Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director

Mike’s views are his own, and do not represent PDA’s official positions

On October, 13 1948, while campaigning for Hubert H. Humphrey, Harry S. Truman decried what he called, “the Wall Street way of life and politics.” He described that way as, “Trust the leader! Let big business take care of prices and profits! Measure all things by money! That is the philosophy of the masters of the Republican Party.”

Truman could have been speaking of Trump and his malignant movement. Sadly, he could have also been describing the philosophy of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) or “Third Way” Democrats.

Truman also said, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican.” And the DLCers proved him right in far too many elections on all levels. Their failure rate in state and local elections is far worse.

By defining themselves as “centrists,” Third way types keep claiming the middle ground, but they don’t govern as centrists. They govern as corporatists, revealing themselves as economic elitists. This bait and switch gambit wore thin long ago.

By promising but then opposing highly popular policies, the DLC cedes energy and elections to faux populists like W. Bush and Trump. The DLC was organized to favor big business over everyone else in hopes that will translate into huge campaign contributions and ostensibly deliver electoral victories.

The “Third Way” theory of change is predicated on convincing conservatives to consistently vote against the more conservative party, the Republican Party. In no world would this happen consistently. It hasn’t happened at all, absent highly unusual circumstances. Therefore, the Third Way is doomed to always come in second place. This, for the reasons Harry Truman explained.

A neoliberal/neoconservative project, the DLC embraced right wing tenets including: union busting and dismantling environmental, consumer, and labor protections via so-called “deregulation”,” “free markets” and globalization. Also, attacks on the poor sold as “welfare reform” and “personal responsibility.” As well as bigotry and intolerance spun as “crime control” and “family values.”

The DLC did far worse than just rhetorically embrace these Reaganite, John Bircher, Heritage Foundation shibboleths. Their policies often imposed pain and suffering on millions of innocents at home and abroad. Bill Clinton’s presidency was DLC ideology in action—triangulation, “market-friendly policies.” Examples of horrendous DLC policies include:

• Shredding safety net, environmental protection, and civil rights programs and initiatives
• Expanding police and the carceral state through draconian sentencing policies
• NAFTA and GATT globalization treaties enacted over strong union, environmentalist, and consumer opposition
• Financial deregulation including repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that led to economic bubbles, abuses, crises, and crashes.
• The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that gave rise to media monopolization

Alongside these and other huge handouts to oligarchs, speculators, and scammers, the DLC delivered only symbolic gestures without any real commitment to economic fairness, or to equal, human, and civil rights.

• They failed to reverse the Reagan or the W. Bush tax giveaways that shifted the burden from the wealthy to the working class.
• They failed to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, and failed to enact “Card Check” to help employees unionize. Instead, they joined in with the plutocrats’ union busting attacks on labor rights.
• They failed to enact the Equal Rights Amendment or codify women’s reproductive choice under Roe v. Wade, consigning women to second class citizenship.
• They promoted policies that pathologize poverty and racial minorities, demeaning innocent human beings as “less than” others.
• The Orwellian Defense of Marriage Act that denied equal rights from gay couples and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies for the military. These explicitly demeaned LGBTQ+ people, forcing them to hide their identities or face consequences, reminiscent of the “Pink Scare” scandals.

The DLC record in presidential elections is mixed at best. Their performance in Congressional elections is terrible. DLC type campaigns lost presidential elections in 2000 and again in 2004 to W. Bush (despite a highly unpopular pair of wars), and in 2016 and 2024 to Trump. Let that sink in.

It gets worse. After failing to deliver for the base by triangulating on health care and other issues, President Clinton’s support collapsed in the 1994 midterms. We saw the rise of the Gingrich Congress and the loss of Democratic Party majorities in state and local elections coast to coast and in between.

After spending inordinate political capital struggling to pass the Heritage Foundation’s health care plan, President Obama’s massive landslide in 2008 crashed during the 2010 midterms. He took the blame for what he called  “a shellacking.” Which was putting it mildly.

Rather than rally dispirited Democrats who felt betrayed by neoliberal policies, both Clinton and Obama listened to DLC advice and reached out to Republicans instead.

Throwing the base under the bus. Losing widespread support. That’s the “Third Way” way. It didn’t work for the Democratic Party or the nation then, and it won’t work for us now.

Here’s why: There already is a Republican Party. As far to the right as the DLC goes (and that’s pretty far right), they can never go far enough to appeal to Republicans.

After decades of trying this “Third Way,” they’ve failed to convert Republicans into Democrats. The “Third Way” offers the top economic elites everything, and that leaves nothing for the rest of us. People see through this, and vote accordingly.

Meanwhile, DLCers try to blame the voters and progressives who actually reach out to voters on the issues that matter most. We’ve watched in horror as DLC Democrats bent over backwards trying to appeal to people who hate us.

That always backfires because the Republicans will always be the first choice of bigots, big business, billionaires. Secondly, it alienates our own base that demands social, economic, and political progress.

By making common cause with right wingers, the DLC divided Democrats and the nation against each other. They’ve stoked the fires of distrust and resentment when they co-signed Reagan’s racist and faux libertarian rhetoric.

The DLC pays homage to economic elitism. Worse, by attacking traditional concern for the plight of those in need, they tacitly endorse the hierarchical cis-het-white-male supremacy foundational to Trump’s electoral coalition.

The DLC’s adoption of extremist right wing tropes and policies laid the foundation for the extreme red shift in government, one that increasingly alienated people from their elected officials.

That in turn fomented frustration that let Trump win two presidential elections, both with coattails powerful enough to bring along Congressional majorities. In short, without the DLC, there wouldn’t and couldn’t have been a President W. Bush or a President Trump.

There wouldn’t have been an extremist right wing Supreme Court majority, the Iraq War, massively unfair tax giveaways, DOGE, or the constitutional crisis we find ourselves in.

All of this, in large part, because DLC “Third Way” approach empowers extreme right wingers in its mania to avoid partnering with progressives, unions, civil rights leaders, environmentalists, and others working for the common good.

Trying to appeal to corporatists, racists, misogynists, etc. by beating up on unions, progressives, people of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and other vulnerable communities will never work for Democrats.

It’s time to reject that DLC “Third Way” as the wrong way, and return to the good ol’ New Deal way. Expanded and improved for the 21st Century.

Only by advocating for and enacting progressive policies like the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights and the Green New Deal will win back, expand, and revitalize the Democratic base. Only then can Democrats consistently win elections on all levels, and serve the needs of the people and the planet. Let’s get to it!