Over at Digby's Place, Gaius Publius has a couple of recent postings looking at the Senate and speculating over schisms on the Democratic side. It's of interest, I suspect, to many here at Daily Kos because a number of us are torn over where to put our energies and loyalties when we have a putatively Democratic Party that time and time again asks for our money, and then turns around and slaps us in the face, or pats us on the head while telling us to keep quiet while the adults are making deals. Supporting Republicans is not an option, yet how do we protest what's being done without giving the GOP aid and comfort? And who might listen to us?
GP has been watching to see if the Neoliberal corporate stranglehold on the party is weakening at all, and just where pushback might be coming from in the near future.
More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
Gaius Publius has been on this beat for a while. In setting up his two most recent posts on this, he references an earlier post laying out fault lines to describe what might become an Open Rebellion Caucus.
As DWT [Down With Tyranny] readers know, Steve Israel, the DCCC, and to a lesser extent the DSCC, have been disasters for the Democratic Party, if "success" means "taking or keeping control of Congress" and "disaster" means "failing to try to do that." These Democratic train wrecks have been well document on these pages-- for example, here and here. But click any link tagged "Steve Israel" or "DSCC" to get the gist.
You also know that corporate-aligned Democrats, including most party leaders and many who work with them, are more than eager to excoriate any progressives who dare to consider forcing neoliberal Dems out of office, especially if hurting neoliberals also hurts party chances in elections. Attacking the party from the left and attacking neoliberal rule of the party are cardinal sins, almost hanging offenses. The venom goes very deep.
The magic phrase, the one you hear the most, is "Ralph Nadar!" but excoriation comes in other flavors. Like: "Do you really want Romney to be president?!" Or: "The one thing that would make me vote for Hillary Clinton ... Jeb Bush!" Or these days: "OMG, it will be your fault if we lose the Senate!" Always with the exclamation point. Always with the scorn, the flecks of virtual spittle, the virtual hair on fire.
Well, after the debacle of the midterms where so many of the neoliberal favorites got trashed at the polls,
Gaius Publius identified three groups to watch as the progressives being stifled by the party become increasingly frustrated:
▪ Democratic voters have arguably rejected neoliberal, corporate, billionaire-serving Democrats in 2014. The country is ready for change, and the day Democrats offer one, they'll win elections by the bucketful.
▪ Democratic activists and writers are desperate for something better from their party. Their cris de coeur are private for now, said amongst themselves, and those cries are not cried by all. Nevertheless, a great many progressive voices and hands are done, have had it, with the Mark Warners and Pryors of the world, and very vocally so.
▪ Some Democratic insiders are similarly ready to rebel. There are pockets of donors, strategists and office-holders who "get it" — get that they can't be principled (that word again) and support the Geithners, the Pritzkers, and the Orszags. And if they can't support the Geithners, how can they support a White House that regularly coughs them out for consideration?
Here's the thing to watch. With Democrats in the minority in the upcoming Senate under Mitch McConnell, there will be opportunities for Democrats to vote against the Republican agenda and stake out progressive positions safe in the knowledge they won't get anywhere. But... a real test will be to see which Democrats take positions in opposition to the President and others in the party whose agenda serves the bipartisan corporatocracy.
Gaius Publius has identified one such test: Elizabeth Warren's opposition to the nomination of Antonio Weiss by Obama for a senior post at the Treasury Department. As Warren proclaims in a Huffington Post commentary which concludes,
The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message. It tells people that one -- and only one -- point of view will dominate economic policymaking. It tells people that whatever goes wrong in this economy, the Wall Street banks will be protected first. That's yet another advantage that Wall Street just doesn't need.
I have voted against only one of President Obama's nominees: Michael Froman, a Citigroup alumnus who is currently storming the halls of Congress as U.S. Trade Representative pushing trade deals that threaten to undermine financial regulation, workers' rights, and environmental protections. Enough is enough.
It's time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks have over economic policy making. Sure, big banks are important, but running this economy for American families is a lot more important.
Read The Whole Thing - it's that good.
Gaius Publius is watching this because it could become a real test. While there will be GOP Yes votes (Wall Street!) and No votes (Must vote against Obama), Democratic votes will be interesting because...
If the nomination fails, every Democratic No has joined with Warren and become an Open Rebellion candidate going forward. Voting No in a winning cause will take real courage — "I decline to follow the leader" courage — and every man and woman who does so deserves your praise and support. The crack in the Democratic caucus will widen and the insurgency will grow.
But if the nomination succeeds, Democratic No votes could be real or just for show ("It's safe to vote No, 'cause he's gonna pass anyway"). Any No vote in a losing cause is always suspect, because there's no way to tell who's sincere and who's been given "permission" to vote against the rest of the caucus "for the folks back home."
GP says watch to see what Harry Reid does. If he takes actions that aid the progressive caucus moving forward, that's one thing. If he doesn't.... well we will see.
And there's another test coming up: the Loretta Lynch nomination for Attorney General. Before anyone takes the position that the President should be allowed to have who he wants, Gauis Publius observes that Lynch may be another cause for rebellion.
...Yes, she'd be the first African-American woman Attorney General. She's also deep in the Eric Holder mold — no Wall Street crime is too criminal to prosecute. She's a "white shoes" lawyer who signed off on the white-washed HSBC settlement:
According to a Matt Taibbi blockbuster in Rolling Stone, HSBC, indirectly and directly, laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for entities that included Mexican drug cartels, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Russian gangs, Iran, and North Korea.
"Money laundering" means "being a banker" for people who cut people's heads off (click; it's the Mexican cartels I'm talking about). I mentioned "conscience" above; this settlement is conscienceless. As the article notes, it was "an exclusively financial settlement without criminal prosecution." About Lynch as AG, lawyer Mike Papantonio says in the video below:
She's going to make the lives of Wall Street criminals a cake walk, not a perp walk.
Read the whole post by Gaius Publius - it's that important. And then
look at the follow-up, where Warren is already being attacked for her opposition to Weiss. Andrew Ross Sorkin at the
New York Times has written a piece denouncing Warren for her opposition, with the provocative title
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Misplaced Rage at Obama’s Treasury Nominee.
Gaius Publius has some pungent analysis of the Sorkin slam, and makes the following observation:
...But it's clear the other side is engaged and wants this nomination badly. Perhaps to them it's "symbolic" of something.
Watch this appointment
Again, watch this one. It will tell you a lot about Senate Democrats, the state of my fancifully-named "Open Rebellion" caucus — Will other Senate progressives go along, or toe the neoliberal line? — and perhaps reveal the role of Harry Reid going forward. I'm reading and hearing that all is not glassy-smooth across Senate Democratic waters, at least regarding the Weiss nomination. At The Nation they're calling what Warren is doing an "insurrection" and they say she's not alone in insurrecting.
About time, say I.
Again, take a look at the first Gaius Publius piece over at Digby's, and the second. They get right to the heart of the dilemma facing those who would be progressives within the Democratic Party: resist bad policies, appointments, etc. openly challenging the neoliberal corporatist leadership that's running the party and country over the cliff after the GOP, or try to work quietly from within, lest it further advantage the GOP. Both choices come with a cost. Which one is worth paying?
There's the rub.