Perez Chosen as DNC Chair

From my comment in the last thread:

“Tom Perez got elected to head the DNC ensuring that the Democratic party’s march into irrelevancy will continue. It’s funny that the Democrats response to each new defeat is to double down and dish out even bigger helpings of more of the same. Some might say that this is because they don’t get it. I think they do get it. They just don’t care.

I forget the commenter, my apologies, but he said recently that we are going down because we can’t get it together anymore to do obvious things.”

This also applies to the Democrats. The bottom 80% is getting killed by the status quo. So what do the Democrats do? They ran on and continue to run on the status quo. Progressives have great programs and great energy. So what do the Democrats do? They tell them to STFU, and pivot right. Back in 2008, Obama had the beginnings of a great grassroots organization that could have won state legislatures and he stifled it as soon as he won the election. He could have passed universal single payer for healthcare and he went for the Republican-inspired Romneycare, redubbed Obamacare. In 2016, the Republicans nominated their worst candidate in twenty years. A ham sandwich could have beaten Donald Trump, but the Democrats ran the one candidate who could lose to him. And they didn’t just run this candidate. They rigged the whole nomination process to get this candidate. They have lost the Presidency and the Congress. They have lost at both the national and state levels. And their response? As always, more of the same. Rather than cleaning house of the deadwood, they have put the deadwood, Schumer, Pelosi, and now Perez, at their head. They won’t organize and they won’t back programs popular with voters. Much like Hillary Clinton, their whole game plan appears to be that they are not Trump. And we know how well that worked out in the election. You can not beat something with nothing. And nothing is all the Democrats have to offer voters. As I said in the last thread, they encourage others to protest and to leave their blood upon the floor, but as always they will leave none of their own there.

My advice is to forget the Democrats and the Republicans. Start a movement, have a vision for the country and the programs to achieve it, create a party and run people from that movement. They don’t need 30 years experience in government. We run people based on the program not the person, we run at all levels, and we fight, win or lose. I have to think that a lot of people are sick to death of voting for Republicans and being sold out by them, and then voting for Democrats and being sold out by them, back and forth. Trump is already selling his supporters out on a hundred fronts. We either sink or we start something new. Why not start now?

“They want Americans poor. They want the poor to stay poor. They want the middle class to decline.” Ian

I like this post very much; all of it. You posit some very simple truths which Usian’s seem loathe to accept or understand.
The evidence is clear with almost every comment offering nonsense solutions; year after precious year; ad infinitum…
If there is a solution; I have no idea what that would be. But knowing and understanding the reality on the ground, gives a firm place to stand.

I’m actually rather pleased. I hope that next week and beyond any lefties still kinda sorta hanging on to the Dems realize what’s what, and walk away. If there’s ever going to be a real Left Populist party here, that a necessary precondition.

Because of the distribution of senate seats, 2018 is already looking grim for the Dem senate wheezers. At the state level, of course, they’re hopeless, so there’ll be little change there. I’m hoping the final stake in the Dem zombie will be a crushing rout in the congressional races. They’re already pretty damn useless as an opposition (“The Resistance” — what a fucking joke!), so a few dozen less Dems in Congress won’t make much difference in its day-to-day fever dreams…..

Fare thee well Democrats. Don’t let the door slam you in the ass on the way out.

>Guy wins position
>Guy immediately appoints Bernie’s candidate as deputy chair literally within minutes
>Bernie supporters still flip their shit about “the establishment”/shills/etc

Never change guys.

Wasn’t Perez a pretty good Secretary of Labor, all things considered? Lately I have been coming around to accepting that even Blue Dog Democrats are worth supporting. The Republicans have moved so far to the right that it makes sense to support even moderate Democrats just to stop the bleeding for working people. For example, the Democrats may not give enough support to labor unions but the Republicans want to completely destroy them. To me that is a big enough difference to at least hold my nose and vote for the Democrats come election time.

Here is another example. I have seen some people online say that a progressive should primary Joe Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, because Manchin voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. But can a Berniecrat really win in West Virginia? Manchin is probably the best we can get out of West Virginia and he is pretty good on a number of economic issues like protecting the pensions of retired coal miners.

Even if the Democrats are only marginally better than the Republicans that margin still means a lot to many people and is enough for me to accept Perez even though I would have preferred Ellison. Whoever can do a good job implementing a 50-state strategy, increasing turnout, helping Democrats at the state and local level, and fight GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering is fine with me as DNC chair. I am willing to give Perez a chance even though he was not my preferred choice.

Left-wingers should keep up the pressure on the Democrats though and not get discouraged. The Democrats were never a left-wing party and only moved to the left when the labor movement, the civil rights movement and other social movements forced them to move left. Today left-wing movements are weak but you never know what will happen in the future. How many people thought Donald Trump would become president?

@Herman
Yeah, that makes sense. Republicans have moved so far right that it makes sense to support the new Republicans who call themselves Democrats. Support the policies which we have long opposed merely because they are now espoused by people wearing the clothing that we’ve always supported. And we wonder why the middle class is suffering.

Is it possible for The Left in America to win some local elections and provide proof of how their governing approach makes people’s lives better? The liberal enclaves in America I know about tend to be rich and white which makes it difficult to determine if it’s really the liberal philosophies that are making things better or just the fact that they’re well off by other means.

After all, Brownback’s Kansas is providing proof that conservative minimal government principles don’t improve the majority of the populace’s lives. Can we have a counter-example where the Left makes it work well?

they’re just another group of enemies.

I’m going to try that line on my “liberal” friends. They are basically the Rockefeller Republicans that I grew up with. Their eyes glaze over when I talk about economic justice issues like a BGI or living wage or Medicare for All.

@Will,

I agree with you about identity politics. It is not working and it turns off many whites who don’t like being painted as privileged or racist. Even if you think white privilege or male privilege exists it is a bad narrative to use from a strategic standpoint because it turns off potential white voters and it fuels the right’s narrative that liberals hate whites. This is why the “demographics is destiny” strategy is so wrongheaded. It promotes a dangerous form of tribalism and is really a kind of anti-politics if you ask me.

I am way further to the left on economics than most Democratic politicians and the party’s neoliberalism angers me but I also wonder if the country is really ready for social democratic policies. There are some signs that such policies would be popular. For example, from what I understand there is a lot of support for true universal healthcare. But I think the stumbling block is that relatively affluent people tend to vote more and to be politically active and this makes the Democrats unwilling to put forward a more left-wing platform. They are afraid of angering that block of voters who are liberal or moderate on social issues but relatively conservative on economics. These voters dominate the Democratic Party now. The Democrats look at the failure of the single-payer ballot initiative in Colorado and the losses suffered by liberal Democrats like Russ Feingold and Zephyr Teachout and say “we better stay moderate or move to the right.”

The decline of union membership has also been disastrous for the left because we no longer have a large number of people who are involved with and educated by organizations that exist specifically to advance the cause of working people. Without that involvement and education people gravitate to scapegoating minorities, conspiracy theories and identity politics, including the kind of identity politics that the GOP utilizes.

I think we are going to be stuck with neoliberal Democrats for a while, at least until a strong organized left can develop outside of the party apparatus and push the Democrats to the left by mobilizing working-class and poor Americans. Right now huge numbers of working-class and poor Americans are completely alienated from politics. They don’t vote and they don’t get involved with politics because they don’t see anything in it for them. We have to change that.

Not vice chair. Deputy chair. Probably in charge of refreshments.

What an ironic and poetic end for the party of Andrew Jackson. History does have a wicked sense of humor.

“…neoliberalism angers me but I also wonder if the country is really ready for social democratic policies…the stumbling block is that relatively affluent people tend to vote more and to be politically active Democrats..are afraid of angering that block of voters who are liberal or moderate on social issues but relatively conservative on economics. These voters dominate the Democratic Party now.”

They dominate the Democrat power apparatus, not the primary voters, in spite of all the anti-democratic provisions to ensure that they, a minority, use to control the party. These vicious neoliberal/neocolonial Democrats [in name only] stole the party in the 80’s by ensuring that true Democrats lost elections and then; were not able to get “holding jobs” at “think tanks”, “lobby groups” et al which would have kept them in the game.

Kendrick Meek is an excellent example of what happens to boilerplate FDRists.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/black-floridians-shouldnt-vote-for-hillary-until-she-apologizes-to-kendrick-meek-8320267

The Democrats are NOT better than the Republicans. I think the past 8 years have shown that a wolf in sheep’s clothing is far more damaging than a plain ol’ wolf.

@ Montanamaven

I agree that locally controlled organizations have their appeal, but they will always still have the Federal government cracking the whip over them; witness the Fed response to local legalization of marijuana.

The Feds are always the 800 pound gorilla in the room-we can’t seriously or credibly speak of freedom until that gorilla is responsive to the People. The best we can say re a contrarian local ‘autonomy” is that we haven’t been noticed yet.

@realitychecker,

If the only realistic voting options for me are a Republican and a Democrat I will usually choose the Democrat because they will likely be better on a number of issues. For example, if you care about maintaining labor unions in some form, would you vote for a party that supports right-to-work laws or the one that does not, even if they don’t really go out of their way to help unions that much? If I have to pick between the party that wants to kill me while I am down or the one that simply ignores me, the latter is preferable if I have no other realistic choice. I can at least continue to exist and maybe regroup and fight back at some point.

Adolph Reed, no friend of the neoliberal Democrats, made similar points during the 2016 election.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/08/18/vote-lying-neoliberal-warmonger-its-important

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xveDowt0BUQ

I am in favor of pushing more progressive candidates if they can win. But there are strategic reasons to sometimes support a moderate Democrat if the only other realistic option is a Republican who is likely to be worse. Could a more progressive Democrat than Joe Manchin win in West Virginia?

@Montanamaven,

I agree that much work needs to be done outside of the normal political process. But conventional politics is still useful in creating breathing space for these experiments to work. What good will cooperative efforts be if the government ends up being controlled by those who will attempt to destroy such efforts, especially if they become popular? Voting and conventional politics is just one realm of action and perhaps the least effective realm. But I don’t think it is time to give up on mainstream politics yet, if only to provide people some breathing space to act in other realms.

The thing that the left has to face is that we have almost no institutional clout right now. Our organizations are weak and disorganized. Maybe things are changing now that it is becoming clear that the Third Way is a both a political and socioeconomic failure.

I’ve tended to see R as bullies, D as bully enablers (with of course a puppetmaster manipulating both). Which is worse? There was a guy who blogged about bullying. He didn’t forgive the Columbine shooters, but tried to explain why they targeted enablers instead of the bullies themselves. I’m still not sure how effective that approach was. I’d rather cut the head off the snake.

Here is an example of even a moderate Democrat being better than a Republican:

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards issues executive order to expand Medicaid.

http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_a035f7fd-fa48-5df6-9333-b3f1ceaa184d.html

Can we really say that there is no difference between Edwards and the former governor Bobby Jindal who refused Medicaid expansion?

This is why I say that it is not true that there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. There are differences and even if these differences are marginal they are still significant for many people. The margins matter.

Herman gives the usual disjointed defense of lesser evilism we have become used to. Progressives have no clout and should vote for bad or the less bad Democrat even though this ensures that they will have no clout in the future.

He cites the loss in the universal single payer referendum in Colorado. Did the Democrats in Colorado support that initiative? Why no, they didn’t. Michael Bennett the senior Democratic Senator from Colorado who was running for re-election came out against it.

He cites expanding Medicaid as a positive reason to support Democrats. He doesn’t seem to understand that many voters who benefit from expanded Medicaid still don’t like Obamacare and voted for Trump because they’ve seen all the good jobs go away. They’re not looking for handouts and will vote against their immediate interests if they are angry enough and want change enough. The Democratic message of status quo, status quo, status quo doesn’t play at all with them. Why should they vote for a party that doesn’t listen to them? Why, for that matter, should progressives?

And it is precisely for this reason that a POS politician like Manchin in West Virginia would be vulnerable from a progressive populist, because he would be vulnerable to a populist of any stripe.

Appreciate the real one Herman, thank you.

I will say this: Bernie had a large and enthusiastic group of supporters in WV. He won the state as a matter of fact. He and his policy stands were very popular. And for good reason. Clinton was seen for the duplicitous thief that she is.

This is a time of upheaval and it is easy to both see things that aren’t really there and to miss things that are blindingly obvious. But I will say this: Trump ain’t what a lot of hacks say he is. But keep stifling the populist center and you’ll eventually get a real dangerous situation.

The system is trying to force change. For 10 years it’s been flashing warning signs. The status quo might have been the lesser of two evils but in times like these it can be lethal. But don’t expect those in power to see it, they are always the last to see and recognize the need for change.

I see we’re going to go into another round of Punishment Theory. Progressives have no clout because, as far as I can tell, they are all into punishment theory and cannot deliver reliable constituencies that turn out to vote. You can deploy the stick if you also have a carrot. Progressives have no carrot and the other side (even the other side in the Democratic party) also has a stick.

What’s weird about this whole Ellison vs. Perez relitigation of the primaries, at least around here, is that people here find it oddly rather difficult to see that Clinton actually had a grassroots constituency of people who actively wanted a Clinton presidency and were excited about Clinton. Not as a lesser evil or some second-best electable because they thought Sanders was better, but couldn’t win. I certainly wasn’t excited about Clinton, but I can empathize properly with those who were. And yet, hardly anyone here can genuinely appreciate or empathize with Clinton supporters — it’s pure contempt as far as the eye can see.

Clinton supporters see Sanders supporters as demanding support for their candidate while refusing to reciprocate. Clinton supporters may have been skeptical about Sanders, but they probably would have voted for Sanders over Trump. A lot of Sanders supporters claim to have stayed home or voted for Trump, because they wouldn’t vote for Clinton. From this perspective, why should any Clinton supporters give ground to a proxy Sanders candidate inside the party? What was there, for any level of Clinton supporter, to be excited about Ellison that they can’t get from Perez?

Again, Clinton did not have a grassroots public capable of delivering her an EC majority, but she had enough popular supporters that they can’t simply be dismissed by the lens used in the OP or the rest of the comments. Or she wouldn’t even have won the primary.

Herman:
Is Edwards better than Jindal? Yes. It’s a pretty damn low bar to clear though. It’s not a long-term driver to the polls though. Not in enough numbers.

Had Obama been willing to name, shame and punish the banksters in ’08, the Democratic Party could have finished off the Republican Party for a generation (maybe forever). Instead, he lavished funds and favors on them, to the detriment of everyone else, even paying off stupidly overvalued derivative bets that should have been nullified and then banned.

Remember when he joked that he was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks? That’s the day when I started calling myself an Independent.

Obama literally turned the gun that could have mowed down the Republicans onto his own party, instead. It was a collective suicide.

Last year Bernie gave the golem Dems a chance to rise, but they were too greedy to take it. It’s hardly surprising that they won’t change now. Just like the Rs, they’re all about money and lies.

Calling health care a “handout” isn’t talking in the language of the white working class, it’s adopting a bullshit right-wing frame. Health care is a basic human right. If progressives can’t even agree on that much, the movement is never going to get anywhere, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

@NR

That is not how you sell Healthcare to Working Class Whites. Instead you sell it this way.

“If your sick and don’t have coverage provided by the state like the roads and schools, you’ll die a horrible death, leave your family destitute and preyed upon by lenders, and then forced into bankruptcy. Likewise without universal healthcare, you’re at a higher risk of diseases spread by your fellow citizens and will pay higher prices at the stores as companies pass the costs of their sick workers onto you.”

These people need to know how Universal Healthcare works for them, not slogans.

@ V. Arnold

Right-e-o, self-exile to the sex tourism capital of the world, aka the Pedophile Paradise, cheerfully live under a military dictatorship, and put all your excess energy into reaching back to endlessly criticize the goings-on in the place you fled from. We should all follow your example, amirite?

You are a role model for the ages. We’re all coming to be your neighbors.

(The prostitutes will probably raise their prices when we all get there. Supply and demand. File that under, “No good deed goes unpunished.)

Can’t be said to often:

“liberalism is not New Dealism”

======================

“neoliberalism is a return..to..Wilsonian liberalism which was elitist, paternalistic, rabidly Red Scare, anti-populist, pro-corporate, pro-interventionist internationally”

And I would add, Wilson was profoundly RACIST. Not it in the lame overused language of today, using the term “racist” as rhetorical weapon to obfuscate when the argument has been lost…but in the hard core racism of Jim Crow, demoting, firing, segregating facilities…indeed, a model that Adolf Hitler followed.

Under Bill/Barack/Hillary, the Democrats have returned to their Wilsonian past. Yeah, the overt racism has seeped beneath the surface, but when Obama/Hillary “needed” to do regime change in Libya there was no hesitation in arming racist jihadis whose major goal was to “ethnically cleanse” Libya of all blacks through a horrific campaign of terror and death. And the media? Silent as the rocks of the Precambrian age.

Overturn the foundation stonework of any elitist neoliberal and you will find that the slime of racism still resides, neatly hidden, but thriving in it’s concealed environment.

@ V. Arnold

Yup, you went to where children are available for paid sex and a military junta sets the rules, and you are very proud and comfortable to be living in that environment while you criticize everything about this country.

But where you live, I know you don’t dare make a fucking peep.

Keep patting yourself on the back, asshole.

@ JMH

Wasserman Shultz was caught and exposed as being a thoroughly corrupt DNC chair.

So they handed her position to Donna Brazille, who had already been exposed as a thoroughly corrupt person, but was still deemed by the party to be a suitable DNC chair.

Braille was there to give a big hug to Perez as he succeeded her to the position that had just been held by two thoroughly corrupt people.

What should your expectations be for Perez?

Yes, I know all about that (but thanks, I guess?). Maybe I wasn’t clear – my point sets all of that aside and considers Perez’s electoral success, or lack thereof, as a lack of qualification in and of itself. Which illustrates all the more the actual reasons he was asked to run, and the reason why he won as well.

I expect nothing from Perez beyond the continued impuissance and failure of his party. 😀

>Guy immediately appoints Bernie’s candidate as deputy chair

In charge of “outreach”? Into the wallets of those coveted marks on “Sander’s List”? To charge those little pre-paid 27 dollar cards in service of The Party That Must Not Be Over?

I cannot tell whether Sanders has a Grand Strategy (and whether it would actually work) or whether he is just trying to walk a line that makes sense to him, but one would fervently hope that the man – or even somebody like Ellison, if worth a damn – would not have to degrade themselves to accept these “potted plant” gambits in service of meaningless political interior decoration.

Gotta say, there are some for whom this game of surplus musical chairs appears to be convincing, though…