I prefer my formulation: the Dems are a party of capital that has to pretend for electoral reasons that it's not. So it makes "progressive" noises sometimes to excite the base, but when in power acts to please its funders.
Doug
^^^^^^^ CB: Yes, except as to whether when in power it acts to please its funders or has to actually institute reforms favoring the working class - as with the New Deal and Great Society - is an actual contest of varying "actuality" at different times in history. As O said emphatically often during the campaign " change comes from the bottom-up " not from the top down. The President is the "top". Jesse Jackson said recently.
"I’m reminded of the apocryphal stories of FDR and the labor movement in the 1930s, and LBJ and the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As the stories go, the movement leaders met with these presidents and presented their demands, to which these FDR or LBJ, in effect, replied: “I support you — now go out and make me do it. I agree with you, but I don’t have the votes in Congress, so go get them!” We need to build a movement on President Obama’s progressive flank that is impossible to ignore. We need to give political voice to our better ideals."