kessler, jim 3rd way

see main 3rd way

https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/

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Incrementalism, Highlighting Divide Among Democrats,” started with a neutral enough headline, but ended with a harsh critique by a fierce Sanders opponent, whose politics the reporter misrepresents:

“The path to the White House and to majorities has to be in a pragmatic, progressive area,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for Policy at Third Way, a center-left think tank. “If you go too far left, Donald Trump gets re-elected and Republicans control both houses of Congress.”

“Our heads are in the clouds, but our feet are also on the ground at the same time,” he added. He cited his group’s universalhealthcare plan, which he said was “just as ambitious” as Mr. Sanders’ proposed “Medicare for all.” There was, however, a key difference.

“It just doesn’t blow up the system,” Mr. Kessler said. “It builds on the existing system.”

But Third Way is a fiscally conservative, not a “center left,” think tank.Given the state of public opinion, a group that pushes to cut Social Security and Medicare, and calls raising taxes on billionaires “soaking the rich,” is to the right of centrist. In 2013, of 29 trustees on Third Way’s board, 20 were investment bankers, three were CEOs and two were corporate lawyers.

Third Way’s “about” section reads, “Our work is grounded in the mainstream American values of opportunity, freedom and security.” They continue, “But we identify as center-left, because we see that space in US politics as offering the only real path for advancing those ideals in the century ahead.” For Third Way, identifying as “center-left” is lip service, a strategic necessity in a nation that has moved to the left and whose demographics promise a more diverse and left electorate to come.

Ember chooses the label that Third Way uses for itself, because if she accurately identified its corporatist mission and positions, she could not use one of its leaders as an objective authority on the efficacy of Bernie Sanders’ proposal of free healthcare for all. It would be obvious that Third Way’s healthcare plan was in no way as ambitious as Sanders’, and that it was using the term “universal” to undermine single payer.

Reflecting its function as a corporate advocate for moving the Democratic Party to the right, Third Way has consistently disparaged Sanders and progressive politics in general. In a 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed (12/2/13), Kessler (and Third Way co-founder and president Jon Cowan) declared that “economic populism is dead,” urging Democrats not to follow Elizabeth Warren and Bill deBlasio “over the populist cliff.” Kessler singled out Sanders in a USA Today op-ed (12/15/17), declaring, “Take It From Voters, Democrats Don’t Want a Bernie Sanders.”

In October 2018, Third Way’s executive vice president Matt Bennet (who can be seen in this refusing to disclose how much money his think tank gets from Wall Street) disqualified Sanders as a presidential candidate: “The exception is Sen. Sanders. We’re open to everybody except for him.” That would seem to make the organization an odd source to go to to evaluate Sanders’ policy proposals.

But Ember turned to Kessler again in her April 27 article, “Bernie Sanders Opens Space for Debate on Voting Rights for Incarcerated People,” to comment on Sanders’ call to enfranchise the incarcerated:

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