2016 brought the end to Clintonism. Democrats are left in disarray following Donald Trumps victory. Todd S. Purdum examines their legacy in a recent Politico article:
“Twenty-five years ago, Bill Clinton almost single-handedly repositioned the Democratic Party for electoral success, co-opting and defusing Republican talking points and moving the party toward the center on issues like welfare and a balanced budget, in the process becoming the first presidential nominee of his party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win two consecutive terms. But even as he left office after the bitter 2000 recount, and George W. Bush returned the White House to Republican hands, there were questions about whether Clinton’s political philosophy would endure beyond his own tenure.
In 2008, Barack Obama explicitly campaigned against what he saw as the small-bore, one-from-column-A and two-from-column-B policy initiatives—school uniforms and the V-chip to block violence on television—of the Clinton years. Rejecting the political advice of his Clinton-era chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, he swung for the fences instead, jammed health care reform through Congress on the narrowest of partisan votes, and paid a terrible political price, even while governing in most other ways as a pragmatic Clinton-style centrist.”
The divisive style of Barack Obama was has stirred up the Far Left’s self-righteous ire. This leaves Chuck Schumer, the incoming Democrate Senate Minority leader, a difficult choice: lead his party with a new message and work towards long-term goals, or placate the loudest voices in his party and risk farther alienating the coalition his party has begun to take fro granted.
