Populism and '92

Discussing the Clinton campaign, I think Ezra Klein erects too much of a dichotomy between populist and New Dem "sides" to Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. It was much more like a synthesis, a weaving of key New Dem concepts into traditional Democratic populism, then it was a question of sides. Certainly several of the key New Dem interventions in that year -- the Ricky Ray Rector incident, the original Sister Souljah moment -- were cultural populism to go alonside Clinton's economic populism.

What's more, at the end of the day Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it" and put poor black women to work was a very populist idea. Welfare reform mixes with the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you shouldn't be poor to make a pretty seamless blend of cultural and economic populism, bounded together by a shared notion of the social value of work.

Comments

Clinton? Bill Clinton? that was 15 years ago, right?

Posted by cleek | May 10, 2007 9:30 AM

I think a clarification of your (and Ezra's) working definition of "populism" would be helpful here.

Posted by Christmas | May 10, 2007 9:33 AM

poor black women to work was a very populist idea. Welfare reform mixes with the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you shouldn't be poor to make a pretty seamless blend of cultural and economic populism, bounded together by a shared notion of the social value of work

Don't strain yourself not saying it. Jeebus.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 10, 2007 9:54 AM

I was about to make the same comment as Christmas.

Posted by right | May 10, 2007 9:55 AM

I'm giving the game away here, but "populism" is basically shorthand for what the white working class wants.

Posted by Steve | May 10, 2007 9:59 AM

Yeah, I agree with Steve. Black voters, seemingly, don't enter into populism according to this definition. It would be interesting to understand how blacks fit into this analysis. They were very loyal to Clinton and helped him win those elections. Did they vote as a "bloc"? Why did they support him so directly? (You might say "because of LBJ" but I think support for Clinton was even stronger than it would have been for a generic Democrat)

Posted by mk | May 10, 2007 10:37 AM

Welfare reform mixes with the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you shouldn't be poor

Sometimes, it never becomes more obvious how clueless Matt is. Welfare reforms CLAIMED that that was the idea, but it's pretty obvious now that it wasn't about helping the poor at all. Now we know it was about sticking it to black people and increasing the countries pool of service workers without ever doing a damn thing to help anyone who wasn't a rich employer.

Posted by Soullite | May 10, 2007 10:48 AM

I'm giving the game away here, but "populism" is basically shorthand for what the white working class wants.

Well, no kidding. "Pop" means people. There are a whole more white working class people out there than anyone else.

Anything that's ever been called "populism" in this country has always been about white people and that continues to be true to this day. The elitist wing of the Democratic Party has always been more strongly allied with minorities than has the working class wing.

Posted by JP | May 10, 2007 10:52 AM

So killing brain damaged black men is populism.

Hmmmm....

And since when has playing by the rules ever worked for women with kids who don't have access to transportation, adequate health care or day care?

Posted by clay | May 10, 2007 12:07 PM

You've managed to totally ignore the fact that almost all of those poor black women who are now working and playing by the rules are STILL poor.

Posted by beckya57 | May 10, 2007 1:57 PM

Overall, black women and single mothers were two of the groups who saw the most economic growth during Clinton, more so than the average American (in part because that was catch-up growth). If Clinton really did hurt African-American women's economic well-being, don't you think Clinton would be as unpopular among black women as, for instance, Reagan?

Posted by Reality Man | May 10, 2007 2:24 PM

Soullite, what on earth are you on about? Matt's talking about politics here, not the merits of the proposals. Exactly which part of the politics is he clueless about?

One of the problems with populism is that sometimes the people have ideas that aren't all that great.

Posted by AlanC9 | May 10, 2007 3:07 PM

"It was much more like a synthesis, a weaving of key New Dem concepts into traditional Democratic populism"

This "synthesis" is more commonly known as the DLC platform: an effort to help Southern Democrats hang on to their seats as the demographics changed around them.

Posted by Frank Bruno | May 10, 2007 3:24 PM

I think that you and Ezra might want to agree on a definition of populism or use other words.
This started with a critique of Mark Penn right ?
Clearly you are right that Clinton's support for welfare reform has nothing to do with Penn's claims that Americans don't want redistribution from the very rich or corporation bashing. That is, American's opinion about redistribution depends from whom you take to give to whom (obviously).

Penn must know that the Clinton '92 campaign asked people if they wanted an increase in rich people's taxes to support x (x was health care reform, more education spending etc) and kept getting a large majority for yes until the pollster got frustrated and asked Americans if they wanted to raise rich people's taxes to fund more waste fraud and abuse and a plurality answered yes. This is raging loony class war populism.

Also during a debate Clinton vs Bush in 92 there was a continuous time studio poll in which people could push a button for "agree" for "disagree" or for "neutral". The studio audience was made of Clinton supporters, Bush supporters and undecided voters. When Clinton said "under the Republicans only the rich have gotten tax cuts" a majority of all 3 groups pushed the "agree" button. That is, the complaint about rich people getting off easy was well received by declared Bush supporters. Such an event is, of course, very rare.

I doubt that opinion has shifted against soaking the rich since then.

A simple heuristic works. Most Americans support tax and transfer programs which would increase the after tax income of the household with median income if the programs cause 0 deadweight loss.

Mark Penn must know this. He chooses to lie.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | May 10, 2007 8:27 PM