New Democrats

New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues. New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the mid-2010s, and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.

However, with the rise of progressivism with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, higher support for protectionism in the United States, and a general leftward shift of the Democratic Party since the 2010s, this faction of the party has lost popularity to the progressive wing of the party.

History

Origins

After the landslide defeats to the Republican Party led by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists. They advocated a political Third Way as an antidote to the electoral successes of Reaganism.

The landslide 1984 presidential election defeat spurred centrist Democrats to action, and the DLC was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization, played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party's policies to the center of the American political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as Senators Al Gore and Joe Biden (both future Vice Presidents, and Biden a future President) participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacies for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination. The DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be "simply posturing in the middle", and instead framed its ideas as "progressive" and as a "Third Way" to address the problems of its era. Examples of the DLC's policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions.

Although the New Democrat label was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy in 1989, the term became more widely associated with the New Orleans Declaration, Bill Clinton's subsequent criticism of Democratic Presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson's variant of Rainbow/PUSH, and policies of the DLC which in 1990 renamed its bi-monthly magazine from The Mainstream Democrat to The New Democrat. When then-Governor Clinton stepped down as DLC chairman to run for the presidency in the 1992 United States presidential election, he presented himself as a New Democrat.

First wave

After 1974, the Yellow Dog, Atari, and Watergate Baby factions within the Democratic Party found a common thread in "liberal" iterations of "illusory" supply-side progressivism, advancing their mutual conceptions of "centrism" and post-industrial society. Democratic voter "tax revolts" that began in the Carter Administration, and continued into the first Reagan Administration, unraveled this common thread. Bill Clinton and additional partisans subsequently organized the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985 and, four years later, the Progressive Policy Institute. The DLC and PPI, the latter of which recently sponsored Neoliberal Project "young pragmatists" to "modernize progressive politics", promoted post-1985 configurations in fiscal and monetary "leadership" for a revival of the front. Elements of DLC convocations and PPI research later (re)introduced Joseph Schumpeter's innovation economics, and creative destruction as revolution, to Democratic Party platforms on political economy. Their efforts also produced electoral recoveries and even gains, especially during the 1992 elections.

Historian Michael Kazin argues that the shift marked a divergence from Keynesian public spending, which aimed to stimulate a consumer market rally in a given economic sector, particularly by "laboring" individuals and families. These were fiscal and monetary goals of the latter half of the Second New Deal, as well as early Cold War liberalism. For this thesis, Clinton's "the era of big government is over" partially signified a reduction in government standards for determining levels of consumer resurgence, and the limits of public spending, in an economic sector. Kazin favored an updated version of these platforms for the Progressive Caucus and Bernie Sanders, albeit with a more diversified consumer base, in his "moral capitalism." This Kazin concept was connected to, yet distinct from, Ethical consumerism in the moral economy of capitalism.

Second wave

Presidency of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton in 1993 signing NAFTA agreements

Bill Clinton is the Democratic politician most identified with the New Democrats due to his promise of welfare reform in the 1992 United States presidential campaign and its subsequent enactment, his 1992 promise of a middle-class tax cut and his 1993 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor. New Democrat successes under Clinton, underpinned by the writings of Anthony Giddens on the duality of structure, sustained a unity of opposites that became the hallmark of Third Way political economy. Allusions to this Third Way as syncretic politics and unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, should be explicated and the concepts assessed in shifting contexts. New Democrats are often regarded to have inspired Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and his policies within the Labour Party as New Labour, as well as prompting the continental conflation of Third Way approaches to social democracy with previous notions of democratic socialism. The two were often used interchangeably by political scientists and fostered popular conceptions of democratic socialism as a social democratic variant of libertarian socialism.

Clinton presented himself as a centrist candidate to draw White middle-class voters who had left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. Until 2016 and even after, the Third Way defined and dominated notions of centrism in U.S. partisan politics. In 1990, Clinton became the DLC chair. Under his leadership, the DLC founded two-dozen chapters and created a base of support. Running as a New Democrat, Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.

Legislation signed into domestic law with bipartisan support under President Clinton includes:

New Democrats dialectically adopted GOP proposals and platforms during the campaigns for the 1992 Congressional/state elections and 1992 United States presidential election. Below are subsequent Congressional legislative authorships and voting percentages. Please note that both the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act became law three months before the 1996 Congressional/state elections and 1996 United States presidential election.

Legislative Authorship

Congressional Democrat Voting Percentages

The Clinton Administration, supported by Congressional New Democrats, was responsible for proposing and passing the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which increased Medicare taxes for taxpayers with annual incomes over $135,000, yet also reduced Medicare spending and benefits across all tax brackets. Congressional Republicans demanded even deeper cuts to Medicare, but Clinton twice vetoed their bills. The Clinton Administration in turn taxed individuals earning annual incomes over $115,000, but also defined taxable "small business" earnings as less than approximately $10 million in annual gross revenue, with tax brackets for high-gross incorporated businesses beginning at that number. According to the Clinton Foundation, the revised brackets and categories increased taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers within these new brackets, while cutting taxes on 15 million low-income families and making tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses. "Small businesses" and taxpayer classifications were reconfigured by these new tax brackets. Again, according to the Clinton Foundation, these brackets raised the top marginal tax rate from 31% to 40%. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over a number of years through the implementation of spending restraints.

Bill Clinton's promise of welfare reform was passed in the form of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Prior to 2018, critics such as Yascha Mounk contended that Clinton's arguments for the virtues of "negative" notions of "personal responsibility [New Orleans Declaration: 'individual responsibility']," propounded within DLC circles during the 1980s, stemmed more from Ronald Reagan's: 116  and Peggy Noonan's specific conception of "accountability" than any "positive notion of responsibility" or even multifarious approaches to "accountability." Additional critics distinguish the New Democrat idea of "personal responsibility" from arguments over the extent of limitations on government, if any, in platforms that advance social responsibility. The 1996 United States presidential election, the temporary relegation of Hillary Clinton to the global promotion of microcredit (argued by Claremont McKenna College historian Lily Geismer), partisan compromises over this act, conflicts within the Democratic Party, as well as the act's multivalent consequences, all contributed to deliberations over passage and execution of the PRWORA.

Democratic partisan criticism of the first Clinton Administration as well as the formation of the Blue Dog Coalition, particularly in response to proposals and actions by the First Lady, followed 1994 Congressional New Democrat losses in the southeast and west coast. Bill Clinton's reassertion as a New Democrat during the 1996 presidential elections, and passage of the PRWORA, contributed to the founding of the New Democrat Coalition, reaffirming Clintonian Democrats as New Democrats. As of August 2023, 23% of the New Democrat Coalition have become simultaneous members of, or declared an intention to vote for more proposals by, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. A number of these delegates, most notably Shri Thanedar, faced backlash from pundits and constituents alike, as evidence surfaced of alleged involvement in post-2016 attempts to rally neoconservatism.

Presidency of Barack Obama

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, 2012

In March 2009, Barack Obama, said in a meeting with the New Democrat Coalition that he was a "New Democrat" and a "pro-growth Democrat", that he "supports free and fair trade" and that he was "very concerned about a return to protectionism".

Throughout the Obama administration, a "free and fair trade" attitude was espoused, including in a 2015 trade report entitled The Economic Benefits of U.S. Trade that noted that free trade "help[s] developing countries lift people out of poverty" and "expand[s] markets for U.S. exports".

Throughout Obama's tenure, approximately 1,000 Democrats lost their seats across all levels of government. Specifically, 958 state legislature seats, 62 house seats, 11 Senate seats, and 12 governorships, with a majority of these elected officials identifying as New Democrats. Some analysts such as Henry Eten at FiveThirtyEight, believe this was due to the changing demographic shift, as more Democrats identified as liberal in 2016 than moderate.

Consequently, many pundits believed that Obama's tenure marked an end of the New Democrats' dominance in the party, although the faction still remains an important part of the party's big tent.

John Podesta served as an advisor to all three U.S. Presidents who led the New Democrats

Decline in recent years

Hillary Clinton presidential campaign

Ahead of the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, many New Democrats were backing the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, the wife of former New Democrat president, Bill Clinton who served as a Senator from New York during the 2000s and as Barack Obama's Secretary of State during the early 2010s. Originally considered to be an expected nominee, Clinton faced an unexpected challenge from Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders, whose campaign garnered the support of progressive and younger Democrats. Ultimately, Clinton won 34 of the 57 contests, compared to Sanders' 23, and garnered about 55 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, commentators saw the primary as a decline in the strength of New Democrats in the party, and an increasing influence of progressive Democrats within the party.

Ahead of the formal announcement of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published the Democratic National Committee email leak, in which DNC operatives, many of whom were New Democrats, seemed to deride Bernie Sanders' campaign and discuss ways to advance Clinton's nomination, leading to the resignation of DNC chair, and New Democrat member, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other implicated officials. The leak was allegedly part of an operation by the Russian government to undermine Hillary Clinton.

Although the ensuing controversy initially focused on emails that dated from relatively late in the primary, when Clinton was nearing the party's nomination, the emails cast doubt on the DNC's neutrality towards progressive and moderate candidates. This was evidenced by alleged bias in the scheduling and conduct of the debates, as well as controversial DNC–Clinton agreements regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions. Other media commentators have disputed the significance of the emails, arguing that the DNC's internal preference for Clinton was not historically unusual and didn't affect the primary enough to sway the outcome. The controversies ultimately led to the formation of a DNC "unity" commission to recommend reforms in the party's primary process.

Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, 2021

Presidency of Joe Biden

The winner of the 2020 United States presidential election, was Joe Biden, who served as Vice President to Barack Obama. Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States. In the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections, 13 Democrats lost their seats. All thirteen Democrats that lost their seats had won in the 2018 mid-term elections. Of those 13 members, 10 of them were New Democrats.

During the 117th United States Congress, the New Democrat Coalition lost its status as the largest ideological coalition in favor of the more left leaning Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC was founded in 1991, but only began catching up and eventually surpassed the New Democrat Coalition in the 2010s.

As of December 2023, Biden has largely maintained Trump's protectionist trade policies, and has not negotiated any new free trade agreements. Labor unions, an important constituency for Biden’s re-election, opposed removing Trump's tariffs.

Ideology

According to Dylan Loewe, New Democrats tend to identify as fiscally moderate-to-conservative and socially liberal.

Columnist Michael Lind argued that neoliberalism for New Democrats was the "highest stage" of left liberalism. The counterculture youth of the 1960s became more fiscally conservative in the 1970s and 1980s but retained their cultural liberalism. Many leading New Democrats, including Bill Clinton, started out in the George McGovern wing of the Democratic Party and gradually moved toward the right on economic and military policy. According to historian Walter Scheidel, both major political parties shifted towards promoting free-market capitalism in the 1970s, with Republicans moving further to the political right than Democrats to the political left. He noted that Democrats played a significant role in the financial deregulation of the 1990s. Anthropologist Jason Hickel and historian Gary Gerstle contended that the neoliberal policies of the Reagan era were carried forward by the Clinton administration, forming a new economic consensus which crossed party lines.: 137–138, 155–157  According to Gerstle, "across his two terms, Clinton may have done more to free markets from regulation than even Reagan himself had done.": 137–138, 155–157 

New Democrats have faced criticism from those further to the left. In a 2017 BBC interview, Noam Chomsky said that "the Democrats gave up on the working class forty years ago". Political analyst Thomas Frank asserted that the Democratic Party began to represent the interests of the professional class rather than the working class.

Elected to public office

Presidents

  1. Bill Clinton (former)
  2. Barack Obama (former)
  3. Joe Biden

Vice presidents

  1. Al Gore (former)
  2. Joe Biden (former)

Senate

House of Representatives

  1. Pete Aguilar
  2. Colin Allred
  3. Jason Altmire
  4. Brad Ashford (former)
  5. Cindy Axne
  6. Ami Bera
  7. Don Beyer
  8. Lisa Blunt Rochester
  9. Brendan Boyle
  10. Anthony Brindisi (former)
  11. Anthony Brown
  12. Shontel Brown
  13. Julia Brownley
  14. Cheri Bustos
  15. Lois Capps (former)
  16. Salud Carbajal
  17. Tony Cardenas
  18. André Carson
  19. Troy Carter
  20. Sean Casten
  21. Joaquin Castro
  22. Gerry Connolly
  23. Jim Cooper
  24. Lou Correa
  25. Jim Costa
  26. Joe Courtney
  27. Angie Craig
  28. Charlie Crist
  29. Jason Crow
  30. Joe Crowley
  31. Henry Cuellar
  32. Sharice Davids
  33. Susan Davis (former)
  34. Madeleine Dean
  35. John Delaney (former)
  36. Suzan DelBene
  37. Val Demings
  38. Eliot L. Engel (former)
  39. Veronica Escobar
  40. Elizabeth Esty (former)
  41. Lizzie Fletcher
  42. Bill Foster
  43. Vicente Gonzalez
  44. Josh Gottheimer
  45. Gwen Graham (former)
  46. Josh Harder
  47. Denny Heck (former)
  48. Jim Himes
  49. Steven Horsford
  50. Chrissy Houlahan
  51. Sara Jacobs
  52. Bill Keating
  53. Derek Kilmer
  54. Ron Kind
  55. Ann Kirkpatrick
  56. Raja Krishnamoorthi
  57. Ann McLane Kuster
  58. Rick Larsen
  59. Brenda Lawrence
  60. Al Lawson
  61. Susie Lee
  62. Elaine Luria
  63. Tom Malinowski
  64. Sean Patrick Maloney (former)
  65. Kathy Manning
  66. Lucy McBath
  67. Gregory Meeks
  68. Joe Morelle
  69. Seth Moulton
  70. Patrick Murphy
  71. Donald Norcross
  72. Beto O'Rourke (former)
  73. Jimmy Panetta
  74. Chris Pappas
  75. Scott Peters
  76. Ed Perlmutter
  77. Dean Phillips
  78. Pedro Pierluisi (former)
  79. Mike Quigley
  80. Kathleen Rice
  81. Laura Richardson
  82. Cedric Richmond (former)
  83. Deborah K. Ross
  84. Raul Ruiz
  85. Loretta Sanchez (former)
  86. Adam Schiff
  87. Brad Schneider
  88. Kurt Schrader
  89. David Scott
  90. Kim Schrier
  91. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
  92. Terri Sewell
  93. Mikie Sherrill
  94. Elissa Slotkin
  95. Adam Smith
  96. Darren Soto
  97. Greg Stanton
  98. Haley Stevens
  99. Marilyn Strickland
  100. Norma Torres
  101. Lori Trahan
  102. David Trone
  103. Juan Vargas
  104. Marc Veasey
  105. Filemon Vela Jr. (former)
  106. Jennifer Wexton
  107. Susan Wild
  108. Nikema Williams

Governors

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Although there are 50 states, the Democratic primaries include contests in six U.S. territories, and one contest of Democrats Abroad, who are American expatriates.
  2. ^ As far back as 2015, the sharp reduction of the debate schedule, as well as the days and times, had been criticized by multiple rivals as biased in Clinton's favor. The DNC denied bias, claiming to be cracking down on the non-sanctioned debates that proliferated in recent cycles, while leaving the number of officially sanctioned debates the same as in 2004 and 2008. Donna Brazile, who succeeded Debbie Wasserman Schultz as DNC chair after the first batch of leaks, was shown in the emails leaking primary debate questions to the Clinton campaign before the debates were held, although a senior aide to Sanders came to Brazile's defense and tried to downplay the issue.
  3. ^ Brazile went on to write a book about the primary and what she called "unethical" behavior in which the DNC (after its debt from 2012 was resolved by the Clinton campaign) gave the Clinton campaign control over hirings and press releases, and allegedly helped it circumvent campaign finance regulation. Several Democratic leaders responded that the joint-fundraising agreement was standard, was for the purpose of the general election, and was also offered to the Sanders campaign. Another agreement that came to light gave the Clinton campaign powers over the DNC well before the primary was decided. Some media commentators noted that the Clinton campaign's level of influence on staffing decisions was indeed unusual and could have ultimately influenced factors such as the debate schedule.

This page was last updated at 2024-01-03 20:45 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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