The 1%'s “Centrist” Propaganda War: Why Sanders & Warren Are So Threatening to the Establishment [View all]

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The 1 Percent’s “Centrist” Propaganda War: Why Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren Are So Threatening to the Establishment

After last Novembers elections, the GOP had a bit of a revelation. Once they had gained control of the congress, bipartisanship suddenly became the mature and necessary thing to do. The people spoke, after all, and had given the go ahead for Republican’s to push through their ideology, and it was now the responsibility of the Democrats to play along. “Serious adults are in charge here and we intend to make progress,” said Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, with an air of superiority. Yes, this is the same fellow who made the following remark a few years back: “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.” It is also the same party that has fought bitterly against nearly every policy that President Obama has advocated, like health care reform, the economic stimulus, immigration reform, etc.

Of course its all nonsense. The GOP is about as interested in bipartisanship as Reagan was interested in a balanced budget. They say one thing, and do something entirely different. They are politicians, this is what they do.

But still, this does lead to a different question that has been floating around lately, which is whether the Democratic Party should be embracing the liberal movement, led by people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, or falling back to a more centrist plan that Bill Clinton embraced back in the ’90s. This question seems legitimate, but it actually is not.

Elizabeth Warren and the rising liberal movement have created a real fear within the Republican party and Wall Street. Certain right wing pundits paint Warren as nothing less than a radical socialist, aiming to overthrow the capitalist system. This is fear. Fear that the new liberal movement is not just a fad, and that the future is moving leftward.

The argument for centrism within the Democratic party is a distraction, but also a tactic. After all, what does centrism really mean in Washington? It means corporatism. It means the neoliberal alliance between Wall Street and D.C. that we have seen wreak havoc over the past 30 years. It means the Clinton administration signing financial deregulation into law, and refusing to regulate derivatives. It means the promotion of corporatist trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/04/1-percents-centrist-propaganda-war-why-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-are-so