Yves here. I think Tom is being unduly polite. Can the Democratic Party be diverted from its current controlled flight into terrain?
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny!
I’ve written before about the wide and deep rift that splits all three layers of the Democratic “party”*. Today, that split within these layers — office-holders and leaders; activists and campaign workers; voters and angry non-voters — is widening.
A Legacy of Betrayal
The split is greatest in the third layer, among the voters, as the sense of betrayal is greatest there as well. For many who were inspired by Obama’s promise of hope and change, 2008 is seen as a betrayal in retrospect, as they watched his Yes-We-Can promises (for example, to scrap the salary cap to increase Social Security funding) turn into No-I-Won’t policies (the constant Grand Bargain offers to cut Social Security benefits).
For frustrated “hope-and-change” voters — and the legion of “don’t-care” and “they’re-all-crooks” non-voters — 2016 witnessed the obvious sabotage of a change-supporting candidate, Bernie Sanders, to unfairly advance the decidedly Obamist Hillary Clinton. This turned what should have been a landslide election — against a jive-talking, pussy-grabbing, orange-haired reality show host no less — into a squeaker they lost in the Electoral College.
Now 2020 is upon us, and the sense of betrayal is even greater, starting with the very first contest, the Iowa caucus; continuing through DNC chair Tom Perez’s manipulation of debate rules to exclude un-centrist-preferred candidates; through the Establishment’s obvious swing to Mike Bloomberg as the Sanders savior du jour; ending with James Clyburn’s and Barack Obama’s clearing of the entire rest of the field field for Joe Biden, the only Establishment candidate left with any credibility in black and brown communities.
The move by Clyburn and Obama can arguably be seen as “just politics” and nothing out of the ordinary — politicians endorse their friends and colleagues all the time — but it confirmed the Establishment’s anti-Sanders bias so completely in the minds of his supporters that for them, the primary may just as well have been bought and sold on the street, their anger is that implacable.
The split is also great at the two upper layers of Democratic politics. Many activists are divided into mainstream-supporting and progressive-supporting camps, collegial with each other, but suspicious and hostile as well — along with an added interesting subsplit between Warren-loving (or accepting) progressives and those who feel Warren simply should not be trusted. (There are activists who support both Warren and Sanders, of course, but the intensity of what anger exists reminds one of the Hillary-Bernie battles of 2016 and may have been born there.)
Finally, though the split at the top layer — among office-holders and Party leaders, is just taking hold, it is nonetheless real. One only has to witness the disdain shown by Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and her “squad” for the squad-hating Nancy Pelosi, and Pelosi’s concommitant response, to see a divide that won’t be healed soon without supports of one side or the other feeling betrayed.
Will a “Unity Candidate” Unify or Divide?
In this environment, many insiders and those in their circle are looking for a unity candidate, or at least a unifying deal between the progressive wing of the Party and the Clinton-Obama corporatist wing, simply to find a way to get through the 2020 without re-electing Donald Trump.
Could such a deal, even if blessed by Sanders himself, save the Party from Trump? Voters would have to be on board with that — and the mass of non-voters as well, whose ranks could swell. It’s possible such a deal would succeed, but not very likely in the absence of an unexpected, table-turning event.
Consider: The Democrats have three choices. First, nominate Joe Biden. Second, nominate Bernie Sanders. Third, nominate someone who didn’t even run in the primary — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is the latest Sanders-savior being touted.
If they nominate Joe Biden and he doesn’t improve his lackluster, unfocused post-corona virus performances, he’s done. Trump will be the next president. And if he further declines in acuity before our eyes, he’s even more done than that — his viability won’t last through October and the slaughter in November will be Mondale-esque.
If they nominate Bernie Sanders — well, I’m hearing that they just won’t do that. They’d rather die in the saddle or live out their days strong in the Party but powerless electorally, than surrender the Party to Sanders and the unwashed who want to see them all gone from office for good.
If they nominate a replacement candidate, a Cuomo, say, or a (ready?) Michelle Obama, despite her determination never to take such a job — if they nominate, in other words, the most well-regarded corporate Democrat they can find — how would the Party fare in November? The election would then resolve to a single issue, a battle between NeverTrumpers on one hand and his amped up legions of F-U voters on the other, with voters on neither side just watching the fight.
Remember, this is yet another Change election, and the change candidate won twice before. Will the nation want to change out Donald Trump for an otherwise-no-change corporatist, or stay with the faux-change carnival barker even in the midst of a massively bungled corona virus response? Or just not care?
Given Democrats’ recent propensity for bungling easy elections when they offer no-change non-charismatic candidates, I just don’t see Trump losing that battle. He may not win by a lot, but I don’t see him losing it.
Of course, this is not just a Change election, it’s a Black Swan election as well. One dark bird has already landed — two if you count this — and several more could alight at any time. But still, it seems Dem leaders are determined to burn the building if they don’t get their way, and as things stand today, they will succeed.
If an Intra-Party Knock-Down Fight Is Unavoidable, Are Progressives Prepared to Win It?
All of which leads to the real question. The fight that “unity” leaders are determined to avoid, seems unavoidable. The rift seems unhealable and attempts to close it further widen it. If the Party is determined not to elect Sanders, much of the base is determined not to support the alternatives, and the Party presses hard for surrender — what then?
What if the “rift fight,” the battle royale between corporatist Party leaders and progressives at all three layers is unavoidable? What if it can’t be deferred until 2024 and must be addressed in this cycle? It’s coming sometime — what if it comes now, in 2020
If all this is true and that fight is can’t be avioded, are progressive prepared to win it?
As of this writing, I don’t see evidence they are.
*I put “party” in quotes because, as some of us are aware, actual Democratic Party membership is tiny relative to the number of its almost powerless supporters and voters. Compare the meaning of party membership here vs. in the UK, for example. In the UK, the voters are members and elect their leaders. Not so here. That lack of control by voters who consider themselves “members” — but aren’t — is a large part of the problem.
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An observation from the cheap seats.
Mr Neuberger has framed this in intra-Party terms. From down here, the contest has a decidedly class based nature. The Democrat Party nomenklatura, as others have remarked before, is a proxy for the Ten Percent Elite Enabler class. This group shows a decided disconnect from the rank and file of the Democrat Party at large. The constant focus on idpol and similar ‘niche’ policy items ignores the greater needs of the people of the nation. This disconnect results in there being a great reservoir of anger against the status quo. Trump manipulated this anger fairly adroitly to eke out his win in 2016. In 2020, it does not really matter what the causes of said anger are. The anger is there, waiting to be used again to garner votes.
Theoretically, since the legacy Democrat Party is now strongly associated with the Elites, the Party has automatically become an antagonist to any Populist movement. The split is obvious and can be easily taught to the voters as a defining characteristic of the candidates running for office. It will be a template for political organization.
Thus, Sanders strategy of attempting a ‘hostile takeover’ of the Democrat Party has merit. He can succeed, and inherit the organization and legacy charisma of the Party, or he can fail and trigger the destruction of the Party. Either outcome is acceptable. Either way, the legacy Democrat Party and it’s nomenklatura will be swept away. A Reform Democrat Party or it’s analogue will emerge when the dust settles.
We live in interesting times.
Thoughtful, lucid, and a shrewd distillation of the underlying conditions.
The parallels with 1968 are starting to look eerie. Theodore White, in Making of the President 1968, wrote about how each month of that year seemed to unfold in ways that would have been unpredictable at the beginning of that month. A little less shocking today, but I think we’re in that territory here. And the Democrat primary, like 1968, seems to have no satisfactory resolution. That’s acceptable to me as well.
I think that you have a point but I think his overall analysis also misses the fundamental nature of policy and funding. Speaking for myself and the other “swing” voters I know, I’m not in it for the Democratic party. I’m in it because Bernie Sanders is a strong and trustworthy advocate for policies that we need like $15, M4A, and an end to asanine debacles like Iraq. Biden, Pelosi, and Clinton are opposed to those policies because their donors are. Yes they pay lip service to them but to paraphrase Diane Feinstein, they’ve been doing it for 30 years. We aren’t there yet.
For my money Pelosi and the others fight Sanders because of fundamental and financial differences on policy. They do not believe in what he is proposing and they know that they will lose the financial support that they were weaned on if they do back him. The party will not collapse in the near future. The D’s and R’s have an effective monopoly on political activity in this country and that makes even an out of power party a useful fundraising vehicle. So for them anything to get rid of the squad, even four more years of Trump, will be worthwhile. Trump brings in donations. Sanders would not (at least not for them). At the end of the day their financial lifeline is what they will go with every time.
If you read Bernie Sanders’ book and his speeches he Speaking for myself and most of the coveted
I don’t see why a reformed Democratic Party would emerge from the dissolution of the present one (which in a sense has already occurred). The same class conflicts would exist within it as within the present structure, rendering it unable to win elections based at all on ideology and proposed policy. Its recent past successes have been due to charismatic leadership (that is not a compliment) and some organizational skill, so that, for instance, the election in 2008 was won for ‘hope and change’, which added up to nothing, since they were free of content.
One might argue that MAGA adds up to nothing as well, but it does add up to something: it stands for fascism, that is, overt, organized, popular sociopathy. I suppose many people feel that if we’re going to be governed by sociopaths we might as well have overt ones. As things get worse, people are going to be less interested in ‘We’re as bad as the other ones, but at least we’re not crazy. And we’re nuanced.’ They will want dynamic sociopaths who Get Things Done.
A lot of people are going to get what they asked for, and the rest of us are just going to have to ride it out.
I observe that Trump foamed the runway for lying and Biden picked it up and ran with it. Sorry for mixing metaphors.
To simplify: as albrt said, no and no.
We are so screwed….
This is an excellent post, but I think that the focus on the intra-party power struggle too narrow.
I would add the multiple crises that are here or arriving that the entire political establishment is ignoring for acquiring more wealth for themselves or their paymasters. What is causing these fractures is that many, perhaps most people, especially the progressives and reformers can see this and can the accelerating collapse. The leadership and even what Lambert calls the Professional Managerial Class refuses to.
Seeing the foolishness of the COVID-19 stimulus legislation being created and pass terrifies me. I me as an actual fact and not as hyperbole. Seeing the naked corruption and contempt of the DNC for the rule of law, the unwashed masses, and the election merely repulsed me.
I believe a similar process is happening to millions of Americans. I also believe that the Democratic leadership will keep lying, cheating, and stealing to keep a reformer like Sanders from being nominated. That the massive concealment of Biden’s health and the betrayal by the Democratic Party as well all both parties unseriousness in dealing with a depression worse than the Great Depression is going to cause great rage and a massive response is a given.
However, the leadership of our entire political economy is focused on power, wealth, and prestige from playing what they think is the Great Game. To give a historical example, six of the seven popes that ruled in the sixty years before the Protestant Reformation who were too busy stealing, waging wars (sometimes for their multiple children from multiple mistresses benefit) and beautifying Rome to actually run the Roman Catholic Church. Restated, they were too busy running an empire, or perhaps a business with an army, for their personal benefit that they forgot to run the church for their followers’. Then Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses that eventually split the church.
Like with the many Catholics going to sermons on, having debates over, and sending letters about reforms (often to those popes), Luther did not intend to start a religious schism and cause the Wars of Religion of the next two centuries. However, the Catholic leadership and the popes that they produced ignored all the signs.
Like the many Americans also having those meetings, debates, and doing all that writing, who do not intend to destroy the political system, forget the parties, and are being ignored who will start what? What about political leadership and the meritocracy that produced them, that is so focused on playing their games that they are forgetting to do their job of running the United States for the American Nation? They do not intend to destroy the country, but they do not want anyone else to do the job that they refuse to do.
Something is going to give. To break. It feels like earthquake weather and while debating whether the Democratic progressive faction is willing to fight for the nomination (I hope that they do as Sanders offers hope for peaceful changes.) it might become moot.
Good summary. Still, I must agree with Yves on the “controlled flight into terrain”. It seems far too late an hour for any “unity candidate”. The divisions in the electorate are too deep.
And will it really turn into the knock-down infra-party battle that Neuberger seems to think is unavoidable? I wonder.
What about another scenario: that millions of voters simply walk away, and let the Democrat party burn to death in the dumpster fire that they started? Neuberger acknowledges “obvious sabotage” in 2016 (and it’s happening again in 2020), but thinks voters will still care. Will they? Enough is enough.
I for one would welcome their anguished shrieks coming from the flames.
Russiagate/impeachment was the Dems 2020 strategy and now they got nothin’. With the current crisis likely to linger competence will become the focus and perhaps Cuomo thinks he is auditioning for being drafted as Man in Charge. But Trump’s approval ratings are up so it seems–so far–that the public is not displeased with his virus handling.
I do think the public out in the heartland could care less about the Dem’s intra party struggles or about political parties in general. Events are becoming quite large now and our Dem/Repub food fight–structured by design to produce no real change–is so very trivial. Perhaps Sanders’ mistake was in thinking he could turn a food fight into something real.
I think this is a really great way of framing it and I share your assessment. The selection process for office is effective at identifying people who are good at pretending to be leaders as long as most people can get by day-to-day. This produced a class of people who are utterly convinced of their own merit, but who are unsuited to handling a real crisis. It’s tough to think of a more perfect example of that than two unabashed liars like Biden and Trump in contention for the top job. I’m not overly optimistic about what forces will move in to seize on the credibility vacuum as it continues to expand.
From what I can see, the Democrats are a lost cause and beyond redemption. They have stated in a court of law that they own nothing to their members and can do whatever they want. At this point in time they could make Donald Trump their Presidential candidate and they would not have to answer to their membership. As it is, the party elite are beholden to their donors who are of the same class as the Republican party donors. If their donors said that they want to privatize Social Security to Wall Street, they would have absolutely no problem with that.
There is no taking this party over from the inside either as if this started to happen, they would simply change the rules to get their own people across the line as they did during the primaries. I mean, it seemed impossible that they could repeat the mistakes of 2016 and pick a candidate that was worse than Trump yet once again in 2020 they have done it again. They have stood up (propped up?) good old Joe – a man showing clear signs of dementia to lead America through it’s worse crisis since 1942? When I see your Democrat elites in public, all I can hear is a background noise that goes-
“Whoop, Whoop – Terrain, Terrain – Pull Up, Pull Up”
Totally agree.
+ 1000
Discussing how to fix the Democratic Party is like counting the spoons on the Titanic.
Team D is on the 737-MAX and there’s a sensor malfunction…
So, are progressives “prepared to win it”?
The variables right now—the unfolding coronavirus catastrophe, which demands that Joe Biden rise to the occasion, and Biden’s cognitive decline, which means he can’t—make for, as lambert would say, an “overly dynamic situation.”
We’re seeing unfold what might rival the Great Depression (in economic terms) and the Civil War (in US deaths) combined—an unimaginable national disaster.
I’m not sure just how progressives are supposed to “win” this thing, even if they’re prepared to. But, with bodies piling up at make-shift morgues around the country in the coming weeks and the Democratic front-runner candidate at the moment quite literally not clear on where he is some of the time, they have to be prepared to win.
Bernie Sanders is the “unity candidate”—those 45 and below will vote for him, those voters who fell in line because of endorsements by party bigwigs and voted for Biden will vote for whoever the nominee is. But, moreover, he’s the only one in the race who can credibly address the shambles this country will be in. We need this guy, like we needed FDR. If progressives are not “prepared to win it” in the coming weeks, when will they ever be?
The question might better be, are progressives prepared to gamble and work for it.
I received an email from Nick Brana last Saturday morning titled “What to do if Bernie drops out” informing members of the Movement for a People’s Party (MPP) of a meeting to be held this Thursday (March 26) regarding progress on the People’s Party convention in Milwaukee and what to do given today’s circumstances – such as the DNC calling off the Democrat Convention in July. Brana was the superdelegate lobbyist for Sanders at the 2016 Convention and an early organizer of Our Revolution. Immediately after Bernie lost the 2016 nomination, Brana formed a movement to start up a progressive party with Bernie in the lead. Brana felt he needed to convince Bernie first that there was enough support to do that. In Summer of 2017 Brana and Cornel West presented Bernie with a petition signed by 50,000+ folks asking Bernie to start a new Progressive Party.
Bernie would have none of it…Bernie believed it was divisive and insisted on reforming the Democrat Party from within. Subsequently Brana put it to the membership what to do next and the majority decision was to continue to create a new party without Bernie. The draft Bernie group renamed itself Movement for a Peoples’ Party and subsequently has been forging relationships with progressive groups across the country. The Green Party, the DSA, Socialist Alternative, labor unions, etc. Quite a lot has been accomplished in that regard compared to my personal expectations when we took the vote.
Monday (March 23) I got a short notice call to meeting to vote on MPP merging with a group I’d not heard of before called BernTheDNC. This group apparently has 3300 members who had committed to show up at the Democrat Convention for peaceful civic disobedience to protest the anticipated bushwhacking of Bernie. The MPP members who joined the zoom meeting, about 135, all voted yea except for two abstentions. The BernTheDNC group will vote this week whether or not to merge with MPP, I don’t have results as I write this. There was some discussion about strategy leading up to officially forming the political party.
This is not about getting an alternative candidate running in the November elections. There is no time or resources for that given the rules for getting on ballots in all 50 states. Near term, Nick mentioned that people he was working with were seriously thinking of some high-profile op-eds in major media promoting the idea that now is the time to fire up a new progressive party. It would feature big names in politics along with media stars (if I may call them that) such as Krystal Ball, Jimmy Dore, etc. Nick mentioned Kshama Sawant has expressed interest in signing such an op-ed. Not sure if that would be an official endorsement of the MPP by the Socialist Alternative or not. Nick then said after that there should be a second op-ed directed at Democrats in Congress. Given that Sawant is close to “the squad” and assuming she signs the first op-ed, I suspect “the squad” might also sign that op-ed.
The Thursday (March 26) meeting covered events of the past week, some discussion of big picture strategy now that the Democrat Convention might be rescheduled or done “virtually”, using internet meeting technology. We discussed the dynamics of a world post November when Sanders would have no credibility and not be the leader of the progressive movement. This is predicated on Bernie endorsing Biden. As evidence of how the majority of Bernie supporters might react, Nick referenced recent videos by Krystal Ball, Jimmy Dore, and Kim Iversen, each of which are vehemently anti-Biden.
For anyone interested in learning about the MPP or volunteering and otherwise supporting the MPP and their convention/party forming activities, here are links to the website:
Volunteer for working group link: https://peoplesparty.org/volunteer-convention/
Chip in to support our work link: https://peoplesparty.org/donate/
Currently there are several working groups that are gearing up and soliciting members based on interests and abilities of the volunteers. Each working group has a coordinator that works with the coordinators of the other working groups in order to harmonize policies, positions and actions that evolve out of each working group. The working philosophy is to keep the structure and operations of the MPP as democratic as possible.
Thanks for this report. What is the plan to break the duopolist stranglehold on the electoral process? I.e., how to torpedo the Commission on Presidential Debates, and to succeed where Nader, Stein, et alia failed?
That’s been a major concern of mine since the day I and my daughter became Bernie delegates from our respective precincts in 2016. I was new to working “inside the party”. What happened next stunned me. Your question – I will propose to Nick Brana that we set up a working group specifically tasked to work on making party registration and getting on ballot some kind of process that is not controlled by “the duopoly”.
And the cycle continues, the latest bright-eyed new leftish organization comes along to kill off the previous generation. Those who have just woken up and realized the Dems are set up to actively resist the principles they pretend to have, say to themselves, we’re going to avoid all the mistakes of those old left-wing wierdo losers. We’re getting good press, largeish organizations are endorsing us, yeah!
Until the day they actually start winning or affecting elections, then zero MSM coverage except demonization, even sleepy county commissioner races where you have recruited popular and effective candidates will attract national Dem money, for either Dep or Rep candidates, whichever is more effective. Organizations that support you will have their funding cut off, your activists will lose contracts and jobs, electoral districts will be gerrymandered against you in flagrant violation of the law. Most supporters will give up, and the remaining insiders will become isolated: focused on internal battles and unable to communicate with the general population.
I was part of this when I joined the Greens 20 years ago, looking down on the older Socialist and Populist parties that couldn’t seem to get their act together. Then the DSA sucked out our remaining energy, and now the People’s Party seems to be targeting the DSA.
Any sort of organization that relies on grass-roots activity is DEAD this year. There are no elite factions opposed to Trump, if he survives the CV, he is going to win 40 states and the house and senate, Bernie might have been able to make it close, probably not.
And then there needs to be the realization that Bernie ran the campaign that the Greens and every other left group would have wanted to run, with several orders of magnitude more resources than we ever dreamed of, probably even a resource advantage over the liberal candidates, and FAILED, even among the Dem faction of the electorate.
I’m not giving up, but I think the focus on electoral politics first is incorrect, we will only succeed when there is a militant and/or mass movement against the elites, that can actually frighten the elites. Militant unions and the Labour party, Malcom X and MLK, IRA and Sinn Fein…
What that will be, I have no idea, the DSA seems to be the closest at present to have the potential to channel the energy of the current crisis against the elites instead of into reaction.
Why reinvent the wheel?
Especially to make a square one?
“Basically all they needed to do was nominate somebody who is not a corrupt, demented war criminal. ”
When all you have is a hammer…….
What I’m about to say won’t be appreciated by many here.
The last month has convinced me that Sanders isn’t up to the job. Even if by some miracle they let him have it.
He doesn’t welcome the hate, he’s either helping “my friend Joe” or voting for a massive 4.5 trillion tranfer of wealth instead. I wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure, but I’m not pretending to lead a political revolution.
Time to move past the personality cults.
I came to the same conclusion. And this is after giving hundreds to the Sanders campaign in the past year. He is a good and honorable man, but he is acting as a sheepdog for the vile and unredeemable Democratic party apparatus. The only hope is that none of the sheep are listening and some of them are dogs with their own ideas for organization.
+100
Well stated.
Unfortunately, I think you’re right. Not just unfortunate because Sanders has mobilised a very large number of newly politicised people or been semi-successful in forcing certain formerly taboo policies into the mainstream, but also because he (like Corbyn) represents a dying link with the radical traditions of the pre-neoliberal era. It gives him unique credibility and authority as a critical voice. That living link with 20th century politics will not survive the by-now inevitable 2020 defeat.
It is, however, possible that Bernie Sanders was never up to the job. The Democrat Party is not open for change. It will not allow itself to be taken over by the already degraded electoral mechanisms it allows. Its leaders and donors and media water-carriers have made that clear over, and over, and over. Not only that, but Bernie has from the beginning of his 2016 campaign made clear that he will fight shy of the American ruling class’ unified foreign policy interests in the delusional belief that this will give him free rein to reform domestic disasters at exactly the time when that ruling class has strained every sinew to demonstrate that they see the two as entirely contiguous.
Revolutionary change is hard. It is not welcomed by those who enjoy the benefits of the current situation. To pretend otherwise is to lead your followers down a blind alley. Bernie Sanders’ weaknesses, which have come into sharp focus in the last month, all stem from his unwillingness to draw the necessary conclusions of his own analysis. If he continues as he has indicated – supporting whoever the Democrats nominate – under current conditions, he will be betraying everything he has said and all those he has mobilised. I am just not sure what exactly causes him to do it – timidity, weakness, cynicism….
But it doesn’t really matter. What matters is what happens next. The small coterie of politicians, like AOC, who align themselves with him have already demonstrated that they will make precisely the same moves with precisely the same results. They will sheepdog for a party that is nothing if not consistent in its determination to remain faithful to the ruling class. The very fact that sections of the media give AOC such glowing press is enough to indicate the very low level of threat they determine her to represent.
So what next? Organising outside of the Democrat Party seems the first necessary step in a very long struggle. And the first step in that struggle requires a rejection of Bernie Sanders and his surrogates, not to mention the emotional blackmail shortly to be unleashed in an effort to force people to vote for whichever ghoul the backroom cigar smokers decide is the least-worst to go against Trump if Joe Biden turns out to require his mashed potato spoonfed ever sooner than it seems right now.
There is now and up to now no shortage of bernie hate. It’s not possible for one person to make the lift some expect from him. He made a deal. Give me gig/self employed UI and he’d sign on. They did, he did. Bernie is too smart to get himelf into a battle of the bulge where he over extends. The race is not over and indeed there is still time and circumstance for the grifting political class to lose their moorings and need a rescue themselves. IMO he’s the only chance you/we have. Look to how the haters don’t have a viable alternative, just “No Bernie!” If you’re not on the ballot, you won’t win. You can’t move a ship standing on the dock pushing it with a toothpick, you need to go all aubrey/machurin and roll over the rails and take it by force or circumstance. Right now now we have circumstance coming out of our ears and our bettors would love nothing more than bernie jumping overboard. By the time the moon reaches full again you’re not going to recognize your country.
An expanded analogy, the ship is clearly being controlled by people other than bernie, bernie is at this time just a vocal passenger who has said “rocky shoals ahead!” but the ones in control are saying “just shut up bernie!” “OK” he says, and dons his bright yellow survival suit and say “Full steam ahead.” to which the elites say “why are you wearing those funny clothes? You look like a clown…”
Sanders supporter here and I totally agree.
This was exactly the time to use all that dry powder — a very high stakes vote, which is worse than the 2008 bailout, and Sanders should have done his best to stop it all. Instead, crickets.
On the one hand: Yes, I agree, and I’m bitterly upset about it. Sometimes you have to say no to something, and hold the line, if you ever expect to deliver meaningful change, or have any negotiating leverage, and this was a time to say no. Force the Republicans to go out and be the ones denying relief to ordinary people out of work, whose mortgages and healthcare and small businesses were at risk, day after day after day, because Democrats wouldn’t agree to no-strings bailouts for plutocrats. See how long they can keep telling the vast majority of voters their lives and financial safety don’t matter.
On the other? I can’t entirely condemn him for the vote. It’s not just that it’s hard to tell that majority of frightened, precariously-placed people that they need to wait for help, and with no guarantees at the end (although that doesn’t help). It’s also that if the corporatists and easily frightened in your own party can’t be persuaded to stand with you, in enough numbers to block a deal, it doesn’t do you any good. All you can do under those circumstances is try to extract something in return for your vote. Which appears to be what Sanders and the handful of allies prepared to back him that far succeeded in doing.
Or you can still say no, and stand up for principle, and hope to explain in ways that will give you more power next time. And work with anyone in the House you can find who’ll help slow it down so that maybe you get another bite at the thing. As I said, I’d have liked to see him do it; and I’d have more faith in his ability and willingness to fight the party now if he had. But I can’t condemn him as fully as I’d like to: It’s a hell of a hostage to ask him to allow to be shot for the cause.
TARP bailout failed the first vote in the House of Rep. 12 years later, no Senator has the guts to do the same.
It would have been a very easy explanation to demand 2 packages, one for people and one for corporations. We now have a R congressman saying $2T = $12k / adult, so therefore $1200 is not enough, but Sanders couldn’t do that.
No change is possible if the “leader” buckles this easily. I don’t recall George Washington et al saying King George was his friend.
There was plenty he addressed succinctly, I mean bullet point simple in his fireside chats last weekend. Nobody rallied behind him in a way which might have helped. I personally don’t think even that would have moved congress much if at all, but he had no people rally for so much as a million phone calls to D.C. with his list in front of them.
I think TARP had 100/1 against it with high phone volume.
Senate Votes 96-0 for one of the most obvious Wall Street bailouts in American history, after the Federal Reserve has already announced they are showing Wall Street with $trillions in direct stimulus which they are already putting to use buying up distressed assets. This will ramp up inequality even further, strengthen corporate monopolies as small businesses get decimated. Congress is bickering about various social agendas and pet projects while millions of Americans file for unemployment, and a company (Boeing) that recently killed hundreds of people is set to receive an $18 billion bailout.
There. Is. No. Democratic. Party.
It is not a controlled flight.
And the chances that we will get a genuine “Change” Candidate are close to zero.
Societal collapse is a very real possibility and almost certain if the Corona Virus mutates into something more deadly.
Change, if it happens, will come from the bottom, not the top. There’s been a split in the Dem party for at least the past 140 years between the corporatist Wall Street and the progressive Main Street wings: William Jennings Bryan vs Grover Cleveland, FDR vs John Nance Gardner, for examples. The change from corporatist control to progressive control wasn’t then (and won’t be now) a question of party internal deliberations. Events are in the saddle. When enough people are desperate they start acting outside their usual norms. The histories written about the Great Depression always leave that important part out.
I agree with you. If change comes in party contro it will be driven by events in the country at large, not by inner party debates in comfortable settings. It will be driven by fear of what is happening on the ground, fear of losing the country.
Hammer, meet nail. I do despair. I spend every day, all day (though lately distanced), with fellow members of the PMC who just do not get it. They see Trump and Biden as polar opposites rather than peas in a pod. These are mostly scientists and physicians, but they are as blind to data, facts, and just plain common sense as Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Chief of Staff (Falwell is not blind, he is a disc jockey milking the format for all it is worth, not unlike Rush). My conclusion is they still think The Man is not also coming for them. Our curriculum is currently being delivered by Zoom, which is OK for meetings but absolutely not a substitute for real teaching and mentoring. I’ve heard the inevitable: “Wow, this really works! Students speak up more while on Zoom than they do in the tutorial room!” Well, no. They speak up because they want to make sure you know they are actually on their computer while checking Facebook or doing email, or shopping in another open window. But instead of tutoring a handful of medical students at a time face to face, money(!) will be “saved” by having one faculty member “tutor” 25-150 at a time on Zoom. We will, finally, now that the good fight has been lost, just “tell ’em what they need to know,” which has been heard more than once. We will end up as the equivalent of the Pfizer and Gilead reps, who will also tell them what they need to know. And those physicians we “produce,” they will (mostly) not know the difference. Alas.
It’s isn’t now and won’t be healed in the future. Both parties are only interested in having power and implementing their agenda. Neither party is willing to give up any power. They makes compromise almost impossible. The people don’t matter to either party. To quote Bob Dylan, ” Your only a pawn in their game”
The people who spent five years calling Sanders supporters sexists and so forth are now running a segregation is and rapist for President who has no interest in policy. Unity is dead.
Lots to consider here, but I’m coming around to letting the chips fall on POTUS 2020 and focusing on turning the squad of four into platoons, then companies to regiments. Bernie must be recognized as the one that gave us a voice rather than Obama’s bullshit “hope” and then nope. As for charisma, Bernie has more in his jabbing index finger than Biden can muster with the entire Clinton crime family at his beck and call. As one of the old Democrats said, “All politics is local.” Instead of the Presidency (a bridge too far), I’m going to work for and donate to dog catchers, council men and women, judges, mayors, governors, representatives and senators. I’m 77 and won’t see it, but think of the day when a shirt with Bernie’s wispy hair and glasses is as fashionable as Che is today
AOC for president 2024.
Let’s wait on that. We just saw Bernie vote for a $2 trillion Wall Street giveaway even though it conflicts with “every principle” he ever espoused. One sheepdog allowed per party please.
We have to remember what the Democratic Party is on a really granular level. Typically they are group of locals with similar social and economic views that meet monthly to exchange information and ideas, support political positions, endorse candidates, opposes or endorse referenda, carry on their petty internecine warfare, kibbitz around and ultimately control the crown jewel – the ballot line.
You and I can register Democrat and are welcome to attend any and all of these meetings, participate in discussions, argue positions, vote on movements (ahem) and various candidates and munch the hors d’oeurves. However, keep in mind that this is by-and-large a private club. The people at the monthly meeting are the core (Party) group that make policy for the larger (Democrats) group. They drink together, do business together, golf together and are generally part of limited social group. Every four years, these are the people that you see on TV wandering around vast convention halls with straw boaters, goofy sun-glasses, multitudinous huge political buttons and red-white-and-blue everywhere. So, when you are welcomed at their monthly meetings you can expect to be marginalized.
You wanna’ take over the Democrat Party? Get a large number of similarly committed friends. Register Democrat. Show up at the next monthly Democrat Party meeting. Get more similarly committed friends and show up at the next months meeting…you will need them. Wash, rinse, repeat and prepare for a long and vicious battle, because you are engaging in a coup d’etat. I’m gonna take a nap now.
That’s exactly how the ‘moral majority’ and the Reaganites took over the GOP. They ran stealth candidates in sleep local elections, where the standard Eisenhower GOP candidates had been winning without much opposition to the moderate GOP philosophy. The insurgent Reaganites organized outside official party structures to plan and impliment their takeover of local, then state GOP groups. Always running a stealth candidate who claimed to be a moderate GOP believer, but word went out to the insurgents to show up in numbers at primary or general and vote for that pol. And they did. And it caught everyone by surprise. Over and over again, it caught everyone by surprise. Until the takeover was complete.
But the Dem party structure knows about that. No more stealth takeovers.
+100.
“You wanna’ take over the Democrat Party? Get a large number of similarly committed friends…”
…there’s the rub
Except that the Dems are specifically organized against this possibility down to the municipal level, dating back to the early 20th century when the Socialists and Farmer-Labor types tried it. They will shut down the party and abandon an area to the Reps rather than let it happen.
They keep abandoning greater areas of the country as well as the electorate. They can try to keep running a national party with just 20% of nation and serving only half of them, but eventually the Blue areas are going to insufficient.
The Democratic Party is the oldest extant political party in this country. Long past its expiration date and it’s heading for the dustbin of history just like the Whigs, etc. I won’t miss it.
And Biden says he doesn’t think people want to hear criticism about Trump…
My guess is the fundraising isn’t going too well. I suspect the Hillary lost broke the fundraising spigot Team Blue had on the expectation of an assured victory.
Biden has always been a terrible fundraiser, and his entire campaign team (not just the bag men) are still living in 1980. Even PMC types (Biden’s donors) are in financially precarious circumstances; in a pandemic their instinct, like everyone else, is to crouch into a fetal position and eliminate unnecessary spending.
Or as written up in Vanity Fair recently, “writing a check to Joe Biden is not a major priority.” No, I don’t suppose so, ha ha.
I thought losing to Trump after everything that came out during the 2016 election would be the best example of Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but their hostility to Sanders and the part of their base he represents means the will lose to Trump again even with a huge public health crisis and recession months before election day. Conventional wisdom would say that’s impossible, but it’s what will happen imo.
The last time the Dems lost an election after trying for suburban moderates they refused to even accept a little responsibility for their loss, choosing instead to blame Russia or “populism” or basically everything and everybody except themselves. They’ll still blame people like me when they lose, but I was trying to help prisoners under Obama, have done so under Trump, and will have to under the next president regardless of party. As a result I’m immune to guilt trips about “kids in cages” from people who would go back to drinking mimosas once the Big Bad Republicans are out of power.
There are probably some parts of the Dem establishment secretly hoping Trump is re-elected. After all, a lot of the NGOs who are big funders of the party have a much better time fundraising under a Republican president and would be out of a job if we had a functioning welfare state.
The Grover Cleveland/John Nance Gardener/Clinton wing of the party will never, ever willingly surrender to the Bryan/FDR/Sanders wing of the party. Never ever.
Gov. Cuomo is in the Clinton wing. He is not a unity candidate, imo.
“The Grover Cleveland/John Nance Gardener/Clinton wing of the party will never, ever willingly surrender to the Bryan/FDR/Sanders wing of the party.”
Question: Could the Sanders + Squad wing of the unDemocrat party form a coalition with the Republican Party populists (Rubio and handfull of others) to form an alliance that has any power?
What would it take? How many members in each house?
If not, the Democratic Party should end. Kill it with fire. May something better emerge from the ashes.
I hope so. Life and politics are fluid. It’s also possible that parties change core positions to gain advantage over the opposition party. The problem with the current Dem estab, imo, is they aren’t interested in gaining advantage over the other party; they’re only interested in maintaining their continued estab perks as ‘the second party’ and indifferent to their voters.
Among the followers, i.e. the rank and file voters, there is a dangerous age divide. As an old person, I can loosely explain why some older people “don’t see the light”, but I can’t explain individuals. My wide ranging guess is that many older people are scared. They see life changing in ways that didn’t exist when they were young. It may also depend, per individual, on who they were when they were young. Were they hippies and still hippie – or did they turn conservative after an early hippie binge. Were they stuff-shirt Young Republicans who stayed stuff-shirt or did they at some point detonate the button-down mindset. All different kinds of combinations are possible.
Among most of the young – as represented on Sanders subreddits, (young being a relative adjective for an old person), the older generation seems to be a monolith – cranky, ignorant, and hopeless. From what I can infer of their conversations with old people, they explain (lecture?) Bernie’s programs and why they’re good for them (old people) and just throw their hands up in disgust when the old people resist. I have tried, on occasion, to suggest that they have a more wide ranging conversation with said old people to find out what their experiences in life have been to form the kinds of opinions they have. Many of these people lived through the “red scare” as children. I wish Sanders had used FDR more as a reference for this programs – Democratic Socialsm and not Socialism – because I think that has created problems for him with older people who are more conservative that me.
The negative attitude sometimes verges on spite. When only one of the four primary states delayed voting because of the corona virus, one redditor quipped it serve the old people right – if they got the virus and died – for going out to vote for Joe Biden.
I’m not making the accusation of “Bernie Bro” – I’m well aware of the nastiness of the neoliberal followers. It’s the mindsets in place by old and young that are going to a real a real problem going forward.
Great comment. One thing that could be in older voters’ experience is possibly supporting alternative candidates like John Anderson in ’80, Ross Perot in ’92, and Howard Dean in 2004….and getting burned. (Reagan, Clinton, and W.) And are now highly skeptical of the likely chances of any alternative candidate. Older and wiser, or older and more skeptical about ‘the process.’ It’s a possibility, imo.
It’s also true there was significant party controlled voter suppression in the younger and poorer precincts of Dem voters. ‘the process’.
If Sanders (when?) drops out and erndorses Biden, this will only make even the younger voters lose faith in progressive candidates from the DimRat party. More people will become more fed up and cynical and stay away from the polls altogether.
“I think Tom is being unduly polite. Can the Democratic Party be diverted from its current controlled flight into terrain?”
This made me laugh out load! Hahahaha!
No, Yves. They cannot … they’re going to slam into the mountainside because they refuse to rise to the occasion.
“They’d rather die in the saddle or live out their days strong in the Party but powerless electorally, than surrender the Party to Sanders and the unwashed who want to see them all gone from office for good.”
#QED
The problem in the UK, it seems, is that while the members are able to elect the party leader, they have no direct control over the platform, which the PLP can change as they please. I do verily believe that is what cost Jeremy Corbyn the election.
For those who skipped clicking on “this” link in the article – its a youtube ( which I didn’t watch ) about :
I had heard vague rumblings of this but nothing so specific.
{gad, I wish people would summarize the links contents not just say “this”. I was brought up never to click on links without checking where they lead to, because of malevolent ones – but also in an unimpeachable source, hover over them, revealing the URL can sometimes indicate truthfully what its about, but if the link is to a youtube or to a tinyURL one is none the wiser so one just ignores it}
My wide ranging guess is that many older people are scared. They see life changing in ways that didn’t exist when they were young. It may also depend, per individual, on who they were when they were young.
Well said, although I believe that fear existed when they were young as well….
1. America emerged from the Depression and WW2 with a reinvigorated social contract and broad consensus. Big But Not Too Big Gov had worked out ok in the war, and Catholics and Jews were joining the Anglo-Saxon elite, culminating in the coronation of JFK. We generally had warm feelings for our fellow (white) Americans: Archie could court Veronica and not scandalize Riverdale. We loved our big houses and big cars and big TVs. It’s a small world after all….
2. But for all this fine self-regard, American life began going visibly sideways starting in the mid 1960s, amid:
– imperial overreach (Vietnam, the Bomb, the MIC, guns and butter)
– abandonment of cities and towns (ghettoizing black poverty, also destroying independent small business as a class in America)
– social atomization (suburbia, bowling alone, TV nation)
– unhealthy lifestyles (diet, no exercise, latchkey kids, etc.)
– in all institutions, dilettante credentialists and financial engineers elbowing out up-from-the-mailroom ‘lifers’ (stable ‘handshake’ relationships displaced by zero-sum transactions, fragility and overlawyering)
3. All those factors, and numerous others I haven’t thought of, spell FEAR — a looming shadow of insecurity and precarity just around the corner, even in the ‘good times’. Not Boomer bashing here*, just saying that it isn’t narcissism or fecklessness, but FEAR that has made most of them the myopic petty bourgeois they never thought they’d become:
– numbed to compassion at home and abroad, voting down local school budgets, reflexively fearful of strangers
– readily outraged at injustices in the abstract, but unwilling to lift a finger personally (that’s what I pay taxes for, isn’t it?)
– addicted to consumer debt, cheap toys and cheap oil
– docile in the face of employer abuses and betrayals
– suckers for Morning in America/Hope empty talk
4. So today even the fortunate folks with paid off mortgages and defined benefit pensions are still glancing over their shoulders at (shudder!) the abstract Other, whether it’s greedy bankers or moochers (mainly of color, or with strange tattoos) trying to take it away from them. (Meanwhile of course, the private equity owners of their old age homes and Medigap providers have latched on to their estates).
* I’m a tail end Boomer btw: I didn’t get any free love, I got gas lines, AIDS, and the ever increasing need to go deeply into debt to check the expected boxes in life.
The mid-60s saw, not just the divisive Vietnam War, but also LBJ signing the civil rights act and the voting rights act, which split the old dem coalition of Southern Dixiecrats from Northern and Western Liberals. Strom and Orrin and other old Southern New Deal stalwarts left the party and took their states with them into the GOP fold; this was something unimaginable until then, the GOP being regarded prior to this as the foe of the South. That broke the old New Deal coalition. (note: LBJ did the right thing, and said at the time he would lose the South for a generation. He was correct.) The Dem party had divided and halved its strength in the electorate. It was saddled with the Vietnam war, which drafted the young men who didn’t get college deferments (class based), and made Hubert anathema to a large swath of former Dem voters in the North and the West.
So how did the Dem party respond? By going full bore into anti-union, market worship. Markets, after all, are socially and culturally ‘neutral’ – they claimed (if you squint hard enough). And here we are. The party courts Wall St. donors and suburban Republican voters.
adding: about fear in the middle class in the mid-20th to late 20th century, I recommend Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “The Fear of Falling.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24457.Fear_of_Falling
First, Bernie hasn’t yet lost. Biden is not close to having the votes for the first ballot.
Second, voting against a bill with real benefits for the working class would not increase his chances. He did manage to get changes that make the bill better for workers, and this can be touted in coming primaries even if msm won’t mention it.
Third, the virus is making Bernie look better and Biden look worse. Cuomo looks better, but it’s well known he cut beds… and he hasn’t won any primaries. Neither has Michelle or hillary. Imo it’s either Biden or Bernie unless they’re both out on account of health.
Fourth, the virus… this is a very black swan. Predictable and predicted, but the country is perhaps less prepared than any other first world country. Things will get a lot worse before they get any better. Voters in coming primaries might really appreciate someone pushing m4a… imagine if they decide it’s their top,priority.
Biden can duck the April debate, but voters will notice, as well they notice that Bernie is talking sense about what we should be doing.
Not over till it’s over.
I have no intention of supplying any more funding to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. If, on the other hand, he asked me for money to support a new political party, then I might be interested. Unfortunately, Bernie is too embedded in the D party to even try that
I agree totally. If he had done that 3 years ago as many of us tried to get him to do, at worse 5(3 Democratic Party would be backing M4A and the GND to counter that effort. Also, Bernie and others would not be backing the newWS bailout, consequently the D Party would not be either.
Mildly pedantic… if predictable and predicted, it’s by definition not a black swan. Simply an extreme event like a hurricane or earthquake. Yes, historically extreme, but predictable
A few minutes ago I received this email from Senator Warren. I think it is mainly a mechanism to get $ into her re-election campaign. Perhaps expecting to be primaried by a progressive? Interesting that this new entity is carved out of the Democrat Party as specifically “Warren Democrats” – a new wing of the party? Or am I watching the USA turn into a third world nation where all political parties are built on personalities, not principles and platforms…Bernie’s focus on a movement not based on himself may be prescient…
Red,
I’m no longer running for president of the United States.
But our grassroots movement was never just about winning one election.
In Washington and across the country, people have come together to fight side by side for big, structural change — not for me, but for each other. That fight goes on, Red.
And today, we’re announcing Warren Democrats to power that fight.
Warren Democrats is a movement for everybody who believes in the power of bold, inclusive reform to root out corruption in government and put power in the hands of the people.
Right now, that means working to ensure we put people first in solving the coronavirus outbreak and the economic crisis in the short term — and rebuilding our economy in the long term.
This movement will not only support my re-election campaign for Senate, but will also support other Democratic candidates who share our vision, mobilize people to support those candidates and our ideas, and continue to build the grassroots movement that you’ve started.
Red, if you’re fired up to stay in this fight, sign up today to join us.
I admire your optimism but the DimRats will change the rules to nominate JB in the first ballot. They’ll pull the same crooked tactics to make JB the winner in the final set of primaries. Thank you Bernie but please don’t support JB.
If they do change the rules once again in the middle of the election, not only do I say screw’em, they are finished as an effective political party. Elections and victories have consequences, but so do appearances and beliefs.
IMHO things are too dynamic right now to read the tea leaves about a democrat nominee and party unity. Two big factors that will play out before mid summer: (1) The amount of blood that will be on the hands of the Trump administration for minimizing the severity of the COVID pandemic and botching the response – to be determined. Whether a significant proportion of those in the GOP that are hurt by the economic fallout and awaken to the idiocracy don’t vote or flip parties – to be determined.
(2) Biden’s choice of VP could have a big impact on galvanizing the party splits to some degree, especially given that he appears to be on the cusp of dementia and would likely need to step down before the end of his first term. A strong VP personality who has the respect of the progressives and is viewed as the likely successor in a 25th amendment transfer of power…to be determined. However, the dark power of the corporate/political establishment is strong in Biden. My expectations are low.
What do we want?
Incremental change!
When do we want it?
Eventually!
If not now, probably never.
If Sanders were serious about his pledge to stop Trump, he would as soon as possible organize a third party run for President. Biden now revealed not only as a liar but also a sexual predator will lose to Trump and Sanders running as a third party candidate is the only way I can think of to stop him (them).
27% of voters are willing to admit they are democrats, last I recall. This number will surely fall soon. The question of 2020 is where the independents go.
” it seems Dem leaders are determined to burn the building if they don’t get their way, and as things stand today, they will succeed.”
And that’s a bad thing? The Democratic Party is where leftish movements go to die. That’s its job.
And now a partisan announcement: social distancing and quarantines make political petitioning impossible. But that’s required to get ANY 3rd party on the ballot in the majority of states. The Green Party presently has ballot access in about 20 states (including Oregon). The Howie Hawkins campaign and the party are presently going to court seeking injunctions for alternatives. That takes money. If you want an alternative to the Dems in November, you would do well to send them some. I’ll risk a couple of links: howiehawkins.us; and http://www.gp.org.
I’m reading “Happy Days are Here Again” about the 1932 Democratic Convention. Roosevelt was opposed by the Democratic establishment then. This included most of the newspapers, the business class generally, and just about every leading elected Democratic politician. Roosevelt side-stepped these interests and courted delegates directly. The delegates liked rural modernization, agricultural supports, and rural electrification. He had ideas and solutions. But a key ingredient lacking with both Biden and Sanders: Roosevelt had charm. He really connected with people. Biden is all rehearsed talking points. Sanders arguably is the angry prophet. The idea of Cuomo is intriguing, but can he connect with everyday folks?
If the Democratic Party collapses, new groups will emerge, if we don’t have martial law. Corporations, AIPAC, and other powerful interest groups will try to figure out how to seize control of these movements. It will be like a rehash of the primaries, or like the manipulations of the Arab Spring or the Tea Party Movement.
I am afraid that the Covid virus is being used to change the rules to allow for uncontrolled looting of the American Treasury. It will also lead to a lot of failures of small businesses and a further roll-up of power into very large corporations. It is also cover to steal the nomination from Bernie again.
To me things are looking pretty ugly.
I think that “controlled flight into terrain” means ” throw the election on purpose”. I am becoming convinced the Democrats are working to throw the election on purpose. Their gamble is that Trump Term Two will make things so bad for so many people that those people will resign themselves to ” you have nowhere else to go” in 2024.
They will also try to “blame” the “loss” on Sander’s effort and all his supporters’ efforts. They will try to psychologically extort the Sanderbackers into submitting to Democratic Party Brain-Rule.
One hopes they instead inspire the Sanderbackers into the kind of cold hatred which lasts for decades and which can in part be focused on tracking every Party Democrat and destroying its life in every way possible, even after it is driven out of politics.