Tag Archives: democrats

Cheri Honkala Should Win PA’s HD197

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Democrats deserve to lose #HD197 to Green write-in #CheriHonkala, due to repeat Dem corruption. #MyUnpopularOpinion #papol #p2

I’m serious. The one who comes out smelling like roses in the HD197 race is Honkala.

Campaigners for the Democrat who sought to be named on the ballot but ended up a write-in, Emilio Vasquez, are already being accused of abetting voter intimidation. The two predecessors in office, both Democrats, resigned from office due to corruption charges. The GOP candidate who was the sole candidate on the ballot, Lucinda Little, left the Dems because of their corruption.

Now we know that the GOP lost this race, but Friday 3/31 will reveal which write-in won. I hope the Dems lose this seat to the Green write-in. The Dems deserve to lose this race. Honkala should be the first Green member of the PA General Assembly. #papol

What a #DemExit Could Look Like

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#DemExit folks who are looking for a left-wing alternative party after yesterday can either join the Greens, Rocky Anderson’s Justice Party, Kshama Sawant’s Socialist Alternative, or build yet another party.

Out of all the alternatives, the Green Party is the only one with ballot access in at least 4+ states. As of this year, they have access in 19 states, with chapters in all 50 states, 3 of which are currently unaffiliated.

Oh, and if you want to be a viable party at all, you’ll need chapters in all 3,142 counties and county-equivalents in the US (threshold 1,571). You’ll have to build that all by yourselves. Otherwise, you’ll have no presence in the Electoral College vote.

Good luck.

 

Minority-access seats

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What is more important to keep in legislatures: minority-access seats or party-competitive seats?

Example: creating one seat populated mostly by African-American Democrats in order to ensure a safe seat for a Democratic member of Congress. But in turn, creating 4 or 5 districts next door to be populated mostly by White American Republicans to make safe seats for Republicans. This is done mostly in the South and Midwest.

I’m asking this question because many Black Democratic legislators would rather have a seat at the negotiating table for Black legislators rather than have a seat at the table for Democrats.

Case in point: how former Rep. Corrine Brown sued to keep her own 5th district in north Florida as racially-gerrymandered as possible in order to secure a safe seat for Black congressmembers like herself while surrounded by White Republican safe seats. Today, while she has been replaced by another Black Democrat, her district still looks like a snake.

Maybe minority-access seats are terrible. Maybe, in the post-Obama era, we’ll have to discard these seats to help Democrats become more competitive.

In at least two other alternate realities, a lot of people are counting down the hours to better versions of #POTUS45: President Sanders and President Hillary Clinton.

In the former, in which someone more competent than Jeff Weaver was campaign manager, Sanders is planning a rousing speech harkening to the ghost of FDR, wondering whether or not this country is ready for positive mentions of “democratic socialism” in this inauguration speech.

In the latter, in which she campaigned harder in Midwestern states, Clinton is planning to celebrate the shattering of a glass ceiling, promote a theme of responsibility and extend an olive branch to those who hate her existence. And Bill would have worked out by now how he’ll use Twitter as First Gentleman of the United States.

Thirst for Purging

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Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

So the GOP have the perfect, most on-message political party in 2017. They cut out most of the voters who don’t fit their ideas, cowed the ones who remained, and now carry the nation on a narrow path which will benefit a smaller, privileged portion of the population.

The Tea Party and its predecessors defined themselves by how much they drove away White moderates from the GOP through purity tests. The result of their zealotry, combined with massive gerrymandering, is the incoming dominant status quo.

Being “better/more inclusive than the Tea Party”, combined with being massively distracted from gerrymandering, left us with a terrible Democratic Party. We screwed ourselves. The Obama-Clinton coalition is dying.

Meanwhile, born-again Berniecrats like Nina Turner are preaching fire and brimstone at progressive tent revivals. Berniecrats, now drunk with schadenfreude and motivated by revenge, threaten to make it exciting, thrilling and headline-grabbing to be a progressive in opposition. What they lack in respectability, they replenish with ideological consistency and bombast. In the age of Trump, the American people crave both, and those who want stability are in the minority.

So I’m OK with the progressive sentiment of purging/cowing the centrists and neoliberals from the Democratic Party. I look forward to it.

From Tim Kaine to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to Donna Brazile

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So the DNC’s bleeding began under then-Governor Tim Kaine as Chair (2009-2011). It was under his watch that the Democrats were shellacked by the Tea Party.

What if President Obama hadn’t requested him as Chair, and had selected someone else to succeed Howard Dean? What if POTUS hadn’t selected Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to succeed Kaine? Where would our country be right now?

Maybe he should have looked less at fundraisers like Kaine and DWS and more at strategists. The primary reason why they were considered as successors to Dean is because they were both good fundraisers.

We need a strategist as chair, not a full-time fundraiser. Ellison’s “3,143 county” seems like a good platform to build on.

Maybe with Ellison as chair, I’ll get less money begs in my email.

The DLC and the “New Democrats”

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Those who speak of the DLC and its influence need to know who shaped it.

The DLC was formed in 1985 by Al From in response to Water Mondale’s landslide defeat by Reagan. It was based on the same model and involved many of the same members as the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, Scoop Jackson’s 1970s endeavor to move the party away from the FDR-LBJ trajectory and avoid a repeat of George McGovern’s landslide loss.

The CDM not only helped the political careers of economically-conservative Democrats, but also helped Democrats who later joined the Republican Party and the GW Bush administration. Yes, including the neoconservatives.

The DLC is formally dead as of 2011. Hillary in 2016 was the first non-incumbent Democratic candidate to stand for the presidency since the DLC’s collapse. Some of their vestiges remain, such as the New Democrat Coalition – a moderate, pro-growth caucus in the House – and the Progressive Policy Institute – a moderate think tank. The DLC’s past victories at the ballot have been hollowed out.

The centrist trajectory that has been built since Scoop Jackson’s CDM in 1972 needs a response of equal force and endurance from the resurgent New Left figureheaded by Sanders.

The winning issue at this time is economic populism. Economic feelings matter more than academic facts.

Don’t give Trump a chance. Give economic populism a chance.

The superdelegate system

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Every time is a good time to get rid of the superdelegate system.

Even if it results in a McGovern or Carter 1980-style landslide loss, at least it won’t be as skewed between electoral and popular as this is.

If it means that Clintonian democracy will die, so be it.

If it means that outsiders will come into the Democratic Party and run it in the way Donald Trump has done, so be it.

If it means that Iowa won’t be the first or most determinative Democratic contest in the campaign season, so be it.

The optics against the superdelegate system are damning and prone to exaggeration, no matter the self-preservational intentions of those who defend superdelegates.

We can’t call for ending the Electoral College without ending the superdelegate system.

Let the chips fall where they may. End both systems.

Stability über alles

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The Electoral College and the two-party system are both defended as forcing political candidates – from president on down – toward the middle of the political spectrum. Both institutions work in tandem.

But this is a deceit which is intended to keep this system alive long after its sell date.

It’s why “Democratic” and “Republican” are two self-descriptions which have changed definition at least 4 times since the Civil War.

It’s why, for a long time, presidential candidates had to pursue campaign promises which appealed to regional differences within the two political parties on political ideology and economic interest. The priorities of a Republican in New York was not the same as those of a Republican in Arizona; a Democrat in Illinois did not have the same priorities as a Democrat in Georgia. But regional differences have minimized somewhat as communication has intensified, more identities have been welcomed or scrutinized, and sitting politicians pursue someone’s model legislation or model lawsuit at the state level across multiple regions.

It’s why we haven’t had a new Constitution since 1787 or a new constitutional amendment since 1971.

We’ve preserved and prioritized stability between regions at the cost of adaptability, and now we are paying the cost.

The liberals are on different agendas than the progressives. The sooner we accept that, the sooner that we will stop walking on each others’ feet.

There’s a reason why the Liberal and NDP parties are separate parties in Canada. They share many goals, but really can’t stand each other. Same here in the U.S.

The DNC chair contest between Keith Ellison and Tom Perez is a proxy fight between progressives and liberals. The Democratic primary showed that this fight has been brewing for a long time, at least since the former DLC became the bulwark against left-wing populists back in the 80s.

Let it play out.