Naked Capitalism has the article Matt Stoller: Why the Democratic Party Acts The Way It Does.  This is another in a series of my posts that drive a few people (at least one) into a tizzy.  The article itself is too long for anybody to read except for maybe one or fewer people reading this post.  Here is the excerpt talking about the recriminations in the Democratic party over the recent electoral loss:

Everything is put on the table, except the main course — policy. Did the Democrats run the government well? Are the lives of voters better? Are you as a political party credible when you say you’ll do something?

This question is never asked, because Democratic elites — ensconced in the law firms, foundations, banks, and media executive suites where the real decisions are made — basically agree with each other about organizing governance around the needs of high technology and high finance. The only time the question even comes up now is in an inverted corroded form, when a liberal activist gnashes his or her teeth and wonders — why can’t Democrats run elections around populist themes and policies? This is still the wrong question, because it assumes the wrong causality. Parties don’t poll for good ideas, run races on them, and then govern. They have ideas, poll to find out how to sell those ideas, and run races and recruit candidates based on the polling. It’s ideas first, then the sales pitch. If the sales pitch is bad, it’s often the best of what can be made of an unpopular stew of ideas.

Still, you’d think that someone, somewhere would have populist ideas. And a few — like Zephyr Teachout and Elizabeth Warren — do. But why does every other candidate not? I don’t actually know, but a book just came out that might answer this question. The theory in this book is simple. The current generation of Democratic policymakers were organized and put in power by people that don’t think that a renewed populist agenda centered on antagonism towards centralized economic power is a good idea.

I am proud to say my blog, here, has persistently put policy on the table as the culprit, much to the annoyance of a few (at least one).  This article reviews a book about how the policy of the Democratic party was turned into what it is today.  This shift started before Bill Clinton became President.  Though Bill Clinton is the most famous person for pushing these changes forward, the man of ideas behind this shift is the author of the book being reviewed.

I have some ambivalence about the book, the movement, and the review.  I had been seduced by many of the ideas for which Bill Clinton became the embodiment, although I had been repulsed by some of the other ideas.  I still struggle with the feeling that there were problems with the Democrats and the party that led to the rise of Clinton who seemed to “fix” many of those problems.  Something did need to be “fixed”, but I have become completely disenchanted with the way they were “fixed”.  I had my doubts about some of these “fixes” at the time, but it seemed hard to argue with “success”.  I supported some of the “fixes” at the time, that I now recognize have turned into disasters.  I also railed against some of the bad ideas at the time they were proposed and enacted.