Blame the Neoliberals: Democrats' Toxic Ideology Paved the Way for Trump (Clinton, Sanders)

[Suburban_Guy]

This article pretty much sums it all up.

Especially as it relates to some states such as Wisconsin and Michigan that have a lot of blue collar workers. Combine this toxic ideology with a colossal mismanagement of the campaign by Hillary and her staff, and it is apparent she has no one to blame but herself. She took things for granted and ignored states like Wisconsin, and it came back to bite her in the rear end.

Spurned and apathetic voters either voted for Trump, for an independent, or didn't vote at all (some African American communities).

Blame the Neoliberals: Democrats' Toxic Ideology Paved the Way for Trump | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

For decades, Democrats have been expanding their coalition, but in the wrong direction. Instead of strengthening their relationship with organized labor and building a platform sufficient to inspire and raise the expectations of working class Americans, the so-called Third Way Democrats devised a plan to win over the professionals, the so-called moderates — these "reformers" wanted the party to become what it has, in fact, become.

Lee Drutman calls it "the cosmopolitan elite party." And while this party still relies heavily on minority voters, its ability to deliver material benefits to this constituency has been compromised by its partnership with corporate America and wealthy professionals who, even if they identify as "liberals," couldn't care less about income and wealth inequality.

But it's not just that they have left the working class in a state of stagnation. Democrats have done tremendous harm. A Democrat destroyed welfare; a Democrat signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law; a Democrat, at the behest of the business class, tore down much of what was left of the regulatory apparatus that was tenuously restraining the financial sector.

When it all came crashing down in 2008, a president who proposed "change we can believe in" staffed his transition team with Wall Street loyalists. President Obama has also, against the fierce protests of those he once claimed to be fighting for, aggressively pushed for a far-reaching "trade" agreement that is, in large part, a power grab by massive corporations.

And this:

It was widely believed that Clinton would move rightward after the primaries, that she would hunker down in her natural place on the political spectrum: the center-right. And that's what she did, with a sprinkling of the gross American exceptionalism and hawkishness that had so angered progressives in the past.

In her private speeches to large financial institutions, made available by WikiLeaks, we learned — to no surprise — that Clinton is precisely who Bernie Sanders said she was: A friend, an ally, of the bankers. Her path on the campaign trail made it clear, also, that she preferred the wealthy to the working class: Clinton was, the New York Times reported, "more than accessible to those who reside in some of the country's most moneyed enclaves."

Despite frequent rumblings about "the most progressive platform in history," WikiLeaks also revealed that the Clinton team's relationship with organized labor is, and always was, cynical and one-sided: Clinton was, of course, happy to take union money, but she would not commit to helping them fight their most essential battles.