When it comes to economics, the authors say, Democrats have too often pursued the interests of their own elites and donors. Since the 1990s, the party has pursued policies that worsen the economic plight of Americans who are not well off. President Bill Clinton, for example, supported NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which undermined American manufacturing; the administration also endorsed the Banking Act of 1999, which accelerated the financialization of the American economy. While Barack Obama conveyed a populist message on the campaign trail, as president, they say, he became captive to neoliberal Washington.
Much of the Democratic Party’s agenda has been set by what Judis and Teixeira call the “shadow party,” a mix of donors from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, wealthy foundations, activist groups, the media, lobbyists and scholars.
Democratic leaders seem too willing to settle for a kind of cheap progressivism — a carbon-neutral, virtue-signaling, box-checking update on what was once called limousine liberalism. But the Democratic Party cannot win and America cannot flourish if it doesn’t prioritize the economic well-being of the American majority over the financial interests and cultural fixations of an elite minority.
Biden has curtailed some of its shadow party’s economic agenda — less so its cultural and social policies. There, Judis and Teixeira argue, the party seems bent on imposing a narrow progressive stance on issues like race, “sexual creationism” (commonly known as gender ideology), immigration and climate, at the expense of more broadly shared beliefs within the electorate.
The moral values may differ at each extreme of the two parties, but their efforts to moralize can sound an awful lot alike to many Americans. Even though Democrats themselves are adopting “a pretty aggressive way to change the culture,” Teixeira told me, the Democratic Party acts as if anyone who reacts against the assumptions of its progressive wing is completely off base.