If Democrats want to be the party of the people, they need to go full populist
Middle-class tax cuts are fine. But income transfers are better.
It's fast becoming a consensus in center-left circles that the future of the Democratic Party will rise or fall depending on the economic well-being of the masses. In the wake of the midterms, top-shelf commentators like Josh Marshall and David Leonhardt have correctly identified a decades-long trend of stagnant incomes as the major problem for the Democrats. If the party of the left cannot provide material security to the people, then it simply has no business being in power.
Luckily, this is actually an easy problem to solve. If markets aren't producing enough money through wages, then the government should step in and provide it. It is really that simple.
But tellingly, Marshall, Leonhardt, and other center-left liberals make it seem as if this problem is hellishly difficult. Education policy is hard. Climate policy is really hard. Handing out checks is stone simple by contrast. All you need is paper and a pen.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
To become the party of the people, the Democrats will have to let go of an ineffective, neoliberal policy that has been baked into their economic platform for years now. Then they will have to overcome the skepticism of voters, who are unused to the idea of income transfers, even though it's part of a populist legacy that reaches back to the New Deal and the Great Society. This, more than anything, will be the crucial question for the American left over the next several election cycles.
Let's go over some flaws in the neoliberal position. Here's Leonhardt:
His sole other policy suggestion is a middle-class tax cut.
Now, a middle-class tax cut (or, alternatively, a boost in tax credits) wouldn't be a terrible policy. But the problem with Leonhardt's analysis is that it implicitly assumes that market incomes are the only legitimate incomes, and that the only legitimate ways of increasing incomes are those that work through market means. (He also ignores lowering the trade deficit, which would stoke demand and create jobs, as Dean Baker points out.)
Worse is the reflexive invocation of education as an economic panacea. Of course, everyone should have access to a quality education. But for the last 40 years, America has been cranking away at increasing both high school and college completion with great success, and during that time we did not see the slightest improvement in inequality, median wages, or poverty. On the contrary, median wages stagnated, poverty increased, economic growth eventually slowed to a crawl, and inequality rocketed to Roaring Twenties' levels.
Poverty and stagnant wages have a common root: a lack of money. And if you ignore the simplest imaginable solution to this problem — namely, handing out money — then restoring economic growth to the middle class is going to be really tough. Indeed, it might be impossible!
After the stark failure of neoliberal policy, blunter methods of raising incomes are at least worth a shot. These include policies like a universal basic income, a universal child credit, a climate dividend, and cash transfers known as helicopter drops.
But if these policies win on the merits, they still have to overcome the creed of neoliberalism. Matthew Stoller, in a great review of The New Democrats and the Return to Power by Al From, identifies the problematic legacy of From and other New Democrats. He notes that it is a bit strange that 21st-century Democrats have been consistently leery of economic populism despite the fact that background conditions would seem to make populism more appropriate than at any time in the last 80 years.
As Stoller writes, because of the efforts of From and the political triumphs of Bill Clinton, practically the entire Democratic Party elite is composed of neoliberals with a bone-deep commitment to markets and a reflexive hostility to New Deal–style policy. But if the New Democrats derived their power and appeal from the crushing defeats Democrats suffered in the 1970s and '80s, the current iteration of the Democratic Party enjoys a solid presidential coalition of liberals. The party, in other words, no longer needs to tilt to the right.
Income transfers are the only policies muscular enough to immediately raise the prospects of the majority of Americans. They also represent the best way to get the Democratic base to turn out in the midterms. Marshall may be right that old-fashioned economic populism won't play well in a national election (ironically, largely due to years of neoliberal agitprop), but it's certainly possible to change that.
The left has to convince a critical mass of people that economic populism is good policy. The Democratic Party needs to cultivate leaders that can sell that message. If the Democrats can do that, then their fortunes might be rescued. Otherwise, they will just be part of the problem.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
-
The Week Unwrapped: Are pig-butchering scams taking over the world?
Podcast Plus, could discarded gadgets solve the copper shortage? And will employers hire more over-50s?
By The Week Staff Published
-
5 spine-chilling horror video games to play this Halloween
The Week Recommends A nostalgic classic remastered and a couple of scary co-ops you can play with brave friends
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Climate safe havens may be a thing of the past
Under the radar Safe spaces are few and far between
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Supreme Court rejects challenge to CFPB
Speed Read The court rejected a conservative-backed challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published