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David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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May 20, 2007 9:20 AM
Dems Driving Triangulation "Over the Dead Bodies" of the Progressive Movement
The term "triangulation" in politics means a set of leaders trying joining with their opponents to pass measures that run counter to those leaders' own supporters. Typically, triangulation is practiced by presidents against their own parties in Congress, with the master of triangulation being President Bill Clinton who, among other things, rammed welfare reform and NAFTA "over the dead bodies" of rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers and the progressive movement. Can congressional leaders can pull the same move? Unfortunately, we're going to find out very soon, as congressional Democratic leaders are very clearly attempting to triangulate against their own party on the three issues the party ran on to win Election 2006.
TRADE - TRIANGULATING WITH A SECRET DEAL IN PURSUIT OF WALL STREET CASH
On trade, Public Citizen has shown that the Democratic Party relied on candidates who ran against lobbyist-written trade deals in order to win many of the crucial conservative-leaning districts that were necessary to win the congressional majority. Yet, as we've seen over the last week, a handful of senior Democratic leaders are joining with the Bush White House in an attempt to ram an ultra-secret free trade deal through Congress, acknowledging that in order to be successful, they will rely on all Republicans and just 25 percent of Democratic lawmakers. As rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers and organizations representing millions of workers, farmers and small businesses have raised objections to the deal, Reuters reports today that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is digging in, saying that if he knew what he knew now about how serious rank-and-file Democratic opposition to lobbyist-written trade policy was, he would have tried to negotiate the deal in even more secrecy than it was negotiated in in the first place.
On Bill Moyers' terrific PBS report on Friday about the secret deal, author John R. MacArthur says the motivations for the triangulation on trade are obvious. "This is like the NAFTA campaign of the '90s, an attempt by the Democratic leadership - in those days it was the Clintons - to raise money from Wall Street." You can watch Bill Moyers' entire piece on the secret deal here.
This drive to triangulate on trade has now reached a point where the handful of Democrats who made the deal are publicly attacking those rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers, labor, environmental, health, human rights, religious, consumer protection and agricultural groups raising questions about the deal. On Friday, Reuters reported that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) "offered no apology" for negotiating the deal in secret or for continuing to conceal the legislative text of the deal. Instead, he went on the attack, saying the only thing he would do differently would be to "ignore a lot of people that really were just wasting my time." He claimed innocently that "I cannot see how anybody would be upset" by the deal, even though as Public Citizen shows today, the list of reforms to current trade policies that fair trade groups forwarded to Democratic leaders many months ago was almost entirely brushed aside by Rangel, as were proposals for a whole new framework for global trade deals.
TRIANGULATION STRATEGY: The dynamics set up a situation whereby the Democratic congressional leadership and less than half of all Democratic lawmakers (as during NAFTA) join with all Republicans to ram a free trade package through Congress over the objections of the progressive movement and rank-and-file Democrats who ran against lobbyist-written trade policies in 2006.
LOBBYING - TRIANGULATING TO PERPETUATE THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION
Most observers agree that outrage at the Republican's corruption scandals and Democrats promise to clean up the "culture of corruption" helped Democrats win in 2006. Yet, late last week, The Politico reported that Democrats on the House Judiciary committee yesterday “scrapped a beefed-up provision of the Lobbying Reform Bill that would have prohibited former lawmakers and senior staff from lobbying their former colleagues during their first two years out of office.” The original bill would have extended the revolving door ban from one to two years, but the amendment eliminating that provision passed by a unanimous voice vote. AP reports that "several days of backroom deal-making where some of the toughest proposed reforms were left on the cutting-room floor." The shenanigans come just as freshman Democrats announced their demands for a much stronger anti-corruption bill.
TRIANGULATION STRATEGY: The dynamics set up a situation whereby the Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a sham lobbying "reform" bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.
IRAQ - POTENTIAL TRIANGULATION TO KEEP THE WAR GOING
Finally, Iraq - the big issue that helped Democrats win in 2006. The Associated Press reports that congressional Democratic leaders may be backing away from using their power to oppose the war, floating the possibility of an Iraq War supplemental bill that "would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals." The New York Times says that the "likelihood that any final agreement will specify no withdrawal date for American troops from Iraq raised the possibility that antiwar Democrats will not support it, particularly in the House, and that the measure will need substantial Republican support to pass."
TRIANGULATION STRATEGY: The dynamics set up a situation whereby the Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a blank check Iraq spending bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.
***
Where is the motivation for triangulation coming from? As MacArthur says, at least some of it comes from money - especially the issues like trade and corruption that deal directly with Wall Street's power over the Democratic Party. But I'd also say it comes from the psychology of those who the Democratic Party elders in Washington have grown used to listening to. Remember, Washington is a place dominated by David Broderism - that is, the religion that says bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake should be the ultimate goal of politics, regardless of the policies being pushed in bipartisanship's name. The Democratic Party - far more than the Republican Party - often seems to play to the opinions of the David Broder, rather than the opinions of the vast majority of the American people.
That has more than a little something to do with the kinds of people who have dominated the Democratic Party: Washington insiders, many of whom are former Clinton officials. Many of these people really do believe that making David Broder happy is more important than making America happy, and thus that making any deal, even a bad one, is better than fighting for things.
We see this with, for instance, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) - the Clinton aide who helped triangulate the White House against congressional Democrats to ram NAFTA "over the dead bodies" of the progressive movement, as American Express's CEO bragged at the time. He is running around bragging about working to pass the secret trade deal over the objections of 75 percent of congressional Democrats, and he has been using his position as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus to try to prevent an open debate on the still-secret deal.
Then there is Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to Clinton. He is quoted in the New York Times vomiting up a rancid bucket of Broderism:
"Leon E. Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he had been concerned, once the Democrats took control of Congress, that “an awful lot of blood in the water” would prevent the parties from coming to terms on 'low-hanging fruit' like immigration and trade. In Mr. Panetta’s view, the talks [over trade and immigration] are a good sign. 'Whether it can go into bigger areas like the war remains to be seen,' he said. 'But it clearly helps build at least a rapport that you absolutely need if you’re going to try to come to a deal.'"
As you can see, Panetta doesn't care about what's being talked about, or the substance of whatever deals are made on issues - all he seems to care about is making a deal. This same kind of attitude is spewed by the Beltway press, as evidenced by its trumpeting of the secret trade deal without ever having seen the actual legislative language of the deal. It is a psychology that prioritizes any deal on any issue - even one that sells out the Democratic Party's agenda and the interests of the vast majority of the American people - is good.
Thus, we get Democratic leaders who just months after election to the majority are attempting to triangulate against their own party and the progressive movement. That this strategy helped destroy the progressive agenda, the Democratic Party, and Democrats' electoral prospects for the better part of a decade seems of no concern to the people trying to perform these acrobatics - all they seem to be focused on is bringing a smile to David Broder's face and a truckload of Wall Street cash to their campaign coffers. Whether their triangulation defies political history and brings them electoral success in 2008 is less important than what the actual real-world consequences of such behavior is for the country - and if the current trend continues, those consequences could be severe.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
David, haven't you realized that the leaders have already done so? If it weren't for triangulation, Bush would have been impeached already. Of course so too would Congress for enabling the motherfucker to fuck the country to death. Even on CAFTA, Pelosi and Reid did NOTHING to stop the deal from passing even if either of them voted no. That itself is enough triangulation though I do agree that the worst form of it is best displayed with the DLCers with Clinton being the grandmaster of them all. No wonder I got so sick and tired of the sleazy advertisments and bullshit talk on the teevee that for the most part I quit watching with the exception of Lou Dobbs and Keith Olbermann but limited.
maxpayne said it all perfectly...although Lou Dobbs has lost it over immigration...and Olbermann oooing and ahhhhing over how "regal" the Repug's looked walking down to the stage at the first so-called debate was disturbing.Looks like we're going to have get all the Republicans who don't know they're Democrats, and all the Progressives who THOUGHT they were Democrats together to oust the Fake Dems and the Repugnicans in order to take our country back. Nader said it was going to get worse before it got better~it's got to have gotten "worse" enough by now! DO NOT VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON, and SIMPLY DISREGARD ALL THE REPUGS.The Corporists are going to cheat anyway..we need to insist on write in options on all ballots.
It is hard to seriously discuss any of the above proposed legislation in a democratic framework. The whole lot of proposals seems like a bad joke to me. Trade considerations: 1. Is it possible to have any free trade deal if forced compliance on another country is part of it? Maybe a guano island empire. 2.Can even the corporate concerns be enforced? China's piracy. 3. Could there be a free trade deal that allows tariffs to protect essential industries? Japan already has a lock on that. 4. How about going back to tariffs and calling them free trade like John MacArthur suggested? (Or almost) Immigration: The worst joke ever. What illegal immigrant is going to pay 5 grand to go out of the country for fifteen years for the possibility of coming back legally. They would have to be even more insane than the lawmakers who are trying to sell this idea. Lobbying Reform Bill: No reform at all except in name. The demos should triangulate away the one year waiting period while they can because they will all probably need a job in 2008. The war: Instead of triangulate they should change the name to tristrangulate, as in start strangling America children at birth instead of using them as sitting ducks to get their brains blown out. The tri is for all three genders being strangled equally. Keep discussing my friends if it gives you pleasure. I for one am ready for the revolution. Down with fascist corporatism up with Parity Democracy. Parity Democracy on Amazon.com or Bn.com.
.although Lou Dobbs has lost it over immigration.
Seriously I think you are wildly deluded here. I have spent thousands of hours doing one on one GOTV work with Democratic and Independent voters in the Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana the last three election cycles. I would say that Dobbs is spot on as to the overwhelming public sentiment on both Trade and Immigration.
I am very well aware that Working Assets has taken a mostly pro-Amnesty position of Immigration. But the current Immigration bill with its support for
mass amnesty for Illegal Aliens, new Temporary visa programs, no substantive employer sanctions,
no increased border security, no real overhaul of
chain migration or the "Anchor Baby" citizenship loophole is literally the worst of all worlds.
The immigration bill is full of massive unenforcible loopholes and nearly unintelligible legalism. It is an immigration lawyer subsidy and job creation act. This bill rewards the unlawful acts of Illegal Aliens over those who have obeyed US laws and attempted to immigrate legally. It will still create a huge indentured class of foreign workers who will be forced to wait years in limbo for their green cards to be processed.
In addition the Senate immigration bill has a radical and massive expansion of the middle class labor arbitrage H1-B and L1 visas. It will promote insourcing, outsourcing and offshoring of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) worker on a massive scale. It will basically turn US colleges into Green Card machines for foreign students at a time when young college grads in computer science and engineering have a hard enough time starting their careers. Furthermore the "medical technician" and science and math teacher clauses will now open up the Nursing and Teaching professions to the same wicked labor arbitrage that STEM workers have suffered. Talk about promoting Union Busting!!! Rove promised Big Healthcare he would help break the embattled Nursing unions and he meant it.
Simply it is hard to imagine a worse immigration bill, because just like the trade bill it was written in secret by the cheap labor lobbyists and
corporate America.
Last Nancy Pelosi is understating things when she claims she needs at least 70 Republican votes to pass an "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill in the house. I say Pelosi will need at least 80-90 Republican votes to provide "cover" for the Democrats. Even then it is up for grabs whether or not the Democrats will suffer major Congressional race losses in 2008. Seriously I can tell you that if this immigration bill passes the house in Indiana alone we could lose at least two of the three seats we gained in 2006. Because independent and even many Democratic voters in Indiana will throw Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill out of office no matter how they vote on immigration just to make sure Pelosi is no longer speaker.
Lou Dobbs is spot on about immigration and its folks like Working Assets and their support of illegal alien amnesty immigration and open borders who have lost it. IMO Working Assets is just as much a enemy of the American worker as is Robert Rubin.
There is also no support for this outside legislation of the American hating liberal and pro-illegal alien groups(La Raza and its ilk) and corporate America. Whats more none of them care one iota of the damage this bill will do when it becomes law. Those 20 million illegals will soon turn into 100 million when they bring their extended families in. And there goes our health care system, public education and social services. As none of them are geared to handle the influx of of tens of millions of illiterate and unassimilatable 3rd worlders who are of no use in our society.
And like Lamajockey has said this legislation is going to obliterate whats left of our scientific and engineering class of workers.
What really disgusts me though is that the Democratic blogosphere is stone silent on the immigration bill. These sick fuckers hope if none brings it up it'll pass and they'll have their peoples paradise. But they don't care its going to wipe out out middle-class and technical professionals and destroy our social and healthy services in the name of ideology.
By now most should have figured out that we have
but ONE PARTY! Let us revolt. Don't show up
for work for one week and we shall see! It would
take everyone's participation though.
Vote for Ron Paul, Kucinich or 3rd party.
Throw the bums out - forever!
vippy, I would love to see Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich run an INDEPENDENT ticket in 2008. Both of them deserve to quit the two major parties because their voices are muted by their party leaders anyway. Sure, Paul has his issues but a lot of times, he makes no bones about the fact that there really is no such thing as "free" market/trade. In fact, on most "free" trade deals including NAFTA and CAFTA, Paul strongly opposed them because they really were nothing but foreign bribery deals. Paul and Kucinich are the kind of folks I can trust to at least try canceling those scam deals. Besides, those two support INDUSTRIAL HEMP and America badly needs it if we're going to get the hell out of our dependence on foreign oil. Paul's a libertarian but at least he's against warfare and doesn't act so inconsistent.
P.S.: It is no coincidence that we fight wars for oil while at the same time ILLEGALIZING non-harmful plants that could in fact provide real economic growth and actually save the environment.
"What really disgusts me though is that the Democratic blogosphere is stone silent on the immigration bill."
- waltc
The super secret trade deal, too.
I submitted this comment twice to Rep. McDermott's screed on HuffPost, and it never appeared:
"The above responses to this sellout of the public and betrayal of those who voted for you are OUTSTANDING. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
You were trusted with the majority for 3 reasons:
1) Solve the Iraq war
2) End the culture of corruption
3) Fix our failed trade policy
Your group is waffling and stalling on Iraq, selling out to K Street while gutting legislation to lock down on lobbying abuses, and cutting toothless, sellout trade deals in secret.
Shameful. Just shameful.
You are failing.
You are betraying your mandate.
Even if our country does, your careers will not survive this."
They stopped posting comments at 36, which is only a page and a half. Page one here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jim-mcdermott/real-progress-on-trade_b_48809.html?p=1#comments
Notice that there is not one comment supporting McDermott's nonsense.
Notice also the timing of the release of this trade deal info. Lot's of Gonzales-gate, the immigration fiasco, the war supplemental, all providing cover for this gem.
If you think the rank & file Republicans are upset with Bush's bungling, wait 'till you see how the progressive Democrats who sweat bullets to win '06 are going to react to Pelosi, Emanuel, & Co.
Exactly on the Demoblogosphere. They won't touch anything remotely economical - trade, immigration, minimum wage etc. Every day they convince me all the more why I don't vote for the scoundrels.
waltc wrote:
There you go again with your reich wing talking points, walt. I blasted you yesterday on another thread and your response to me included a claim that we were on the same side. To the extent that I am disgusted with the Democratic leadership over this and other issues, that's correct. But my impression from reading dozens of posts from you on this blog is that you're here to bash Democrats as sport, in hopes of turning readers back over to the dark side.
As to your comment I highlighted above, that's a red herring just like the oft used argument that liberals want to take away all your guns. If anyone's been fighting for the middle class it's been liberals and the liberal bloggers. The ones who are killing it, if you've been paying any attention, are the Republicans.
There is no joyous wish on the part of liberals to see 20 million illegals given the keys to the country. What I have seen from the left is a call for a solution that addresses the root causes of our immigration problem while also treating those people humanely. Walls and detention camps accomplish neither.
My personal belief, which is shared by liberal radio host Thom Hartmann, is that you first have to crack down on those who HIRE the illegals. Dry up the job market and you reduce the incentive for them to cross the border. Of course, that would mean fines to corporations and higher wages needing to be paid to American workers - and you don't find much support for that in a congress and executive branch that are completely beholden to corporate interests.
The solution here is not to throw your hands up and say, as you did yesterday, we might as well have voted for the Republicans. That party is beyond salvation. What we must do is continue to vote the bad Democrats off the island and replace them with populists as we did in a number of races around the country in 2006. Rhaum Emanuel should be high atop that list.
CTPatriot,
What makes you think waltc is rightwing? If the Democrats would show any sign that they've actually had enough of caving in, do you really think Bush would be having a jolly time ramming trade deals down our throats?
On immigration, I understand waltc's anger and my wife's brother who was a LEGAL immigrant is just as angry that he had to wait, fill all the paper work, remain unemployed for two years compared to the ILLEGAL workers who don't have to do jack. Of course, I understand where these ILLEGAL workers are coming from. Unlike my wife's brother, those immigrants were forced to become ILLEGAL thanks to the faux "free" trade scams, resource wars, faux "free" market scams, World Bank and IMF, etc ... Do I think that putting up a stronger wall on the border is going to do squat? Of course not, once you add up everything I pointed out.
Waltc and CTPatriot would do better to straighten out their differences, try to find some common ground, and put genuine reasoning to work instead of the continuous infighting that continues to weaken us all.
3rdOption
The same thing happened to me in trying to comment on Mr. McDermotts post - Huffpost kept 2 of my posts from appearing.
And what a sickening display of cowardice upon the part of Huffpost. And the Democratic blogosphere has the nerve to bitch about censoring from the Bushco. Well they better take a good look in the mirror with all the self-censoring they are doing on two of the most important issues facing this country. They are no better than the MSM.
Sirota, Hartman and Tompaine are about the only folks covering this. Its disgraceful that the others turn their back on such important issues.
The others apparently would rather be turd polishers for the sell-outs in D.C.and look the other way when the people we elected betray our country and people.
Though it won't stop retribution against sitting Democrats in '08 if either bill passes. The hatred that the Democratic party will engender from these bills will easily exceed the NAFTA blowback.
CTPatriot
Cool there you go with the Nazi and race card, marks of the political fanatic and worthy of Dostoevsky's Underground Man. I'm just truly impressed by your level of hatred with easily compares to that odious readership at LGF and FreRep.
For starters sparky I'm a independent not a DNC cheerleader like yourself who refuses to see a party thats shafting the American people. A party thats abandoned the principals of FDR and LBJ and now only listens to K street.
You don't like me bashing these corrupt fuckers? Well if they weren't so regularly betraying the American people I wouldn't. And everytime they betray us, more of us lose our jobs, others hurt or even killed by their selling out.
Personally I'd love to a see a strong FDR style democratic party that looked out for working class Americans instead of betraying them at the drop of a dollar like some crazed crack whore.
But wait there's more! if the liberal blogosphere really does care about the American worker why are they silent in the face of two of the most destructive bills coming out of Congress. Bills that are job and wage killers across the board?
Why is it relegated to Sirota, Hartman and a few others?
Why the stony silence from the rest of the liberal blogosphere? You know that blogosphere that used to carp so loudly about the concern for the welfare of the American people?
They are IMO indicted by their collective silence and what that says about liberals isn't nice nor pretty.
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