Short but sweet: I’ve only been here eight years, which isn’t as long as many. It has become especially clear over the past year, however, that this venue cannot support serious and robust political debate. I cannot be part of a venue that will put a diarist on timeout for crafting a thoughtful piece based solely on what are now very conventional ideas that are easily sourced. There’s nothing anti-Democratic in that piece, and it contains much that the party would do well to listen to. Indeed, the fact that some of its leaders have begun to do just that shows how mainstream Dallasdoc’s thinking is. While its contents may make some people uncomfortable, it is premised on the idea of electing better Democrats, which, last time I checked, is ostensibly the mission of this site.
It has become clear over the last couple years, however, that “better Democrats” in the argot of Kos means “DNC-Third Way corporate neoliberals.” And after a quarter century of Clintonian triangulation, I am not going to lend my energy to supporting a venue that will only end up bashing the left (the people who make entitlements secure) in order to argue for a so-called “centrist” policy programme (deficit hawks arguing for entitlement cuts). That’s the choice we have now. We can support demand sided policies that use the power of the state to help the general population in direct and obvious ways, or we can carry on microtargeting ourselves into oblivion with freakonomic market based solutions, while defending a kinder, gentler eviceration of the social safety net. It’s been a quarter of a century of this latter Third Way approach, the results are in, and they’re disastrous in terms of real world results and electoral outcomes.
Yet since we all know personnel is policy, and Kos consistently argues for Third Way personnel in party leadership, it’s clear the main thrust this site is to preserve the power of status quo corporate Democrats. With the public shaming of Dallasdoc for daring to write a piece on what Dems can do better, it’s obvious this place is going to be about bashing the left in order to maintain “the vital center.” Much like Bill Clinton’s attacks on Jesse Jackson or the Obama administration’s attacks on Sherrod Brown and Byron Dorgan for daring to propose prescription price reform during the ACA debate, this site’s moderation policy at its core appears committed to putting down the left to prop up the corporate right wing of the party, making it a non-starter for bringing the type of reform that the Democratic Party so sorely needs.
In short, it’s been lovely reading, talking, and learning with some wonderful people here, but the venue itself is structurally flawed, and my energies, such as they are, will be far better deployed elsewhere. All of the very best to everyone.