Children In Cages

Reporting for The Hill the week, JulieGrace Brufke-- whose byline I've never seen before so maybe she's new and about to learn something valuable-- made a grievous error in the opening two words of an important story, Democrats in swing districts advised to avoid talking about immigration. The error she made-- common inside the Beltway where people don't know shit from shinola-- was in referring to Third Way, the far right of the Democratic Party and the far right of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party that works assiduously against progressives and progressive ideas, as "left-leaning." How about "right-leaning," a far more accurate description of the Wall Street-funded group? That said, let's take a look at what JulieGrace was reporting.

Basically the Republican wing of the Democratic Party avoids an issue that resonates with millions of actual Democrats: Trump's inhumane, racist, xenophobic immigration agenda. Doug Pagitt, the pastor and executive director of Vote Common Good in the video up top, just reminded me that "One of Jesus most famous quotes from Matthew 19 is 'what God has brought together no one should ever separate.'" Keeping families together goes beyond politics for tens of millions of American families. But when it does come to politics, Alan Grayson reminded me of something else, something darker: "The Democrats in charge," he warned me yesterday, "want other Democrats to run not as Democrats, but rather as not-Republicans. To do that, however, you have to be able to explain why you are not a Republican. And now our party leaders don’t want that, either. The issue-phobia that afflicts the party is now chronic, pervasive, and possibly fatal."

ICE, ICE by Nancy Ohanian

Melissa Byrne, a progressive organizer and strategist, is an old friend. She was incensed by the Third Way memo to candidates. She told me that "Third Way has a record of losing and being beholden to the Wall Streeters. They shouldn't be invited to anything within the Democratic sphere. We don't need them. We don't want them. Bravery wins and throwing immigrants under the bus is how we lose morally and at the ballot box. Shame on the Third Way." Another old friend, Murshed Zaheed, was no less incensed: "Folks in the establishment are perfectly comfortable with status quo and maintaining their little fiefdoms within the current parameters of white supremacy. Sorry, I am done being polite on this stuff after seeing what Schumer and the Congressional Democratic leadership has done the last few years... There are Democrats working pretty hard at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory... Notice that Third Way's VP of Policy [co-founder Jim Kessler] was formerly Schumer's legislative director. These people will stumble over themselves for good photo ops-- and show up at 'marches'-- but when it comes times for action-- they show their true colors."

The kinds of Democraps the Third Way memo appeals to are Blue Dogs like former CIA spy Abigail Spanberger who's running against immigration-hardliner and extremist arch-villain Dave Brat (R-VA). Spanberger is an Eisenhower-era Republican-- maybe slightly to the right of that, not an actual Democrat. She put out an ad distancing herself from the progressives and from mainstream Democratic Party ideas. She has fully embraced the DCCC's one strategy: "sure we suck but we don't suck as bad as the Republicans. WE ARE THE LESSER EVIL, so you suck that up, bitches!" It's why the Democrats have done nothing but lose, lose, lose for the last decade and why there is no Blue Wave, just an anti-red wave. Spanberger-- one of the most repulsive candidates the DCCC recruited this cycle-- and that is saying a lot-- referred to immigrants in her ad as "criminals" and "gangs." So how is she different from Trump and Brat? She is every bit as vile and detestable as they are... but with a "D" next to her name. Just imagine what that monster is going to be like in Congress!

Mike Lux is another old pal but you may remember him from an incredible book, The Progressive Revolution, that we covered here frequently. Before writing that, Mike worked in Nebraska and Iowa politics, and then in the Clinton White House, and has been an advisor to candidates like Elizabeth Warren. This morning I asked him about the Third Way memo. This is what he told me and said it was OK to share at DWT:

For many years, the conventional wisdom among the DC Democratic Party establishment has been to avoid tough issues in swing states and districts at all costs. That’s why Al Gore chose to never talk about gun issues in 2000, and two decades later why Democrats avoid talking about immigration and other racially charged issues in working class white areas today. The problem with this approach is that those same issues are the ones that Republicans talk about non-stop everywhere they go. The result is that their side builds the framing of the question at hand and defines the terms of the debate. So Gore lost his home state of Tennessee and the state of West Virginia, which has always gone for Democrats before that time, because the NRA said Gore would take folks’ hunting rifles away, and Gore never answered, so people assumed the NRA was right. Today, (while the same right wing drumbeat on guns is going on) Trump says immigrants are rapists and killers, coming to steal our jobs. If we fail to answer, if we fail to take the argument to the voters and make our case, we will lose those blue-collar voters once again.

Watch a right-of-center Third Way asshole, a real elitist piece of crap, arguing with Bernie campaign manager Jeff Weaver. Too bad Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn't on stage to explain how she and her team at the DNC were able to rig primary after primary for her centrist candidate. These are exactly the people who refuse to understand that by refusing to draw a strong contrast on immigration and against white supremacist policy they manage to send the message to communities of color that Democrats won’t make meaningful progress on those issues.



Now watch the one below, when they get into specific policy and somehow Steven Rattner missed this little factoid in the graphic. The Third Way, No Labels and so-called "Problem Solvers" wolves in sheep's clothing folks from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party always do seem to, don't they? Meanwhile, today Pramila Jayapal told me she's working on the new version of the Medicare for All bill and including dental and eye care, an idea that will appeal to pretty much all normal Americans, if not Republicans and the Third Way establishment.