP invited the Moral Majority into its tent, Republicans have been successful in convincing working class Southerners to put their fears around social issues like racial equality, gay rights and reproductive choice ahead of their own pocket-book interests.
In the 2006 election, we saw evidence for the first time that these voters are waking up to the Republicans’ true agenda — an agenda that shifts money from the middle class up to the corporate elite. If Democrats recognize this trend and act to refocus government policies on the working classes, we could experience a seismic shift toward the left unlike anything we have seen since the shift rightward at the end of the 1970s.
