Oh it's cryin' time again, you just won't leave me...
Well another week has come and gone and we still have no sense as to who our leader is. And we don’t have a clear, succinct message as to what our purpose and vision is. At least we don’t have anything from the Conservadems. Left wingers are getting tired of waiting and are moving ahead with a vision and some talking points that they plan to use in the upcoming primaries and elections. In the meantime, Conservadems have been busy attacking left wingers and getting really wound up about Donald Trump.
Our site’s premier Conservadem, Markos Moulitsas, has been busy attacking liberals for imaginary sins ginned up by Jonathan V. Last in the Weekly Standard. Last asks the question:
Would you trade aggressive immigration restrictions and enforcement for single-payer healthcare?
And Kos posits:
The fact that liberals would answer that question differently is exactly why we have our own internal war to fight. And yes, there is a right answer—and a wrong one.
It really doesn’t get more puzzling than this. On the one hand Conservadems maintain that liberals who voted for Stein or stayed home are responsible for the 2016 election results. And then we see our own Kos attack them and push them away based on some made up schtick from the Weekly Standard. No polls, no data no facts, the only thing Conservadems like Kos who were expecting a landslide for Hillary on Nov 5 have today is anger. And it’s directed at Trump and liberals in a shotgun fashion. I must be missing something. If I want people to come to my house for a party, I try to show them a good time and message that thought to them. So, it seems to me that if you think you just lost an election due to a lack of support from a segment of your own party, you could try to be understanding and respectful to them and find out why they don’t support you anymore.
The Kos attack is not an isolated incident. Early in the primaries, Hillary had this say to Bernie “Dirt Shack” Sanders supporters — go to 3:40. ( I am applying the term “Dirt Shack” to Bernie’s name to help Bernie become more appealing to Conservadems who repeatedly referred to one of his homes as a “dirt shack” during the primaries.)
Let’s do the math: Hillary has 10.4 mm votes and she has 2.7 mm more votes than Bernie “Dirt Shack” Sanders. Thus “Dirt Shack” Sanders must have 7.7 mm votes. This would be 42.5% of the total vote. The video indicates that Hillary has no motivation for bringing the 42% of democrats who are “Dirt Shack’s” supporters to her side after she wins the nomination. She showed the same indifference towards displaced workers in the election when despite the protestations of her husband and a number of political experts, she ignored pursuing the votes of displaced workers in the Rust Belt. According to Chuck Schumer:
For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
So enough already, let’s not forget the past but please let’s forgive each other and move on. I forgive Conservadems for what they have done, but I will not forget or change the historical narrative.
So without further ado, let’s get to this week’s imaginary 400 lb elephant in the room, Trump’s firing of Comey. Here are the sad facts: Trump will never resign; He will never be indicted; He will never be impeached; He will keep doing these things in the future because we have lost all our power. And we lost all of our power because we lost so many elections. And this isn’t a new thing. It’s been going on for almost 40 years. I don’t think we will suddenly start winning elections by attacking Trump and seeing how close we can move toward being moderate Republicans. I say this because our creep to the right coupled with incumbent attacks hasn’t worked for 40 years now. It only underlines our lack of political skill and indifference to workers.
The period of history when Democrats had the most power was 1932 — 1946. And guess what? It is also the period when we were the most liberal. Things like Social Security, the New Deal and Unions were considered to be down right socialist back then and are still targeted by Republican and Democratic conservatives today.
Before the 1940 nominating convention, FDR changed his VP pick from John Garner to Henry Wallace. Conservadem, Garner’s, opposition to FDR’s New Deal and run for a third term had sealed Garner’s fate. But FDR could have picked another Conservadem. Instead he picked the liberal, pro worker, Henry Wallace. FDR wrote a letter to the Democratic Convention. In it he said,
In the century in which we live, the Democratic Party has received the support of the electorate only when the party, with absolute clarity, has been the champion of progressive and liberal policies and principles of government.
FDR went on to say,
The party has failed consistently when through political trading and chicanery it has fallen into control of those interests, personal and financial, which think in terms of dollars instead of in terms of human values.
So who will do this? I think change has to come from new people who could be outside the party. Obviously the established power brokers are unwilling to change even in the face of disastrous election results. If we want to survive, we need to get the old people out and get new people in who will support the same principles that worked so well 80 years ago. Progressives have and will continue to mount primary challenges to bring about this desperately needed change. Kos used to support this approach 11 years ago.
Nancy Pelosi is being challenged by Stephen Jaffe. You can help Stephen win the primary and put the party back on a pro human values course here.
Ro Khanna successfully primaried Mike Honda in 2016 and then beat him again in the general election. Recently, Ro threw in with Justice Democrats on TYT. He is unabashedly liberal and pro worker and has a really cool name. You can support Ro here.
I will be sharing links with other challengers in future diaries.
To sum it up: Yes, we are in bad shape and we are facing our darkest hour. The solution is not to stay with same leaders that got us here but to seek change. The FDR model seems to make the most sense and was very successful in the 30’s and 40’s. Ineffective actions include: blaming dissenters for the current state; showing outrage at Trump and Republicans without an easily understood and often repeated alternative.
We can do this! I welcome argument from my Conservadem brothers and sisters.
