THE REBELS

A portrait of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party as a renewal of the promise of the New Deal.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have been sounding the theme for years, joined lately by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that their party has “lost its way and been captured by Wall Street.” According to Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent Green, author of Devil’s Bargain, that happened all the way back in the administration of Jimmy Carter. When he assumed the presidency, Carter announced plans to rewrite the tax code, tax capital gains to put the wealthy on the same footing as ordinary citizens, and close countless loopholes. For Carter, this was as much a matter of morality as fiscal policy, but alas, morality is a hard sell in Washington, and his own administration was sharply divided on Carter’s “campaign promises to remedy the tax code in favor of working people.” Enter a ramped-up Wall Street lobbying industry, which was richly rewarded when Reagan came into office and convinced Congress to scrap laws separating commercial and investment banking, even as a few Democrats argued, “presciently, it turned out,” that doing so would usher in an era of bailouts of federally insured banks. Ever since, Green notes, bankers have led the list of major political donors, a hallmark of “a new political era that would lead Democrats to embrace big business.” Perhaps ironically, Green notes, Trump’s arrival provided Democratic progressives with new energy to rebuild from the left, forging new alliances with working people and unions and demanding more on their behalf, including significant reform of the laws governing finance and, yes, the tax code. Although the author allows that this new era is “still largely undefined,” it’s a return to the big-tent, multiracial ideals of old.

A fresh approach to understanding the origin and aims of the Democratic left.