By Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director. Mike’s views are his own, and do not represent PDA’s official positions.  

Right Side vs. Right Wing

For several decades, we progressives have been on the right side of history on a wide range of issues—economic, social, and otherwise. Ideas advocated by Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, and other progressives provided the foundation for FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Our ideas ushered in an era of increased economic prosperity and fairness.

Unfortunately, the right wing empire—oligarchs and the right wing propaganda fronts they funded—struck back. The infamous Powell Memorandum entitled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System” drafted by Lewis F. Powell, Jr. demonized our reform efforts as, “A frontal assault [that] was made on our government, our system of justice, and the free enterprise system.”

Powell’s Memorandum claimed that businesses were victims of progressive policies. He argued, “We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued.” He wailed, “Business has been the favorite whipping-boy of many politicians for many years.”

According to Powell, “[F]ew elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders.” He alleged, “[I]n terms of political influence with respect to the course of legislation and government action, the American business executive is truly the ‘forgotten man.’”

Powell identified the press, college campuses, politicians, and even business leaders and organizations themselves as culprits responsible for initiating or capitulating to these supposed assaults, and he proposed a detailed blueprint for counter attack.

Powell provided a playbook for regression that instigated a vast and relentless mobilization of corporate power to halt and roll back progress in which he argued, “Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.”

Right Wing Ascension, Neoliberal Accession

Since the transmission of that memorandum in 1971, corporatists have run off several stunning electoral and other victories including the Nixon and Reagan landslides in 1972, 1980, and 1984. This enabled and empowered a relentless attack on progress. These assaults persisted even after Democratic presidential election victories in 1976, 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2020, as well as razor thin (if not heavily disputed) Republican victories in the 2000, 2016, and now the 2024 elections.

Extremist policies implemented under Reagan, W. Bush, and Trump reversed the New Deal and the Great Society’s progress with disastrous consequences for households and the nation as a whole. Neoliberal Democratic presidents generally acceded to these regressive policies. For example: Bill Clinton’s triangulation, deregulation, so-called free trade, and other neoliberal policies. Also, Barack Obama’s making W. Bush’s regressive, budget busting tax giveaways to wealthiest permanent. That, and Obama’s adamant refusal to hold anyone accountable for wide scale corruption that crashed the economy.

Decades of exactly this type of private corruption and bipartisan regressive neoliberal policies hallowed out our economy, left tens of millions of families desperate, undermined democracy, and empowered corporations and the mega rich to a degree not seen since the Gilded Age.

Project 2025: Blueprint for Oligarchy

Generations of compromised politicians and cult-like true believers have chipped away at every form of accountability that Louis Powell lamented, replacing checks and balances with executive branch supremacy. Then, along came Project 2025, providing a far more aggressive and ruthless plan for privatizing our government and elevating elite special interests over and above the public interest.

As Joe Biden warned in his farewell address, “[A]n oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom,” specifically a “tech-industrial complex.” Many of us welcomed these observations, despite their obviousness, as well as offering too little too late.

In his language, Biden echoed Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address that warned, “[W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Of course progressives, notably Senator Bernie Sanders, have warned of this rising threat to impose illiberal and autocratic rule over the United States for decades. Several decades ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Still, better late than never?

Today, as the Trump administration lashes out at science, modernity, common sense and common decency, we can confirm that Louis Powell’s vision has prevailed over Louis Brandeis’ viewpoint. Also, that Biden’s belated warnings are as apt as Eisenhower’s, and we have no choice but to unite in a focused and effective response.

Narrow Options for Opposition

Confronted by an emboldened and empowered Trump regime, our options are narrow and our plight is as dire as it has been in our lifetimes. We labor under an anti-democratic oligarchy in which money is speech, and billionaires openly rig elections. During this dark age, we cannot expect business as usual to remedy the disasters caused by business as usual.

We cannot afford to succumb to depression and helplessness. We cannot let the infamous progressive circular firing squad hamper our efforts. Not while the Climate Catastrophe worsens. Not as economic inequality spikes. Especially not as the Trump Cult weaponizes the federal government into a vehicle for vendettas against vulnerable communities, including Trump’s critics like us.

In order to effectively oppose threats posed by Trumpist extremism, we must stand united. We must mobilize together with hope, determination, and always practice mutual aid. Our agenda—The Economic Bill of Rights, a Green New Deal, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, Peace, Housing, Nutrition, and Social Justice for All, and more—remain as important and popular as ever.

Let us learn from our opponents and unite around a coherent, achievable blueprint for power and success—an Anti-Powell Memorandum that identifies our enemies and outlines ways to overcome the threats they pose. We’ve overcome fascism, oppression, and institutionalized injustice before. We will do it again.

We know that our people-centered common sense solutions to shared challenges represent the only effective antidote to right wing faux populism. Positive Progressivism is the way forward to a better, more equitable, more perfect union, today as it has always been.

To learn more about effective, positively progressive approaches, listen to, like, subscribe, and share PDA’s Advisory Board Chair Donna Smith’s Positively Progressive podcast. Click Here: https://positivelyprogressive.podbean.com/