The decision by 17 Democratic senators to vote with the GOP majority to undermine the Dodd-Frank regulations passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis is a harsh reminder that too many Democratic politicians still exhibit loyalty to their big bank donors whose bad behavior laid waste to our economy a decade ago. At a minimum, as Brian Beutler argues this week, there’s something deeply telling about the fact that the Democrats demanded absolutely nothing in the way of more progressive concessions as the price for their votes, suggesting this is more about currying favor with the financial sector than casting votes in line with the wishes of an increasingly progressive Democratic base.
Assessing the desire of many of these senators to appear bipartisan through this vote — particularly those from red states — Jamelle Bouie sees a parallel with the efforts of some Democratic senators in 2009 to water down the economic stimulus package in order to appear more centrist and fiscally-disciplined. As he notes, the outcome then was a bill that wasn’t big enough to quickly pull the U.S. out of recession; beyond that, only one of the senators who pushed for the changes was re-elected in the two subsequent election cycles.
Whatever the legitimate fixes that the Dodd-Frank legislation requires, this current bill clearly moves the overall emphasis from protecting consumers and the economy at large in favor of making it easier for banks to make money. That so many Democrats feel comfortable supporting such a step backwards shows that the progressive shift of Democratic voters hasn’t filtered up to the top of the party yet. Beyond this, it’s also a disheartening reminder that even with the GOP as a whole increasingly compromised by its embrace of Trump and its embrace of his multi-layered corruption, many Democratic politicians aren’t afraid to share what are essentially 1% policy positions with their GOP colleagues. Moreover, in supporting policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many, these Democrats are making it harder to tie these unjust laws to the other forms of corruption overflowing from the White House and being given cover by a Republican-controlled legislature that refuses to engage in its oversight duties. That is, they’re helping undermine an opportunity to paint the GOP as a party interested only in protecting its donors and its own. In the face of other anti-consumer moves by the Republicans — such as the gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — this also muddies the idea that the Democrats can be relied on to protect average Americans from the predations of big finance and big business more generally.
This dispiriting behavior by so many Democrats highlights another worrying possible dynamic as the GOP tends rightward and towards ever more plutocratic territory — rather than seeing this as an opening to make an argument for progressive policies, many Democrats see this as reason to appear “bipartisan” or moderate, when in fact those positions have drifted further and further to the right as the space between the Democrats and the modern-day, radicalized Republican Party has widened. In a larger sense, it’s the difference between Democrats who think that things were basically going OK up to 2016, that Hillary Clinton only lost by a hair’s breadth, and that no major Democratic shifts are needed, and the perspective that the rise of Donald Trump and a reactionary GOP constitutes a wake-up call for our democracy, and for a Democratic Party dedicated to equality under the law, electoral fairness (i.e. an end to gerrymandering and voter suppression), and broad economic reforms that benefit the working majority.
