How is Clinton weaker on any of these things that the Democratic Party of racist Southern barons of old and of mealy-mouthed labor support by even Franklin Roosevelt (of a pox on "both your houses" fame)? Doug may know more than Nelson Mandela who declared Clinton the best civil rights president of this century (not that this is saying much) but there is a false nostalgia in all this Clinton-bashing. Clinton is not a socialist or even very progressive, but he is far more so than any other Democratic president of this century.
Compare him to Truman who is the only other Democratic President who had to govern with a hostile Republican majority. Truman may have vetoed some legislation but he aquiesced to far more and his foreign policy was far more rightwing than Clinton's. Every anti-union rider and law attempted by the Republicans was vetoed by the Clinton administration, to the point of shutting down the government in 1995 until they were all removed from the federal budget.
Clinton has done innumerable dispicable things but making the Democratic Party less progressive than the old coalition of city machines, George Meany business unionism and southern racists is not one of them.
And the average Democratic member of the House is far more progressive than those of a generation ago. There are fewer of them, but that is a separate matter. Give me the Democratic party of Dick Gephart and Tom Daschle over that of Rayburn and (then racist) Senate leader Johnson any day.
The Dems are not where we want them to be, but false nostalgia for a lost golden age is just ahistorical and wrong.
And even Al Gore now makes more pro-labor speeches than I remember any Democratic politicians making in many a decade. Here's a sample of speeches that seems to have many "remants" of the social democratic tradition:
"If you want the job done right, look for the union label...Those are the values that I brought to the White House with me." "If it wasn't clear before, it's clear today: American labor is coming back and coming back strong..And it's because collective bargaining is good for families, good for business and good for America." "You are helping all Americans understand a basic truth — that the right to organize is a fundamental American right that can never be blocked, can never be stopped, can never be taken away."
And from Tipper Gore:
“We [the Clinton-Gore administration] believe as you do, in the freedom of all workers to organize without employer interference. Period...We also stand for the right of all workers to better their lives by joining a union. Period.”
This is not the representative of the socialist party we want but it is also not the representative of the National Right to Work business party led (until yesterday) by Newt Gingrich. There is a difference.
--Nathan Newman