I’m just out of the frame in this photo — our Maryland delegation was just above and across the aisle from the Vermont delegation. I’ve seen a video of this scene that aired on television, where you can clearly see my phone peaking above the people in this shot, as I tried to capture my perspective of this amazing, emotional moment. It was a very inspiring, pride-filled moment — pride in how much was accomplished — but also mixed with more than a tinge of sadness about what felt like a missed opportunity. I’d been expecting to be wildly excited for Clinton’s nomination and I did join the huge roar at that moment, but it turned for me in the blink of an eye almost. In fact, as I watched Sanders climb those stairs and disappear from the scene, I was profoundly sad — surprisingly so, since I thought I’d reconciled myself to this outcome even before the big defeats on April 26th, including Maryland, where Clinton was awarded 2/3 of the delegates.
AsI wrestled with my unexpected melancholy, I saw Sen. Jeff Merkley being interviewed across the aisle on the other side of our delegation. I waited and thanked him for his remarkable and singular example of political courage in supporting Sen. Sanders. If he ever chooses to run for national office, he surely has my support. Then, I found myself wanting to exit the scene — a mental health break, because the proceedings that followed didn’t seem to have anything for me. I didn’t join the #DemExit displays that were unfolding in the concourse and outside the arena. I wasn’t making a political statement. Rather, I was just honoring my intense feelings by taking a time-out.
My mood wasn’t uplifted as I watched media circle around a little play some delegates were enacting for the media’s benefit, and I noted GOP linguist/pollster Frank Luntz on the outside of that scrum trying to get his cell phone above the rest, so he could record it. I even said to my friends who followed me out that this was not a good thing, if Luntz was excited by it. I ran into (not for the first or last time during the week) documentary director Josh Fox, who was practically traumatized, discussing at how he’d lost it in a national TV interview as he reflected on all the empty seats inside the hall. I believe he said it was a “catastrophe.”
Well, it wasn’t a catastrophe. People tend to over-state the significance of events they are experiencing — and the party has stayed largely united, notwithstanding the scenes inside and outside the Wells Fargo Arena. As for the TV pictures, the DNC made sure there wasn’t any repeat on the final night by bringing in a lot of seat fillers, even though that only further agitated and alienated the Sanders delegates who suddenly didn’t have seats.
The fact is that a lot of Sanders most spirited volunteers and supporters have not returned to the fold. Some of them were never really there, as they were more often identifying themselves as something other than Democrats before Sanders ran. Still others were lifelong Democrats who despaired that there was ever any hope of progressives overcoming what they see as an incestuous party elite that is focused more on their positions and supporting their financial benefactors, rather than on the broader public good.
I have a different take, as I think Sanders’ near miss is a very hopeful omen for progressives generally, and I guess for progressive Democrats. I have spent the last six months, if not longer making the case to my fellow Sanders supporters that our best hope for our agenda is working within the Democratic Party and working to elect Democratic candidates up and down the ballot this year, and in coming elections. I also do not really see any viable choice.
Some talk of breaking the two-party duopoly and rail on about a corrupt media. I share their concern about the media — the revelations about Donna Brazile point to how the media gets used by the parties. But, I don’t see the duopoly as something artificially imposed on us. It’s the natural outcome in a country that is evenly split between left and right working in an electoral system that knows only one winner in each election. There is no proportional representation or or coalitions formed after the election. Or system therefore pushes us to create and maintain those coalitions going into the elections. Thus we have only one major party on the left — the Democratic Party. If we want to see our government produce more liberal policies, we must work either to replace it or to move the Democratic Party in that direction.
I haven’t lost my faith/hope that the Democratic Party can produce more progressive policies, and I see recent developments as justifying my belief that even establishment Democrats can be turned to push hard for progressive priorities. President Obama worked hard to gain a deal on phasing-out HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons). Perhaps, he tried too hard to secure a deal, as Sec. Kerry agreed to some unfortunate concessions to gain the support of a number of developing nations, especially India and the Gulf states. One must hope that the agreement will transform the market for products with refrigerants/coolants, bringing down the cost of the substitutes for HFCs and leading to a much more rapid phaseout than is contemplated or required in the deal struck on Saturday in Kigali.
The deal is not what is needed, but it’s significant in itself, and it also speaks volumes about the legacy that Pres. Obama wants to leave in terms of a laying out a path to address the greenhouse gas problem. That Nobel Peace Prize he got in ‘09 in expectation of what he might accomplish in his time in office might have been well justified. I fully expect that the Clinton Administration will build on the climate frameworks that Obama has helped to erect.
I’m even buoyed by some of the discussions that we’re seeing in the Podesta emails being leaked by Wikileaks. The talk about the makeup of the Clinton Administration stands in remarkable contrast to similar discussions about the Obama Administration in advance of the ‘08 election. Instead of looking like a group photo of Wall Street executives, the next Administration may well bring in a number of well-placed folks who are part of what is being called the “Warren wing” of the party. There is a great piece on what the emails say about the campaign’s thinking regarding bringing the Warren wing into the halls of power: www.politico.com/...
There is a great deal to be done to reshape the Democratic Party in years and elections to come, but I’m hopeful that the broad progressive coalition we saw in the Sanders campaign will come together in creating foundation for a more progressive Democratic Party. The Party has been moving that way for decades on social issues — and the recent embrace of the gay marriage movement and the the still more recent support of the Black Lives Matter movement is confirmation of how far the Party and country has come.
On the economic issues, the Party establishment hasn’t adopted the Sanders priorities...yet. From the fight for a living wage and unskewing our economic and tax policies that have worked to create a chasm of inequality; and universal, public health care; support for a vast reconsideration of our trade negotiation stance, especially in demanding enforceable minimum standards on corporate taxation, labor rights, and the enforcement of strict environmental regulations; to working to democratize government with tougher ethics rules and campaign finance rules, expanding and strengthening social security (instead of cutting it); and putting people to work with a new modern-day version of Roosevelt era programs like WPA and CCC to repair aging infrastructure, build out much-needed modern, new infrastructure, and cleaning up many of the public resources that are being threatened by unchecked industrial practices; and, pushing a WWII-sized national mobilization to move the US and eventually other economies of the world away from carbon-based fuels — there’s a lot of work still to do. We’re still hearing the incrementalist rhetoric, including the usual Big Lie about natural gas being a useful bridge fuel, for example.
But, that work starts with building liberal majorities in the Congress and in state legislatures — and in this election electing as many Democrats to those legislatures and the state houses as we can muster. Seeing the GOP collapse is encouraging as it opens up possibilities that didn’t seem possible in the summer. I had always believed that Sanders would be the stronger candidate because he would turn out more voters to the Democratic side of the ticket and improve our chances of winning downballot. Trump seems to be doing a fine job of the reverse effort, to depress the GOP vote. I never much doubted that Clinton would win, even as I’ve been critical of the campaign’s caution and failure to articulate a positive message that would appeal to the disaffected left. However, I remain optimistic that future Democratic candidates cannot fail to articulate such a message.
I have had a tough run of it since the convention. I tore something in my wrist and spent 5 weeks in a cast. I also had eye surgery to control the glaucoma I have struggled with in one eye since I was a teenager, as a prior surgery suddenly failed to do the trick. I’ve also had flareups with my arthritic knees and my bulging back discs. But, I’ll be doing my part in these final weeks, and doing my usual voter protection bit on Election Day. That’s the legacy I want to leave. Because progress towards our liberal utopian vision requires electing Democrats. It’s that simple.