Atari Democrat

Atari Democrat is a phrase first popularized during the 1980s, which references both the video game Atari and Democrats who have a collective interest in revitalizing the economy through the development of high tech and other forms of technology.

The definition of Atari Democrat varies. A 1984 article for the The Philadelphia Inquirer, defined the term as "a young liberal trying to push the party toward more involvement with high-tech solutions." It also noted that, "Since July 1982, it has appeared in the New Yorker, Business Week, Fortune, Time and [...] in the Wall Street Journal. A few years later, in 1989, The New York Times suggested that Atari Democrats (also known as Democrats' Greens) included Chuck Schumer, Tim Wirth, Al Gore, and Patrick Leahy. They are "young moderates who saw investment and high technology as the contemporary answer to the New Deal." The New York Times also noted that, "When the Atari Democrats first emerged in the early Reagan years, their commitments to free markets and investment won them much criticism from older liberals, who considered their neo-liberalism as warmed-over Reaganism. Mr. Leahy, who combines his environmentalism with an old-fashioned commitment to social programs, argues that the cutbacks of the Reagan years suggested that it had been a mistake for members of his Congressional class to take the old programs for granted." Later in 1992, The New York Times referred to Paul Tsongas as an Atari Democrat,"a member of the young generation of politicians and economists who looked to high technology as a source of jobs and economic growth." Gary Hart referred to himself as an "Atari Democrat" in 2003 and stated, "I was, early on in my Senate career, described as an Atari Democrat, no one would know what that means because there are no more Ataris, but we were among the first, a small group of us to forecast the transition of the economy from industrialized manufacturing to the information age."

Notes

Vorlage:US-poli-stub