The Debate Inside The Democratic Party Continues, Despite An Establishment Effort To Pretend Otherwise

Bernie won the SNL debate but a few hours before the show aired, the Washington Post's Paul Kane asserted that "For almost four months, House Democrats have enjoyed something that once seemed unattainable: relative calm inside their caucus. "Democrats," he wrote, "have tamped down the internal friction that dominated the spring and summer, creating divisions along ideological and generational lines, as they instead focus on the far more consequential battle of trying to impeach President Trump. The self-proclaimed 'Squad'-- the four young, first-term liberal congresswomen who clashed earlier in the year with fellow freshmen from swing districts-- has drifted into the background with so much attention now focused on the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry."

One of the worst Democrats in Congress, reactionary Blue Dog Kurt Schrader, who tends to vote with the Republicans as frequently as he can, was celebrating. Kane quoted him: "Have you heard much from them recently? Not really." He claims that impeachment is why "the typical Democratic infighting has subsided" and why the members of the Squad aren't dominating the media. But out on the campaign hustings the differences between real Democrats and Blue Dogs/New Dems hasn't disappeared-- nor should it.

Yesterday, progressive reformer Rachel Ventura was in Springfield to file her petitions in her campaign to replace establishment New Dem Bill Foster. She wrote from there that "A discussion broke out between me and the 'regular Democrat' when he started trashing Theresa Mah and progressives using Republican talking points. Apparently, what is happening on the presidential debate stage is happening at the congressional and local level as well. In Illinois’ 11th Congressional District the distance between Bill Foster and I is a large gap. When it becomes difficult to tell the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans because both parties are using the same corporate-sponsored message, the populist/progressive message becomes the key to winning. Being a voice of the people versus a voice of wealthy donors is truly what sets a progressive apart from the Democrats or the Republicans. America doesn’t need bought and paid for Republicans or Democrats. We need a government that works for everyone. Here are the differences between Bill Foster and myself."

Kane noted that the conservative Schrader "never shies from a battle with the liberal flank" and that he attributes the lack of noise from the Squad inside Capitol Hill to the freshmen learning the ropes and leaning how the game is played. Schrader: "One thing you learn serving in a legislative body, you don’t have any friends, you don’t have any enemies. You have got allies and adversaries, and they change at any given moment on any given bill."

Schrader thinks he helped teach AOC this lesson when he helped lead the opposition to a pair of amendments to bar the Defense Department from deploying troops to the southern border and to restrict funds from being spent on holding undocumented immigrants at military facilities last July. Schrader and his cronies helped kill them both. Kane wrote that "Insiders think her poor vote total can be attributed to the policy and personality clashes that came just a few weeks before. Democrats pushed a bill to ease the crisis of undocumented immigrants at the border, including mandates over the conditions and treatment of those in detention centers. Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted against the original bill, and after Pelosi relented to pressure from moderates and put the Senate bill on the floor, they led the fight against that bill. Democratic staffers spent the next weekend in a public war of words on Twitter, a clash compounded by Pelosi’s interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in which the speaker demeaned the Squad as just 'four people' with four votes. Finally, at the end of July, Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez held an hour-long meeting behind closed doors... Schrader praises Pelosi’s touch, a remarkable sentiment considering how bitter the Blue Dogs felt toward leadership during Pelosi’s first reign as speaker. That ended with many of those moderate-to-conservative Democrats wiped out in the 2010 midterm elections. Now, Schrader said, the Blue Dogs have the 'ear of leadership,' including weekly meetings with other ideological caucuses. 'It’s night-and-day difference. You can’t even compare. Oh yeah, it’s night-and-day difference. Yeah, we were dead to them 10 years ago.'"

Shaniyat Chowdhury, an all-in progressive who's taking on crooked New Dem Greg Meeks this cycle, feels it's "good and healthy to have in-party fighting. Though, I identify as a Democrat, we as a people have to weed out politicians who do not stand on the behalf of working people. It’s not a left-right issue. It’s a bottom-up issue. My campaign is more than about taking on an incumbent. It’a about dismantling a corrupt system that oppresses working people. In order to do that, we need to challenge those who enable it. I am the exact opposite of my opponent Gregory Meeks. He is a career politician who sits on the Finance committee and bailed out Wall Street after the Great Recession. To this day, he takes money from Finance and Real Estate industries. This prompts him to co-sponsor Republican legislation to deregulate big banks and pay day lenders, who impose unlimited amounts of interest rates on working families who are already in debt. That’s how they profit off of us. I am an activist, marine corps veteran, rugby player, and everyday working American. These experiences have taught me that all of destinies m no matter where we are from, are intertwined. We share the same destiny and are fighting the same system. Not only will I not accept any corporate money donation, but I will make it a mission to help overrun Citizens United. We have a housing crisis in the country. It’s a National Emergency and we can’t wait another 2-4 years for changes to happen. Everyday we are losing families out in the streets and are forgotten about. Housing is a human right and every person deserves to live in a safe and sustainable home. I support a Federal Homes Guarantee centering impacted communities from the current housing crisis. The plan is to create over 12 million permanent affordable housing outside of the capitalist market, addresses a century of systemic racism such as predatory lending and redlining and paying reparations to those impacted communities, and lastly transitioning social housing to a Green New Deal economy."

Kim Williams, the progressive running for the Central Valley seat currently held by Blue Dog Jim Costa, doesn't see it the same way Kane does. "While the impeachment process continues, many people in my district will still struggle to survive. Nothing changes for them just because the national media says things are calm in Congress. There will still be families struggling to eat when their food stamps can’t get them through the month, and hard working people will be forced from their homes because the cost of living far exceeds their income. There will be grandmothers sleeping under bridges on cold nights and homeless workers cleaning themselves up in their cars before heading to work. These are the people we connect with on the campaign trail, and these are the people who deserve a fighting chance. They also deserve representation that will build an America that doesn’t leave them behind. And if this means there’s disagreements in Congress, so be it. Progressives may not make up a majority in Congress now, but they do make up a majority in this district. The incumbent and the local media can paint another picture all they want, but voters here are desperate for a health care system that works for all and for a Green New Deal that will finally address our terrible air and water quality while bringing in better paying jobs. The incumbent has never offered this and has never even stepped foot into their neighborhoods. Conservative Democrats are offering more of the same and hoping ad buys will carry them over the finish line. The truth is, though, they’ve only secured votes in the past because voters have lacked alternatives. Voters now know that they will have the power to change their country in 2020, and they won’t be voting for the status quo."

Marie Newman is the progressive Democrat running for a Chicagoland seat occupied by arch-conservative Blue Dog Dan Lipinski-- who the status quo establishment is trying to protect.

“I guess my reaction is different than most," Marie told us. "We have always had 50 or more varying perspectives inside the Democratic Party. I think the tension we see is coming from the grassroots up-- and the grassroots are requiring their representatives must be in alignment with their districts. In my district, constituents are unwilling to continue with a congressperson who is anti-healthcare for all, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice. Further, they expect their candidates to be real Democrats with real plans around Medicare For All, Transformational Immigration, The Green New Deal and Gun Safety Reform. The fight is not being driven from inside the party-- that has always been there-- we now, have highly informed voters who are requiring Democrats to act like real Democrats and to actually work hard and fight for Medicare For All, Workers, the middle class, Immigrants  and The Green New Deal. I will."

Yesterday, DFA amplified what Marie was saying: "At a time when Republicans are actively working against women’s rights and trying to ban abortion nationwide, it’s never been more important to elect strong leaders ready to fight for reproductive freedom. Even worse: some Democrats are part of the problem... Lipinski is barely a Democrat. He voted to defund Planned Parenthood and against the Affordable Care Act. He wouldn’t even endorse President Obama’s reelection in 2012. The problem is the DCCC's decision to blacklist Democratic primary challengers like Marie who bravely run against anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ+ candidates like Lipinski, means it’s all up to progressives like us to put her over the top... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it best when she endorsed Marie earlier this year" 'Marie Newman is a textbook example of one of the ways that we could be better as a party. The fact that a deep blue seat is advocating for many parts of the Republican agenda is extremely problematic. We're not talking about a swing state that is being forced to take tough votes.' Exactly."

Obama was at a big-bucks soiree with Silicon Valley donors on Thursday, preaching to the status quo choir that "everybody needs to chill out" about the differences among the 2020 Democratic candidates. Tickets were $10,000 to get into the event, $35,000 for a photo with Obama and up to $355,000 for a VIP reception and a premium convention package. "We are not going to win just by increasing the turnout of people who already agree with us completely on everything, which is why I’m always suspicious of purity tests during elections."

I wonder if mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg's purity tests well enough for Obama and for the people who wrote this big checks Thursday. Yesterday, Bloomberg surprised no one at all when he finally released a statement on his campaign website announcing he's running. (It had already been widely announced that he's running $31.1 million in ads this week starting today, so the announcement wasn't exactly a bolt of lightning out of the blue.) The statement starts the same way any statement from any Democrat could begin: "I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage. The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America." Want to read the rest of it?

I believe my unique set of experiences in business, government, and philanthropy will enable me to win and lead.

As a candidate, I’ll rally a broad and diverse coalition of Americans to win. And as president, I have the skills to fix what is broken in our great nation. And there is a lot broken.

• We have an economy that is tilted against most Americans.
• We have a health care system that costs too much and doesn’t cover everyone.
• We have communities ravaged by gun violence.
• We have schools that aren’t preparing our children for success in an increasingly high-tech world.
• We have an immigration system that is cruel and dysfunctional.
• We have a climate crisis that is growing worse by the day.
• We have special interests that corrupt Washington and block progress on all of these issues.

As a child and a Boy Scout, I was taught to believe in the promise and potential of America, and I have never been more worried about its future than I am today.

America is at its best when we work together to find meaningful and lasting solutions to the big challenges that we face.

We need a president who understands that truth-- and who can do it, rather than just make promises.

I offer myself as a doer and a problem solver-- not a talker. And as someone who is ready to take on the tough fights-- and win.

I took on Trump on gun violence-- and won stronger gun laws in states across the country.

I took on Trump the climate denier-- and have led an effort that has closed more than half the nation’s dirty coal plants.

Trump right now is carrying water for Big Tobacco. I’ve taken on the dangers of e-cigarettes to protect our kids.

I know what it takes to beat Trump, because I already have. And I will do it again.

I’ve never shied away from a tough fight.

Defeating Trump-- and rebuilding America-- is the most urgent and important fight of our lives. And I’m going all in.

My resolve to stand up to his bigotry and hatred and wrong-headed policies is anchored in who I am and my belief in government as a force for good.

I’ve spent my career bringing people together to tackle big problems-- and fix them. It has worked well in business-- and in running the country’s largest, most progressive city.

I know it can work in Washington, too-- and I have the leadership skills and experience to make it happen.

I’ve been very lucky in life. Growing up, my father never earned more than $6,000 in a year. But my mother and father worked very hard to help my sister and me get an education. I managed to work my way through college and get an entry-level job in New York.

And then, when I was 39, I got laid off. I didn’t know what I’d do next. But I had an idea to start a company-- so I took a chance.

Today our company employs 20,000 people and generates large profits, almost all of which go to helping people across the country and around the world. I’ve always believed in investing in our employees and treating them well. We pay employees very well and provide the best health care benefits money can buy. And if someone has a baby, they get six months of paid leave.

I’ve run my company according to my values: honesty, integrity, fairness, inclusion-- and that’s the same approach I brought to city government.

I was elected mayor of America’s most diverse city just weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It was a frightening time for our city and country. But we rebuilt the economy with new jobs and opportunity-- for people on all rungs of the economic ladder.

We gave our teachers the largest raise in America, and we improved graduation rates by 42 percent. We cut murders in half while reducing incarceration by nearly 40 percent. We cut the city’s carbon footprint by 14 percent and created new programs to combat poverty. And we expanded health care and strengthened immigrant communities.

As mayor, my priority was helping the millions of New Yorkers who needed it most.

And the issues I am most passionate about focus on righting wrongs that have fallen heaviest on the most vulnerable communities. I know government can improve people’s lives-- because when I ran New York City, that’s exactly what we did.

Since leaving City Hall, I founded the largest gun safety group in history. I created a campaign to take on the biggest polluters and climate threats. As mayor, I banned smoking in restaurants and bars and cut teen smoking by 50 percent-- and today, we continue to win battles against the tobacco industry and their sleazy attempts to hook young kids on e-cigarettes.




I know how to take on the powerful special interests that corrupt Washington. And I know how to win-- because I’ve done it, time and again. I will be the only candidate in this race who isn’t going to take a penny from anyone and will work for a dollar a year.

Over the course of this campaign, I’ll tell you what I will do as president, and how I’ll do it. I’ll outline plans for:

• Creating good-paying jobs
• Providing quality health care for every American
• Stopping gun violence
• Fighting climate change
• Fixing our broken immigration system
• Raising taxes on wealthy individuals like me
• Protecting women’s and LGBTQ rights
• Supporting our veterans
• Reestablishing America’s place in the world as a force for peace and stability

But more than plans, I offer the leadership to turn plans into reality. To roll up my sleeves, to motivate a country to unite and rebuild America-- and make it fairer and better.

And I’m ready to get working.