Does a Republican Have To Win Before a Progressive Can Run for the White House?
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Is the Democratic Party transitioning its base from working people and progressives to #NeverTrump Republicans and whoever this guy represents?
by Thomas Neuburger
In the wake of Kamala Harris's pick as Joe Biden VP, I want to look again at something I covered in June (see "What's the Earliest a Progressive Democrat Can Be Elected President?"). There I made the following assumptions:
Because no progressive Democrat will run in the primary against an incumbent Democratic president, either the Party must be reformed — or a Republican must first take the White House — before a progressive can win the presidency.
Will the Democratic Party self-reform? Can it be reformed by others? Opinions vary on that. Those looking at the election of AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and the near election of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 would say "Yes, we just need to keep pushing."
On the other hand, those looking at what looks like the start of AOC's "acquiescence" to Party leaders (see Ryan Grim's discussion of that here); the lock-grip that Obama, through Biden and now Harris, seems to have on Party decision-making; and what looks like the deliberate transitioning of the Party from a base that supports the AOCs and Bernie Sanders of the world to a party that welcomes John Kasich to its Convention, George Bush to its circle of love, and Nicolle Wallace, Bush's White House Communications Director, to a choice two-hour slot on its house news network, MSNBC — those people see a different picture, a picture of solidifying, not loosening, neoliberal control.
Those differing opinions vary by demographic. That is, the closer one is to Democratic Party politics, even as a strong progressive, the more likely that person is to see reform in the headlights, just about to happen. The further one is to Democratic Party politics — the more one dwells in the world of the plebs, the civilians, the mass of voters and non-voters — the more the prospect of reform seems left in the dust, a diminishing dot in the Party's rear-view mirror.
Even mainstream writers like Thomas Frank ask (I'm paraphrasing), Which party represents the lower 90%, the workers of the country? Which represents the people? And they answer, Neither.
Is it possible a viable, non-fringe progressive Democrat will challenge an incumbent Democrat for the presidency? I have yet to see it, the Party wouldn't allow it, and the rules of the game, which place a premium on playing within Party leaders' boundaries, don't permit it.
To confirm this idea, note that even the "rebel" AOC failed to endorse Cori Bush, running against incumbent Democrat Lacy Clay, an endorsement that, had the race been close in Lacy Clay's direction, might have mattered. The record of Bernie Sanders' ultimate acquiescence to Barack Obama and surrender to Joe Biden makes the same point.
Which leaves us with this: A progressive will run a viable primary campaign only if no incumbent Democrat is in the race. That means the public might be offered a progressive option:
• In 2024, if Biden loses to Trump.
• In 2028, if Biden wins and Harris loses in 2024.
• In 2032, if Biden wins, Harris wins in 2024, but loses in 2028.
• In 2036 or later in all other cases.
No one wants Trump to win, which means 2028 at the earliest, and that's only if a Republican is elected in 2024. Not a charming prospect.
Inside-the-box thinking says that challenging Party leaders must not overly disrupt the Party itself, a party that neoliberal leaders almost completely control. This is where inside-the-box thinking has gotten us — a Biden-Harris ticket and no one else with any chance of winning to vote for.
Perhaps out-of-the-box thinking is needed next time around, something along "in your face" and "open rebellion" lines. Careful, respectful, quiet and "polite" rebellion may just not be enough to fix what ails us, what's already gone so wrong in the only country we have to live our lives in.
Labels: Barack Obama, Democratic Party leadership, Gaius Publius, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, open rebellion, presidential elections, Thomas Neuburger
posted by Gaius Publius @ 9:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Thomas, what is your defect?
There can be no true progressive run for president as a democrap. The party and its donors will not abide any such run... even as a charade (Bernie). They cannot abide the public airing of progressive thought, lest it become inconvenient for their prospects for rule of/by/for the money.
AOC's assimilation; Bernie's iterative betrayals; obamanation; the Clintons; Pelo$i enforcing in the house; $cummer (maybe) enforcing in the $enate; rigged primaries (Iowa this time); $uperdelegates. Where did you fail to understand all this incontrovertible proof.
Read the comments, mostly the first one, on your referenced piece.
And I offered this to that: "With the DNC actively defrauding and suppressing and $uperdelegate-ing anyone that is not in their club, there is absolutely no way the PARTY will allow a progressive anywhere near the nomination."
The democraps' donors won't allow a progressive, even if that is their only path to victory (2016, 2020). Clearly the democraps will enforce thought purity and lose rather than allow progressive thought and win. How many more times do they need to re-prove their principles?
And, of course, their refusal to be Democrats since Nixon will have led to a Nazi despot very soon. Elections by then will be moot. The money also prefers THEIR despot to the expense and slight chance the wrong person might win.
you remember... Germany in 1932?
Trump has already skipped over the Enabling Act part and shot right to dictator with his recent EOs. The fact that the democraps are silent is pretty deafening... again and still... wouldn't you say?
But the problem with trying to run as a third party candidate is that the progressive will run hard-on into the US "first-past-the-post" electoral system. They will split the left off the Democratic Party - so far so good - but there is no "left" in the GOP anymore, and there a genuine question whether the mushy middle can be energized by, well, anything. So you end up splitting the Democratic vote and the Republican wins with a plurality.
AFAIK the only time a "third party" has arisen to political power is when one of the two major parties has died, as the Whigs did in the late 1850s and were replaced by the Republicans. So it makes the "two-party" thing look like a feature of the electoral process, not a bug.
I'd love to think that the combination of rising public fury at the existing shitshow, amplification of that fury through the media, and a strong progressive third party organization taking hold of both of those and running with them could change that. I'm just not seeing those three things all happening, particularly the first and second. The public is a mess, and the media is dire.
I hate to be Debbie Downer, but...
The Whigs were like today's democraps. They were out of touch with voters on the most important issues. Voters understood and euthanized them.
it took someone like Lincoln to attract the voters to the republicans.
it took both at the same time.
Today? Voters are colossally stupid. They don't seem to be able to even realize that the democrap party has been out of touch with their needs for at least 4 decades. This makes it harder.
But there also needs to be someone with charisma and real principles to catalyze a new left replacement for the democraps. so far, nobody has stepped up. And it cannot be a mirage, like Bernie, who goes fetal and snaps back to supporting the democraps no matter what.
Had Bernie sued the democraps for fraud in 2016 and led his voting cohort out of the democrap convention... maybe. but like I said, Bernie is shit.
I don't think the voters in 1856 or 1860 were all that much less colossally stupid, at least, not from what I can get from the history. And I think that Lincoln's stature makes it easy to forget the role that 1) the Republican Party played in his election, forming the "Wide Awakes", dominating the Republican papers, pouring out campaign lit - the party had the 1860 equivalent of Fox AND the cable news AND the internet - and 2) the cumulative effect of a four-way race. Lincoln got something like 39% of the vote.
So I'm not sure that "someone with charisma and real principles" is key. A party organization and a hell of a ground game and a hammering media strategy seems like the key. It'd be nice to have someone standing tall on the podium, sure. But the real key seems to be
But that kind of brings us back to Sanders. Had be split the party in 2016 what would have happened? He and Clinton would have split the blue vote and Trump would have won, just like he did IRL. So, shit that he may be, I don't see a way forward for him in 2016.
"...you remember... Germany in 1932?"
It is a very common misunderstanding regarding the failed Viennese artist and his ascension to German Chancellor.
Schicklgruber NEVER was elected to any office. The equivalent of the Republican Party in Germany thought that they could control Adolph if they gave him a position of responsibility. They pressured President Paul Hindenburg (someone whose mental capacities were similar to Joe Biden's, only not limited just to bad days) to APPOINT the Austrian immigrant to the position of Chancellor. The WWI veteran Gefreiter repaid their generosity by banning their party along with all of the others.
SO FAR, Trump has not done anything to the USA close to what Germany's Nero did to his nation. But if it looks like The Donald is going to lose the election, well, the Capitol building would probably make a great pyre for a wiener roast. And, it would give Trump an open excuse to rule by diktat like he's already warming up.
And still the "Democrats" do nothing but kiss his ample ass.
If Bernie would have taken the nomination without any corporate PAC money, the neolib/ Republican party funding would have been challenged and defeated. That Corporate funding is also the blood supply to the US media empire or as a CIA official dubbed "The Mighty Wurlitzer" which attacked Bernie's campaign in every way possible and without ethics with the shrill factor reaching a peak to the point of a Billionaire comming off the sidelines to run interference. When Bernie follow-on campaigns like AOC, Ilhan, Cory Bush, Bowman, Rashida and many other candidates breaking through and defeating the corporate funding model to take power, we have a solution. Biden/Harris, Trump/Pence, FOX, CNBC, Lincoln project are all part of the same corporate funding disease so you're either with the corruption or your against the corruption. Lesser Evils need not apply.
{Mighty Wurlitzer" is a metaphor that CIA official Frank Wisner used to describe the Agency's influence on public opinion via various front organizations }
"If Bernie would have taken the nomination without any corporate PAC money, the neolib/ Republican party funding would have been challenged and defeated."
?????
How?
No, seriously. How does that actually work?
I mean, it's nice to think that everyone not in a two-yacht family suddenly realizes that Sanders offers a way out of the New Gilded Age...but he already DID that during the primaries, and where was the crossover? Where were the "white working class" Republican voters swarming into the Democratic Party to force the party into nominating him? Where was the grassroots demand for him to run as an independent?
I worked for the guy and helped him win here in Oregon. But to just say "oh, if Bernie had just kept going he'd have taken the nomination and beat Trump" without showing how that happens, well...it'd be nice to think that with Trump obviously stealing the election that the country would rise against him, and that ain't happening. Where would this massive uprising to "challenge and defeat" the corporate funding have come from?
He would not have beaten trump. But he may have beaten $hillbillary. And that could have been the start of "whigifying" the democrap party.
Trump would have been a huge help too. If the left had started to realize that the democrap party is shit and Bernie's party would be better, the 2018 cycle could have been the democraps' last.
And just maybe 2020 would be the one where trump and the Nazis get slaughtered as 30 million who never voted before decided to jump on board the progressive movement.
Occasionally I self-indulge in dreams.
Both wings of the Corporatist Party only allow Republicans to run for office. That way, progressives are effectively eliminated from contention.
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