Pierce: The Democratic Self-Sabotage Continues

[babylonsister]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56823/democrats-fighting/


The Democratic Self-Sabotage Continues

There's only one way out of our current crisis of government.

By Charles P. Pierce
Aug 4, 2017


I swear to god, if you invited 20 Democratic and/or liberal partisans to a four-star, five-course meal at the finest restaurant in all Provence, at least eight of them would get up, cross the room, and start fighting over who gets to eat out of the dog's bowl. Presented with a legitimate national crisis in the White House, and presented with the golden political opportunity that said crisis is almost entirely the fault of the Republican Party, which has demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of handling it, the Democratic Party has a chance to realign the electoral map over (at least) the next four years. All that's required is shrewdness, patience, and the ability to resist cannibalizing themselves long enough to watch the dry rot collapse the other side entirely.

Fat fcking chance.

Right at the moment, the main issues within the Democratic Party seem to be, in no particular order: 1) Kamala Harris: Threat or Menace?; Cory Booker: Sure, Legal Weed But Wall Street?; and, that evergreen squabble, Bernie Or Hillary; Why 2016 Will Never End. This is like that old Twilight Zone episode where The Major, The Clown, The Tramp, and The Bagpiper are all stuck in a windowless, impenetrable tube. Eventually, we discover that these characters are all dolls, and that the container is filled with a little kid's playthings. The current counterproductive exercises render promising Democratic politicians—including Harris and Booker—into toys for the ideological imagination, and not real people with the real potential to help end the political and governmental crisis in which the country placed itself last November.

(This willingness by Democrats to accept the pejorative images created of potential allies by the political opposition is even more virulent in the case of Nancy Pelosi. Here's David Kim, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Georgia, via The Sacramento Bee: Although Democrats other than Harbaugh were not so unequivocal in their opposition to Pelosi, many offered caustic assessments of her leadership, and the political liability she poses: "President Putin probably has a better approval rating in Georgia than Nancy Pelosi." True or not, this is not only gratuitous, it's stupid.)

On the surface, the fight between the progressive left and what can be idly called "the center" would seem to be a healthy one, the kind of thing that can clarify issues going forward. But those 2016 primaries, a miserable cur of a campaign driven by suspicion, personal invective, and heroic struggling over trivialities, all of which were further inflamed by some well-timed Russian ratfcking immediately before the party's national convention, grinds on into the future with no end in sight. This struggle isn't manifesting itself as a battle over ideas and/or visions of where the country should go, but as a grubby tussle over issues already decided last summer and over the definitions of words like "neoliberal." The undying fantasy of a Third Party is being revived again, mostly by people who absolutely have no idea the kind of work that would entail—hint: ask Lani Guinier—and absolutely no idea of how futile the whole effort might be.

(And that's not even to get into the completely unnecessary explosion that Congressman Ray Lujan, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, set off when he said the DCCC would support anti-choice candidates as long as they "fit the districts" in which they're running. Realpolitik or no, it is not a smart thing to declare publicly that you're open to pitching the privacy rights of 51 percent of the population—and of what is generally your entire margin of victory around the country—overboard. If an anti-choice Democrat wants to run, you let that candidate stand up and take the heat alone, instead of telegraphing to your most loyal voters that the party establishment is open for business on this issue. Where do they find these guys?)

Me? I blame Anthony Kennedy.

If he hadn't tipped the balance on Citizens United, our elections wouldn't be as swamped as they are with corporate money. Every primary campaign—and, increasingly, in both parties—is now framed as corporate 'hos vs. the Unsullied Base. What's damaging to democracy is that the argument is now wholly beside the point. More than any time since the end of the 19th Century, money is the metric by which a candidate's viability is judged. If taking money from anyone with an annual income of over $100,000, or if once having had someone of that sort for a client, or if you went out during your time out of politics to make your own pile—if any of these is an unpardonable heresy, then you're going to be very short on candidates.

The argument is pursued so ferociously because the stakes are so very small. There is only one way to break the money power that's corrupted our politics and intensified the performance aspects of them, and that's to elect enough members of the national legislature to overturn CU and return sanity to what is now a rigged casino gone mad. Or, you can elect a president who will appoint judges who will revisit the issue with a critical eye. Is there anyone who thinks Kamala Harris wouldn't do that? Or Cory Booker? Or Deval Patrick, who's the current punching bag for the leftier-than-thous?

This also requires that you restock the farm system in the states. There's already more talk about the 2020 presidential campaign than there is concerning the hundreds of state-level races this year and the next. Those races require (marginally) less money and, if you want to birth a generation of non-corporate Democrats, that's the place to start. But, for the love of George McGovern, stop fighting over things over which you have no control. Stop wrestling over the gun that your party can use to shoot itself in the foot. Circumstances are too dire for that now.

[mcar]

1. This, this, this!

Completely unnecessary explosion is right.

And that's not even to get into the completely unnecessary explosion that Congressman Ray Lujan, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, set off when he said the DCCC would support anti-choice candidates as long as they "fit the districts" in which they're running. Realpolitik or no, it is not a smart thing to declare publicly that you're open to pitching the privacy rights of 51 percent of the population—and of what is generally your entire margin of victory around the country—overboard. If an anti-choice Democrat wants to run, you let that candidate stand up and take the heat alone, instead of telegraphing to your most loyal voters that the party establishment is open for business on this issue. Where do they find these guys?)

[LisaM]

10. The paragraph you cited stood out to me, too.

It eloquently shuts down the notion that we should be actively recruiting anti-choice Dems, which is what it looks like half of DU wants to do when I open it up the site each day (I know that in reality half of DU isn't proposing we ditch choice as a platform, but the number of threads on the subject is overboard).

[mcar]

12. I don't even know where I am anymore

[Brainstormy]

20. If there's an issue that would make me abandon my party

and I've been a lifelong Democrat, this is it. Anti-choice, for me, is Anti-Dem.

[Garrett78]

32. And that's a different contingent than the folks bashing individuals such as Harris and Booker.

So, Pierce's criticism covers both 'halves' of DU.

[DoodAbides]

17. Absolutely. And to watch it all stage, like the building of ones two yr old tantrum. nt

[WinstonSmith4740]

23. I've about had it with the DCCC.

Can't wait for their next fund-raising call.

[Solly Mack]

26. Yes. Exactly so.

[malaise]

2. Off to the greatest page

MUST READ

[Blue Ridge Virginia]

3. 2016 was 50% Russian/Republican murder, 50% Democratic suicide

Please god if you exist or even if you don't, don't let it happen again.

[brush]

6. I'd call it 50% Democratic fratricide.

[Blue Ridge Virginia]

37. you may well be right

A year later I still can't decide whether to be more aghast by the anti-Sanders crazy bullying here at DU or the anti-Clinton crazy bullying at JPR-- but it hardly matters now except that I felt equally terrified and horrified by both brands of intra-Dem bullies and how perfectly both fit the Putinist divisive agenda.

[Cary]

50. The problem is that Republicans' anti-government propaganda works

People don't understand or recognize the tactic. They think tha t by buying into the false equivalence, "both side do it schtick, they take some kind of higher ground. They get all self righteous about it too, and rabidly defend the flag they think they have planted on their hill.

This "both sides do it" thought virus is an intentional disruption. It serves the Koch brothers well.

[spicysista]

4. nothing else to say!

[msongs]

5. big to do about nothing. hardly anyone is talking about those issues outside of hard core

politics groupie sites. step one is to quit talking about bernie PERIOD. he is not has never been and never will be a democrat so anything bernie is irrelevant except as problems. all these other dems nobody I know is talking about them at all in local dems politics

[trof]

7. Too fucking true.

Just look at what we do to each other here at DU.
jeez

[BannonsLiver]

8. LOL I wonder what Charlie's DU handle is?

Or maybe he just lurks?

[taught_me_patience]

9. A lot of progressive purists on du who should read this nt

[HarmonyRockets]

19. Yep

I'd like to see all Democrats completely get rid of these things called "principles" and move as far to the right as possible. High five.

[groundloop]

11. Oh for crying out loud, can we PLEASE stop letting right wing trolls tear us apart !!!!!!!

I'm sick and tired of hearing how we're falling apart as a party, I say BULLSHIT. 45* has given everyone something to be united about, and he's driving moderate repukes away from their party. The right is what is fracturing, not Democrats. Bernie's not running in 2020, Hillary's not running in 2020, and we need to concentrate on fighting the repukes in Congress to the fullest extent possible.

[Ccarmona]

21. But the Democratic Party Has to Be More than the Anti-Trump Party

Issues that are important to Progressives, are all winners and the polling proves it.

$15 minimum wage
Federal Funding of All elections
All women have the right to choose the best course for themselves
Medicare-for-All
Free College for All
Immediate end to the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East
The Final End to the failed War on Drugs
Police Forces must be responsible for their actions
A renewal of aggressive anti-trust enforcement
Break up Wall St & the too-big-to-fail banks.
And more issues that the majority of Americans say they are for especially on the environment

Run on these issues, and it will be the right path to taking over control of D.C. as well as State, & Local governments.

[WinstonSmith4740]

27. Part of the problem.

A big part, actually, is that there is still too much of a "We've got to appeal to the Trump voter" mentality among the Democratic power structure. They still haven't figured out the knuckle draggers won't vote for a Democrat. Ever. Reid kept watering down the ACA in an attempt to get a couple of Republican votes until it became the republican program it is. And still never got any republican votes. Fuck 'em. The Democratic leadership has to stop alienating its own base in pursuit of something it's never going to get.

[Garrett78]

33. Agreed.

Steve Phillips, as a guest on Democracy Now, said it well:

So, the challenge the Democrats face is to focus on the math, and not on the myth, of what happened in 2016. And so, the myth is that all of these Democratic voters, all of these working-class white voters who had supported Obama, defected from the Democrats and then flocked to Donald Trump’s campaign and backed him, and that’s what the—that’s why Democrats lost, and that’s why they have to pursue them to be able to actually try to reassemble their power and get back into positions. But that’s not actually what happened, and it’s certainly not why they lost the election.

We had unprecedented—or, unprecedented in 20 years, black voter turnout drop-off. More than a million fewer black voters came out. And you had a splintering of the progressive white vote. And you had a larger increase of voters for Johnson and Stein—I sometimes call the JohnStein voters—than you did for Trump. And if you look in a place—Wisconsin is where it’s clearest. Trump got fewer voters in Wisconsin than Romney did. So it wasn’t like everybody flocked to him. It’s that the progressive votes splintered and was depressed. And that’s the challenge that the Democrats face, is how to reinspire, bring back out African-American voters, bring up Latino vote and bring back the whites who defected to third and fourth party. That’s the way to put back the Obama coalition. That’s the way to get back into power. But all this attempt to try to figure out how to woo voters who were drawn to one of the most racist, misogynistic, xenophobic campaigns in history is a fool’s errand.

[WinstonSmith4740]

52. Exactly.

The media in general continues to say that Trump won the election. And there's very little, if any, push back. They continue to insist that Hillary was flawed and the Dems in disarray, completely forgetting that she still got 3,000,000 more votes. And when you start factoring in all the stuff we now KNOW about Russian intervention, and what we will undoubtedly learn about Russian intervention...well hell. If it had been a clean election, we're talking she won by a landslide.

[CrispyQ]

51. I was told by another DUer that going after the unregistered voters was folly.

[GulfCoast66]

35. Social Democrat here - I will vote against candidates in primary's who support several items you list

$15 minimum wage is crazy in many parts of the country. Where I come from and my family lives many business owners are lucky if they bring home 30K per year. In poor rural areas there is just not the financial base to support it. I would support $10 with inflation increases but jumping to 15 even in a 3-5 year period would be detrimental. There are still economic realities we must keep in mind.

Federal Funding all elections. There is mile of difference between treating companies as persons and having the government funding elections. You are then trusting the government to allocate resources in a fair manner. I learned a long time ago there is no such thing as fair. Eventually someone would find a way to tip the scales. For instance, if Democrats were controlling all branches of government, would you support funding a racist, sexist and homophobic party with government money?

Medicare for all. This is a trap for our party. There are many ways to give health care to everyone without letting government have a monopoly. Read about both the German and French systems. At the end of the day all people die. And no one is happy about it. If government has a monopoly on our health, eventually Americans will start blaming government for not living. Sounds loopy because I am a poor writer, but the last thing we want if for people to see government as what keeps them healthy, because when they become unhealthy guess who will get the blame? There a better ways to have our government insure people have great health care.

Free college for all. This is just crazy in my opinion. Yeah, they do it in Europe, but guess what? If your little darling does not score enough on tests they take at a young age, he or she gets routed for technical or craft work. How will that go over in the US? Telling over half the parents in high school that their kids is not cut out for university? Now if you want to bring a good apprentice program here and prepare kids not suited for college for industrial work, I am all for it. We need to go back to the model we had before Reagan, because it worked. If your family could afford college, which mine could, then you pay. If not, the government helps you. One of the reasons for high college cost is the unending supply of money. Again, there are laws of economics.

I hate the situation in the Middle east, but just packing up and leaving might not be the best idea. The world is full of grays. We should work to get out, and I will get beat up here for saying so, but pulling out of Iraq like we did was a mistake. And Hillary was against it I remind you.

Now, since I am on DU it is obvious that in a general election I would vote for a Democratic Party candidate who espoused your views. And then after we lose that election I will work to promoted candidates who can actually win where I live.

Have a nice evening.

[Lokilooney]

40. I would agree with all of this.

My Father who has been practicing medicine for 40 years has actually cited France and Germany specifically as the system to emulate.

On Iraq though we didn't really have much of a choice, the goverment wanted us out and was threatening to pull immunity for us troops.

[JCanete]

45. I don't see why any of those things aren't possible or preferable to what we're doing today.

There's enough money to do all of these things, its just hoarded at the top. We NEED a more educated technical workforce to compete with other nations. Why wouldn't we consider this a future investment?

A high minimum wage might immediately hurt some small businesses, but it will put so much more money back into these communities. The bigger box stores will either pay it and thus, infuse these local economies with money so that they can actually buy things, or pack up and leave, opening up opportunities for small businesses to thrive amongst reduced competition. And money spent locally, circulates over and over.

Medicare for all is a trap for the party? that doesn't make any sense. Everything is a political football. Obamacare was/is but as time goes on people are more happy with it, not less. Do you see people being unhappy with having medicare? Do they want to get rid of it? Do you see them being unhappy generally with social security? Once people have something, they can be as grumpy as they please about how they talk about it, but try to take it away and see what happens. It wouldn't take long before medicare for all was no longer a democratic program, but a human right to people, which means whatever "blaming" people did of the government wouldn't be relegated simply to democrats.

I think we need to go some sort of federal funding route, but I agree with you on this one, how it is instituted is capable of abuse or favoritism, just like anything. It needs checks and balances and different paths to entry, but at this point I don't know what that means. I just don't see how that is any worse than what we have now. Money is so impactful on how our politicians approach policy that it actually makes ideology play second fiddle, or worse, morph to conform to the will of the money. Democracy has checks on absolute power. It doesn't have shit currently to stop the untiring influence of money.

[LarryNM]

48. Agreed. But will the "center" and 3rd Way Purists agree. n/t

[Qutzupalotl]

13. Russia is still attacking us by dividing us,

baiting us into wasting time in unprofitable discussions. 2018 looms.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Yup. You nailed it. . . . . nt

[Purveyor]

28. No. The attacks are coming from the purists "within". I don't see a lot of

light at the end of the tunnel to date. There is time...but not much.

[YCHDT]

14. Who is this defining "the main issues"?!?!? WTF ?!?!

[Blue_true]

15. If 97,000 left in Florida had not voted for Nader in 2000.

Anthony Kennedy would not have been in a position to tip the scale on Citizen's United because there would not have been a Roberts or Alio on the Court to vote with him.

The extreme left remind me of people that shit their pants then complain to the laundry for not starching their shirt just right.

[Lokilooney]

42. Ideological purism sometimes is cutting one's nose off to spine one's face

When it comes to those for example would not support a Democrat because they have a pro life stance, I say fine, just don't complain when Roe v. Wade gets repealed.

[Blue_true]

46. Exactly. Amazing how the people calling themselves the purest of all have set progress back

the most.

[onecaliberal]

18. Spot on in every aspect. As usual.

[stuffmatters]

22. Yep, enough of this idiocy. Democrats stand for "fairness" unite on that & attract 60% of voters

FAIRNESS. it's what we've always stood for and what no Republican candidate represents. It's the foundation of our Democracy (the ideal which named our Party). Americans fear (and pretty much know) our political system is no longer fair to them.

Think of it fairness ....fair trade,employment/pay, justice,taxation, net neutrality, privacy rights, environmental protections, the list is comprehensive and endless...it's what we all stand for and what the Republicans DO NOT.

Message fairness non stop, frame every discussion, position, speech with Democratic fairness. Enough with the divisive and
destructive resentments from the 2016 election or adopting any of the oppressive, indecent positions of the KOCH and Putin funded Republicans.

We are the Fairness Party. Keep it simple, get back to our own basics and start to win again. Our Democracy depends upon it.

[paleotn]

24. That about covers it

Circular firing squad - version 478.

?fit=275%2C174

[chowder66]

25. "There's already more talk about the 2020 presidential campaign than there is....

concerning the hundreds of state-level races this year and the next. Those races require (marginally) less money and, if you want to birth a generation of non-corporate Democrats, that's the place to start."

Stood out as well.

[Yavin4]

29. See War of the 5 Kings to Challenge Joffery's Legitimacy. n/t

[njhoneybadger]

30. What he said

For the love of god can't we look at the big picture

[burrowowl]

31. K&R!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jakes Progress]

34. Why would anyone think the russians

wouldn't be baiting some of us?

They did it during the election. republicans aren't the only ones to go senseless when someone throws red meat issues into the crowd.

We have real things to be doing. And too many are letting themselves be baited. Then they are too self-righteous to admit it.

It would be good to be religious because we need God to help us from ourselves.

[riderinthestorm]

36. +1000 nt

[certainot]

38. the 'principled' liberals/left who pound away on computers made with slave labor?

is that who we're talking about?

the ones who whine about their reps not sticking their neck out far enough but let limbaugh and hannity and a few hundred other jerks on 1500 radio stations take free pots shots at them all day? in hillary's case for decades?

the ones who whined about obama not closing gitmo while their local universities broadcast sports on limbaugh stations selling club gitmo t-shirts and bumper stickers?

[Jim Lane]

39. Completely wrong about the 2016 nomination process

The excerpt describes the 2016 primaries as "a miserable cur of a campaign driven by suspicion, personal invective, and heroic struggling over trivialities...." On the Republican side, yes, but among the Democrats.

Did Bernie base his campaign on her "damn emails"? Did Hillary play up the "socialist" word and work in some innuendo about Jane Sanders? No. Instead, both of them articulated policy differences and had thoughtful, issue-oriented debates. The same was true of Chafee, O'Malley, and Webb during their brief appearances in the race.

[Blue_Tires]

41. Now it's Pierce's turn to get thrown under the bus

[JCanete]

43. Okay, and if given a choice at the end of the day between Booker or Harris and Trump, fuck

yeah the vast majority of us will take Booker or Harris. The discussion now is about whether or not we prefer to put forward a more unequivocally liberal candidate, or whether or not Booker or Harris are going to recognize a demand for that and ratchet up their anti-corporate rhetoric. I'm pretty sure that such a candidate, once elected, would also put onto the bench, judges who would reevaluate Citizens United.

We do have control over who we want to run in the primaries. We have a say in who wins the primaries. That said, as for talks of the 2020 election, oh yeah, this is way too early and is often used as a distraction from the issues at hand. As to addressing who will run though, this discussion does matter today, because it is a discussion of what direction we are going today. Where are we leaning on the spectrum? It isn't like these left-leaning critical pieces aren't in response to things like Wapo articles auguring the front-runners of the 2020. This is a fight being waged now, because it is about how we are intending to define ourselves as of today.

[kentuck]

44. Bernie did not switch to the Democratic Party...

...and I doubt that he has any plans to switch to the Democratic Party? He has been critical of the Party as of late. What does that mean? How does that relate to the 2020 race if Bernie decides to run again? It is not out of the realm of possibilities. I do not think it is wise to ignore that possibility. I usually agree with Charlie Pierce about 99% of the time but I think he is whistling past the graveyard with this one.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. witness how many people here do things like demand that something like Game of Thrones be censored

aside from positing us as "Anti-Free Speech", yeah, most popular piece of entertainment on the planet right now, lets all tilt at THAT fucking windmill.

[Gothmog]

49. K&R