burn down the party and rebuild it. Not sure if that really makes me one, though!

harumph!

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!

Never heard of most of the people in the "Our Team" section -- I've heard the name Jonathan Cowan somewhere, but that's about it.

The top article is about fighting DeVos's plans for deregulation and privatization of education. The next one is about how Trump's "simplification" of the tax code is just cover for a big giveaway to the top 1%.

These are supposed to be our evil overlords? People I've never heard of writing things progressives agree with?

Interesting. So now we know that Nancy Pelosi is not part of the mysterious neoliberal thirdway DLC cabal. I could swear I heard otherwise...

Also from that article.

That quote came from this article:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/new-dems-plan-assertive-new-presence-in-house-121208

That was not the author's view but rather the view he was countering.


As for all the minutia, I care about issues and that's why I do not support many of the issues that Third Way supports controversial including their stance that Social Security and Medicare needed to be cut:

The Progressive Caucus is bigger. Not only that, but not all "New Democrats" agree on everything. In fact, there are some Dems who are members of both the New Democrats and also the Progressive Caucus. Mindblowing!

The Politico article (which was a news article, not an opinion piece like the Salon article) is correct: moderate Democrats are a minority of the party. I agree with you on Social Security, but then so do most Democrats. It's some kind of fantasy that the thirdway has outsized influence.

On the other hand I don't disagree with moderate Dems on everything, for example, those two articles direct from the thirdway website. So why the demonization?

And the thing is, there are certain parts of the country where a Sanders or Warren couldn't get elected. I'd rather have a moderate Democrat than a teabagger any day.

We could start there.

And even with TPP, Dem support would be weaker if it wasn't for Obama pushing it. Personally I think most opposition to TPP is misguided, but I'm in a minority position on that among Dems.

And to find a Dem who wants to cut Medicare, you have to really dig, there are hardly any.

Yet people act like somehow the third way controls the party. Which is nuts.

That depends on what one feels is a good fight. But considering that the GOP will soon control all three branches of the Federal Government, the DLC obviously has a different agenda than winning at the state and national level.

So what is that agenda?

And by the way, the DLC doesn't exist anymore, so they don't have any agenda at all.

but the philosophy endures.

Because I have no idea what this philosophy is nor which Democrats supposedly adhere to it. I just hear a bunch of terms thrown.

I went to the actual thirdway website that someone posted a link to above, and the top articles there were opposing privatization and deregulation of education, and opposing tax cuts for the 1%.

That sounds pretty good to me.

as shorthand for policies that have the effect of favoring corporations over workers.

Trade policy is just one area.

And the ACA is seen by some Democrats as a bailout to the insurance industries. While it did increase access to healthcare, it did nothing about costs.

And the acronym is of course associated with the Clinton Presidency.

who disagrees with certain policies actually wants corporations to thrive at the expense of workers. Which is totally false.

"DLC" and all the other labels used in my OP are used by people trying to stifle any deviation from a certain ideological purity. And this is seriously counterproductive given the realities of governing.

With ACA, for example, there are plenty of ways it could be improved, and maybe single payer would be better. But tarring Obama and the Dems who voted for it (including Bernie) with labels like "corporatist" is stupid. ACA was a huge improvement over what was there before.

And by the way, ACA did cut the rate of growth in healthcare costs.

And I read plenty of examples of such ideological purity from some few at JPR. A purity that involves, for some, an apparent quest for the perfect candidate, and a willingness to refuse to support the non-perfect.

And I argue at JPR against this type of "waiting for perfection" because during that wait, many good but imperfect things will not be accomplished. And more people will suffer.

As to the ACA, it was an improvement to the US system, but only by taking profit out of access to healthcare can access really be extended to all. Most western democracies, including my home, already solved that problem many years ago. It is purely a matter of political will and courage.

mess. That's a hell of a lot easier than actually untangling them and dealing with what people are actually complaining about. Plus it has the advantage of picking the most unhinged representative of those who oppose thirdway policies (as I do for example) and declaring the whole movement dead based on that.

It's such a time saver and prevents you from having to actually think, which, lets face it, takes effort. And who wants that.

Bryant

It just so happens that this mysterious "third way" has a website. What sort of evil policies are they promoting?

Well, the top article is warning about Betsy DeVos's plans for privatization and deregulation of education.
https://medium.com/third-way/holding-ed-secretary-pick-betsy-devos-accountable-on-accountability-b0f99ef63617#.hm5qbbtmi
The next one is arguing that Trump's tax cuts for the 1% should be opposed.
https://medium.com/third-way/buyer-beware-the-red-herring-of-tax-simplification-1a5ead169e59#.ao3rli2vm

These are the bad guys?

Based on what I'm seeing, I'd pick the third-way wing of the party over the Susan Sarandon wing every day.

Picking a couple things off a website and using that to determine what 3rd way means is silly. How do you go about using issues that Sarandon would certainly agree with to distinguish these two wings? Seems disingenuous in the extreme.

I didn't cherry-pick those issues, those were the top two articles when I went to the 3rd way website.

Yes, Sarandon and Third Way do agree on those issues. That's my point. The 3rd way gets demonized all the time, but go read what they actually write, and what do you know? It's pretty progressive.

And I'm sure they agree on a lot of other issues. And yet the Sarandon/Cornel West wing of the party decided to sit out the election, a move that helped Trump get into office.

issues you pulled off of a site about 3rd way politics, and then made a comparison about who was better. That doesn't seem slightly skewed to you?

I think if we went issue by issue, there would be some where I agree more with Sarandon, and others where I agree more with third way. And a lot of places where we all agree: income inequality is too severe, we need to address climate change, racism is bad, etc.

But then comes the part where Sarandon/West say that it doesn't make any difference whether Hillary or Trump is president. Or worse, in Sarandon's case.

I'd rather have people with generally progressive values, and some areas of disagreement, than people who are going to, in effect, give help to Trump, no matter how closely their policy views align with mine.

That some people like to use instead of actual substance. Plus it can make wordy pseudo-intellectual criticism like, several words longer.

"Third Way" moderation reflecting the will of the electorate will make a comeback.

Meanwhile, we'll just have to endure the excesses of capitalism and greed on our own.

Repeated constantly every day all day, the magic words will make the fictional neoliberal corporatist third-way identity politics DLC neo-con bad bad bad Democratic Party disappear with a big poof and the Real Democrats and True Progressives can take over. OMG, after I typed that I thought about myself, "How authoritarian, what an elitist" -- heck, now I'm now self-insulting. IT'S HAPPENING.

from a bunch of pseudo intellectuals.