‘New Democrats’ Sound Alarm Over Sanders and Clinton’s Leftward March

Observers on both sides of the party’s divide suggest presidential primary debate confirms a resurgence of more populist economic policies.

By Published on November 8, 2015

Leading architects of the “New Democrat” movement are sounding the alarm over a lurch to the left in the party, after candidates at the latest presidential primary debate confirmed a resurgence of more populist economic policies.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley spoke passionately about the need to reduce wage inequality and corporate power during a forum in South Carolina on Friday in which all three distanced themselves from the establishment orthodoxy that has long prevailed in Washington.

It followed a similar performance from Clinton at the first official debate, in Las Vegas, last month that restored her lead over Sanders — who describes himself as a democratic socialist — but has nonetheless left the party with one of its most radical policy platforms in decades.

“We’re at a point in history right now where both our democracy and our economy are not working for the majority,” the former secretary of state told MSNBC moderator Rachel Maddow at the South Carolina event.

“People rightly believe that corporations and the powerful have stacked the deck in their favour and against everybody else.”

How committed Clinton is to her new anti-establishment agenda remains a matter of fierce debate, not least among Sanders supporters, but Guardian interviews with leading activists on both sides of the party’s divide suggest the lurch to the left is not limited to presidential politics.

“The battle for the soul of the Democratic party is coming to an end,” claims Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a champion of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.

“It’s not just Sanders and O’Malley [who are pushing Clinton]; there is an entire Warren wing of American politics that includes certain politicians, think tanks and advocacy groups [and] has fundamentally shifted the national debate in an economic populist direction.”

Read the article “‘New Democrats’ Sound Alarm Over Sanders and Clinton’s Leftward March” on theguardian.com.

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