By Patrick Martin, wsws.org

Sanders is working to revive the corrupt Democratic party under false pretenses.

In television interviews and an open letter to political supporters, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has renewed his pledge of eternal fealty to the second-oldest capitalist party in the world. He sent out the mass email under the title, “Revitalizing the Democratic Party” on Monday, on the eve of the off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia, which the Democrats won by wide margins.

The statement is the first major response from Sanders to the revelations by former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile about the takeover of the DNC by the Hillary Clinton campaign in August 2015, six months before the first votes were cast in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders—the only thing missing from this Pied Piper is the flute. Either he's a fool, a sellout or a coward, or all three, but this is not the stuff of leadership this country desperately needs.

The joint fundraising agreement between the Clinton campaign and the DNC gave Clinton veto power over DNC appointments and actions, even though the leading party body was required by its own rules to remain neutral in the nomination contest between Clinton, Sanders and several other candidates.

Rather than condemn the blatant collusion, which led to the DNC putting its weight behind Clinton at every point during the nomination fight, Sanders cited Brazile’s revelations as an argument for uniting with the former Clinton aides who now run the DNC, like the current DNC chair Thomas Perez, who was secretary of labor in the Obama administration and backed Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders wrote, “What the recently released book excerpt from former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile made clear is that unless we get our act together, we are not going to be effective in either taking on Donald Trump or in stopping the extremist right-wing Republican agenda.

“In order to do that, we need to rethink and rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that opens its doors to new people, new energy and new ideas. We need a Democratic Party that is truly a grassroots party, where decisions are made from the bottom up, not from the top down.”

Contrary to Sanders, the Democratic Party is owned and operated by Wall Street, not by the American people. It is one of the two capitalist parties, controlled by the financial aristocracy, which exist to give the illusion of political choice in elections, while both carry out the instructions of the billionaires.

This perspective is not a new one for Sanders. Despite his nominal “independence” from the two-party system, he sought the Democratic presidential nomination while pledging from the outset to support the eventual Democratic nominee. Once defeated by Clinton, he threw his full support to the candidate who was the favorite of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.

His main task during the 2016 campaign, which continues today, is to give this corrupt party of corporate America a populist and even “socialist” gloss. In his long email statement, accordingly, Sanders outlined a series of cosmetic reforms that he urged his supporters to demand from DNC Chair Perez and the Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission, which is comprised of former Clinton and Sanders supporters as well as additional members selected by Perez.

These include reducing, but not eliminating, superdelegates, opening up participation in primaries and caucuses, and making the DNC’s own procedures and budget more transparent. In support of this pathetic effort, Sanders urged his supporters to sign a petition to Perez urging action on the reform proposals at the commission’s final meeting on December 8-9. Significantly, he said nothing in the email about the decision by Perez to remove several Sanders supporters from the bylaws and rules committees of the DNC.

His main task during the 2016 campaign, which continues today, is to give this corrupt party of corporate America a populist and even “socialist” gloss. In his long email statement, accordingly, Sanders outlined a series of cosmetic reforms that he urged his supporters to demand from DNC Chair Perez and the Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission

Sanders continued in this vein in a series of interviews after the Democratic election victories on Tuesday. Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday, he praised Donna Brazile for displaying “an enormous amount of courage” in exposing the backroom deal between the DNC and the Clinton campaign, but declined to describe the nomination campaign as “rigged.” He continued, “Anderson, to be very honest with you, my job, our job is to go forward, is do everything we can to defeat this right-wing agenda of the Republican Party in the Trump administration, not to look backwards. “

On Thursday, Sanders spoke at length with the Washington Post about his call for reform of the DNC, including changes in how the DNC decides on financial backing for candidates for local, state and federal office. “We don’t have transparency,” he said. “This is tough stuff, but it means to say that you can’t have a few people in a meeting saying: Well, we can’t support the guy in Kansas. We can’t support the guy in Montana, or whatever. That process has to be much more open.”

In other words, the “reform” of the Democratic Party is a grubby struggle over which candidates will receive the money doled out by the DNC from its fundraising from the “millionaires and billionaires” whose support Sanders claimed to disavow.

According to the Post, Sanders told them that the Brazile revelations should not become a distraction. “The media likes all the divisiveness, and Clinton versus Sanders—fine,” he said, but he did not want to pursue the issue further.

These comments from Sanders do not represent any shift in his orientation, but only establish more definitively that he is continuing the political course set during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Shocked by the mass support from young people and sections of workers for his (purely nominal) pretensions to socialism, Sanders seeks to divert this leftward movement among working people back within the straitjacket of the corporate-controlled two-party system, to establish a roadblock against any break by the working class from the Democratic Party.

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

—Bob Dylan

“All Along the Watchtower”

Introduction: The Party to (Literally) End All Parties

So here’s my “indispensable” thesis: That our two ruling U.S. parties—the “duopoly” of Republicans and Democrats—have abandoned all policy sanity; for the sake of serving their plutocratic and militarist donors (essentially the same “Wall Street and War Street” donors for both parties), they’ve abandoned all serious, rational concern about nuclear war and climate change, not to mention the most elementary social justice. As a result, the only identifiable aim of Republican and Democrat policies is letting themselves and their Wall Street and War Street donors “party on the Titanic”—in other words, to “party like there’s no tomorrow.” No tomorrow, that it, for human civilization. To say nothing of the endless innocent animal species we’ll take down with us.

Needless to say, this policy decision to party on the Titanic was not made democratically. As is utterly typical, our Wall Street, War Street, and duopoly “betters” in first class didn’t consider us poor slobs in steerage at all—except to the extent it’s been necessary to brainwash us that the Titanic is being steered by responsible adults. To use Henry Giroux’s brilliant analytic term, we’re disposable—as disposable as the reams of toilet paper the selfish, hedonistic overindulgence of a “party to end all parties” would necessitate. To our Wall Street, War Street, and duopoly betters in first-class, we unwashed slobs in steerage are—like so much toilet paper—simply there to be shat upon and flushed.

Just as I’ve consciously chosen the movement name “Indispensable” to contrast with “disposable”—and to emphasize how crucial our movement is to civilization’s survival—I’m consciously exploiting here the marvelous coincidence of the term steerage designating the poorer, lower-class passengers on a ship. The criminal duopoly—not just Trump Republicans but the Clinton Democrats who elevated him to power—are steering us straight toward the iceberg, full steam ahead. Unless we poor slobs in steerage start thinking of ourselves as not disposable but “Indispensable” and seize control of steering the ship, that apocalyptic collision is inevitable.

Why U.S. Duopoly Elections Suck: Both Parties Are Cancerous

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]xcept for the roughly one-third minority of U.S. citizens—charitably described as brainwashed—who still approve of Donald Trump, few Americans would have trouble with describing him as a hideously ugly tumor on our body politic.

But hideously ugly tumors, real or metaphorical, rarely grow in isolation, and are frequently symptoms of an underlying, dangerously metastasizing, cancer. Now, I’m no expert on actual cancers, but anyone with common sense—and the most rudimentary knowledge of history or civics—knows that unsightly metaphorical tumors like Trump never grow on a body politic in isolation; they’re always symptoms of a grave—and highly advanced—political disease. Indeed, an especially astute student of history and politics, Pulitzer Prize journalist Chris Hedges, has frequently stressed how populist demagogues—and worse yet, outright fascists—have frequently risen to power when so-called liberals have failed to play their implicitly promised (and once expected) role of defending working class and otherwise vulnerable people from capitalism’s worst excesses.

Now, our cancerous political system is essentially a two-party system, where, through media complicity, among other things, only Republicans and Democrats currently have a realistic shot at wielding power. So, common sense alone would powerfully hint that the prominent growth of a ghastly tumor like Trump—and nothing’s more politically prominent than the president of the world’s most powerful nation—signifies a lethal political cancer eating away at both major parties. For if Democrats offered even a tolerable alternative, we’d never face the prospect of an administration as repulsive—as rash, as extremist, as cruel, as unqualified, and as brainlessly arrogant—as Trump’s. If we knew absolutely nothing else about Democrats, that voters in a two-party system preferred Trump and his Republicans to them would alone be a savage indictment of our jackass party.

The Real News about Today’s Democrats

With Schumer, Pelosi, Warren and other bigwigs in attendance, the Democrats recently launched their pathetically feeble "better deal", essentially more of the same treacherous brew.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n fact, we know a lot about Democrats, if by “we” we mean those of us who largely ignore mainstream media—owned by an ever-smaller cadre of biased corporate conglomerates—and trust independent progressive media for most of our news.  And what we know is that, at the leadership level, Democrats have not merely remained the corrupt neoliberal party disgustedly sketched by Hedges in the immediate wake of Trump’s shocking victory. Instead, rejecting the soul-searching such a shocking defeat ought to produce, they’ve doubled down on the same corruption, the same rejection of progressive reform, that caused last November’s electoral disaster.

As just noted, mere common sense ought to tell mainstream news media that the election of a president as hideous as Trump, in a two-party system, is really a story about the intolerable corruption and irresponsibility of both major parties. And the same common sense should inform them that Democrats’ doubling down on the same corruption that cost them the election is a big effing deal. But as Upton Sinclair memorably told us, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” And with the size of the salaries now paid (at least to mainstream network news personalities) by our conglomerated corporate media, the unwillingness to understand, let alone report, common sense that menaces the interests of Wall Street, War Street, and their duopoly lackeys is more flagrant than ever.

Any informed progressive could easily multiply examples of Democrats doubling down on the same corruption that caused their loss to Trump. For starters, there are the horrific, tone-deaf personnel decisions about party leadership. Like naming corporate donor sweethearts Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi their minority leaders in Congress. Or insisting that spineless establishment hack Tom Perez chair the Democratic National Committee. Or, speaking of the DNC, there’s the DNC’ scandalous anti-democratic legal argument in defending its fraud lawsuit: an argument best viewed as the party leadership’s loving embrace of Hillary Clinton’s own scandalous assertion (in a highly paid speech to her Wall Street “best buds”) that a politician needs to have public and private positions on issues. Apparently, for the Democratic leadership, that applies to primary elections too: a phony public claim of neutrality and fairness for the disposable folks in steerage, and a backroom rigging of elections in favor of the well-heeled party-goers who frequent the captain’s quarters.

Fortunately, an increasing number of informed people, generally progressives, object strenuously to Democrats doubling down on the party corruption that helped elect Trump. So unsurprisingly, in reaction, Democrats’ chief propagandists and media flacks—in another flagrant instance of doubling down on corruption—have created a smear campaign against such informed objectors. In an unspeakably sleazy attempt to conflate us with the racist, xenophobic alt-right, we are the “alt-left”—when fighting plutocracy and militarism is the only thing makes us “alt” at all, considering militarism and plutocratic corruption have become mainstream Beltway policies. Journalist Mike Sainato has insightfully linked this new smear campaign to the Clinton Democrats’ earlier-vintage “Bernie Bro” smears. To use Sainato’s own trenchant, spot-on formula, the Clintonite Democratic leadership has “weaponized identity politics”—identity politics being the moral fig leaf covering their lackey service of Wall Street and Wall Street—to unjustly smear everyone who cries foul on that lackey service. We can only hope our own vastly more justified smear—“duopoly Democrat”—is significantly more successful in honestly conflating corporatist, militarist Democrats with Republicans than their failed slimeball attempt to conflate correctly critical progressives with the alt-right.

Needless to say, these egregious rejections of reform by Democrats have been less than a blip on the mainstream media radar. Yet, when resisting Trump is a matter of global importance, concealing the unrepentant corruption of the Democratic Party claiming to lead the anti-Trump resistance—when voters’ rejection of that same corruption helped elect Trump—surely merits the name of “fake news.”

And Democrats’ unrepented (and largely unreported) perversity only gets far worse—worse in a way that justifies its own heading.

Bear-Baiting and an Incestuous Orgy: Properly Decadent “Sport” on the Titanic

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you’re going to consciously party on the Titanic—in other words, party like there’s no tomorrow because you’ve decided there won’t be—you might as well do so in truly decadent style.

For anyone who truly groks decadence, it’s a matter of knowing that one’s civilization is going down the shitter and asserting by one behavior that one doesn’t give a flying frack. In other words, it’s a matter of stylishly putting an exclamation point on one’s moral nihilism. For today’s duopoly Democrats and their Wall Street and War Street donors, some hard-core bear-baiting followed by an incestuous orgy seems to do the trick nicely. (But of course, treating most of humanity itself—above all, their voting base—as the toilet paper necessitated by the overindulgence of their “party to end all parties” is a supremely decadent touch.)

By “bear-baiting,” I of course mean the scapegoating of Russia for Democrats’ own electoral failures and scandals; I mean, above all, the terrifying escalation of hostilities (presumably buried with the Cold War) with the nuclear-armed “Russian bear” such scapegoating entails. Now, merely by itself, the unjustified scapegoating of Russia is a huge—and baneful—news story. For starters, it’s the utter quintessence of Democrats’ shameless, unrepentant doubling down on their party’s corrupt ways in response to their loss to Trump, and their longstanding links with the intel and military services, part of of the permanent unelected government and repression mechanisms of the plutocratic state. As Paul Street (reflecting on Jeff Greenfield’s correct but misleading criticism of Trump for creating media distractions via Twitter) insightfully puts it, “the biggest single media distraction of all by far has been the Russia hysteria, which Max Blumenthal has aptly described as ‘a convenient… way of opposing Trump without having to do anything remotely progressive.’” But beyond making a “non-story” of Democrats’ complete current rejection of progressive reform, their Russia hysteria is baneful (as Street correctly emphasizes) in another way: it distracts attention from all the harmful non-Russia-related things Trump is currently doing. Like, say, appointing dozens of right-wing ideologues as judges in the federal courts.

So Democrats’ “bear-baiting” is destructive simply as a distraction. It’s as if the Democratic party animals on the Titanic had invited the slobs in steerage to gawk at their bear-baiting—simply to divert their attention from the massive iceberg toward which they and Republicans are resolutely steering the ship. But the bear-baiting—the hostility-fueling scapegoating of nuclear power Russia, which has repteadly tried to come to some civilized agreement with the Washington cliques—appears in its full sinister light only once we’re aware of the burgeoning incestuous orgy. By which I mean the ever-tightening loving embrace—now promoted by both major parties—between neoliberals and neocons. Or in populist terms, between Wall Street and War Street.

If ever mainstream media failure to report a major, sinister development amounted to “fake news,” the Democrats' open embrace of warmongering neocons (read here and here) is it. Far from rejecting the addition of neocon traits to neoliberal ones that made Hillary Clinton such a repulsive candidate, they’ve clearly made a tighter bond with warmongering neocons their party’s charted course.

Now, warmongering neocons and “market-mongering” neoliberals always had prospects of a cozier relationship. On the one hand, military and police might has always served as the enforcement arm for global market domination; Naomi Klein’s eye-opening book The Shock Doctrine amply documents that fact. On the other hand, the military-industrial-surveillance complex has always been—and is now more than ever—an obscenely lucrative capitalist industry. And over the past several decades, Republican have made no secret of their love for bare-knuckled capitalism and its enforcing militarism. But Democrats, to appease their working class and progressive base, have traditionally paid considerable lip service to fettering both capitalism and militarism. Democrats’ current gung-ho embrace of militarism—documented in Congressional Dems’ near-unanimous support for sanctions against Russia, Iran, and North Korea—virtually green lights a perverse, incestuous relationship between neocons and neoliberals: between Wall Street and War Street.

For informed progressives attuned to the importance of Naomi Klein’s climate justice vision—that global peace and equitably shared resources are the essential preconditions of addressing humanity’s climate emergency—having Democrats (already too neoliberal) deepen their embrace of neocon warmongering is utterly horrifying. It’s as if the Titanic party-goers, not finding their bear-baiting and incestuous orgy perverse and decadent enough, had decided to let enraged, rabid bears participate in the orgy. And extend the orgy to the whole ship.

As well, and inevitably, for the sake of letting Wall Street and War Street “party hearty,” both Republicans and Democrats are embracing the most perverse, suicidal policies imaginable from a climate standpoint. That no major media (and few progressive ones) are discussing this horrifying—and crucially important—story is the biggest conceivable instance of fake news. Yet, in 2018 and 2020, voters will have to make up their mind in its absence, in an almost complete informational vacuum.

Unless a huge movement trumpeting this story becomes the news.

The Indispensable Movement Can Cure Fake News: By Becoming the News
It's time to occupy the Duopoly

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]olitical movements have always arisen as a means to correct fake news—essentially the fake news of omission. Basically, some major injustice existed in a society—like slavery, or second-class citizenship for minorities, women, or gays—that the ruling powers did not want reported, let alone recognized and redressed. And the exclusion of the oppressed group’s grievance from political discourse was such that electoral politics offered no remedy whatsoever. Only organizing political movements could these groups make their grievance news—by making their movements the news. And only after movements had made their grievance a central part of political discourse could political action become feasible.

In especially dire situations—where the oppression “blacked out” from mainstream news and political discourse affects not a minority but a majority—a special kind of movement becomes necessary. Such a movement—in reality a “movement of movements” where minorities with various grievances are united in a majority with a common, underlying grievance—has frequently been termed a revolution, especially when associated with violence.

The horrific power of modern weaponry has excluded violent revolution as anything but a last resort. But I submit that the dire fiasco of two-party system, where both parties are corrupted by donors hell-bent on “partying on the Titanic,” will not be fixed by a normal social movement, let alone normal electoral politics. What we need is a “movement of movements”—a.k.a a peaceful revolutionary movement, embracing whatever rhetoric, strategy, and tactics are needed to make itself the central news story governing political discourse. And given that the crisis of neoliberalism, incestuously paired with militarism, making most citizens disposable, is international, the needed movement—the “Indispensable” movement—may need to become international.

Obviously, no individual can singlehandedly organize or strategize for such a movement. What I have done here is supply a comprehensive rationale, a mere sketch, if you will,  for the Indispensable movement and, in the process, forge a significant part of its rhetoric. Patrice Greanville of The Greanville Post has generously offered me a special editorial post for promoting the proposed Indispensable movement, as well as promoting any activist movements or groups who see their own aims furthered by belonging to this revolutionary “movement of movements.” Anyone interested in laying the groundwork for such a movement should (for now) follow The Greanville Post, the Progressive or Bust Facebook group, or read my pieces at OpEdNews and Nation of Change, and at other progressive publications where I’m occasionally published. 

by MYLES HOENIG

By Kevin Gosztola

Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Amy Klobuchar, Liz Warren, & Chuck Schumer of N.Y. speak in a park in Berryville, Va., July 24, 2017, where they unveiled the Democrats new agenda.

Crosspost with Shadowproof and MintPress News

(Opinion) —
Over the past eight months, the Democratic Party has floundered and sputtered around while trying to develop an agenda that can convince citizens they are a clear alternative to President Donald Trump. What Democrats have mostly done is unleash volleys of accusations as if this somehow beats back the danger of Trump. But now, Senator Chuck Schumer has announced the Democrats have “A Better Deal” for citizens that they plan to unveil.

In the New York Times, Schumer writes,

“Americans are clamoring for bold changes to our politics and our economy. They feel, rightfully, that both systems are rigged against them, and they made that clear in last year’s election. American families deserve a better deal so that this country works for everyone again, not just the elites and special interests. Today, Democrats will start presenting that better deal to the American people.”

---

The United States has never worked for everyone. Its government was founded on the slaughter of Native Americans and the enslavement of black people that helped create the sturdy foundation of capitalism, which brought prosperity to white property owners. The country also was not working for everyone before Trump, President Barack Obama, or President George W. Bush.

On top of that, why is the Democratic Party still not ready to unveil this deal? This major political party has had around eight months to come up with some kind of a plan, and all Schumer has to offer is a teaser.

The teaser admits Democrats too often hesitate to take on “misguided policies directly and unflinchingly.” Often, Americans “don’t know” what Democrats stand for.

“Not after today. Democrats will show the country that we’re the party on the side of working people—and that we stand for three simple things,” Schumer declares.

“First, we’re going to increase people’s pay. Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st Century economy.”

What “tools” will make surviving everyday market-fueled oppression easier? Maybe Democrats plan to unveil tutorials that will help workers navigate capitalism, like in video games when one is just learning how to move a character. If only workers knew the game better, more would be able to win.

 

More of the same

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ctually, what Democrats propose is “giving employers, particularly small businesses, a large tax credit to train workers for unfilled jobs.” Schumer contends this will resonate in “smaller cities and rural areas, which have experienced an exodus of young people who aren’t trained for the jobs in those areas.” That is what the Democrats hope so they can convince some of the rural citizens who voted for Trump to support them instead.

But this is no fresh idea. Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton offered such a proposal in June 2015, when she called for tax credits for businesses for “every apprentice hired as a way to boost employment among young adults.”

President Barack Obama proposed a $3,000 refundable tax credit for companies that added jobs. On March 18, 2010, he signed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act.

As PolitiFact.com describes, it offered businesses savings for retaining workers for at least 52 consecutive weeks. Employers were to receive “a non-refundable tax credit of 6.2 percent of wages paid to the qualified employee over the 52 week period, for a maximum credit of $1,000.” It was a compromise since it was not refundable, but nonetheless, it was supposed to encourage the employment of workers.

Democrats should not be allowed to sell this as a new bargain for workers when it is what the party has tried to sell to working people before.

The other items that are supposedly part of this “Better Deal” include abstract statements about breaking up “big companies” that hurt consumers and possibly do something to address the failure of antitrust laws. Democrats also plan to address the issue of price gouging when it comes to life-saving prescription drugs.

However, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders proposed an amendment in January to a budget resolution that would have gone a long way toward controlling the cost of prescription drugs. It would have allowed the importation of drugs from Canada.

The amendment actually garnered twelve Republican votes, but thirteen Democrats voted against the amendment, including Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Senator Chris Coons of Connecticut, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

As Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone chronicled:

[On] May 11th, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee met to consider the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017. This little-known piece of legislation would reauthorize the FDA to collect “user fees” from the makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Although controversial to some who believe these fees make the FDA clients of the industries they’re supposed to regulate – Sanders and Paul voted against it in committee – the overall bill is likely to sail through Congress, and in fact passed in committee, 21-2.

Sanders, along with co-sponsors Elizabeth Warren and Robert Casey, offered an amendment to the user-fee bill that would have allowed for importation of drugs from FDA-approved facilities in Canada. As Casey pointed out in committee, the amendment is laden with protections, requiring patients to have valid Canadian prescriptions, allowing the FDA to shut down bad actors, etc.

Once again, Democratic discipline broke down. The amendment this time was beaten in committee, 13-10. Two Democrats, Patty Murray and Michael Bennet, both of whom accept a lot of pharmaceutical money, voted no.

Why should working people believe the Democrats will perform any different when it comes time to vote on legislation proposed by politicians like Sanders? Are they going to stop taking money from major pharmaceutical companies?

Notably, this teaser from Schumer contains no words about raising the federal minimum wage to $15 or some level that would give Americans a living wage. It does not mention single-payer health care, even as a massive political battle over health care legislation continues in Congress. (Note: Schumer did mention Democrats “proposed” raising the minimum wage to $15 already, but it is difficult to see why that would not be a “better deal” than tax credits for businesses.)

There are no specific nods to a free college tuition plan or taxing Wall Street to pay for initiatives that could make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people.

It is not as if there is not a platform out there that the Democrats could adopt and achieve some level of success electorally. Sanders and several groups affiliated with him have developed an array of platform ideas that combine for an alternative vision to Trump.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are still the political party responsible for the decimation of welfare under the leadership of President Bill Clinton.

Clinton Democrats aligned with business forces in the early 1990s. They stood with conservative Democrats, who broke with labor, civil rights, and other liberal causes. They pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They backed welfare repeal, bills which fueled the rise of mass incarceration, and signed a 1997 budget that slashed millions for social programs like Medicare and Medicaid. They encouraged the deregulation of industry, which greatly boosted Wall Street. Altogether, the Clintons enabled right-wing forces as they decimated the liberal class and expanded unfettered capitalism. (For more, read Lance Selfa’s book, “The Democrats: A Critical History.”)

Schumer and #TheResistance still do not want to completely abandon major parts of the neoliberal agenda they have advanced during the past decades. They didn’t want to when the party establishment refused to unify behind Representative Keith Ellison when he ran for Democratic National Committee chair. They didn’t want to when the party establishment aggressively worked to trash Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

The Democrats cannot and will not promise working people all that much of value so long as they remain wedded to this brand of destructive corporate politics.