Opinions

Clinton should recognize that the old center is gone

Does Hillary Clinton understand that the biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left, but between the anti-establishment and the establishment?

I worry she doesn't — at least not yet.

A Democratic operative I've known since the Bill Clinton administration tells me, "Now that she's won the nomination, Hillary is moving to the middle. She's going after moderate swing voters."

Presumably that's why she tapped Tim Kaine to be her vice president. Kaine is as vanilla middle as you can get.

In fairness, Hillary is only doing what she knows best. Moving to the putative center is what Bill Clinton did after the Democrats lost the House and Senate in 1994 — signing legislation on welfare reform, crime, trade and financial deregulation that enabled him to win re-election in 1996 and declare "the era of big government" over.

In those days a general election was like a competition between two hot dog vendors on a boardwalk extending from right to left. Each had to move to the middle to maximize sales. If one strayed too far left or right, the other would move beside him and take all sales on the rest of the boardwalk.

But this view is outdated. Nowadays, it's the boardwalk versus the private jets on their way to the Hamptons.

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[MICHAEL GERSON: Clinton should call forth genuine American faith.]

The most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a system rigged by big corporations, Wall Street and the super-wealthy. This is a big reason that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination. It's also why Bernie Sanders took 22 states in the Democratic primaries, including a majority of Democratic primary voters under age 45.

There are no longer "moderates." There's no longer a "center." There's authoritarian populism (Trump) and democratic populism (which had been Bernie's "political revolution" and is now up for grabs).

And then there's the Republican establishment (now scattered to the winds) and the Democratic establishment.

If Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party don't recognize this realignment, they're in for a rude shock — as, I'm afraid, is the nation. Trump does recognize it. His authoritarian populism ("I am your voice") is premised on it.

"In five, 10 years from now," Trump says, "you're going to have a worker's party. A party of people that haven't had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry."

Speaking at a factory in Pennsylvania in June, Trump decried politicians and financiers who had betrayed Americans by "taking away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families."

Worries about free trade used to be confined to the political left. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, people who say free-trade deals are bad for America are more likely to lean Republican.

The problem isn't trade itself. It's a political-economic system that won't cushion working people against trade's downsides or share trade's upsides. In other words, a system that's rigged.

Most basically, the anti-establishment wants big money out of politics. This was the premise of Sanders' campaign. It's also been central to Donald ("I'm so rich I can't be bought off") Trump's appeal, although he's now trolling for big money.

A recent YouGov/Economist poll found that 80 percent of GOP primary voters who preferred Trump as the nominee listed money in politics as an important issue, and a Bloomberg Politics poll shows a similar percentage of Republicans opposed to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision.

[CONFLICTING VIEWS: Now Clinton has to even out her contradictions.]

Getting big money out of politics is of growing importance to voters in both major parties. A June New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 84 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans want to fundamentally change or completely rebuild our campaign finance system.

Last January, a Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers found 91 percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats unsatisfied or "mad as hell" about money in politics.

Hillary Clinton doesn't need to move toward the "middle." In fact, such a move could hurt her if it's perceived to be compromising the stances she took in the primaries in order to be more acceptable to Democratic movers and shakers.

She needs to move instead toward the anti-establishment — forcefully committing herself to getting big money out of politics, and making the system work for the many rather than a privileged few.

She must make clear Donald Trump's authoritarian populism is a dangerous gambit, and the best way to end crony capitalism and make America work for the many is to strengthen American democracy.

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Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. His new book, "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few," is now in bookstores. His film "Inequality for All" is now available on iTunes and Amazon streaming.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.

Robert Reich

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” He blogs at www.robertreich.org.

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