In his own inimitable way, Charles P. Pierce brings some perspective to the game. See if you can identify who this radical lefty is:
There was one candidate on the list that got corporate America particularly nervous, and several of their intellectual mouthpieces were sent out to tell scary ghost stories about the guy. A dude from the Competitive Enterprise Institute rolled out the ol' roogie-roogie. Per NRO:
"His rewriting of U.S. labor law is probably the most fundamental attack on the free-enterprise system going on at present…If he has his way, we won't just revert to the 1930s. We'll do things that even Franklin Roosevelt couldn't do, like eliminate vast numbers of independent-contractor jobs and unionize those that remain."
And a guy from the Cato Institute held up the disembodied head of Lady Liberty.
"He essentially operationalized Eric Holder's radicalization of the Department of Justice. No civil-rights theory too crazy to pursue, no litigants too awkward to pay off."
Mitch McConnell didn't much like the guy.
"[He is] a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological end."
And what would a good, gory conservative slasher flick be without a contribution from Judicial Watch.
"[He] has shown a glaring inability to tell the truth and dispassionately apply the basic constitutional tenet of 'equal justice under law."
Democrats are masters of the circular firing squad. There’s no candidate so pure, somebody doesn’t have problems with them — and they’ll stand on their principles even if it means they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of being realized in a less than perfect world without some accommodation to reality. (Aral Vorkosigan said something along the lines of “I could take over the universe with this army if I could just get them to all point their guns in the same direction.”)
So, got a guess about who this person is that Republicans are so exercised about? Try this:
So, who was this Bakuninite mole-in-waiting, anyway? I'm glad you asked. It was Tom Perez, then the Secretary of Labor under Barack Obama who on Saturday afternoon was elected the next chairman of the Democratic Party despite being a Wall Street toady, a tool of the money power, and a neolib plant—at least in the minds of many of the people who opposed him. Sometimes, I imagine that being a Democrat can be very confusing.
The party chair is just one piece of a much larger picture. Job one is taking back the country. As Ellison said,
"I think Tom was quite clear," said Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whom Perez named Deputy Chair of the committee immediately after the vote. "Anybody who supported me in this race, I thank you. But I want you to support Tom Perez. If you care about people who have their loved ones' cemeteries being desecrated, you got to support Tom Perez. This is not a small thing. The very fate of our nation is in the balance right now. I trust Tom Perez. If they trust me, they have to trust Tom Perez. There's a lot of action but it has to be channeled into the Democratic party. “
emphasis added
Any questions?
UPDATE: For those who have issues with Perez as the chair, you can find more to consider at NPR. Across The Divide, Identity Politics Unites The Base At Both CPAC And DNC offers up some observations, such as:
...When Perez took the stage after the results of the close election were announced – he won by just 35 votes out of more than 400 — supporters of Perez's chief rival, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, who was endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, stood and voiced their disapproval.
"Not big money! Party for the people!" they chanted over and over and over again. The proceedings were briefly stopped, as Donna Brazile, the interim party chair – with ties to Clinton – tried to gavel the group to order.
...And that's what's amazing – that Perez has been targeted by activists as something of a corporate sellout, when he was a former civil-rights attorney and was arguably the most progressive Obama Cabinet member.
Perez is also the first Hispanic chairman of the committee, something that was largely ignored, because of the intra-party bickering and because of another potential first – the possibility of the first Muslim chairman.
Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress, and many of his supporters wanted to send a message in the era of Trump — one of inclusivity that the party stands for.
emphasis added
Ellison is deputy chair. What that means has yet to be seen, but if nothing else it should give him a seat at the table. And Ellison has thrown his full support behind Perez.
If you want an exploding head, NPR had an interview early this morning with Leslie Wimes of the Democratic African-American Women Caucus in Florida. Caucus Leader Is Skeptical Perez Will Energize The Democratic Party does’t have an audio track or transcript yet, but I believe you will find the interview more than covers the objections to Perez. [The audio went up around 10:00am East Coast time; still no transcript as of 12:00] [[Update — the Transcript is up as of 5:30]]
Meanwhile, tomorrow night Donald Trump will address a Republican controlled Congress, which is about to install a hard right conservative on the Supreme Court into a stolen seat. Republican governors and legislatures are edging closer to being able to call a constitutional convention for their masters to formally consolidate their grip on power.
Let’s focus people — eyes on the prize.
UPDATE 2: Martin Longman has a piece over at Washington Monthly that adds some good information to the whole story over the DNC Chair election. I chose the exploding heads image in the title because there’s a certain element that wants to paint this as the evil Democratic corporate establishment sticking it to the progressive Bernie wing of the party once more. (Pick whatever labels you want for the sides.) The Fake Factional War Over the DNC Chair has some background on Perez, the new chair, and the narrative some have bought into that the “whole thing was rigged” to repeat president* Donald Trump’s take on it.
Longman has a sketch of the career Perez has carved out so far, and it is impressive. His background in voter protection alone makes him a good choice for the job, especially given neo-segregationist Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III at the DOJ. His track record on labor is impressive as well. Per Longman,
As Adam Serwer reported for Mother Jones at the time, Perez had pleased labor leaders by going after “employers who were dodging overtime pay, benefits, and taxes by classifying employees as independent contractors.” His efforts resulted in a new law in 2009 that set down new rules and stiff fines. Maryland AFL-CIO chief Fred Mason said, “This is someone who understands the relationship between worker rights and human rights.” The headline of Serwer’s piece was: A Labor Secretary Pick Progressives Will Love—and Republicans Will Hate.
When Perez was at DOJ,
…[Perez’s] talk was backed up by plenty of walk. It all began with the Civil Rights Division hiring attorneys with actual civil rights experience. The Division has been aggressive in defending voting rights and investigating police misconduct…the Civil Rights Division of DOJ started an investigation of the Cleveland Police Department more than a year before Tamir Rice was killed.
Longman addresses what seems to have happened since:
...Somewhere along the line, though, a segment of the progressive community decided that Tom Perez is not their ally. And now a narrative has developed that he’s an actual enemy of progressives and his election over the weekend as the new head of the Democratic National Committee is some kind of defeat for progressives. Prominent in pushing this narrative is Matt Bruenig who wrote an essay after the vote declaring that “The establishment wing has made it very clear that they will do anything and everything to hold down the left faction.”
Read the whole thing. The progressive wing has not been shut out, as some would like to believe. Keith Ellison has thrown his support behind Perez; Perez has given him a seat at the table as Deputy Chair, which may or may not work out as well as everyone hopes, but is recognition of what the progressives have achieved to date. Further, Ellison gets to remain in Congress, where we can use all the help we can get.
Forward together, stronger together.