The CNN article above continues the trend of saying words that sound nice on the surface but are not backed up by anything when you read into it. Let's go through and see exactly how weak and uninspiring this article really is.
...we must focus on ensuring that voters across the nation trust our party...
...rebuilding trust with those who share our progressive vision for America and by addressing concerns many have raised in recent years...Notice not once in these opening paragraphs do they acknowledge what the complaints actually are. The accusations -- first released by Wikileaks more than a year ago and later confirmed by several sources, most recently Donna Brazile in her book -- were that the primary was rigged by allowing Hillary Clinton and her campaign to control the Democratic party and effectively lock out challengers. That arcane election laws made it difficult or impossible for voters to register in time to participate in closed primaries. That state party funding was siphoned to Clinton's campaign rather than supporting down-ballot candidates.
An "apology" is not an apology if you can't own up to what you did wrong. These words are meaningless.
Democrats can win big if we're united, and we know that can only happen by healing divisions that still linger from last year's bruising presidential nominating contest.
...
Republicans are leading a coordinated, nationwide effort of voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering...Also notice that jab about remaining "united" at the end there, followed by a quick segue into the bad things Republicans are doing. Again, rather than admitting wrongdoing, they're talking down to progressives and treating their legitimate grievances as overreaction. "You have complaints, but does that really matter when Republicans are also bad?". It's lesser-evil-ism all over again. Yes, Republicans are doing bad things, but what are YOU going to do to fix it? Trading one evil for another isn't much of a win.
We believe Democrats can win everywhere if we organize and lead with our values.
Again, no apology, more generic words about unity. They're more interested in winning elections to retain power rather than standing up for what's right, and implying if they don't win, it's because *YOU* didn't organize and work hard enough for them. They push any blame onto progressives rather than acting like leaders and owning up to problems.
We made historic investments in Virginia, New Jersey, and in mayoral and legislative races that helped pay big dividends with our major victories last month
What they leave out is that Democrats have continued for the past year to ignore progressive candidates and races. Some of those wins were due to DSA support, not the Democratic Party, but they are of course perfectly happy to take credit for the wins (this is one of many reasons I encourage DSA members to put that effort into building the Green Party, not giving Democrats a free ride!). Democrats still support establishment candidates and races. Of course they do. This isn't new and not unexpected. What's needed is evidence that they will support progressive candidates, which they're not providing.
We will not win the future by re-litigating the past. But we do have to learn from our past mistakes.
Up to this point they still have not owned up to any wrongdoing or given specifics. And "re-litigating the past" is another jab at progressives that have still not received answers for the problems with the 2016 elections. Of course they want to move on from the past and cover it up.
But maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see if the second half of the article has more specifics, now that they want to talk about particular proposals.
No party officer should be allowed to support, endorse or favor any candidate in the primary process.
Good sentiment, but how do you ensure this? No specifics. If they can't even discipline the last DNC chair that was strongly biased -- in fact, they defended her as Clinton made her an honorary chair of her campaign once she resigned from DNC chair -- what evidence do we have that it will change? Also, while it sort of implies that past officers weren't neutral, it does not come out and say it or apologize. This is a sentence specifically constructed as a sort of a "dog whistle" politics, designed to get a message to progressives without admitting any problems for people that don't know the story. It's a way of covering up what happened from the general public without being too obvious.
The debate schedule is decided in advance, instead of negotiating it after all our candidates have entered the race.
The debates were mostly scheduled in advance in 2016 already, problem was Clinton's campaign was allowed to direct DNC decisions way back in 2015 and so Clinton was the one deciding the debate schedule in advance! So this proposal is completely worthless and doesn't fix anything.
Any and all joint fundraising agreements will be transparent and available to all official campaigns.
This is implicitly referring to the joint agreement with the Clinton campaign that allowed her campaign to secretly work with DNC and appoint her campaign staff to DNC leadership positions. Again, not admitting that or apologizing.
However, the deep root of the problem here isn't transparency -- though transparency is of course very important for any democratic organization -- but rather the content of those agreements. The DNC used this agreement to siphon money through state parties to Clinton's campaign, which made it easier for DNC to collect money around campaign finance laws. It broke the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law. Nothing here admits to that or describes how they are against it. So I read it as "I guess we'd be OK with making agreements with ANY candidate willing to help skirt campaign finance laws".
Notice also they say the agreements are available to all "official campaigns". What is an "official" campaign? That's a weasel word there. DNC can define what they mean by "official", and they can make it so that Bernie's campaign doesn't count as "official" if they want to. But even if they don't directly exclude Bernie, it only says such agreements will be transparent and available to campaigns, not the general public.
If they really wanted transparency, they'd put all of this out in the public eye. But that's not what they want. My guess is that they'll set a rule that the DNC only recognizes a campaign as "official" if you sign non-disclosure agreements and what not, so they can use legal pressure to keep details of agreements secret in future. It's an attempt at strong-arming candidates and campaigns, not really about being transparent.
If they really wanted transparency, they'd put all of this out in the public eye. But that's not what they want. My guess is that they'll set a rule that the DNC only recognizes a campaign as "official" if you sign non-disclosure agreements and what not, so they can use legal pressure to keep details of agreements secret in future. It's an attempt at strong-arming candidates and campaigns, not really about being transparent.
we must work with states to implement policies that make it easier to vote, including vote-by-mail laws, automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, expanded access to the polls and more robust voter protection efforts
These are good steps mostly, but the elephant in the room is the closed primary process itself. Having a commitment to open primaries would be better. A commitment to ranked choice voting or proportional representation would be even better.
But it's also vague. What is "more robust voter protection efforts"? They don't have any specific ideas or stories to share?
it's critical that the Unity Reform Commission provide recommendations that acknowledge the grass-roots benefit of the caucus process while also finding ways for those who have been excluded on caucus nights to have their votes counted
What does this even mean? What do they propose to do to fix it? If they can't articulate a plan here, I very much doubt they have one. A statement just for show. Likely nothing will change.
The real solution is to establish voting holidays and ranked choice voting so everyone has a chance to vote and their vote actually matters in the process. This is what Greens support.
provide for a significant reduction in the number of unpledged delegates
So in other words, they'll reduce it a bit to seem like they're doing something, but they will ultimately retain superdelegates that are unbound to votes and can vote as they please. Without a strong commitment to grassroots democracy and complete elimination of superdelegates, this is a worthless gesture. It says they still want to retain top-down control over the party as much as possible.
Greens do not have superdelegates, we believe in participatory democracy, not top-down party leadership dictating views. Why is it so hard for Democrats to say that? We know why, which is why this action means nothing. They haven't change their opinion, just trying to hide it better.
If we want Democrats to win and stay in power, we have to reform our party in ways that rebuild it from the ground up. A unified Democratic Party is a party that understands that every ZIP code counts and there's no such thing as an off-year. We've already begun making new investments in our state parties and down-ballot races
Oh, is that all of their policy proposals already? That was pretty weak and non-specific. They're just back to repeating themselves on talking points now. Yet again, pushing "unified" without addressing the concerns is an insult to progressives. Also again, investing in state parties and down-ballot races is meaningless, of course they're going to do that for establishment candidates they back, what we want to see is reform that doesn't shut progressives out of the process.
we changed our rules in October to ban corporate donations from political action committees whose goals conflict with our platform
So they still accept super PAC money, just as long as it matches their platform. What's in the platform? Read it yourself. But I can tell you what's missing from the platform: most progressive requirements, such as single payer healthcare, tuition-free college and student debt relief, ending the wars and reducing defense spending. Even when they sort of adopt progressive principles like a living wage, they do what they're doing in Pittsburgh -- slowly phase in $15/hr over the next *7* years. Families can't wait 7 years for better wages, and by then, inflation will make $15 worth less and still be a poverty wage. Democrats platform puts rights of business and corporations over people. Only accepting money from people they agree with will only exacerbate that problem, not fix it.
Plus, from their very own platform: "Big money is drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and we must have the necessary tools to fight back and safeguard our electoral and political integrity.... We need to end secret, unaccountable money in politics by requiring, through executive order or legislation, significantly more disclosure and transparency—by outside groups, federal contractors, and public corporations to their shareholders. We need to amplify the voices of the American people through a small donor matching public financing system. We need to overhaul and strengthen the Federal Election Commission so that there is real enforcement of campaign finance laws. And we need to fight to eliminate super PACs and outside spending abuses."
I don't have a lot of hope they will even honor this rule when their platform says they want to eliminate big money and super PACs, and yet never talk about that. Their platform is just words to them, not a code of conduct to live by. Actions speaker louder than words. They're not even trying to work toward these goals within their own party, what evidence do we have they'd actually push for it in government?
Contrast with the Green Party, which already today requires that ALL of its candidates refuse all corporate and super PAC money. We walk the walk because we believe strongly in it.
The DNC has come a long way since the 2016 election, but we know we have much further to go to earn the trust of voters and bring more people into the electoral process. We have our values and the support of the vast majority of the American people by our side. And when we lead with those values, we win.
Actually nearly half of all Americans are registered independents. Independents make the majority of Americans. They're fed up with the two party system. If you really wanted to earn the trust of voters, you'd talk about why the Democratic party has lost millions of voters, why the independents are growing, and what you'd do to win them back. But not a peep.
But aside from that, what has the DNC done to earn the description of "come a long way"? They certainly didn't provide any specific policies or evidence in this article. They didn't even do a great job explaining their values, even though they supposedly "lead" with those values.
Hopefully this deconstruction of their statement has been helpful. Democrats continue to play this game, saying just enough to convince people to stay in the party but never producing real meaningful change. Democrats hate their progressive base, but sort of know they need them to win, so use this doublespeak to keep the party together. But they have no interest in becoming progressive, or letting progressives win. Their goal is to retain control of the Democratic party as a major political party, and control as much as government as possible to enrich their checkbooks.
The Green Party meanwhile has been a progressive party since its very inception. So why are you donating your money, time, and effort to a party that has done everything it can to lessen your voice while still demanding your vote? I invite you to put that energy toward building the Green Party instead. We win when we have candidates, we just need more to join the cause and run for office as a Green. I've spoken with many voters that are Democrats only because they don't feel they have an option yet, but spoke highly of Greens and said they'd switch in a heartbeat if Greens ran more candidates.
We have the support of many Americans behind us, we just need to continue to grow. Remember that statistics about nearly half of voters being independents: there are way more of us than corporate establishment Democrats. They control the party structure and can squelch progressive voices within their party organization easily and legally. But they cannot stop progressives coming together outside the system. They cannot stop a strong Green Party. A strong Green coalition could easily overtake the Democratic party in terms of size, because their membership is 22% of voters and falling. That's not an impossible climb to reach 10-15% of voters and challenge the size of Democrats if we keep spreading the message and stop falling for Democrats' tactics designed to "keep us in line" rather than reform. At that point, with a strong Green challenger, Democrats MUST reform or be replaced. Working outside the system rather than in it is, in my opinion, the best and only way forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'm interested in your feedback, whether you agree or disagree! (as long as it is polite!).