By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
This article explains three critical reasons why the Democratic Party’s leaders are far more insane than all but a few Democrats understand. It focuses on the leaders of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the New Democrats. The DNC leadership is composed of New Democrats. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had to resign in disgrace when the leaks proved that she was putting the DNC’s thumbs on the scale to favor Hillary Clinton (a New Democrat) in the presidential nomination contest against Bernie Sanders. Wasserman Schultz also took large contributions from big finance and, until she faced the prospect of a serious primary challenger, she supported efforts by predatory lenders to use Congress to bar the regulators from stopping their abuses.
Donna Brazile, a New Democrat, now runs the DNC. In this article, I show that Brazile denounced Democrats who refused to cheer President Bush’s invasion of Iraq (and his “Mission Accomplished” declaration) as so disloyal that when their country needed them they went “AWOL.” Not satisfied with that libel, she added the homophobic smear that voters would view Democrats who failed to cheer Bush’s lies and invasion as “effete.” Best of all, she said that Democrats should take as their role models Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Frank Gaffney – Bush’s “chicken hawks” that devised the campaign of lies that led to the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Gaffney is now spreading hate of Muslims – and advising President Trump.
The DNC is also in the news because it has just accepted a $20 million “donation” funded by Third Way, a Wall Street front group, to study why the white working class “abandoned” Hillary Clinton. Clinton is a leader of the New Democrats. Wall Street has long been the largest single funder of the New Democrats various institutions. The New Democrats, at the behest of Wall Street, have waged the “long war” against the working class since their formation in 1984. The New Democrats did not simply abandon the working class – they targeted it for scorn and assaulted it with policies that harmed many Americans, but caused the greatest harm to the working class.
Particularly in light of the Trump’s election, the logical reaction of the DNC would have been to refuse to take the Wall Street buyout and announce that the New Democrats would never again do Wall Street’s bidding. They would return to the Democratic Party’s historic role as the party that championed the rights of workers. Brazile, of course, ensured that the DNC eagerly took the $20 million Wall Street buyout. The New Democrats not only continue to be for sale (or rent) by Wall Street – they continue to show that they continue to for sale for chump change.
The DNC does not need $20 million to figure out why the white working class “abandoned” the New Democrats. They can check out from their local library Tom Frank’s books warning that this would happen and explaining in detail why the New Democrats’ long war against the working class was making it happen. Tom Frank has been writing books warning about this since 2004. If the DNC were under new management, it would have invited Tom Frank to meet with its entire staff in November.
Third Way is following the New Democrats’ unbroken tradition of servitude to the most despicable corporate patrons eager to see Republican anti-public policies triumph. Virtually every American is disgusted by the New Democrat’s embrace of the “Vampire Squid” (Goldman Sachs) exemplified by the Clintons’ mercenary speeches and Trump’s appointment of four senior officials with strong ties to Goldman Sachs.
What people need to know is that the New Democrats’ historic business patrons are more despicable that Goldman Sachs. The New Democrats’ first formal organization, created in 1984, was the Democratic Leadership Coalition (DLC). The DLC was funded overwhelmingly by huge corporations, but two of its donors are worthy of special note – the Koch Brothers and the Bradley Foundation. Tom Frank made this point forcefully in in 1984 in What’s the Matter with Kansas. The DLC spawned another Wall Street front group with an even more dishonest name – the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
Large corporations provided the bulk of PPI’s funding, but like the DLC it was also heavily funded by the Bradley Foundation. Harry Bradley, along with the Koch brothers’ father, was a charter member of the John Birch Society. That means they were off-the-charts looney and ultra-right wing. Mr. Bradley’s passion was his hatred for organized labor. He was a notorious for his employment discrimination against blacks and women. At the time the DLC and the PPI formed, the Bradley Foundation was the Nation’s most destructive funder of ultra-right wing efforts to influence policy. Today, it is the force behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s war against organized labor. The Nation’s most virulent and effective enemy of organized labor funded the New Democrats. The New Democrats knew what they were choosing to lie down with and they knew exactly what they were signaling to organized labor about their hostility to unions and disdain for the working class.
Third Way, the DLC, and the PPI shared another trait common to the New Democrats– they all tried hard to keep Democrats from knowing who their corporate donors were and how much they gave. They craved dark money for the usual reasons.
Stop and ask yourself why the Kochs, Wall Street, big oil, and the Bradley Foundation funded the New Democrats. Then ask yourself why the two most recent DNC leaders have (1) shilled for predatory lenders and (2) tried to defeat Democrats who saw through Bush’s lies about Iraq, tried to ridicule them as “effete,” and urged that Democrats copy Bush’s “chicken hawks” who framed Bush’s lies and spread religious hate to Trump against Muslims.
The DNC is also in the news because another New Democrat, former President Obama, has been intervening repeatedly to try to prevent Representative Ellison, the progressive candidate to replace Brazile, from becoming the DNC’s leader. Worse, major corporate donors to the Democratic Party are seeking to block Ellison, even sinking to the level of anti-Semitism smears. Losing to Trump has not been a sufficient wake-up call to the New Democrats to convince them to abandon their policy of abandoning and assaulting for 33 years the core principles and core supporters of the Democratic Party. Instead, they rushed to prostitute themselves to Wall Street on the Potomac (Third Way). They are doing everything possible to prevent breaking free from Wall Street and restoring the Party’s soul.
Third Way’s co-founder sought to defeat Elizabeth Warren in her 2012 Senate election, smearing her as “catastrophically anti-business.” The opposite is true. Senator Warren wants to reestablish the rule of law and end the rigged system – so that honest business people can prevail instead of the frauds that cause our recurrent financial crises. She is not “anti-business,” but rather with colleagues like Bernie Sanders, the champions of honest business people. Third Way champions keeping the financial system rigged in favor of the predatory CEOs and against the customers, creditors, workers, and shareholders.
What Needs to Happen
Democrats need to say that the conduct I describe in this article is unacceptable. (It is also politically suicidal.) Brazile is unfit to run a precinct, much less the DNC. She should resign immediately. The new interim head of the DNC should immediately return the $20 million to Third Way. The DNC should adopt, and live up to, the promise that it will never again serve the interests of Wall Street.
I suggest a foundational principle (and a slogan) for the newly reconstituted Real Democrats – NOT 4 SALE.
Former president Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton should formally support the election of Representative Ellison to run the DNC. Representative Ellison should adopt a policy of the DNC raising funds solely through small contributions from individuals. If Wall Street remains in charge of the DNC, the democratic wing of the Democratic Party should found a new party free from Wall Street and big corporate influence.
Background on Third Way
With the arrival of Donald Trump, the preposterous has become the norm for the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party is moving from the farcical to the preposterous and (even more) suicidal. Donna Brazile, the New Democrat who runs the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has just accepted a $20 million donation from Third Way, which is “Wall Street on the Potomac.” Third Way falsely claims to be a progressive arm of the Democratic Party. Third Way is actually one of Wall Street many bases located in Washington, D.C. Wall Street funds it. Wall Street bosses run it. Third Way is a group of self-described “New Democrats.” The reality is that it acts, as its founders and funders intended to enrich and champion Wall Street CEOs. Jonathan Cowan, its leader, was a Pete Peterson protégé. Peterson is a Wall Street billionaire. He is a Republican. He devotes his money and time on his three obsessions: (1) creating and spreading a “moral panic” about the federal deficit and debt, (2) pushing austerity, particularly cuts to the safety net, and (3) pushing Wall Street’s greatest dream – the privatization of Social Security.
The Origins of the New Democrats, the DLC, and the PPI
A little history is in order for those not versed in the New Democrats’ origins. Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson was a Democrat who was a fervent military hawk with a special passion for Israel. He wanted to be President, but he was never popular enough with Democratic voters outside of his home State of Washington to succeed. He formed two right-wing groups designed to push for a dramatic increase in U.S. military funding and a more aggressive foreign and military policy. Neither group succeeded in becoming a powerful force in Democratic politics, but they helped set the stage for the creation of the Democratic Leadership Coalition (DLC) in 1984. The DLC’s original source of members was politicians from Southern and border-states. DLC members described themselves as “New Democrats,” in order to highlight their denunciation of New Deal progressivism as hopelessly antiquated.
The DLC was exceptionally successful in winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency. Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were all DLC leaders. President Obama, early in his first term, told the Congressional coalition of New Democrats: “I am a New Democrat.”
Jimmy Carter Was a Proto-New Democrat
The DLC began under the Reagan administration and adopted a wide-range of Reagan’s policies. Jimmy Carter, from Georgia, became president before the DLC formed, but he was a proto-DLC president. He had been a senior military officer. He appointed Paul Volcker to run the Fed knowing that Volcker was one of the Nation’s leading deficit and inflation hawks. One of Carter’s leading domestic policies was deregulation. He produced more substantive deregulation in one term than Reagan did in two terms. Carter’s deregulation of trucking is almost universally praised while his deregulation of airplane fares is broadly praised.
Deregulation Spells Disaster: The DLC Seeks to Prevent S&L Reregulation
By 1984, when the DLC formed, the Reagan administration’s paramount act of deregulation – the savings and loan industry – was proving catastrophic. By mid-1983, the federal examiners were warning that the deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization of the S&L industry (the three “de’s”) were producing a surging epidemic of elite fraud. By late 1983, Reagan’s (deeply conservative, Republican) appointee as top S&L regulator, Ed Gray, had begun reregulating the industry in order to contain the epidemic of elite financial fraud.
In late 1984, the New Democrats and the Republicans in the House joined in co-sponsoring a resolution calling on Gray to cease re-regulating the industry. Had Gray done so the elite frauds would have grown to the point that it would have produced bubbles in commercial (and eventually residential) real estate that would have rivalled the recent housing bubble.
On their first major policy call, the DLC allied itself with Reagan’s most disastrous policy. Reagan’s S&L deregulation purported to “modernize” a New Deal regulatory structure – and nothing is more anathema to the New Democrats than the New Deal. The New Democrats’ hatred for the New Deal is pathological. Joining with Reagan in trying to prevent the essential reregulation of the S&L industry started two unbroken patterns for the New Democrats. First, the policy differences that the New Democrats identify as separating themselves from the democratic-wing of the Democratic Party are all policies on which the New Democrats adopted the hard-right Republican position. Second, on those defining policies that New Democrats say separate themselves from other Democrats, the New Democrats’ policies have invariably proven dead wrong and extremely harmful to the public and (with a lag) the Democratic Party.
I discuss note four of these defining DLC policies relevant to this column. DLC members were proud military hawks. They were fervent supporters of fiscal austerity. They were impassioned foes of regulation, particularly financial regulation. They were pro-business. They were hostile to organized labor and the working class.
The New Democrats’ Donors Represent the Worst of Big Business and Wall Street
I have described the funding of the DLC, PPI, and Third Way. The New Democrat Coalition is a congressional group. Corporations, particularly Wall Street, provided the overwhelming funding for it. Wasserman Schultz is a member. Hillary Clinton was a member. Its members have championed the interests of Wall Street’s CEOs.
Third Way’s Chutzpah
The premise of Third Way’s $20 million “donation” (“investment” would be more apt) to the DNC is that the “New Democrats” that led the Democratic Party and the American people to political, ethical, and policy failure and led to the election of our fraudster-in-chief are here to tell the Democrats what went wrong and how to fix it. That’s right, the same Wall Street CEOs that corrupted the New Democrats and ruined the Democratic Party, caused devastating harm to America and Americans (and Iraqis), and led to the election of Donald Trump are here to “save” the Democratic Party. Specifically, Third Way had the audacity to say that it was investing in the DNC to “launch a campaign to help Democrats reconnect with the voters who have abandoned the party.” The voters who abandoned the Democratic Party did so because the New Democrats deliberately abandoned those voters decades ago in order to curry favor (and contributions) from Wall Street elites.
The New Democrats did not limit their abandonment to benign neglect. Instead, they waged the “long war” against the working class. In 2016, the Democratic Party nominated (yet another) New Democrat who had spent a quarter-century as a senior ally of Wall Street’s long war against the working class. If you ever wondered what the word chutzpah means, Wall Street on the Potomac has just provided you with a classic example.
The New Democrats’ Efforts to Defeat Progressives
The white working class “abandoned” the New Democrats because the New Democrats abandoned the working class and chose instead to become the Wall Street-wing of the Democratic Party. Wall Street is scared to death of the democratic-wing of the Democratic Party. This is why it denounced Elizabeth Warren, when she was running for the Senate in 2012.
The political director for the US Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday morning that “no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren.”
The comments about Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate, came as the the national business lobby handed its formal endorsement to Senator Scott Brown’s reelection bid.
“The American business community is tired of being lectured by Professor Warren,” said Rob Engstrom, senior vice president for political affairs and federation relations for the chamber.
The elite fraudsters that drove the financial crisis and the Great Recession were desperately “tired of being lectured” by a woman who skewered their attempts to evade responsibility. Warren kept pointing out the reality that the mythical “free” economic system Wall Street rhapsodized about was actually “rigged” by Wall Street to enrich Wall Street elites. Wall Street predated on the people. Like most successful predators, it was a parasite.
Wall Street viewed preventing her election as their highest priority in 2012. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has become a rabidly right-wing group devoted to Republicans, launched a blizzard of ads trying to defeat Warren. The Chamber’s mailers highlighted Third Way’s attacks on her as “catastrophically anti-business.” The message was that even Democrats knew that Warren was beyond the pale. Third Way’s co-founder authored that dishonest attack on Warren.
The New Democrats, at the behest of Wall Street, led the “long war” on the working class in conjunction with their Republican allies. Third Way (Wall Street on the Potomac) was desperate to prevent the most effective opponent of the Wall Street frauds from becoming a Senator.
The New Democrats’ “Long War” Against the Working Class
This article discusses three fronts in the New Democrats’ long war against the working class. Tom Frank has been warning the democratic-wing of the Democratic Party for roughly 15 years that the consequences of waging the long war on the working class would prove disastrous not just for America, but also for the Democratic Party. Please read What’s the Matter with Kansas and Listen, Liberal to see how openly, repeatedly, and vehemently the New Democrat’s make clear their decision to abandon the working class base of the Party in favor of Wall Street, high tech, and Hollywood. It is sickening (and suicidal politics in the longer term).
The logical reaction, the one that would display integrity, of the DNC leadership would have been to publicly reject and denounce the proposed Wall Street investment. If the DNC leadership were capable of logic or integrity, of course, Trump would not be the putative (Putin-ative?) President. New Democrats still control the DNC. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, its prior leader, had to resign in disgrace when leaks disclosed that the DNC, despite her denials, was secretly and repeatedly putting its thumb on the scale to win the nomination for her fellow New Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Schultz is so deeply in Wall Street’s deep pockets that she opposed regulatory efforts to limit predatory lending. (She later flip-flopped when it became clear she would face a progressive challenge to her seat.)
The New Democrats have proven wrong on every major issue they chose as defining how they differ from the democratic-wing of the Democratic Party. Wasserman Schultz illustrates their willingness to shill for even the worst of the financial plutocrats, those that predate on the poor, particularly minorities.
Brazile, Wasserman Schultz’ (interim) successor at the DNC, exemplifies the murderous role that New Democrats have played in the use of military force. She co-wrote the infamous op ed, which they chose to place in the Wall Street Journal, attacking progressive Democrats for refusing to praise President Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq based on the lies that it was supporting terror attacks on the United States and intended to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against us and Israel. Brazile complained that Democrats were “criticizing the president’s handling of the war against al Qaeda.” She was appalled that this criticism occurred immediately after Bush’s even more infamous speech (on the very expensive prop, the aircraft career Abraham Lincoln, bedecked with the massive, fraudulent banner “Mission Accomplished”) claiming our invasion of Iraq to be a triumph. Bush, wearing a flight suit, arrived in a Viking naval aircraft. He proceeded to spread the myths that (1) the conflict was effectively over and (2) the Iraqi people welcomed our invasion and supported our troops as liberators.
We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country.
In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food, and water, and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices.
One had to read behind the lines, but Bush was already revealing that we actually did not know of any WMD sites and had found no WMD despite supposed ironclad intelligence and dozens of fruitless searches of the supposed sites as to which we supposedly had “ironclad” evidence of WMD.
We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.
Bush then repeated the lie that Iraq had been supporting al Qaeda.
The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the11th, 2001, and still goes on.
The reality was that Iraq was an opponent of al Qaeda before the U.S. invasion. It was only the U.S. invasion that made possible al Qaeda’s later entry into Iraq (and eventually ISIS’ entry into Iraq). Bush also claimed falsely that we had “destroyed” the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bush then combined the two falsehoods that were his pretext for invading Iraq.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who was strongly secular, was an active opponent of “al-Qaida” (a fundamentalist Sunni group) rather than “an ally.” It would have aroused fierce opposition from Iraq’s majority Shia population if Hussein, a nominal Sunni, embraced al Qaeda, which teaches that Shias are heretics who should be killed.
We all know that Bush’s lies led to catastrophic results for Iraqis and Americans. The Americans killed or maimed in Iraq came overwhelmingly from our working classes because there is no draft. The New Democrats, however, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, were enthusiastic and uncritical supporters of Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq despite the Republican chicken hawks’ infamous reputation for dishonesty and thirst for war.
On September 12, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested to Bush that the terror attacks provided the U.S. with an opportunity to invade Iraq. We know now that Paul Wolfowitz, the leading “chicken hawk” used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to promote a war against Iraq on September 15, 2001. (Wolfowitz, being Wolfowitz, proposed that we invade their primary oil production areas, install a puppet regime run by Ahmad Chalabi, a convicted bank fraud, and bankrupt the actual government of Iraq by cutting off its revenues.) The Jordanian court that convicted in absentia when he fled to avoid arrest found that he was running what criminologists would call an “accounting control fraud.”) Indeed, the “chicken hawks” were actively planning the steps required to invade and create a new government in Iraq months before the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush administration’s lies, eagerness to launch an offensive war, its embrace of the convicted bank fraud to lead Iraq who had no support among the Iraqi people, its fantasy that the Iraqi people supported our invasion, our failure to protect the museums (we protected only the oil ministry), and the extraordinary incompetence of the occupation (largely due to the neocon’s ideology, rather than military ineptitude) promptly led to catastrophe. I urge people to read Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2007). It is a frightening account of the witches’ brew created when you combine neoclassical economic nostrums, neocon ideology, the destruction of the rule of law, ignorance and disdain for the “other,” and massive conflicts of interest. I believe that the Trump administration is creating such a witches’ brew in America. By 2010, 74% of Democrats agreed that invading Iraq was a “mistake.”
With this background for context, we can return to Brazile’s WSJ op ed excoriating Democrats for not beating the war drums in favor of our invasion of Iraq. Brazile charged Democrats who did not enthusiastically support Bush’s lies and invasion with being cowardly deserters of their positions during war: reinforcing a public perception that “we are AWOL on national security.” (AWOL is a military acronym for absent without leave.)
That attack on Democrats who saw through Bush’s lies was not sufficient for Brazile. She next channeled her homophobia, saying that Democrats who failed to cheer Bush’s lies and invasion rightly led the voters to consider them “feckless and effete.”
Brazile then offered her remedy, which also provided the title of her article – “What Would Scoop Do?” Brazile’s Democratic hero was “Sen. Scoop Jackson — the Democratic mentor of some of today’s most prominent Republican hawks….” Senator Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, a conservative Democrat, represented the State of Washington. It was not surprising that he was a loyal servant of Boeing, the State’s massive employer and defense contractor. The intensity of his devotion to Boeing led to his congressional moniker (“the Senator from Boeing”). Jackson favored greatly increased defense spending and an aggressive use of our military, particularly if it could aid Israel. He was the mentor of at least three of the “most prominent Republican [chicken] hawks” – Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Frank Gaffney. They were dubbed chicken hawks because while they were eager to send working class American service members to war they made sure they never served in the military. Wolfowitz and Perle played prominent roles in ensuring that we would invade Iraq and in framing the lies that would serve as the pretext for launching that war. Gaffney is probably the Nation’s leader of the effort to demonize Muslims and concocting baseless conspiracy claims that President Obama (and Grover Norquist!?!) are traitors committed to the cause of “radical Islam.” Trump, of course, is a great fan of Gaffney. Jackson mentored not only the Republican chicken hawks that orchestrated the campaign of lies that produced the disastrous invasion of Iraq, but also set the stage for the creation of the DLC and its infamous dedication to being more hawkish than the Republicans.
To sum it up, Brazile is running the DNC even though all the folks who call themselves “leaders” of the Democratic Party know that she used the Wall Street Journal to attack the democratic-wing of the Democratic Party as traitors to the Nation because they did not support Bush’s dishonest, unlawful, and catastrophic invasion of Iraq. Further, she praised, and demanded that Democrats emulate, three of the worst chicken hawks who framed the lies, chose the bank fraud as their puppet, and bungled the occupation of Iraq.
So here is my obvious question: what political party in its right mind would choose Brazile as its leader? She is a disgrace. Listen to the jingoistic and juvenile phrase she used to sum up the New Democrat’s pro-war policies, particularly in light of her denunciation of Democrats who opposed Bush’s lies as “effete.” “[Democrats] “need to return to … muscular national security principles.” “Muscular?” Of course, people who invade and kill people on the basis of lies are “manly” while those who oppose such invasions are “effete.” Manly men are “muscular.” They do not think. A man that uses his brains rather than his muscles is not smart; he is “effete.” We should glory in “regime change” because it is “muscular” – even if it transforms Iraq into an ally of Iran and leads to a series of sectarian civil wars in Iraq. On the issues that separate the New Democrats from progressives, Brazile represents everything that the Democratic Party should be opposing.
Note also that Brazile, unintentionally revealed the massive ideological contradiction, the black hole of hypocrisy that forms the New Democrats’ gravitational center. The New Democrats purportedly stand for the “end of big government,” deep distrust of government workers and programs, and austerity. The New Democrats rushed to cheer Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq even though it was the quintessential “big government” endeavor. They rushed to spend trillions of dollars on the Iraq war and military spending that exceeded the collective spending of the next nine nations with the highest military spending. The New Democrats demanded that all Democrats cheer this wasteful government spending, which harmed our military, maimed and killed our troops, and maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The New Democrats claim that the federal budget deficits and so-called “funding gaps” on the safety net mandate massive cuts in social spending programs. They promote invasions and unnecessary and harmful military spending programs that could easily “pay for” those social programs if austerity really were a desirable policy (it is not).
Note that each of these examples of the New Democrats’ black hole of hypocrisy also represented an assault on the American working class. Our service members are typically working class. The people hurt most by austerity’s denial of full employment are the working class. The people who gain enormously from austerity are Wall Street elites and the top one-ten-thousandth of one percent. The people hurt most by budget cuts in social programs and the safety net are the working class. The people hurt most by the New Democrats’ embrace of the three “de’s” are the working class.
The New Democrats are shocked that after waging their long war against the white working class – the white working class turned on the New Democrats’ candidate. Who could ever have guessed that after the New Democrats abused the working class for over 30 years, the white working class would decide to return the favor? (Again, yes, I understand that the Trump administration is betraying the working class.)
Wall Street and the New Democrats Continue their Long War on the Working Class
The New Democrats supported not only the actual war against various factions in Iraq, but also the economic and political war against the American working class and the middle class. They did so by inflicting austerity on our Nation and people, by attacking the safety net, and by pushing for the three “de’s,” particularly for Wall Street. This created the criminogenic environment that led to the fraud epidemics of the Enron-era and the most recent crisis, which hyper-inflated the two largest bubbles in history (creating the faux economic growth that the Clintons’ still brag about), caused the financial crisis (and Enron-era crash), and caused the Great Recession. (Bush’s “wrecking crew,” as Tom Frank aptly labeled them, followed the same policies. They share fully in Clinton and Gore’s culpability for the most recent crisis.)
The key take away is that Wall Street and the New Democrats want to continue the long war. They know that their long war has devastated the working class, enriched Wall Street elites beyond their dreams in 1984 when the funded the creation of the DLC, allowed the New Democrats to dominate the Democratic Party – and made Trump president.
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There is no hope whatsoever of changing the Democratic Party. Best thing to do is everybody just leave the party and register as something else, like I did. Eventually it will wither away.
There are several problems with that strategy, the most significant being not the thousands of barriers to competition the two legacy parties have built at the state and federal level against competing parties and candidates; it’s that most Americans are simply not that politically active and aware. People will stay home more and more, most likely. But the Democrats can keep putting up their Wall Street approved candidates and losing while staying personally wealthy and high status for several more election cycles, if nothing happens more systemic and organized than just reregistering elsewhere.
Before a viable alternative could rise up against Republican hegemony, we’d probably see enough trifecta states to call a Constitutional Convention, which with no real second party would probably be all ALEC all the time. But even if that can be avoided, we really don’t have much time as a people and a planet. The US drives violence, energy usage and inequality everywhere. That isn’t going to stop unless or until a real left takes over, or we break down completely and the China Century becomes indisputable — at which point, we’re just along for the ride, having already cut the brake line.
I don’t know how or if the New Democrats can be purged, but I don’t think just waiting them out is going to work well.
Good comments. Re energy usage: Fossil fuels depletion in nature’s way of making us slow down. Now for all the rejoinders about the new breakthrough energy source that is just on the horizon…if only…The forced -by thermodynamic laws- contraction of economic activity is proving to be one hard lesson to learn.
Agreed. The only way to save the party is to figure out how to fund it and its campaigns without corporate dollars. The second anyone takes a dime from a corporation they’ve agreed to a purchase of their vote towards friendly policies for that corporation. Corporate interests are never the same as worker interests. Never.
If we want a party that supports workers and civic freedoms, we have to fund it without money from corporations and business looking for legislation that has a negative impact on workers and citizens.
I’d argue that staying home demonstrates that people are perfectly aware politically and rational in staying home.
The Ds are not an alternative to the Rs. They were never organized to be. They are an ameliorating strategy to conservatism… not too far too fast.
A strategy that argues for a few more crumbs by way of transfer payments will fail. A strategy that argues for more regulation to create a few more union members will fail.
There is a need for a political party that is in opposition to the five planks of conservatism and it has to aggressively argue for positions far beyond what the people are willing to accept to get minor successes. That is not the Ds. It must be successful in giving those that demand more policy that lib/progs do not want in exchange for policies lib/progs want. Lib/progs are not willing to do this.
Why is ‘medicare for all’ (insurance for all) the call? The call needs to be for stripping corporate charters, seizing privatatized pharma, returning hospitals to public control after privatizing them (there is a community doing this), etc. The reality is, people have been lied to for so long, that the fake argument and then pulling the rug out from underneath them and settling for medicare insurance for all won’t be enough. So lib/progs (these are the Ds, why individuals claim exception I’m not sure) are going to have to give the left something besides universal insurance. What’s it going to be?
Good points, all.
Now would be the time to start purging the Faux Democrats, and it’s absolutely necessary or we’re never going to get anywhere. They are in control of the party apparatus, but it’s a failed party, with barely a toehold anywhere in government, at any level. Without a power base, they won’t have patronage to help them. They are weaker now than they have ever been; there will never be a better time to push them aside than now, while their cred is completely shredded.
We’ll have to start at the very bottom. What the Berniecrats managed in California is what we need at the county and precinct levels all across the country: real Democrats taking over the local party committees which actually pick the candidates for the local political offices. Gradually, we would get to pick our own candidates for lower offices, and slowly move up the ladder. It won’t happen overnight, and almost certainly not by 2020, either. The Faux Democrats have been organized for 40 years and have an entire infrastructure to call on — it’s rotten, but it’s well-oiled with money and staffed with enough syncophants to do the work necessary to keep out the proles…as long as the proles stay disengaged.
What the Faux Democrats lack is a constituency. With dedication, time, and organization, then, they could be displaced.
China is ready to step in to take the roll what are country is doing now. My self personal since Reagan to Obama has been and to this day worse for me economically . The American empire is finished Foreign to domestic policy .I see it when I drive to Salem OR and Portland OR .the decline of our nation just like the roman empire . ;( .
I did just that (leave the party) after the CA primary. There are 2 branches of the Republican party: the misogynistic, racist branch and the other branch. Both are beholden to their rich donors / corporate owners.
I changed from (D) — which I’d been for 3 months prior to June 2016 Dem Primary in CA — back to (I) on June 8, the day after the sham CA primary.
Lo and behold, come election day, I was miraculously “vote by mail” and had to cast a provisional ballot at the polling place I voted at 4 months prior. Obviously I was flagged as someone who might not vote for the right woman.
The Democratic party hates democracy. I’m part of the #Resistance — against Third Way New Democrat sellouts.
P.S. Bernie beats Trump by 10 points. 15+ in Wisconsin & Michigan.
Well we could try to take over the Republican party from the left. Everyone left of the Democrats could try to run for office in the Republican party so that at least we had some strategy to get a real left party in this country. In some ways it makes more sense strategically than trying to take over the Democratic party because at least it wouldn’t end in useless LOTE voting getting us worse and worse people every year. I mean decade upon decade of trying to take over the Dims has failed. So may as well try to make the Republicans the party of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn etc.
But it would have to be an organized strategy. Until then though the Republican party is even less worth having than the Dims. And the 3rd party strategy hasn’t worked yet either unfortunately, wish it had but …
I mean there are at least as many people to the left of the Dems in this country (even if only so far so) than there are actual conservatives probably (as Bernie Sanders showed) so …
They are irrelevant at best, a clear and present danger, truth be told. What, 74 percent of the electorate did not vote for Democrat in the general? The super plurality voted for neither D or R. Add to that people who still give credence to the D party who know it’s pure folly. Nearly the same numbers ring true in re R’s.
That’s way beyond a vote of no confidence. In any meaningful sense there is nothing left to do, but start anew… and or add a general strike because a voter strike has proven meaningless.
The people who think the parties as we run them are workable / fixable, whatever… have had decades to prove it and they just keep failing too.
The shame of it all is we keep having this discussion which is the only thing giving these corrupt criminals any legitimacy.
God bless you, Prof. Black, and a thousand thanks for this article, everything well stated, but I agree with the commenter above.
The very fact that Trump was elected, and now doing some extreme left or progressive stuff (along with the rightwing stuff he’s doing) is proof positive that the left has long been dead — time to just put a fork in it and found a Progressive Party.
Absolutely – register Green – then get involved and make it a real party.
Third Parties Don’t Work: Why and How Egalitarians Should Transform the Democratic Party
by G. William Domhoff
This document first explains why third parties cannot work in the United States. Then it explains how and why it would now be possible to transform the Democratic Party into a nationwide liberal-labor-left coalition, thanks to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, which forced the southern white racists who previously controlled the party into the Republican Party.
To understand how the electoral rules shape the number of parties, consider this brief example from a different country in a different century:
In the late nineteenth century, Belgium elected its parliament from geographical districts and had two stable political parties, with the Catholic Party usually defeating the Liberal Party. But in the 1890s a Socialist Party came on strong, and the Liberal Party was in danger of extinction. The Catholic Party quickly changed the electoral system because it did not want to end up in a one-on-one battle with the socialists. The system it chose, proportional representation, gives parties seats in the parliament roughly in proportion to their overall vote in the country as a whole. The Liberal Party was saved and Belgium operated with three political parties for many decades thereafter.
As this historical example suggests, electoral rules can play a big role in determining the number of parties. This possibility is confirmed by systematic studies comparing various kinds of electoral systems over the space of many decades. Electoral systems like the one Belgium used first, which are now designated by an overly long term, single-member district plurality systems, almost always have just two parties. The few third parties that hang on are usually regional or ethnic in nature. However, they are sometimes based on blue-collar workers and the few remaining radical small farmers.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_egalitarians.html
Liberal-Labor-Left coalition, why do we need the liberals?
This is a great article and it sums up so many important points many people don’t know – it is not just Debbie and Donna either. I couldn’t sleep after I went to dinner with a friend last night and we discussed our experiences in DC last weekend at the Woman’s march. We figured we were about a block apart but we were unable to meet up – too many peaceful people between us. We agreed that we need to do something to take back democracy and the Democratic Party. All the way from Michigan to DC (and back) I asked people with Pussy hats on what they are going to do next, in rest areas in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; while waiting for the Metro, and during the shoulder to shoulder train ride into DC – I asked ‘what are you going to do next?.’
I’ve decided that removing the N Democrats from their leadership positions and returning the party to non-corporate entities (aka people) is key and to that end I’ve already joined the Democratic Party and a couple of progressive offshoot organizations too. The reality is that the time is right now, we need to coalesce the progressive party offshoots into a large enough block to push changes in the party, we need to prepare now for the 2018 midterm, and we need to have a voice when picking the candidates running in 2020 for president.
I am hoping that now is a time similar to what happens when playing Risk and one player appears to have won the board but leaves themselves spread thin and another player cashes in their Risk cards and proceeds to sweep the board; taking over country after country, cashing in Risk cards captured and finally winning the day. Donna and Debbie can think back of their time running the Democratic Party from the beach or the rest home, I don’t care which, just not in leadership positions. Hopefully, in 6 years or 8 we do the same thing in the Republican Party. I can dream now.
Brazile’s response to the email scandal was not to condemn the corruption in the emails, but to say that in the future, Democrats must avoid email. She was basically endorsing corruption and opposing transparency; the public must be kept in a state of ignorance so that manipulators like the DNC can exploit them, she is implying.
I think Donna Brazile admitted that she gave one or more of the debate questions to HRC before the debate. This may or may not be criminal, but it was surely unethical. She doesn’t appear to be really intelligent.
She did.
“She doesn’t appear to be really intelligent.”
I think you have hit the heart of the matter.
She reminds me of John Brennen.
This is one of the unspoken goals of Wall Street money having infected the Democratic Party – to elevate and politically ennoble individuals of low intelligence and poor character. The Republican Party has been run along these lines for decades – the smart people are running things offstage while the baby-spot is trained on worthless buffoons and joke politicians like Michele Bachmann (to choose just one – you could quite literally take your pick).
These idiots have had their egos massaged to the point where they view the positions bestowed on them by corporate money as objective proof of their own moral/intellectual superiority. They have been told that they rose to the top on merit when in fact they were allowed to rise precisely because their vapidity and vanity makes them easy to control.
They then have a dual function: pay back the people who put them there and maintain their position as placeholders in case anyone gets the bright idea to remove and replace them. Oh, and also to demoralise anyone below from organising and mounting a serious resistance in the form of alternative candidates. They aren’t tedious just because they have no imagination or ability. They are partly in position to send opponents to sleep.
We are seeing it play out in the “race” for DNC chair. The quality of candidates is so low that Keith Ellison represents by far the best of a bad bunch. This is absolutely intentional. Corporate money has turned the Democratic Party leadership into a phalanx of human shields to cop the flak while their pimps rake in the dough.
This!
+1000
Empty suits, empty heads, up for sale not often to the highest bidder, rather more often to the lowest. But then a huge belief in their moral/ethical/whatever superiority over the rest of the rubes.
The one teeny tiny eeny meeny bright spot on the horizon is that some D voters are beginning to awaken to how craven, corrupt and sold out D pols are. They are no better than anyone across the aisle on the R Team, except for possibly being slightly less racist (but even that’s arguable).
You would be amazed at how this sounds *exactly* like any normal day at my job.
+1
Nicely articulated btw.
The DNC emails showed Brazile had shared CNN debate questions with the Clinton campaign before the debate.
CNN “severed ties” with Brazile, AKA “fired” when referring to lower wage workers.
Brazile justified her behavior by essentially saying her cheating was for the good of the nation to get HRC elected.
Of course, this means a number of Clinton campaign officials knew of Brazile’s behavior, used the information, and kept silent, as the emails were the only source of the information.
If the DNC emails were, indeed, leaked by an DNC insider, perhaps Brazile’s behavior was part of the motivation.
Brazile may have some functional utility as a prominent example of why the Democratic Party needs reform.
I wonder if the unsolved murder of a possible source of the leaks will dissuade future ethically minded individuals?
Useful idiot who will do what told, say what told to say, and cash the checks.
For her trouble, she gets to feel like she’s important (and cash said checks). I wonder if she’s even had 10 seconds of self-reflection in her entire life.
I know a lot of people are leery of the US turning into a one party system, but why not? Japan had one dominant party IIRC— it’s not unheard-of. The Republican Party has a lot of squabbling going on within, although it looks like Trump is trying to unify it. What keeps a lot of dems wealthy is they still have control of some big cities and states, but some of these places are having big problems. If Chicago and California go bankrupt, for example, it would not augur well for the fortunes of the Democratic Party. Trump recently said he may send the feds into Chicago, a la Elliot Ness.
Wow, in an unexpected extension of Trump’s previous requirements for his employees and ex-wives to Keep quiet, it seems public debate may be blocked from hearing 97% of the climate change arguments, while Trump’s gate keepers allow 3% (including outsiders) to speak “for the American people” regarding science. Trump wants experts gagged, his appointees to be gate keepers on anything in any form put out by government agencies’ employees.
He seems to have expanded on what Roy Cohn mentored Joe McCarthy, and Trump himself, far surpassing what McCarthy dreamed as a mere Senator. (I remember Bobby Kennedy and my old economics professor had worked for McCarthy, but both left, my old professor going so far as to work for Michael Dukakis at the times he thought he was honestly idealistic and ethical, but not after he thought he turned into a politician to regain the Governorship after missing a term.)
Look up the June 21, 2016 Fortune/Associated Press story, “For Many Trump Employees, Keeping Quiet Is Legally Required”
From that article:
“…Trump has said he may try to similarly restrict what federal government employees can reveal about him if he were elected president. He told The Washington Post that one of his goals in doing so would be to keep advisers from writing tell-all books when they leave government, a frequent practice for senior officials. Trump’s agreement specifically bans employees from citing insider material in books, memoirs, speeches or movies.
“When people are chosen by a man to go into government at high levels and then they leave government and they write a book about a man and say a lot of things that were really guarded and personal, I don’t like that,” Trump said in March.
It’s unclear how Trump would balance confidentiality agreements with federal laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act, that require the preservation and public release of government information, including email communications, schedules and other information about high-level employees. The Presidential Records Act also makes private White House communications, including emails, publicly available within 12 years of a president leaving office…”
Yes, the Democrat led states and municipalities … seem to go bankrupt more often. The Democrats are not true opposition to the Republicans since Bill Clinton in 1992. The presence of the Clintons and Obamas, post-office, as leaders of the Democrats is poison. Unfortunately a third party must be formed, to become a second party eventually, in order to moderate the Republicans (or the Republicans have to be sufficiently divided in a de facto one party system). This takes real work, not marches. If American politics is to be something more than grafting, then there is no other choice.
Who will be doing this “real work, not marches”? What interface is available for real people to do real work to affect state power?
I agree that marches can serve as nothing more than a signaling function, but they were also crucial in producing actual change (suffrage, worker’s rights, etc.).
Real political work, is done in private, in smoke filled rooms, between movers and shakers. The demonstrations come later, as a public signal that something is up. Don’t get the cart before the horse. Machiavelli is still the only handbook.
It just seems to me that is inverted. How do you get people with real power into smoke filled rooms that want to affect change? There has to be an external dynamic that forces a change in the status quo.
Maybe if we all donated not to a party, but to a person selected to be our philosopher king. Then we can buy our way into being movers and shakers.
“Maybe if we all donated not to a party, but to a person selected to be our philosopher king.”
See: Sanders, Bernie (2015-2016).
Nobody wants to say out loud what the real solution is.
There is more evidence of marches doing good than there is 3rd political parties doing any good based on U.S. history it seems to me. But it’s seldom just the march but years of building organization. But especially if Trump continues to be a never-ending horror show, which is certainly how he is starting out, I think a march EVERY SINGLE week about the horrible policies that week would be a good start. Every Saturday.
It isn’t the marches that caused change, by the violence inflicted on them. A lot of worker’s got stomped on by Pinkertons and other strike breakers before change happened.
The real question isn’t the work, but who is willing to bleed for change or die if need be for someone else who will benefit from your sacrifice and won’t even know your name?
The only currency that can purchase freedom is blood.
A protest with ridiculous hats and a carnival like atmosphere won’t do anything. Which is what protests have turned into.
Call them what they are. They are what used to be called moderate republicans. When the republican party moved right they purged the moderates in their party. These people then turned to the democrat party to survive. Because of their tremendous financial support from Wall Street they were able to take over the democrat party. Chuck Schumer is a so called New Democrat. The election of the new chair will determine what the democrat party becomes. If a progressive isn’t elected it will be the kiss of death for the democrat party because the republicans are experts in defeating New Democrats..
I think the Republicans more welcome them (the New Deal Democrats) with open arms. The rest is just theater
I don’t like the analogy by which our ‘elites’ are equated with predators. In the natural world, predators do play a positive role, their existence has a ecosystemic meaning. Using the ‘elites are predators’ analogy suggests they are a systemic inevitability. I’m not even sure the parasitic analogy is useful.
How about both? Visualize Jabba the Hut.
More like aggressive, metastatic cancer.
Analogies can always be improved on. Let’s have a comments section contest!
Toss out any alt analogy that may apply. No matter how dumb it sounds. This is called brainstorming. Anyone can do it.
Like this:
1) Queen Bee [Hillary likes this one]
2) Queen Bees [More acceptable to DNC Leadership]
3) Masters of the Universe [Many Space Alien Races will beg to differ]
4) Godhead [prolly not secular enough]
5) Best And Brightest [Truth issues]
and so on.
I had problems with this article generally, not because of its content but because of its style. It is poorly edited and highly repetitive and contains stupid sentences like this one
. Not remotely true, which delegitimatizes the article and general.
I want something that I can share on my Facebook wall, but this is like a bunch of Articles stitched together with a lot of repetition, which is really bad because it’s a very long article. sorry, I won’t be posting this to Facebook even though I agree with the content. I am rather disappointed in Bill black on this one.
Thanks for the warning. The article does look awfully long. I don’t mind reading long articles, but I don’t want to do so if the length is due to repetition.
Maybe some talented literary types on NC could grab Bill’s text and have a go at editing it?
Yves could re-post one or more of the edited pieces.
Maybe Bill might see the results and like them..
I believe Black would be more influential, and get published more, if his pieces were more tightly written.
Perhaps, Black may believe getting the facts out in real time is of primary importance and does not give his editor enough time.
Black may not have an editor.
Maybe the literary talent in the NC readers can be harnessed in this effort?
That’s a great idea !
Agreed. “Predated” isn’t even a word. It is “prey”, which functions as both noun and verb. Unfortunately, many predators aren’t parasites. Take lions, certain birds, and the like.
And I thought I was crazy! Thanks!
Can’t a contract or a check be predated or postdated? :-)
Agree completely. Fantastic content but the editing seems to have been thrown to the wind like so many Clinton campaign dollars. I think I read the same statement about Brazile 3-4 times. A revamped edit would make this a far more shareable/viral post.
I struggled to get thru this too, however in fairness to Mr Black it was in part due to my reading it upon awakening at 3:30am! It was also thrilling to discover that changes I thought I perceived in the Democratic Party are actually true! On many levels I have come away with a lot of gaps filled in related to my own knowledge (or lack of) related to the New Dems. For instance, I never knew they were a full fledged entity within the party and had a name or that it was so deliberate and structured. My naïveté had led me to think it was just random Dems who leaned a little more to the right. Of course this article also validated so much of my gut feelings about the Republicanization of the Democratic Party, and while depressing and discouraging- I’ve got at least an idea of what needs to be done now. Or now that I know the problem, I am better equipped to combat it. My first thought is that there are tons of good Democrats out there totally unaware of these factions and who need to be informed. I feel this is an expose that needs to go viral within the party so it can be addressed long before the midterm elections! I do think it could be simplified a bit, but am so very grateful to Mr Black for taking the time to explain it and go into the timeline and naming all the culprits. I think this should be shared on many democratic sites in a simplified version, but quickly! So I’m NOT crazy!
Yes, Black should learn some biology. Most predators are not parasites as he claims and even parasites have a role to play in the ecosystem. Call the corporate/Wall St gangs what they are: criminals. No need to insult the rest of the animal kingdom.
Lol, love this. So right!
Not really. 16 years of Clinton Obama, gore lost by a whisker, Hillary lost not because the reps are good at beating new dems but because she is so totally incompetent at whatever she tries. Granted, the level of incompetence was truly mind blowing considering she had the gift of trump.
Not optimistic re new Dnc chair. Obama and the rest of new dems plus money likely will prevail.
Who votes? The supers? If so, not a chance.
The basic problem is that the Democratic Party is little more than a puppet for the very rich. It gives the false impression of standing for the little person, when the rich are in total control.
I think that the left will find itself occupied with a civil war to retake the party. That is far harder than Trump.
Interesting that the owner of DailyKos appears to have had some kind of epiphany:
“How do you even begin to fix a Democratic Party this F*d up? Primaries could be a start.”
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/25/1624974/-How-do-you-even-begin-to-fix-a-Democratic-Party-this-f-d-up-Primaries-could-be-a-start
His following has apparently shrunk to mostly H&Obots, so if he had planned to do a Huffington and sail away, his lip lock on Team Hillary and assault on Sanders personally and policy, and decreeing that his space would defenestrate any participant not toeing the line was a losing bet.
He is still “about electing more and better Democrats,” but how droll that his selling his site as a gathering place for a “reality-based community” has faded. The comments on his “diary” are pitiless.
But if he and his front-pagers can take off the Fin House glasses, hey, more troops to field against the kleptocracy and plutocracy?
Daily Kos, Daily Kos … that name sounds awfully familiar. Or familiarly awful:
The brand is too damaged for even Third Way to make an “investment”.
Hah! I had to verify the link to make sure it wasn’t satire!
Who in the world would take him seriously after his trashing of Sanders???
Here’s a link showing how the web traffic for dailykos has crashed since Septermber, 2016.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/dailykos.com
if you look at other sites like commondreams or talkingpointsmemo, they have a similar decline, so may not be people hating on kos but instead a post-election falloff.
but yes I detest kos
TPM comes at politics from the same shallow viewpoint as dKos. Common Dreams, meanwhile, went all in with Clinton after the convention, on the grounds that she “wasn’t as bad as Trump”. So it could also be a collapse of credibility for all concerned.
Actually, the falloff began in April, just after the blog officially went “with Her”.
Thanks for that link. I just spent a few minutes checking traffic for neoliberal apologist sites (DKos, TPM, etc.), plus a few so-called “progressive” sites that endorsed Clinton after the convention fiasco (CommonDreams, Vox, Alternet). They’ve all plummeted, and in all of these cases, the falloff began around August, right after the convention.
I also checked stats for this site as well as Jacobin, TruthDig, and CounterPunch. All of them have trended *upward* since around that same time.
I doubt this is coincidence.
I gave up on DailyKos a long time ago. I checked in a few times during the Primary, but immediately checked back out. The fanning of the flames of Sanders-hatred was over the top.
DKos is worthless garbage, and unfortunately, the commenters there are just the DKos version of Dittoheads – arrogantly stupid and clinging desparately to their vapid belief system that somehow the D party is massively different from the R Team.
Unfortunately there are a few other purportely lefty blogs that operate on the same principle. Some blog owners have actually stated that they will ban anyone who has the temerity to question the Clinton campaign strategy, and they’ve doubled & tripled down on Trump and Sanders hatred.
Sad. It’s such a totally losing strategy, but how does one break through that barrier? Nearly impossible given the ban threats.
I suspect that, like a lot of Ds, Kos thought that he would be jumping on the Hilltrain and taking a position in the Clinton administration.
So much for that thought. Now it’s time for Plan B: A seat on the Cluetrain.
Oh? You mean by backing Hillary Clinton? Or by taking campaign donations from Wall Street? Or by using Bank of America as her personal bank? Or by voting to confirm Jack Lew? I could go on, especially those of us from Massachusetts who know what a fraud and carpetbagger she truly is. Warren is The Hypocrite-in-CHIEF.
Is there no one we mopes can look to and believe in and take as our leader and standard bearer?
A couple hundred million of “us” are so atomized and poached in Bernays sauce that coming up with an organizing principle that might lead to a governance that protects health and the environment seems to be beyond us. And any leader that sticks their head high enough to be visible gets co-opted or decapitated. And face it, we mostly, whether chimps or bonobos, seem incapable of organizing, large scale, in any way that is consistent with our Higher Values and “democracy shibboleths…” Or what might be needed to keep from frying the planet.
Note that the Third Reich’s elites like many others (the Bourbon aristocracy comes to mind) and the post yesterday about “American” rich sh!ts prepping for departure to the Antipodes, knew when to pack up the tooth gold and art treasures of Europe and and take the U-boats to Uruguay…
And then – there is also a general problem with the way power structure works: i.e., how having power corrupts everything in its way and the type of an individual who is interested in seeking a position of power. Throw in it secrecy, loads of money, personal ambitions, and trying to accommodate a multitude of interests – and we end up with a toxic brew against which (I fear) there is no remedy. (Oh, and forgot to add, the propensity of systems to perpetuate themselves.)
Also, Marx would say that a lot of what were seeing today is inevitable under a capitalist system. It may have happened sooner, but the great depression and subsequent policies served as a bit of a reset.
I’m curious to know why you single out Uruguay when they appear to be much less involved than Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117093/Secret-files-reveal-9-000-Nazi-war-criminals-fled-South-America-WWII.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/16/weekinreview/where-nazi-refugees-found-the-climate-to-their-liking.html
I chose Uruguay just for the alliteration with “U-boat.” The point is that elites for some unfathomable reason (/snark) know both when to grab ’em, when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. The rest of us know how to serve and service them, and “just die.”
There is no “singling out:” the Third Reich was a murderous racket, with little boxes in the organizational chart for the Gruppos who organized and accomplished the looting. Here’s a connection for one source: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hermann-goring-and-the-nazi-art-collection-kenneth-d-alford/1110783922. For anyone not topped up on outrage, you can go here for a compilation of sources on Nazi depredations and the filthy undergarments the West hid under the uniforms of the “Allied Services”: https://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/bibliographies/trade-with-third-reich.html And the racketeers mostly got to skate away. Many of them joining up with the rackets in operation in “America” and various European and Israelite states and South Africa… As is the case with the current set of what can we call them, “predators” or “parasites” or “tumors” or in that nice phrase, “vampire squids?” That feed voraciously, with their tentacles and sharp beaks and distendable stomachs, and squirt out a cloud of obscuring ink that looks like a squid form that distracts and deflects the critter trying to kill the squid? (Note to self: Beware extended analogies, they just attract cavils…)
“Bernays sauce”
Golden
Leaders aren’t necessary. The cults of personality and celebrity status of electeds needs to be wiped out. They need to stop being applauded for simply being bland and repeating mindless, half-remembered platitudes.
+ 1,000,000
She is a politician after all. I don’t agree with everything she has done but, would you have rather had Martha Coakly or Scott Brown? Who would you suggest is better suited. Nice touch with the last little dig on her ancestry “Chief”.
“Would you rather have herpes, or gonnorhea or chlamydia?”
1. Chlamydia – (bacterial) pretty easily cured
2. Gonorrhea – (bacterial) some strains are developing antibiotic resistance
3. Herpes – (viral) managed
of course the diagnosis for third way dems is pachycranial afluidic psychosepsis, a disease for which there is no known cure, but poverty can in some cases thaw the thought process enough to grant the victim a glimpse of the existential dynamics of being and allow them to move out of their frozen state of mental rigidity. I am not hopeful, however, as these same people can’t get to the grocery store that they visit hundreds of times a year without having a map on their dashboard mounted iphone and siri to tell them when to turn right. Question: if siri says turn right, and one turns left, does siri say, “no, the other right”
nothing against the elephants, they just get used as a metaphor for things with big heads that frighten easily, just another projection, the curse of being beautiful and kind…
I’m in Mass. and on Warren’s email list. I agree with you but add that despite all her lawyerly cunning and skill at bureaucratic infighting she may still be a quite naive Oklahoma gal who believe deeply in our nation’s resilience and inherent goodness (exceptionalism). I get ticked off at her frequently nonetheless. The other day she sent out an email suggesting the a good way to follow through on last Saturday’s rallies was to support the ACA. I wanted to write her but then felt why bother when, for instance, 50% of the people in our nation cannot raise $1000 and the ACA saddles most people with $5000 deductibles. So I don’t think she’s corrupt, but I do believe that she’s dissociative. When I met her in 2011 I told her running for the senate was a bad idea for her reputation because she’d end up supporting lame and pernicious Dem. policies and positions, like hysterical attacks on Trump, endless fundraising appeals using the word “fight”, ACA, and Hillary’s candidacy.
Certainly no progressive, and maybe getting worse with pres fever. But what rep that would run against her would be better? And you won’t beat her in primary.
I would have gone with Lynch, since Ed from Maryland easily defeated him, no way he has a shot against Warren.
So far, it sounds like Schilling, but he’s reversing on that, possibly Rick Green of MFA, and a few Libertarian rumblings. Other than that, it looks as though she will have an easy ride.
Blue Dogs. The great white whale that I have long been tracking. But harpoons are not enough.
We must organize primary challengers to replace them. Otherwise, merely abandoning them just puts the corrupt Republican establishment more firmly in charge.
It is not too early to identify 3 or 4 high profile incumbents for challenge in 2018. Indeed, almost late. Need to find candidates, build organizations, raise money, etc.
Plus, the spectacle of mounting the primary challenges will be a warning to the rest.
Taking control of DNC would help, but DNC will never organize primary challengers. And nothing less than successful primary challengers will work.
Any nominations for top 2018 targets?
You keep mentioning Elizabeth Warren without mentioning that she is no longer a threat to the DLC nor the DNC. She has been bought out and completely gone over to the other side. How could you not notice what she did in support of Hillary Clinton? She is now supporting Trump’s cabinet nominees like Ben Carson for HUD. She says she would not want to stand in Carson’s way even knowing that he is totally incompetent to lead HUD. As if a vote from a Senate Democrat is needed for him to be approved.
In my simple mind I see trust busting and review, revival, and strict enforcement of antitrust legislation as a fundamental requirement for redistribution of wealth to the labor class.
The corporate takeover of society is the root cause of a plethora of issues AND it serves to protect unethical, illegal behavior by individuals.
Good comments. The Dems are now a corrupt entity with corrupt leaders betraying their base, and opposing third parties needed to restore democracy. They are nothing but an oligarchy backstop in case the Repubs miscalculate. Dump the Dems! We need liberal/progressive/left parties with specific platforms that their members really support, which can form coalitions that their members understand. That is much harder for the oligarchy’s right-wing counter-revolution to corrupt. There is no need for duopoly with such coalitions; it is oligarchy propaganda.
There are practical difficulties with the third party approach. For one, lack of cultural acceptance.
Repubs have shown the effectiveness of primary challenges (and threat of them) to move their caucus to the Right.
We can do the same on the populist Left side.
Problem is that most Americans, even working class, have concluded that socialism does not work, which was the reason behind the Dems’ bid for the center ground (“capitalism with a social conscience”). I suspect that most of the Trump middle-class electorate want jobs-for-life rather than handouts, and this is more likely to come from a mercantilist/corporate state rather from than a lefty government (think Japan, perhaps). But would the commentators above’s heart be to become corporatists?
well americans have been constantly bombarded with the “socialism does not work” meme for a century or more, not least from right wing democrats, many of them former republicans like h clinton (bill was too busy pretending to inhale in those days). indeed, some americans were willing to fight to keep the socialist government’s “hands off their medicare”.it’s not like it was some organic process that forced democrats to move to republican lite territory. as if the democrats paid attention to their voters anyway.
The primary election results (not to mention the general election result and the collapse in turnout) would seem to argue the opposite. In every case where Sanders ran in an open primary with no party machine to oppose him or rig the vote, he wiped the floor. Many of his votes came from political independents and Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for him.
When actually presented with socialist policies, most Americans favor them overwhelmingly.
“Coalitions:” the death wish of the liberal/progressive/left. And yes, let us have Platforms! Of Issues! Flip Charts! And Brainstorming! And Meetings/Meetups/Ingatherings!
And since when has there been Democracy ™! in the US Empire? Unless one picks a definition of Democracy(tm)! that is carefully wrapped around the sharp edges of what actually is, and what has been, primped into the shape of a dreamy Something that best remains un-carefully-defined, since the Liberal/Progressive/Left just loves to devolve into arguments over definitions of terms, while the Real Takers have a simple creed: Grab it all, and sucker the mopes into believing that the “success” of elites is the “success” of the rabble…
Yes, we have Democracy™ but “since when” has real democracy not consisted of “Coalitions, Platforms, Issues,Brainstorming, and Meetings”?
Those do not imply mere “arguments over definitions.”
If you think there is a way to “Grab it all” for the common good, be my guest. But those who act by force must transition to politics to achieve common good.
In most rural areas, the D party is an empty shell, 20 people ( precinct committee persons ) could take over their county party, and send delegates to the state party meetings who then choose the delegates to the national party. It seems that many people simply don’t want to do the work necessary for change. I can tell you first hand that in my area this process has started. In a nearby county, the D’s had an open house/organizing meeting held on a Sat. at 10 am. Normal meeting turnout is 15 people – last Sat. 53 people showed up and at least 48 took kits on “action ideas”. The only way to change the Party is via the grassroots.
Thank you.
The willingness of people like you to show up for the unglamorous work is the last best hope for the country.
History does not march around as a logical imperative. We make it. By action or inaction, we make the future.
You describe exactly what is happening in my own rural county — it has already had big positive effects on the state level representation. We’ll see what happens next.
It is always worth emphasizing the success of the Sanders model of focusing like a laser on single-payer, Social Security expansion, and tuition-free education and relying on small donors. He showed that you can mount a small-donor funded campaign so powerful that people can only win against you by cheating. The large-donor model favored by New Dems is a choice, not a necessity.
Three times makes it a movement (credit to Arlo). My mostly rural county is just the same, my wife has taken the committee chair position in our precinct where there was no incumbent.
It’s all I can think of to do, as I think third party efforts are not going to be fruitful and I don’t see the current Democrat party leadership even trying to turn their ship around.
The next barrier is going to be moving locally elected socialist officials into positions of real power in the party. The party’s national leadership has a great deal of influence, with their money and deep state backing they can scupper the efforts of anyone they don’t like. Breaking through from local to state and national leadership takes more than just good intentions.
One of my friends ran — as a Sanders-like Democrat — for the Arizona House of Representatives. Not the most liberal of legislative bodies.
She didn’t get oodles of help from the state or national Ds, but she was undeterred.
My friend won the primary and general elections, and she has already introduced two bills in the House. One relates to the ratification of the ERA, which AZ needs to do.
See folks – that’s how easy to run and win ! Congratulations to your friend.
While I agree with the general point of view of this article, it kind of lost its credibility when it cited Thomas Frank’s book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” as being from 1984. The date it was actually published was June 1, 2004. Typo? Maybe. There are certainly many others and a lot of sloppy, rambling writing, which undermines its effectiveness, and, again, credibility. Professor Black could use a good editor and fact checkers.
The DNC does not need $20 million to figure out why the white working class “abandoned” the New Democrats. They can check out from their local library Tom Frank’s books warning that this would happen and explaining in detail why the New Democrats’ long war against the working class was making it happen. Tom Frank has been writing books warning about this since 2004
and a synopsis of that particular book was linked to to support the assertion that the new democrats hated the new deal, when iirc it focused on republicans, and why people voted for them. there was nothing in the synopsis mentioning the new democrats. a minor quibble, but i was hoping for something more on point.
Here is the segment of this Bill Black piece that I’d love to see expanded upon:
” By mid-1983, the federal examiners were warning that the deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization of the S&L industry (the three “de’s”) were producing a surging epidemic of elite fraud. By late 1983, Reagan’s (deeply conservative, Republican) appointee as top S&L regulator, Ed Gray, had begun reregulating the industry in order to contain the epidemic of elite financial fraud.
In late 1984, the New Democrats and the Republicans in the House joined in co-sponsoring a resolution calling on Gray to cease re-regulating the industry. Had Gray done so the elite frauds would have grown to the point that it would have produced bubbles in commercial (and eventually residential) real estate that would have rivalled the recent housing bubble.”
Effectively, Mr. Black is reminding us that it was during the Reagan administration that regulators attacked the S&L crisis. And the official requiring that to happen – oy! – was a “deeply conservative, Republican”.
Do we need another one of them there, I would ask? I sure hope there’s someone eager for the job. As Mr. Black has been telling us lo, these many years, it can be done and it should be done. It must be done!
I did not vote for him, but I have been hoping Trump would be the one to prepare the way.
well it was during the reagan administration that the s&l’s were deregulated in the first place. i’m glad there were some ethical officials, both republican and democrat, that pushed back against that and tried to enforce the law. i don’t think trump is going to appoint anybody like that, but it’s early days.
Is the Donna Brazile WSJ article available digitally anywhere? I am not having luck finding it and did not see it linked above.
I found this link from WSJ for an op-ed written by Brazile and someone called Timothy Bergreen from May 2003 which seems to be about right. It’s behind a WSJ paywall and I couldn’t find any other open links to it.
What Would Scoop Do?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105347838098997900
Great post. The DNC and DLC and Third Way are composed of people who are, to use Yves elegant term, progressive neoliberals. That is, neoliberals with a progressive social issues veneer. There is nothing progressive about their economic policies. What was their first line of attack on Sanders? Why, that he was a Socialist! As if that word alone would frighten the horses. zomg! As if wanting an inflation adjusted minimum wage and single payer insurance for healthcare; or calling for reining in by regulation Wall Sts predatory lending and frauds; or enacting more progressive economic policies would bring down the country. “Progressive neoliberal” is an oxymoron. It’s also a perfect description of the the DNC and the Dem estab.
Thanks for this post.
Thanks Bill, spot on and thanks for the history of our sorry party. I just tried to forward this article to a friend, a Hillary supporter, and got rebuked in not so nice terms. Powerful stuff
As I tell my friends, the election provides an important opportunity. The defeat of HRC was a good thing, focus on building on that defeat. DT is terrible but it is time to face reality.
The Clintons and Obama and the New Dems were all about promoting privatization (look what they did on healthcare and education) and ignoring real threats (never working to end wars, promote global stability or end the power of the 1% who were indeed their main backers). Regarding global climate change, their soft denial had the effect, probably by design, to hide the stark reality. HRC even explicitly told us she would not back a carbon tax which every expert knows is an absolute necessity.
Yes, Prof. Black is correct. We need to spend more energy on opposing the corporate Dems even more than DT because replacing DT and the Republicans with more of the same Dems would be fine if … but only if … reality were a lot nicer and totally different than it is. So, reject DT of course but use that opportunity to take the most important next step: BUILD the NECESSARY FUTURE.
The only political solution is a GENERAL STRIKE including mass refusal to pay taxes, not just to purge corruption from the D Party (and the R Party, as well) but to demand a Constitutional Convention that will overturn Citizens United and institute publicly-funded elections. There’s no other way to get money out of politics and restore public confidence in the broken system.
The Democrat base is mostly moderate Republicans who left the GOP.
The rank-and-file old Democrats mostly left FDR’s party already.
So, the current Democrats are a reflection of their base.
There is a very relevant cliche; follow the money. Repiublicans are supposed to be conservative and democrates are supposed to be liberal. Between the two extremes should lay the compromise that serves the best interests of both parties. Money the, the medium of fair exchange flows to the party that creates ways to create it. That is: borrowing to consume becomes better than saving to consume and inflation reigns. As more and more money is created, the financial services people become more and more paper wealthy and pursuit of the paper wealth becomes the social norm. Those closet to the point of creation of money benefit the most and the so called working class gets left behind. In history, the ultimate solution to income inequality has been a revolution. The great success of the American Political Experiment was founded on an equality before laws enacted by representatives, a government of by and for the people which promoted economic and class mobility. Political corruption is like cancer, it metastises until there are only the haves and the have nots. We are at that point now.
“The New Democrats knew what they were choosing to lie down with and they knew exactly what they were signaling to organized labor about their hostility to unions and disdain for the working class.”
And yet the unions with extremely few exceptions, continue to support them. What is this – a death wish? That is certainly the result.
” Losing to Trump has not been a sufficient wake-up call to the New Democrats to convince them to abandon their policy of abandoning and assaulting for 33 years the core principles and core supporters of the Democratic Party.”
Yet more evidence that the major parties collude to trade the Presidency back and forth, two full terms at a time. Why would they “wake up” when things went according to plan? The only real question is whether Hillary was in on it. Like almost everyone else, I thought last year would break the pattern and disprove my conspiracy theory (or prove that the conspiracy goes only so far). But no.
Does Mr. Black realize that he’s making a strong case that the Democratic Party is a loss (they even managed to lose to Trump)?
I think Bill Black does an excellent job of outlining why the Democratic Wall Street Party must be abandoned.
There are several strategies and tactics that we should all consider.
First, re-register to a third party – but not to “No Party Preference.” NPP says you have dropped out and just don’t care – and will probably vote for a Party candidate that you deem the lesser of two evils. You might just as well stay in one of the Corporate Parties. My choice is the Greens because their party platform is pretty damn good even if at the present they are totally ineffective – at least the ideas are there. Switching parties sends a message – and if enough of us switch, Dem leadership will notice. Get your family and friends to switch. People are angry – so let’s do something tangible. And for those who have never done anything political before, it is an easy first step – an easy protest – easier than the marches last week. There is no harm since at a later time you can always switch back if you want to vote in a particular primary for one of the corporate candidates. But perhaps by then you might start thinking long term strategies and send a second message by voting for a third party candidate. You should do this even if you don’t think that it is possible to build a viable third party.
Second, build local political power. The major political parties want to keep us alienated and feeling helpless so we do nothing. So do something local where you can be effective. Form a “neighborhood assembly” where you meet once a month with your neighbors (~30 out of perhaps a neighborhood of 100 – not everyone will attend). Bring food, build community ties, and talk politics. Most people can handle one meeting a month – especially if it involves sharing food. Start discussing local politics to find common ground. Structure the meetings to give everyone a voice – lots of info available on how to do this – use the “stack”. Start the meetings reminding everyone that we were given 2 ears and only one mouth – so be sure to listen to your neighbors more than you speak. Listening is an art. Make sure the loudest learn to step back, and that women have at least equal time speaking. Form subgroups to investigate problems. Find a person or persons in the group willing to do a bit more, and who are representative of the group, and have them attend local city/county councils and report back.
Third, start to network and use the neighborhood assemblies to build a local power base to demand actions from local government officials. A single assembly can represent as much power as a chamber of commerce in a moderate sized town of 100,000. Such a group can provide some effective opposition to local moneyed interests. However, a network of a dozen or more assemblies can easily determine who will get elected or which initiatives will pass – and that represents power – grass roots power.
Fourth, once you have established trust with your neighbors, you need to begin the de-programming process within your group. We all have core values that bind us together. But we also have all been indoctrinated in the course of our cultural education by the schools, by life experiences, by the main stream media, and by our exposure to American myths. Recognize that we all have much to learn and assumptions to unlearn. Find those individuals who are willing to read and discuss the politics that are used to divide us – racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. This is essential training to prevent the elite from using divide and conquer strategies against us. Have these people report back to the group on what they have learned.
Fifth, use the network of assemblies to build a local party structure. This structure should not necessarily be part of a Major or Minor political party, but it could be. The important aspect is the democratic grass root nature of the assemblies. Develop rules to prevent domination by a few individuals. Perhaps have instant recall for any assembly representative who runs wild, does not abide by the group consensus. Find individuals who can reach out to other allies and groups in a broader area of your state. Have them report back and take input from the group. Use this local structure to support candidates at the state level, and eventually at the national level.
This is what democracy could look like. This is the approach I have adopted – an experiment in democracy. It has to work better than what I experienced for the last several years – sitting hours in City Council meetings with dozens of concerned citizens only to have the Council ignore our 1 minute pleas and instead side with the moneyed interests. The capture of the Council was identical to what Yves demonstrated for CalPERS. The people with the stamina to sit through Council, Zoning Board and Planning Commission meetings eventually formed a progressive alliance last spring and changed the composition of the City Council. It only took about 100 people in a city of 100,000 to do this. Unfortunately the structure of government meetings is still the same – waiting hours to voice ones opinion about a complex topic in only 1 minute. We need more voice – our work is not done. Neighborhood assemblies can provide a check on top-down rule. They can provide bottoms-up demands that open up the political dialogue. We will represent a force in the community to fight off moneyed interests. The second meeting of my neighborhood assembly is in 2 weeks – and I am very grateful to the woman who organized the first meeting. We hope to grow and fission into additional assemblies. In a year we can see how well the experiment is working out. I’m hopeful. And at the very least, I’m getting to know more of my neighbors. Building community is something that we will need to do in the face of coming austerity.
The underlying issue that Bill Black’s piece points to is the collective belief that ‘ there is no alternative ‘ ( TINA ) . The solidifying of this can be dated to the late eighties Reagan / Thatcher era by which time the movers and shakers advocating the privatisation of all and everything had scaled the heights of leadership within the major political parties throughout the West . So complete has this thinking become that any opposition to business knows best is met with derision . In the UK Jeremy Corbyn a principled politician to whom not a whiff of scandal adheres and now the leader of the main opposition party cannot raise a hand against business excesses without being condemned as anti-business and written off as an old Leftie and much of this condemnation comes from within his own party. No matter how many business frauds ( ‘ mis-selling of PPI ‘ ) and scams ( energy market ‘ brokers ‘ ) are exposed the ideology remains intact. Why is this ? One reason and perhaps the principal one is that the public at large absorbed it even if they couldn’t articulate it. Until now that is . The EU Referendum and the Presidential Election presented those most affected adversely by TINA the opportunity to say enough is enough and into the first of those breaches steps er no one and in the second Trump. The mainstream parties appear utterly befuddled by these events so either blame anyone except themselves ( the DNC ) , or veer between let’s pretend this never happened and let’s jump over the cliff quick while no ones watching ( the Conservative Party ), but the orthodox belief that brought us all here goes unchallenged . So I agree with all those commenters above who subscribe to the view that whatever comes next it is not going to come from the top and ‘ trickle down ‘ . No sir this is going to get pretty rough because the scale of the vested interests is so great that threatened , or not ( the Hamptons are not a defensible position – Mark Blyth ) these guys are not going to give up anything without a fight.
Minor edit: T
should be 2004. Methinks you may have been channeling Orwell.
My choice to redirect the party is Alan Grayson – of course who the DNC trashed like Bernie by running someone (Murphy) who I knew couldn’t win in Florida.
Hollywood and Celebrities – You missed a very big point. I don’t like to help democrats by pointing where they went wrong. I would rather like them to find out by losing few more elections. Common working man has no commonalities to Katy Perry, Lady gaga.They do outrageous things. Most of them don’t have good family ethics. They are rich. As long as this kinda crowd keeps following the DNC there is no way for the party to reach the working class. The agenda of Hollywood after all may not be women rights. It could be all different. Time will tell. May be hollywood is using DNC for something else. I know. It’s just a thought.
The Reformers Paradox – the absurd expectation that a corrupted system is functional enough to reform itself.
Believe me when I say that I have nothing but love for Bill Black. But pieces like this make me want to bang my head against the wall. The problem isn’t Black’s conclusion or even his argument mind you. His criticism of the Democratic Party is spot on. The problem is – how does he expect we get out of this? Consider the list of demands that he makes.
Yay, right. And maybe Bill Clinton should stop sleeping around, Obama should just admit he was wrong about Obamacare, or Hillary should go prancing naked through the streets of Washington tossing out thousand dollar bills to any passers buy. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with Black that these things do need to happen. But it’s simply not going to happen. His demands are in fact so absurd that they may as well be impossible.
This is the bite of the Reformers Paradox – how can you expect a corrupted system to reform itself? That is not to say that the Democratic Party cannot be reformed, (I don’t think it can be, but this is just my opinion. If it can be reformed is still a question worth asking.) only that it’s impossible to be reformed using internal systems.
If you want Brazile to resign – you have to force her, and in order to do that, you need some kind of force applied to the party from the outside. And yes, this may include the necessity for physical force. We have already seen the Democrats more than willing to employ police/thugs to push around Bernicrats.
Black offers, nor even so much as considers how to compel these recommendations. So alas, Blacks “recommendations” are little more than rhetorical flourishes. But if he, or someone were to come up with a strategy to make these things happening, we are open to ideas.
Bill Black is a Living National Treasure. Thank you, Professor Black, for your history of selfless service to our nation.