Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Failures of the New Democrats w/ Lily Geismer

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Suzi talks to historian Lily Geismer about her new book, Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, which explores the Democratic Party’s promotion of market-based solutions to social problems. We get the origin and development of the Democratic Leadership Council or DLC, the ways Bill Clinton came to personify it, and how their politics changed the Democratic Party: running away from the politics of The New Deal and the Great Society to embrace essentially Republican ideas dressed up with the language of empowerment. No wonder Clinton was so hated by the Republicans, who saw him stealing their program. Geismer takes us through the various applications of the 'new thinking' defining the New Democrats, which they characterized as “doing well by doing good.” In area after area, from community development banking, market based healthcare reform, charter schools, empowerment zones, microenterprise, and free trade, the neoliberal market fundamentalist credo left disasters in its wake. We see the way figures like Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Robert Reich, Barack Obama, and Joseph Biden ‘develop’ in this narrative with great import for today as we head to the midterms, and the DLC is busy blaming the left for the Democrats' poor showing to come. Lily Geismer makes the connections.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jacob and Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman. Today we spend the hour with the
0:28.5	historian Lily Geissmer, whose new book, Left Behind, recounts the 40-year history of the
0:35.2	Democratic Party shift from the politics of the New Deal and Great Society to that of the
0:40.1	Clinton era new Democrats of the Democratic Leadership Council or DLC. The new Democrats believed
0:47.2	that market-based solutions would address economic disparities and racial inequality,
0:52.4	but Lily Geissmer's studies shows in area after area from housing to education to welfare,
0:58.9	reform, and microfinance that profits were made, but people were left behind with a weakened
1:04.9	social safety net. Rather than doing well by doing good, this new ideology got new Democrats
1:11.1	elected but led to one disaster after another. Left Behind brings back the soaring rhetoric to
1:16.6	sell the ideas, but shows that the Clinton administration's record was even more catastrophic
1:22.7	than we remember, and as one reviewer put it, instead of helping people, they put the entire
1:28.3	globe at their mercy. We talk to Lily Geissmer when our program returns in just a moment.
1:51.3	This is Jacob and Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman, very pleased today to welcome Lily Geissmer on the show
1:57.6	for the very first time. She has a new book called Left Behind. The Democrats failed attempt to
2:03.2	solve inequality. It just came out in March by Public Affairs Press, and it explores the Democratic
2:09.9	Party's promotion of market-based solutions to social problems. She takes us on a tour. It's in
2:16.5	a very readable way, though, through what will be for many, a trip down memory lane, and it isn't
2:22.8	pretty. We get the origin and development of the Democratic Leadership Council or the DLC.
2:28.6	The many ways Bill Clinton came to personify it and how their politics changed the Democratic Party,
2:34.8	running away from the politics of the New Deal and Great Society, to embrace essentially
2:40.0	Republican ideas dressed up with the language of empowerment. No wonder Clinton was so hated by
2:45.5	the Republicans who saw him stealing their program. Geissmer takes us through the various applications
	...

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