New Democrats

New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues. New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the mid-2010s.

History

Origins

After the landslide defeats by the Republican Party led by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance.Wayne LeMieux, The Democrats' New Path, 2006, John F Harris, The Survivor:Bill Clinton in the White House, Random House, 2005, The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists. They advocated a political Third Way as an antidote to the electoral successes of Reaganism.

The landslide 1984 presidential election defeat spurred centrist Democrats to action, and the DLC was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization, played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party's policies to the center of the American political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as Senators Al Gore and Joe Biden (both future Vice Presidents, and Biden a future President) participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacies for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination. Hale, Jon F. "The Making of the New Democrats." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 110, no. 2 (1995): 207-221. The DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be "simply posturing in the middle", and instead framed its ideas as "progressive" and as a "Third Way" to address the problems of its era. Examples of the DLC's policy initiatives can be found in ''The New American Choice Resolutions''.

Although the New Democrat label was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy in 1989, the term became more widely associated with the ''New Orleans Declaration'' and policies of the DLC which in 1990 renamed its bi-monthly magazine from ''The Mainstream Democrat'' to ''The New Democrat''. When then-Governor Bill Clinton stepped down as DLC chairman to run for the presidency in the 1992 United States presidential election, he presented himself as a New Democrat.

First wave

The Watergate Babies from 1974 to the 1978-83 voter "tax revolts" were very similar to Southern Democrats and the Blue Dog Democrats. The first wave sought the votes of White working-class Reagan Democrats with the promise of property taxes that would, in part, subsidize start-ups and business ventures in post-industrial economies. This wave crested in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite a preponderance of these Democrats in the South, forerunners to "Atari Democrats" in the West and the Northeast applied these policy frameworks to their own post-industrial sectors.

After 1985, the Democratic Leadership Council, spearheaded by Clinton, maintained its southeastern emphasis on post-industrial finance and the Research Triangle Park, but canvassed and met with potential "Atari Democrat" campaign donors in the West and the Northeast. These proponents of the California-New England-South Third Way became the U.S. "New Democrats." Al From, the founder of the DLC and its leader until 2009, had been a staffer for Louisiana Representative Gillis Long. Among the presidents of the DLC were Tennessee Senator Al Gore and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. At the 1992 United States presidential election, Clinton was elected as the 42nd President of the United States, ending twelve years of Republican dominance. The 1994 United States elections gave Republicans control of the House and Senate, effectively wiping out Democratic representation in the South and West.

Second wave

Presidency of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton is the Democratic politician most identified with the New Democrats due to his promise of welfare reform in the 1992 United States presidential campaign and its subsequent enactment, his 1992 promise of a middle-class tax cut and his 1993 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor. New Democrat successes under Clinton, underpinned by the writings of Anthony Giddens on the duality of structure, sustained a unity of opposites that became the hallmark of Third Way political economy. Allusions to this Third Way as syncretic politics and ''unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno'', should be explicated and the concepts assessed in shifting contexts. New Democrats are often regarded to have inspired Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and his policies within the Labour Party as New Labour, as well as prompting the continental conflation of Third Way approaches to social democracy with previous notions of democratic socialism. The two were often used interchangeably by political scientists and fostered popular conceptions of democratic socialism as a social democratic variant of libertarian socialism.

Clinton presented himself as a centrist candidate to draw White middle-class voters who had left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. Until 2016 and even after, the Third Way defined and dominated notions of centrism in U.S. partisan politics. In 1990, Clinton became the DLC chair. Under his leadership, the DLC founded two-dozen chapters and created a base of support. Running as a New Democrat, Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.

Legislation signed into domestic law with bipartisan support under President Clinton includes:
* The North American Free Trade Agreement (core international agreement signed during Bush Administration without NAALC/NAAEC, required Congressional approval for implementation)
* The Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on openly gay people serving in the Armed Forces ( repealed in 2010).
* The Defense of Marriage Act that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages (ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013).
* The Religious Freedom Restoration Act federal religious discrimination statute.
* The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, sometimes referred to as the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill.

New Democrats dialectically adopted GOP proposals and platforms during the campaigns for the 1992 Congressional/state elections and 1992 United States presidential election. Below are subsequent Congressional legislative authorships and voting percentages. Please note that both the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act became law three months before the 1996 Congressional/state elections and 1996 United States presidential election.

''Legislative Authorship''
* 1996 Defense of Marriage Act: Bob Barr (R-GA) (GOP introduction)
* 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act: John Kasich (R-OH) with Ideas/Provisions from Clinton's 1994 proposal
* 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act: John Kasich (R-OH) with Ideas/Provisions from New Democrats
* 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: Phil Gramm (R-TX), Jim Leach (R-IA), and Thomas Bliley (R-VA) with Ideas/Provisions from New Democrats

''Congressional Democrat Voting Percentages''
* 1996 Defense of Marriage Act: 64% Dem Representatives support & 72% Dem Senators support
* 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act: 50% Dem Representatives support & 53% Dem Senators support
* 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act: 80% Dem Representatives support & 82% Dem Senators support
* 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: 75% Dem Representatives support & 84% Dem Senators support

The Clinton Administration, supported by Congressional New Democrats, was responsible for proposing and passing the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which increased Medicare taxes for taxpayers with annual incomes over $135,000, yet also reduced Medicare spending and benefits across all tax brackets. Congressional Republicans demanded even deeper cuts to Medicare, but Clinton twice vetoed their bills. The Clinton Administration in turn taxed individuals earning annual incomes over $115,000, but also defined taxable "small business" earnings as less than approximately $10 million in annual gross revenue, with tax brackets for high-gross incorporated businesses beginning at that number. According to the Clinton Foundation, the revised brackets and categories increased taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers within these new brackets, while cutting taxes on 15 million low-income

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