Is The Democratic Party Still Something More Than A Vehicle For Politicians' Career Aspirations?

Sure, they can't all be this good-- but we should aim high... especially in primaries

For Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin, Alan Grayson, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, Ted Lieu, Randy Bryce and, of course, Bernie, the Democratic Party is, first and foremost, a vehicle for making the country a better place. These are values-rich progressives who are all about policy solutions for real problems. I'll never forget when, over dinner one evening several years ago, Matt Stoller asked then-state Senator Ted Lieu why he wanted to give up a nice life in California to run for Congress and go to the DC snake-pit. Ted didn't miss a beat and launched right into a long story about his own two young sons and the need to put the country on a course to fight Climate Change.

I'm afraid most Democratic politicians aren't as motivated by policy questions, even if they were at first. Over the years I've come to realize that many Democrats in Congress-- of not most-- see the Democratic Party more as a vehicle for their own personal career ambitions. Look at a Steny Hoyer, Joe Crowley, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kyrsten Sinema, Dan Lipinski, Rahm Emanuel... even a hapless clown like Ben Ray Lujan. I shudder when I hear candidates for Congress talking exclusively about themselves, unaware that what voters want to hear about is how these candidates will make their families' lives better. But Pelosi and her decrepit leadership crew have been in Congress far too long-- far, far too long-- and see the party as being ll about themselves and their own aspirations. Team Democrat needs to be about grassroots voters, not about mostly-despised politicians.

Yesterday Digital Left's Daniel Kauder wrote an essay about where Democrats need to draw the line in terms of defining the party. He used West Virginia conservaDem Joe Manchin as the example, but could have picked anyone from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party instead. Manchin, he pointted out, voted to confirm Trump's worst cabinet nominees, like Scott Pruitt and Jeff Sessions.

Kauder asks "Should we, as Progressives, challenge literally everyone in the House and Senate, even if we risk a loss? Even if we risk a net loss of seats?" And he responds in the affirmative. We came to a different conclusion in regard to the West Virginia primary but tend to agree with most of what Kauder has to say about it.

Look, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m worried that Paula is going to win her Primary, and then some alt-right Trumplet is going to beat her in the General. If that one seat had been Republican this term, the ACA would have been repealed. Manchin standing with the Democrats on this particular occasion doesn’t absolve him of all the other horrible votes he’s cast, but we also can’t pretend as though this is some purely intellectual question. This isn’t a game. If we Primary conservative (“Blue Dog”) Democrats, there are going to be real world consequences.

But there are going to be real world consequences if we don’t, too. For instance, the Democrats just came out and said that there’s “no litmus test” for Democrats on the question of abortion; if abortion rights get scaled back or repealed altogether, that’s going to have an unspeakable impact on women’s health- especially women of color. Its going to impact low-income families across the country, especially when you couple this move with the Republicans’ “religious liberty” attacks on birth control and contraception.

Inevitably, we’re going to hear complaints from Democrats that we’re traitors, that we’re idealists, that we’re this or that or the other. We’re going to hear that we ought to make the pragmatic choice and accept a more conservative or corporatist option, and that any voices claiming otherwise are getting caught up with “purity tests.”

But this is all nonsense. We’d be “caught up on purity tests” if we were threatening to unseat Manchin for “only” voting in line with someone like Bernie 99.99% of the time, and that .01% was our tipping point. But that’s not what we’re dealing with. People like Manchin vote against our interests most of the time already, so why should we be shamed and silenced by the corporatists into abandoning a Primary challenge? It makes no sense.

This is going to be a tough midterm, in West Virginia and across the country. But we’re not going to improve our own lives, and the lives of our countrymen, by acquiescing to corporate stooges who shout us down. We must show the country that we’re ready to fight for our beliefs in every county, city and state.