Centrist Dems Have Already Forgotten About Kamala Harris: Pivoting to the right didn't work in 2024. It won't work now.

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/politics/centrist-democrats-pivot-right-kamala-harris/



For decades, many Democratic pundits and strategists have had a simple answer for how the party could win: move to “the center.” Just look at Bill Clinton: After three consecutive routs in presidential elections from 1980 to 1988, Clinton ended the longest period of continuous Republican White House occupancy since the run-up to the Great Depression.

Democrats’ 1992 win is often attributed to Bill Clinton’s embrace of “Third Way” neoliberal politics, seasoning conservative economic policy with a pinch of putative social liberalism. However, as his secretary of labor (Robert Reich) recently observed, the 1992 campaign was far more heterogeneous than that telling lets on. In line with his iconic “it’s the economy, stupid” declaration, Clinton ran on significant fiscal stimulus, raising taxes on the wealthy, and public health care. Crediting moderation for the 1992 win misstates the order of events; tacking to the right followed winning the election.

Moreover, Clinton’s “New Democrats” did worse in congressional elections following the party’s embrace of Third Way politics over the course of early 1993, when advisors like Robert Rubin successfully pushed for abandoning more populist campaign promises in favor of austerity. From 1930 to 1994, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for all but four years, or about 94 percent of the time. From 1994 to the present, the party has held a House majority only 27 percent of the time—eight years total. Democratic dominance in the Senate in the 20th century was less pronounced, with Republican majorities for 12 years between 1930 and 1994. Since 1994, Democrats have held Senate majorities for 12 years. That’s a drop from controlling the upper chamber 81 percent of the time to just 40 percent.

Now, this was not entirely about neoliberalism. The main reason for the party’s dominance in that period was the Democratic “Solid South,” and that was doomed once Democrats became the party of civil rights (though it took some years to shake out). Still, if Clintonite politics was so powerful, then one would expect winning the House more than a quarter of the time. Whatever the case, on the heels of the party’s 2024 defeat, Democrats are again searching for a way out of the wilderness. Unsurprisingly, a loud chorus is insisting the shortest path is a sharp right turn. It is hard to predict exactly what will work in politics, but compulsively playing up moderation and savvy positioning on key issues undermines the party’s brand, legitimates Republican talking points, and reinforces the perception that the Democratic Party stands for nothing.

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