What Will the Real American Resistance Look Like — Chaotic Rebellion or Organized General Strikes?

Click to enlarge. Suitable for framing.

by Thomas Neuburger

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
—Jay Gould, 1886

It's normally a bad idea to denigrate the other side's supporters in a fight, especially in a political fight like the one we're currently engaged in, and especially when the game being played is the oligarch's version of Eric Berne's "Let's You and Him Fight" — the one where the rich get the poor to kill each other, while they steal both of them blind.

So don't consider this piece to be about the other side's supporters, whichever side the "other side" is to you, so much as it is an indictment of us all, and a call for all of us to change our ways.

The Real Surrender Monkeys

The indictment comes from Juan Cole, writing at Informed Comment. Two notes before we begin. First, I'm going to quote at some length, so forgive me; his point is stronger that way.

Second, despite its headline, the point is not about resistance to Trump alone, but far more general than that. Is America's broken state the fault of Republicans, or do the corrupted leaders of both parties have a hand in what we suffer?

Here's Cole:

How did Americans become such Wimps? Silence as Trump kills tens of Thousands, Destroys Social Security and Post Office, Plots Election Fraud

Nicole Winfield and Lisa Marie Pane at the Associated Press write at the unbelief with which Europeans are staring at the United States, as we head for 300,000 dead from the coronavirus and our economy shrank 33% on an annualized basis last quarter, and we just appear to be all right with that.

Not only are we perfectly willing to toss grandma in an early grave on Trump’s say-so, but we are supine as he openly engineers the destruction of social security and medicare, and of the post office, on behalf of himself and the billionaire class he represents. That is after we sat by while he completely gutted all environmental regulations that got in the way of corporations making money off poisoning us. I don’t think the neutering of the EPA has even been reported on daytime cable news, though the prime time magazine shows on MSNBC have at least brought it up.

Americans imagine themselves rugged individualists. A cartoonist did a satire on us showing brawny guys, shirts off, with the logo “Rugged individualism works best when we obey.”

In fact, Americans are masochistic sheeple who let the rich and powerful walk all over them and thank them for the privilege. ...

The rich figured out in the 1980s that Americans are all form over substance, and if you put up for president a Hollywood actor like Ronald Reagan who used to play cowboys, they would swoon over him. In 1984 when Reagan ran against Walter Mondale, I saw a middle aged white Detroit auto worker interviewed who said he woudn’t vote for Mondale because he was a “panty-waist.” Reagan took away their right to strike and took away government services by running up the deficit and cutting taxes on the rich simultaneously, then claiming the government couldn’t provide the services the people had paid for because it is broke.

Reagan raised the retirement age from 65 to 67. Why? Most young people don’t realize that their health will decline in their late 60s and they often won’t actually get any golden years.

What did Americans do in response? They just bent over and took it.

Actually, it is the French who are much more like Americans imagine themselves to be. President Emmanuel Macron last December tried to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. I can’t understand why. France has persistently high unemployment as it is.

In response, all hell broke loose. Some 30 unions went on strike, and they supported each other. Trains were interrupted. Trucking was interrupted. Life was interrupted. A million people came out into the streets. But one poll had 61% of the French approving of the strikes. They went on for months, and were very inconvenient. ...

Macron backed down on raising the retirement age.

In the 2000s, Americans ridiculed the French as "surrender monkeys" for not joining the "Coalition of the Willing (to Commit War Crimes in Iraq)."

That was particularly rich coming from a nation that, in 2000, had just witnessed its presidency stolen by a blatantly partisan Supreme Court — and lifted not a single finger to stop it. The French (and Germans, and Italians) would have been in the streets had that happened to them, burning cars and reputations until the wrong was redressed.

The 2000 election was a constitutional coup — two of them if you count the one attempted by George Bush's brother Jeb in Florida, whose own coup attempt was made moot by the U.S. Supreme Court's. Yet for almost every American, it happened on television only, a game show to be watched between dessert and the late-night comics.

Cole writes about how the French are not only willing to "throw a first class fit when the servants of the rich in government come after their lifestyles," but also how all of the unions and most of the working class had each other's backs during these actions.

For contrast, in the U.S. the United Food and Commercial Workers union recently filed a lone-wolf lawsuit against the Dept. of Agriculture for allowing poultry manufacturers to speed up production lines, and no other union joined with them. In France, according to Cole, "it wouldn’t have been one union filing a lawsuit. ... It would have been a massive set of mutually reinforcing strikes."

A massive set of mutually reinforcing strikes. Surrender monkeys indeed.

Civil War or Civil Chaos?

Now for the call to change our ways: At the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, Americans face a crossroads. For everyone who isn't either independently wealthy (like most of the donors who make up the real Republican base), or comfortably tucked into the professional managerial class (whose interests the Democratic Party seems most to serve), daily life is a both horror show now and collapsing fast to something even worse.

If there were ever a time to rise up, it's today. And rise up Americans will, I'm sure of it. With Covid deaths high (1,000 a day as I write this), incomes insecure for all but work-at-home professionals, and evictions just one or two missed paychecks away, even for the pre-Covid comfortable — with all this at the door, why would they not?

The question isn't will they rise up, but how will they revolt?

Will Americans rebel in an organized, focused way — like colonial Americans, for example, rose against British taxes, with planned resistance and coordinated action?

Or will the next rebellion devolve to the kind of battle that Jay Gould contemplated more than a century ago, a civil war where half of the suffering class attacks the other half, a chaotic free-for-all that allows the muscular security state to bootstomp in and "restore order" — all while our modern Jay Goulds (Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, our hedge fund kings and queens, our CEOs of Google, Disney and Comcast), sail blindly off to their private-jet cocktail sunset, feeding on caviar and broken hearts?

Will Americans rise up effectively, with targets in mind — Medicare for All, Student Debt Forgiveness, Free Public Colleges and Universities, an actual End to Police Violence and Murder — and fight the misery descended upon them all?

Or will they rise up chaotically, their legitimate protests hijacked by Boogaloo Boys and FBI provocateurs, a faux-revolt where fascists battle anti-fascists, the former aided by violent, racist police, until the nation, getting nowhere, yearns for the security of a rapid but "managed" decline over the insecurity of a state-funded free fall to despair?

The time to decide all this is now, before the real first spark, the one that starts the American Arab Spring, is lit. If a General Strike seems frightening, consider the alternative, a five-way civil war with armed cops permanently stationed in the streets and skirmishes everywhere.

The French learned their lesson in 1789 and the century that followed their world-historical revolt, though it took them six generations to get things right.

"America, rise, or you will surely fall" is a lesson this generation has yet to learn. The task is not only to rise from five decades of sleep, but in rising, to act in a way that dispels the nightmare, and doesn't deepen it.
   

Political Retaliation: Cuomo Proposes Kicking Third Parties Off the NY Ballot

Zephyr Teachout ran against Andrew Cuomo in 2014. Working Families Party endorsed Cuomo then, but not in 2018.

by Thomas Neuburger

A Very Short Story in Three Short Acts

Act I. Monica Klein tweeted this on April 1, 2020:

"No other state in America has ballot requirements as strict as @NYGovCuomo is proposing.

While some Democrats push for fair & open elections, NY's Gov is kicking 3rd parties off the ballot."

Act II. Klein's tweet was in response to this, from Jimmy Vielkind, also on April 1, 2020:

"Minor parties including the @NYWFP [Working Families Party] have been screaming for days that lawmakers would revive the recommendations (which they loathed) of a commission that increased ballot access requirements.

It’s in one of the #nybudget bills, as, Bill Hammond notes"

Here's what Bill Hammond noted:

Found in the newly amended Transportation and Economic Development bill.

Nothing improves public confidence in the state's democratic process like jamming through major changes to the democratic process in the last-minute budget rush. https://t.co/VaYiyGBlpv pic.twitter.com/86aultx6ju

— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) April 1, 2020

I guess making it harder to get on the ballot and squashing third parties is all part of improving public confidence in the democratic process. pic.twitter.com/nhbJIHFitj

— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) April 1, 2020

Act III. Would it surprise you to learn that the WFP endorsed Andrew Cuomo in 2010 and 2014, but not in 2018?

New York politics got a lot more interesting over the weekend. The left-wing Working Families Party (WFP) endorsed Cynthia Nixon in the governor’s race rather than siding with Andrew Cuomo, the powerful incumbent. The WFP’s defection from Cuomo, who the organization supported in 2010 and 2014, means the contest is going to be more competitive than observers originally thought. How it develops over the next six and a half months will reveal fundamental truths about our state’s most powerful interests—and ourselves.

In an effort to minimize the WFP’s endorsement of Cynthia Nixon, two major unions—SEIU 32BJ and the Communications Workers of America—left the organization in protest. Other labor leaders aligned with Cuomo are likely to either follow suit in deed or in action.

Note the retaliation of labor unions "aligned with Cuomo" who started withholding support (and most likely funding as well) from the WFP.

One of Trump's worst qualities is his rapey-ness. It seems the Democrats are offering one of those as well, but the country may not be buying.

Another is retaliation. Is there any question that Andrew Cuomo, if he gets national executive power, will rule with an iron fist?

Will Cuomo be the next Daddy mainstream Democrats offer to voters to "save" them? If so, look out.
 

Can the Intra-Party Rift Be Healed, At Least For Now? Or Must the Fight Be Fought in 2020?

by Thomas Neuburger

I’ve written before about the wide and deep rift that splits all three layers of the Democratic “party”*. Today, that split within these layers — office-holders and leaders; activists and campaign workers; voters and angry non-voters — is widening.

A Legacy of Betrayal

The split is greatest in the third layer, among the voters, as the sense of betrayal is greatest there as well. For many who were inspired by Obama’s promise of hope and change, 2008 is seen as a betrayal in retrospect, as they watched his Yes-We-Can promises (for example, to scrap the salary cap to increase Social Security funding) turn into No-I-Won’t policies (the constant Grand Bargain offers to cut Social Security benefits).

For frustrated “hope-and-change” voters — and the legion of “don’t-care” and “they’re-all-crooks” non-voters — 2016 witnessed the obvious sabotage of a change-supporting candidate, Bernie Sanders, to unfairly advance the decidedly Obamist Hillary Clinton. This turned what should have been a landslide election — against a jive-talking, pussy-grabbing, orange-haired reality show host no less — into a squeaker they lost in the Electoral College.

Now 2020 is upon us, and the sense of betrayal is even greater, starting with the very first contest, the Iowa caucus; continuing through DNC chair Tom Perez’s manipulation of debate rules to exclude un-centrist-preferred candidates; through the Establishment’s obvious swing to Mike Bloomberg as the Sanders savior du jour; ending with James Clyburn’s and Barack Obama’s clearing of the entire rest of the field field for Joe Biden, the only Establishment candidate left with any credibility in black and brown communities.

The move by Clyburn and Obama can arguably be seen as “just politics” and nothing out of the ordinary — politicians endorse their friends and colleagues all the time — but it confirmed the Establishment’s anti-Sanders bias so completely in the minds of his supporters that for them, the primary may just as well have been bought and sold on the street, their anger is that implacable.

The split is also great at the two upper layers of Democratic politics. Many activists are divided into mainstream-supporting and progressive-supporting camps, collegial with each other, but suspicious and hostile as well — along with an added interesting subsplit between Warren-loving (or accepting) progressives and those who feel Warren simply should not be trusted. (There are activists who support both Warren and Sanders, of course, but the intensity of what anger exists reminds one of the Hillary-Bernie battles of 2016 and may have been born there.)

Finally, though the split at the top layer — among office-holders and Party leaders, is just taking hold, it is nonetheless real. One only has to witness the disdain shown by Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and her “squad” for the squad-hating Nancy Pelosi, and Pelosi’s concommitant response, to see a divide that won’t be healed soon without supports of one side or the other feeling betrayed.

Will a "Unity Candidate" Unify or Divide?

In this environment, many insiders and those in their circle are looking for a unity candidate, or at least a unifying deal between the progressive wing of the Party and the Clinton-Obama corporatist wing, simply to find a way to get through the 2020 without re-electing Donald Trump.

Could such a deal, even if blessed by Sanders himself, save the Party from Trump? Voters would have to be on board with that — and the mass of non-voters as well, whose ranks could swell. It’s possible such a deal would succeed, but not very likely in the absence of an unexpected, table-turning event.

Consider: The Democrats have three choices. First, nominate Joe Biden. Second, nominate Bernie Sanders. Third, nominate someone who didn’t even run in the primary — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is the latest Sanders-savior being touted.

If they nominate Joe Biden and he doesn’t improve his lackluster, unfocused post-corona virus performances, he’s done. Trump will be the next president. And if he further declines in acuity before our eyes, he's even more done than that — his viability won't last through October and the slaughter in November will be Mondale-esque.

If they nominate Bernie Sanders — well, I’m hearing that they just won’t do that. They’d rather die in the saddle or live out their days strong in the Party but powerless electorally, than surrender the Party to Sanders and the unwashed who want to see them all gone from office for good.

If they nominate a replacement candidate, a Cuomo, say, or a (ready?) Michelle Obama, despite her determination never to take such a job — if they nominate, in other words, the most well-regarded corporate Democrat they can find — how would the Party fare in November? The election would then resolve to a single issue, a battle between NeverTrumpers on one hand and his amped up legions of F-U voters on the other, with voters on neither side just watching the fight.

Remember, this is yet another Change election, and the change candidate won twice before. Will the nation want to change out Donald Trump for an otherwise-no-change corporatist, or stay with the faux-change carnival barker even in the midst of a massively bungled corona virus response? Or just not care?

Given Democrats’ recent propensity for bungling easy elections when they offer no-change non-charismatic candidates, I just don’t see Trump losing that battle. He may not win by a lot, but I don't see him losing it.

Of course, this is not just a Change election, it's a Black Swan election as well. One dark bird has already landed — two if you count this — and several more could alight at any time. But still, it seems Dem leaders are determined to burn the building if they don’t get their way, and as things stand today, they will succeed.

If an Intra-Party Knock-Down Fight Is Unavoidable, Are Progressives Prepared to Win It? 

All of which leads to the real question. The fight that “unity” leaders are determined to avoid, seems unavoidable. The rift seems unhealable and attempts to close it further widen it. If the Party is determined not to elect Sanders, much of the base is determined not to support the alternatives, and the Party presses hard for surrender — what then?

What if the “rift fight,” the battle royale between corporatist Party leaders and progressives at all three layers is unavoidable? What if it can’t be deferred until 2024 and must be addressed in this cycle? It's coming sometime — what if it comes now, in 2020

If all this is true and that fight is can't be avioded, are progressive prepared to win it?

As of this writing, I don’t see evidence they are.

*I put “party” in quotes because, as some of us are aware, actual Democratic Party membership is tiny relative to the number of its almost powerless supporters and voters. Compare the meaning of party membership here vs. in the UK, for example. In the UK, the voters are members and elect their leaders. Not so here. That lack of control by voters who consider themselves “members” — but aren't — is a large part of the problem.
 

How Iowa Chooses National Convention Delegate and What That Means For Us

Iowa's four congressional districts. Note Cedar Rapids in CD1, Iowa City (a major college town) in CD2, Des Moines in CD3 and Ames (the other large college town) in the otherwise heavily rural CD4.

by Thomas Neuburger

Most people think, innocently enough, that the coming Democratic Party Iowa caucuses held in each of the state's voting precincts selects pledged delegates to the national convention.

The real situation is much more complex. Precinct caucuses do select pledged delegates, but the delegates they select are to the county convention. At the county conventions, delegates are selected to the congressional district conventions, where, finally, pledged delegates to the national convention are selected.

All of this layering, despite its indirectness, is nonetheless intended to produce a national delegate mix that roughly approximates the vote ratios at the precinct caucuses — "roughly" because of rounding rules. Are there unfortunate consequences to this indirectness? Yes, and they could be considerable.

Iowa Delegates, What Kind and How Many

Let's start with the pledged delegate allocations themselves, then look at the process in more detail. For a source we'll use an excellent if weedy site, The Green Papers, to explain the details. (Here's the Iowa Democratic Party's explanation, if you want to look at the ultimate source.)

Iowa, like all states, has been allocated a number of pledged and unpledged delegates by the DNC. Pledged delegates come in three kinds or types: per-district, at-large, and "pledged PLEOs" (party leaders and elected officials).

Starting with per-district pledged delegates: The state has four congressional districts (CD1, CD2, CD3, CD4), each of which, at its district convention, allocates its assigned delegates based on viable candidates' performance at the precinct caucuses in that district.

"Viable" means that a candidate has received at least 15% or more of the caucus vote in a precinct (but see explanation and example below; the viability threshold changes depending on the number of pledged delegates available in a precinct's district). Any candidate who receives less than the viability minimum of caucus votes for that precinct's district gets no delegates.

In addition, the DNC has granted Iowa Democrats a number of at-large or state-wide pledged delegates, which are allocated at the state convention to viable candidates based on their performance in the precinct caucuses.

Finally, Iowa Democrats have been granted a number of pledged PLEO ("party leader and elected official") delegates who are also allocated at the state convention — again, according to viable candidates' performance at precinct caucuses.

In Iowa's case, the pledged delegate allocations are as follows:

• 7 for CD1
• 7 for CD2
• 8 for CD3
• 5 for CD4
• 9 at-large or state-wide delegates
• 5 pledged PLEOs

• Total = 41 pledged delegates

In top of all of that, the state has been granted eight unpledged PLEO delegates — these are the so-called superdelegates — for a grand total of 49 delegates to the national convention.

How Iowa Delegates Are Chosen

Here's a more detailed look at the selection process for the pledged delegates from The Green Papers (emphasis and some reparagraphing mine). Note how many layers it contains and how byzantine the process is.

Democratic Party Caucuses meet in each precinct at 7 PM CST. Absentee or proxy voting is not allowed. Each Precinct Caucus chooses the precinct's delegates to the County Conventions based on presidential preference. ...

At each caucus, each presidential contender who fails to get at least 15 percent support among the participants in the initial balloting after a period of discussion will be considered "non-viable" and all supporters of such "non-viable" presidential contenders will then be required to join in the support of presidential contenders who have remained "viable".

To determine the viability of a presidential contender, multiply the number of eligible caucus attendees by the percentages below and round to the nearest whole number. This is the minimum number of delegates needed for the contender to remain viable.

• 50% (majority vote) for caucuses electing 1 delegate.
• 25% (one quarter) for caucuses electing 2 delegates.
• 16.66...% (one sixth) for caucuses electing 3 delegates.
• 15% for caucuses electing 4 or more delegates.

Example. 57 people attend a caucus electing 3 delegates [case 3 above]. The viability is 1/6th of 57 = 9.5 rounded which is 10. Say 29 people support candidate A, 19 support candidate B, and 9 support candidate C. Candidates A and B are viable since they have support of 10 or more of the attendees. Because candidate C did not receive the support of 10 attendees, those supporting candidate C must realign to another candidate [or go home]. At this point, the attendees realign themselves so 34 support candidate A and 23 support candidate B.

The caucus will next choose the precinct's delegates to who will be allocated in proportion to the percentage of the support each "viable" presidential contender received in the second round of balloting at the precinct caucus as of the time of its adjournment.

Continuing the example from above: For Candidate A: 3 (total precinct delegates) × 34 (supporters) ÷ 57 (total attendees) = 1.789 which rounds to 2 precinct delegates. Candidate B receives 3 × 23 ÷ 57 = 1.211 which rounds to 1 precinct delegate.
Note: Due to rounding, the sum of precinct delegates may exceed the total number of precinct delegates allocated to the caucus. If this happens, round down the candidate with the smallest fraction. Candidates receiving 1 precinct delegate are not subject to this rule, that is, candidates cannot loose their only precinct delegate during this adjustment.

National Convention delegates are allocated from the state delegate equivalency results of the precinct caucuses. ...

Saturday 21 March 2020: County Conventions convene in each county to choose Congressional District delegates of which the county is a part as well as the county's delegates the Iowa State Democratic Convention.

Saturday 25 April 2020: Democratic Party District Conventions convene in each congressional district at 9:00am to elect the district's delegates to the Democratic National Convention according to the results of the precinct caucuses.

This accounts for the congressional district delegates. Now for the selection of pledged at-large delegates and pledged "party leaders and elected officials" (PLEOs):

Saturday 13 June 2020: The Iowa State Democratic Convention convenes at 9am CDT. The State Convention elects the 9 At-Large and 5 PLEO of the Iowa's Pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention according to the results of the precinct caucuses.

Finally, this is the makeup of the group of Iowa's unpledged or superdelegates:

The remaining 8 National Convention delegates consist of 8 Unpledged PLEO delegates:

• 5 Democratic National Committee members.
• 3 Members of Congress (0 Senators and 3 Representatives).
• 0 Governors.
• 0 Distinguished Party Leaders.

These 8 delegates ... will go to the Democratic National Convention officially "Unpledged".

Again, notice the layers.

How to View the Delegate Selection System

I offer three takeaways from this look at the selection process.

First, in an honestly run election the process will indeed, at each stage, allocate pledged delegates "according to the results of the precinct caucuses" as required by the rules — allowing for very small differences due to rounding.

Second, because the entire selection process isn't over until after the June 13 Iowa state convention, those small differences can (and most likely will) be reported intermittently as adjusted per-candidate delegate totals. That is, a candidate may be reported as having X number of delegates on caucus night, but actually receive a slight different number by the time the state convention is held.

Third, because of the many layers...

• Precincts choosing precinct delegates to county conventions, followed by
• County conventions choosing delegates to the congressional district conventions, followed by
• Congressional district conventions choosing delegates to the national convention

...the people chosen as delegates by the precincts are unlikely all to be the people who vigorously represent the candidates at the national convention. (This will almost certainly be true of many of the "pledged PLEOs.") Instead, national convention delegates are just as likely to be people who have been most deeply involved with the Democratic Party for the longest time and have simply promised to vote a certain way on round one. This is not just true of Iowa pledged delegates, by the way, but to all of them.

Which means that at the national convention, a Sanders or Warren or Biden pledged delegate may not in fact be a Sanders or Warren or Biden loyalist. In many cases, that delegate may just be a state party official or loyal party functionary who's being rewarded for their service with a nice, perhaps pre-paid, trip to the week-long party (in both senses) event in Milwaukee.

What Will the Democratic Party Do On the Second Round of Convention Voting?

Keep all this in mind as you game out the results of a second round of voting in Milwaukee, when all delegates who were "pledged" on the first round, become decidedly unpledged on all subsequent rounds. The opportunities for second-round mischief are many.

On the second round of voting, and on each round afterwards, the entire convention is composed of unpledged delegates, many of them merely state party loyalists, each free to vote as they choose. The aggregated response of the Party to that second-round freedom may well define the Party in the eyes of voters for the next generation.

And the response of voters to the way the Party exercises that freedom may well define the Party's future, or lack of it, as well. After all, if primary voters select one of the revolutionary candidates by a solid plurality, and at the convention the Party denies that candidate the nomination, the Party itself may not survive the voter revolt against it in the battle to unseat Donald Trump.

Could the Democratic Party actually Whigify itself in 2020? It seems unlikely given the many advantages secured by the bipartisan duopoly.

But do stay tuned. These are epic times, when even the most unthinkable of outcomes is entirely possible.
 

The Iron Law of Institutions: What You Need to Know About Voting in the 2020 Primary

Bernie Sanders, making Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer cry

by Thomas Neuburger

"The head of Third Way, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, said, 'Bernie Sanders is an existential threat to the Democratic Party.' I agree with him. I am. I want to convert the Democratic Party, to break its dependency on big money and corporate interests, and make it a party of working-class people, of young people, of all people who believe in justice."
—Bernie Sanders, October 28, 2019

In an absolutely brilliant and much quoted piece, "Democrats and the Iron Law of Institutions," Jonathan Schwarz wrote this in 2007:

Democrats operate according to the Iron Law of Institutions. The Iron Law of Institutions is: the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.

This is true for all human institutions, from elementary schools up to the United States of America. If history shows anything, it's that this cannot be changed.

This fully explains a phenomenon that's became more than obvious during the 2016 election — that Democrats, or those in control of the Party, would rather lose with Clinton, who will keep them in power, than win with Sanders, who will work to remove them if they don't support his agenda.

Put more simply: Current Democratic leaders would rather lose to Trump and stay in power than lose to Sanders and be replaced.

George McGovern and the 1972 Election

Schwarz provides several examples, including this telling (and pertinent) one from the 1970s:

Probably the best writing about this at the political party level was done by the late Walter Karp. Karp points out in Buried Alive that before the 1972 elections there was a huge influx of new people and energy into the Democratic party from the anti-war and civil rights movements. This was enough to get McGovern nominated. But here's what happened then, as Karp describes it:

As soon as McGovern was nominated, party leaders began systematically slurring and belittling him, while the trade union chieftains refused to endorse him on the pretense that this mild Mr. Pliant was a being wild and dangerous. A congressional investigation of Watergate was put off for several months to deprive McGovern's candidacy of its benefits. As an indiscreet Chicago ward heeler predicted in the fall of 1972, McGovern is "gonna lose because we're gonna make sure he's gonna lose"...So deftly did party leaders "cut the top of the ticket" that while Richard Nixon won in a "landslide," the Democrats gained two Senate seats.

Could McGovern have won if he'd been fully supported by the status quo powers with the Democratic party? Impossible to say. But they didn't want to take any chances: they preferred to make sure he lost the election, because his winning it would have meant newcomers would dilute their power within the party. That's the Iron Law of Institutions in action.

With a vibrant anti-Vietnam war movement alive in the nation, a movement that propelled McGovern — a World War II hero, let's not forget — to the nomination, Democratic Party leaders and their supporting ecosystem chose to undercut their own nominee, preferring to lose to Richard Nixon than lose to all the new faces the Party was attracting.

In that, they succeeded, just as they succeeded in 2016.

Would Party leaders have preferred to win against Nixon and Trump? Of course, but not if it cost them control of the Party itself.

What Can Be Done About This?

This problem — what to do about a party whose goals are not your own, but whose enemy is worse than they are — produces a first-rate blackmail situation, a variation on the old threat, "Vote for us or the kid gets it" — the "kid" in this case being the whole rest of the nation, and "it" being Republican rule.

Shorter Dem leaders: "Vote for our evil or the nation gets a worse one."

Schwarz suggests a way out, one I've been advocating as well. Put simply, go to the source of the problem and remove the leaders. Schwarz (bolded emphasis mine):

So what does this mean for John Caruso's (and everyone's) frustration with the Democrats today? A lot of things, such as:

1. The voting booth is by no means "the only place that Democrats care about what you do." In fact, from their perspective, by the time you get to the general election much of the game is over. Withholding your November vote from candidates they like but you don't will, at most, make them a little sad. Often they'd prefer it, if that's the price of keeping you out of their hair the rest of the time. That's why they don't try to appeal to the ~50% of Americans who don't vote.

2. If you want to motivate powerful Democrats, attempt to threaten their power within the party, not the well-being of the party overall. Of course, this is easier said than done, particularly because much of the power within the party is (as Karp would put it) an unelected Democratic oligarchy. For instance, Pelosi's status as Speaker can be challenged straightforwardly. Getting at the source of the party oligarchy's power, which is money and institutions outside of electoral politics, is much more difficult.

3. Any serious attempt to transform the Democratic party would include a conscious attempt to change its culture, into one that celebrates different people: organizers rather than elected officials and donors. Culture only seems like a weak reed. It's in fact the most powerful motivation people have. If people are celebrated for acting for the good of the whole rather than just themselves, they'll act for the good of the whole. Likewise, a better culture would humble the "leaders," to discourage those with individualistic motivations from seeking the positions. A Democratic party that worked would require Charles Schumer and Steny Hoyer and anyone who donated over $5000 a year to clean the Capitol toilets.

4. If you don't believe the Democratic party is redeemable, don't get your hopes up that another party would end up being much better. Any other party would also be subject to the Iron Law of Institutions. It thus would be quickly just as dreadful as the Democrats...unless people put in the same amount of work as would be required to clean out the Democrats' Augean stables.

5. Generally speaking, don't expect too much from political parties, and certainly don't expect them to change much in less than a generation. And in any case, keep in mind much of the power in society lies elsewhere.

A comment about his fourth and fifth points: First, he's right about third party challenges. All parties are subject to the Iron Law, and reforming a different, and much smaller, party offers the same challenges as reforming the (massively corrupt at the leadership level) Democratic Party does. In addition, given the structural challenges faced by any third party in our rigged-for-two-parties system, the effort would be wasted and wasted completely.

Second, we don't have a generation in which to do this. The next generation is lost if we don't succeed now. The current generation of Americans is the absolute last one with a chance to significantly mitigate the twin disasters sitting at our door — the rebellion from both the left and the right against billionaire control of the nation; and the coming, complete and global chaos that a radically changed climate will cause.

Massive yearly fires in California is just the appetizer. The main course is much more dramatic, deadly and universal. Consider Florida for just one local instance; now consider what happens in the entire U.S. when all Florida real estate goes to zero in value — in a week — thanks to a Hurricane Haiyan–like event. Just as fires in California are not outliers, stories like that won't be outliers either.

The Solution Is Obvious

Of course the answer to this problem is obvious — remove from power Democratic leaders who don't "change their ways" at the earliest opportunity and the fastest possible rate. The price for not doing that — or at least attempting it — is the quality of life, if they have one at all, of our children and grandchildren.

Would Democratic leaders like Schumer and Pelosi sacrifice your grandchildren for their power? They would say no, of course, but their actions say something different.

Which leads us to the 2020 election, in particular the Democratic primary, and in further particular, to the three leading candidates:

• Bernie Sanders, who has declared he's an existential threat to the culture of the Democratic Party and is hated for it
• Elizabeth Warren, who has signaled she will work for strong progressive change within the existing Party structure
• Joe Biden, who embodies in his personal past and present the existing Party structure and culture

The choice is ours.
   

Has The Democratic Party Given Up On South Dakota? That Would Be A Mistake-- It Has As Many Senators As California And New York

Paula Hawks sent me some spam yesterday. She's the chair of the South Dakota Democratic Party. Before that she was in the state legislature and minority whip from 2015 to 2016. She gave her seat up in 2016 to run against Congresswoman Kristi Noem for the state's at-large congressional district. She ran as a garden variety Democrat in a state where garden variety Democrats are not in favor-- and she lost badly-- 64.1% to 35.9%, dragged down by Hillary, who did even worse (31.7%), winning just 5 of the state's 66 counties.

This is the spam she sent, yesterday, 9-11:

On this day of tribute we engage in remembering our shared values, experiences, and love of community as well as reflecting on our blessings while celebrating our differences. I myself am also celebrating my birthday today! I have shared my birthday with this observation for the past 18 years; it has given me even more reason to appreciate the solidarity I experience every day in my life with those in my community, state, and nation.

Birthdays are a celebration of new beginnings, and while the tragedy of 2001 marked an ending, this year the celebration of my birthday marks another new beginning as we work to reset and rebuild the Democratic Party in South Dakota. The past few weeks have been difficult to endure, difficult to see played out in the press, and difficult to navigate. Many heads have come together to determine a path forward and although we have had some endings as a result of this process-- the closing of our offices in Rapid City and Sioux Falls among other things-- the spirit of the Democratic Party in South Dakota is alive and well and its heart is beating!

Will you please join me in celebrating my birthday and the continued vigor of our party by making a contribution to the SDDP today?

We have a lot of exciting plans for moving the party forward: We will be working hard to elect Democrats in legislative districts all over South Dakota; we will be providing training opportunities for candidates, campaign workers, and volunteers at all levels of government; we will be celebrating the achievements of Democratic efforts across the board. We can make all of these goals a reality with your contribution to the South Dakota Democratic Party today.

Please help make this a birthday to remember, for me and a day to celebrate our Democratic values, for all of us.

Paula is also a member of the DNC. I asked-- very politely and not accusing her of anything-- why she decided to vote against allowing the DNC to host a Climate Crisis debate. I really would love to know. She didn't respond. I'll let you know if she does.

South Dakota, once a bastion of socialism and progressivism, is a beet red state with a PVI of R+14, same as Alabama, Tennessee and Nebraska-- worse than Texas, Alaska Montana, Kansas or Louisiana. Every statewide office is held by a Republican and of the 35 seats in the state Senate, only 5 are held by Democrats. 11 out of 70 House seats are held by Democrats. Kristi Noem is now the governor. Maybe they should try something new there. Bernie and Hillary were virtually tied in the 2016 primary and Bernie won two dozen counties. Take Ziebach County, for example. Bernie beat Hillary 58.9% to 41.1% and had nearly twice as many votes as Trump on primary day. It's an impoverished rural county and around 70% of in inhabitants are native Americans. In the general, Trump narrow beat Clinton. You know who would have won?

Reminder — DNC Lawyers to Court: We Do Not Owe Voters an 'Impartial' or 'Evenhanded' Primary Election

As Jimmy Breslin wrote in his blurb, this is the best book ever written about legendary Democratic Party boss Richard J. Daley, king of the smoke-filled back room deal. (Fun fact: John Belushi played a character closely based on Royko in an early Lawrence Kasden film, Continental Divide, that's well worth watching.)

by Thomas Neuburger

This is your periodic reminder that the "Democratic Party" is not an organization that Democratic voters belong to or have any right to control. The Democratic Party is instead a private organization, much like a club, that non-members support by giving it their money, their time and their votes. (The same is true of the "Republican Party.) All other "rights" and promises offered by the Party to its supporters, including those obligations described in the DNC charter, are not obligations at all, but voluntary gifts that can be withdrawn at any time.

At least, that's how the DNC sees it.

Consider this report of a 2017 court filing, one that almost no one noticed, in which Sanders supporters sued the DNC for violating the section of its charter that requires DNC-run elections to be "impartial" and "evenhanded." The DNC's defense was, in essence, "So what?" (emphasis added below):

DNC Lawyers Argue DNC Has Right to Pick Candidates in Back Rooms

Attorneys claim the words 'impartial' and 'evenhanded'—as used in the DNC Charter—can't be interpreted by a court of law

On April 28 the transcript [pdf] was released from the most recent hearing at a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on the lawsuit filed on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters against the Democratic National Committee and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for rigging the Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton. Throughout the hearing, lawyers representing the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz double[d] down on arguments confirming the disdain the Democratic establishment has toward Bernie Sanders supporters and any entity challenging the party’s status quo.

Shortly into the hearing, DNC attorneys claim Article V, Section 4 of the DNC Charter—stipulating that the DNC chair and their staff must ensure neutrality in the Democratic presidential primaries—is “a discretionary rule that it didn’t need to adopt to begin with.” Based on this assumption, DNC attorneys assert that the court cannot interpret, claim, or rule on anything associated with whether the DNC remains neutral in their presidential primaries.

The attorneys representing the DNC have previously argued that Sanders supporters knew the primaries were rigged, therefore annulling any potential accountability the DNC may have. In the latest hearing, they doubled down on this argument: “The Court would have to find that people who fervently supported Bernie Sanders and who purportedly didn’t know that this favoritism was going on would have not given to Mr. Sanders, to Senator Sanders, if they had known that there was this purported favoritism.” ...

“People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee—nominating process in 2016 were fair and impartial,” [Jared] Beck [the attorney representing Sanders supporters in the class action lawsuit] said. “And that’s not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that’s what the Democratic National Committee’s own charter says. It says it in black and white. And they can’t deny that.” He added, “Not only is it in the charter, but it was stated over and over again in the media by the Democratic National Committee’s employees, including Congresswoman Wassermann Schultz, that they were, in fact, acting in compliance with the charter. And they said it again and again, and we’ve cited several instances of that in the case.”

According to this report, attorneys for the DNC argued that the DNC was not liable to Sanders supporters if they threw the primary race to Clinton, or tilted it toward her, because:

     (a) Sanders supporters already knew the primary was rigged (did DNC lawyers really say that?), and

     (b) the DNC charter requirement that elections be "impartial" and "evenhanded" is discretionary and not a requirement.

Shorter DNC lawyers: "We don't have to run an evenhanded primary, even if we say we're going to."

About the second point, let's look at the court transcript itself. In this section, the court asks: If Sanders supporters give money to an election run by the DNC, and if the DNC violates its charter and runs an election that unfairly disadvantages Sanders, do Sanders supporters have standing to sue?

DNC's response is below. "Mr. Spiva" is Bruce Spiva, one of the DNC's defense lawyers (emphasis mine):

THE COURT:  All right. Let me ask the defense -- we're going to go into the issue of standing now at this point.

Let me ask counsel. If a person is fraudulently induced to donate to a charitable organization, does he have standing to sue the person who induced the donation?

MR. SPIVA:  I think, your Honor, if the circumstance were such that the [charitable] organization promised that it was going to abide by some general principle, and the donee -- or donor, rather, ultimately sued, because they said, Well, we don't think you're living up to that general principle, we don't think you're, you know, serving kids adequately, we think your program is -- the way you're running your program is not adequate, you know, you're not doing it well enough, that that -- that they would not have standing in that circumstance.

[On the other hand] I think if somebody -- a charitable organization were to solicit funds and say, Hey, we're gonna spend this money on after-school programs for kids, and the executive director actually put the money in their pocket and went down the street and bought a Mercedes-Benz, I think in that circumstance, they would have standing.

I think this circumstance is even one step further towards the no standing side of that, because here we're talking about a political party and political principles and debate. And that's an area where there's a wealth of doctrine and case law about how that -- just simply giving money does not give one standing to direct how the party conducts its affairs, or to complain about the outcomes, or whether or not the party is abiding by its own internal rules.

And I should say, your Honor, I just want to be clear, because I know it may sometimes sound like I am somehow suggesting that I think the party did not -- you know, the party's position is that it has not violated in the least this provision of its charter.

THE COURT:  I understand.

MR. SPIVA:  So I just want to get that out there. But to even determine -- to make that determination would require the Court to wade into this political thicket. And -- you know, which would invade its First Amendment interests, and also, I think, would raise issues -- standing issues along all three prongs of the standing test.

After a legal discussion of the "three prongs," the court asks this:

THE COURT:  And then one other question on the issue of standing for the defense. Is there a difference between a campaign promise made by a political candidate and a promise that pertains to the integrity of the primary process itself? In other words, President George H.W. Bush's --

MR. SPIVA:  "Read my lips."

THE COURT:  -- promise -- "read my lips, no new taxes," and then he raised taxes. Well, he could not be sued for raising taxes. But with respect to the DNC charter, Article V, Section 4, is there a difference between the two?

MR. SPIVA:  Not one -- there's obviously a difference in degree. I think your Honor -- I'm not gonna -- I don't want to overreach and say that there's no difference. But I don't think there's a difference that's material in terms of how the Court should decide the question before it in terms of standing, in that this, again, goes to how the party runs itself, how it decides who it's going to associate with, how it decides how it's going to choose its standard bearer ultimately. In case after case, from O'Brien, to Wymbs, to Wisconsin v. LaFollette, Cousins v. Wigoda, the Supreme Court and other courts have affirmed the party's right to make that determination. Those are internal issues that the party gets to decide basically without interference from the courts.

[...]

You know, again, if you had a charity where somebody said, Hey, I'm gonna take this money and use it for a specific purpose, X, and they pocketed it and stole the money, of course that's different. 

But here, where you have a party [the DNC] that's saying, We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their right, and it would drag the Court well into party politics, internal party politics to answer those questions.

To this day the DNC believes that if it wanted to "go into back rooms" and "pick the [presidential] candidate," this would "have been their right," and no one outside the organization would have any right to enforce the DNC charter or interfere in any other way.

Good to know as we watch the 2020 machinations unfold before us.
 

An Early Look at the Byzantine Rules for Delegate Allocation in the Democratic Primary

Iowa's four congressional districts. Note Cedar Rapids in the First, Davenport and Iowa City (a college town) in the Second, Des Moines in the Third, and Ames (the other college town) in Steve King's Fourth (source).

by Thomas Neuburger

Everyone who was paying attention in 2016 remembers the Sanders-Clinton battle for delegates in the Democratic primary. In the end Clinton won that contest handily, garnering 55% of the popular vote to Sanders' 43%, and securing the votes of 2842 delegates, or 60% or the total needed to win. (The discrepancy between Clinton's popular vote percentage and her delegate percentage is due primarily to the presence of the superdelegates. The pledged delegate percentages were 54% and 46%.)

Leaving aside the volume of evidence that the DNC, via its then-chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and various state-level party apparati, burdened the Sanders campaign unfairly and dishonestly, that contest was straightforward. Whoever won the popular vote in a given state was assigned pledged delegates roughly proportional to the winning percentage, while the superdelegates for each state went mainly to Clinton. As each contest unfolded, you could watch, count and anticipate what would happen next.

Not so this time. At least 20 candidates have started the race, and even a solid culling could leave a field of as many as ten for the start of early primaries. In addition, there's a 15% threshold that a candidate must reach in each state contest in order to receive any pledged delegates at all (Clinton failed to reach 15% in the 2016 Vermont primary, for example) AND there's a split of pledged delegates between those available based on state-at-large vote percentages and those available based on congressional district-by congressional district vote percentages.

If that sounds complicated, it is. There are also wrinkles that add to the complication (for example, Texas assigns delegates based on a senatorial districts, not congressional districts), and there are additional rules for what happens if no candidate breaks 15% in a given state or district.

The best explanation of most of this is here, "Thresholds for Democratic Party Delegate Allocation," but if you understood the paragraphs above, you have the gist, at least roughly.

To make this a little more clear, let's look at the situation in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation contest to be held on February 3, 2020.

Example: A Look at Iowa

To see the numerical breakdown between at-large pledged delegates and by-district pledged delegates, we turn to the invaluable Green Papers, in particular their Iowa page. The Democratic party has allocated Iowa a total of 49 delegates, divided into four groups as follows:

• 49 total delegate votes — 27 district / 9 at large; 5 Pledged PLEOs; 8 Unpledged PLEOs (PLEOs are party leaders and elected officials)

The total of pledged delegates is 41, the sum of the first three groups (27+ 9 + 5). The total of unpledged delegates (superdelegates) is 8. Let's focus on the 41 pledged delegates, since those are what will be available to the candidates on caucus day.

Iowa has four congressional districts, so the bulk of the pledged delegates, 27, will come from winning the district contests — about 7 delegates are available per district — with the rest (14) coming from the at-large state contest. (Since the pledged PLEOs are voted on at the state convention, I think we can assume the breakdown of this group will more or less mirror the at-large group.)

To see how that could work in practice, let's say that by the time the Iowa caucus is held, there are four viable candidates — candidates at least theoretically capable of winning 15% of the at-large or district vote in some district. Current polling in Iowa lists these candidates polling above 10%, with the rest of the field well below them:

• Biden
• Harris
• Sanders
• Warren

Let's say each of these candidates wins about 25% of the at-large vote. That divides the 14 at-large delegates roughly as follows (obviously these are made-up numbers):

• Biden: 3 delegates
• Harris: 4 delegates
• Sanders: 4 delegates
• Warren: 3 delegates

(The actual allocation math is explained here.)

Now for the district delegates: Iowa has, as noted, four congressional districts which roughly quarter the state (see map above). Three are represented in Congress by Democrats, while the Fourth, the most rural in the northwest quadrant, is represented by uber-racist Republican Steve King.

Iowa also has two college towns, one in Iowa City in the southeast district (the Second), and the other in Ames in the northwest — that is, in Steve King's district. It's major urban centers are Des Moines (in the Third), Cedar Rapids (in the First) and Davenport (in the Second).

Can Joe Biden, assuming he gets 25% of the at-large vote, also get 25% of the congressional district delegates? The First CD, with Cedar Rapids as its anchor, may go to Biden, but the two college districts, the Second and Fourth, could well go to Sanders or Warren, while Davenport in the Second CD could go to Harris.

In fact, if Biden does indeed get 25% of the statewide at-large vote, that could come from mainly rural Democrats spread out in all four districts, each of which has an urban or college center that could swing the district vote away from him. One possibility, therefore, is that Harris could win a majority of the district votes from CD-2, Sanders or Warren could win most of the district votes in CD-1 and CD-4, with CD-3 (Des Moines) being a wash.

This could leave Biden with as few as 6 of the 27 district delegates, giving him a total delegate count of 9 of the 41 pledged delegates available.

In addition, if Sanders sweeps the progressive vote in the college and urban districts (not likely, but possible), he could win as many as 20 of Iowa's 41 pledged delegates — or about 50% of them — when it's all said and done (4 at-large + 4 district delegates per district) while still winning just 25% or a little more statewide.

It could be even worse for Biden if someone like Buttigieg breaks the 15% mark in one or more of the districts without winning 15% statewide. If Buttigieg's district votes come from Biden supporters, Biden's delegate count could be even less.

The above is an extreme case of course, and the district delegate allocations may well mirror the at-large allocations in many states. Still, it's more than likely that some candidates will break above 15% in state at-large votes and still fall below 15% in many districts votes — or vice-versa, they could win only district delegates and no at-large delegates.

Either way, three things are certain. First, the overall vote in each state will not mirror the pledge delegate allocation in a great many states — a decidedly undemocratic outcome.

Second, in as close contest as this one may become, these eccentricities of allocation are likely to matter far more than they ought to.

And finally, in a close contest, the state-by-state outcomes will be unpredictable in the extreme.

Did the masters of the Democratic Party think this system would slant the victory toward the strongest anti-progressive (or faux-progressive) candidate? If so, they may have outfoxed themselves. I don't think anyone knows what this bizarre system will produce if the contest is close.
  

The Smart Thing Or The Right Thing?

Bipartisanship by Nancy Ohanian

-by RedStateBlueWorld

Once again the Powers That Be in the Democratic Party advise doing the smart thing-- be cautious-- this time on impeachment. How many times in my 48 years as a member of the party FDR built have I heard that we have to be smart? In five minutes I came up with over 50. Here are five.

• We can compromise on this Supreme Court nominee, we’ll catch up next time we have the presidency.
• The DNC consultants and their algorithms are exactly what we need to win.
• Trump is a pushover, Hilary will bury him; Why worry about Rust Belt states, they’re in the bag!
• Hey, that 50 State Strategy, it’s too hard and a waste of effort, let’s just focus on key swing states.
• Let’s vote unlimited war powers without end to Bush/Cheney… what could go wrong?

As the Brits say Democrats are “too clever by half.” Beltway Dems play the “safe” bet, the “smart” bet. That’s why voters see them as weak. No one ever accused Republicans of playing it safe. Whatever you may think of their beliefs, they have prosecuted them with fervor. How’d that work out over the last 35 years?

Democrats always think they’re smarter than Republicans. Three decades of results would suggest a radically different conclusion. Who controls the Supreme Court, who redistricted who out of Congress and the state legislatures, who lost to a serial bankrupt adulterous sex offending clown? To quote Aaron Sorkin (as painful as that may be), “If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?”

On to impeachment. The smart play is political. Beltway scuttlebutt says: Game the implications. Impeachment riles up the Republican base. Failure to convict in the Senate gives Trump an electoral advantage. It distracts from Democratic policy messaging. These are certainly possible outcomes. Other possibilities include burying Trump in an avalanche of testimony, exposing grotesque illegal and unconstitutional behavior, driving his re-elect score even lower. The hearings demoralize the Republican base, suppressing turnout in critical Senate and state elections. Hearings just might guarantee a landslide. To hell with the Clinton example, who remembers Nixon? By ’75 you couldn’t find 5 people who admitted voting for a guy who got 520 electoral votes.

The right play is impeachment hearings. You can’t call Trump a criminal and unfit for office and be too chicken shit to start the process (Nancy!). Hearings demonstrate strength, commitment to good government, the courage to do the right thing even when it may be risky, and belief in the history and promise of our Constitutional form of government. Americans respect courage and principle.

The right thing is the smart thing. Impeachment hearings now. Anything less is craven, small minded bullshit. And bad politics.

Don't Be Fooled-- The Party's Elite Establishment Still Controls The Democratic Party

Trump is so disgusting. Reich is so right about him-- and his enablers in Congress. It seems impossible the Democratic Party could lose against them even if they try. How about if they try really, really hard? Ah... so we're talking about the DCCC. Did you see that piece by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic on Monday: The Democratic Party Just Ticked Off Its Youngest Organizers? Pelosi really should get rid of Bustos before it's too late. "The youths in the Democratic Party are angry," wrote Godfrey. "Sixty-eight chapters of the College Democrats are urging voters not to donate to the party’s congressional-campaign arm after it instituted a new policy to protect incumbents from primary challenges. The protesting students say that the change will deter young candidates and people from historically marginalized communities from running for office. Their outrage isn’t just noteworthy because they represent younger voters in the electorate-- these young people are also some of the party’s key organizers and activists."

“As College Democrats, we did a lot of work to build the new Democratic majority,” says Hank Sparks, the 20-year-old president of the Harvard College Democrats, which is spearheading the boycott. “This is a policy that’s going to silence a lot of voices like ours.”

They did do a lot of work: College Democrats help form the backbone of the party’s organizing infrastructure. The chapters currently boycotting the policy change from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee canvassed and phone-banked for dozens of Democratic congressional candidates across the country, including some of the 40 so-called majority-makers who flipped House seats from red to blue. Alumni from these College Democrats chapters have gone on to work for lawmakers on Capitol Hill and as staffers on presidential campaigns, and some have even run for office themselves. And current members are already gearing up to help Democrats up and down the ballot win in 2020.

Until the boycott’s announcement, progressive organizations and lawmakers such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York had been the most vocal opponents of the DCCC’s new rule. The fact that the College Democrats-- the party’s stalwart organizers and its future leaders, staffers, and reliable voters-- have joined in the protest demonstrates that they, too, are worried the party is setting itself up for failure.

The DCCC unveiled the new standards in March, which require vendors hoping to do any work with the committee-- political-consulting firms or campaign advertisers, for example-- to sign on to a set of terms. The one the College Democrats oppose is an agreement for vendors not to contract with any primary candidate who is challenging an incumbent Democrat. Explaining her opposition to the rule, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that “primaries are often the only way that underrepresented and working-class people are able to have a shot at pursuing elected office.” During a closed-door meeting with DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos on March 27, leaders of the House Progressive Caucus pressured her to reverse the new standards.

The controversy surrounding the vendor rule embodies one of the central debates currently roiling the party. According to the DCCC and other Democrats, the party’s core job is to protect its incumbents, even in safe blue districts: How can Democrats protect their House majority and win back the Senate, they wonder, if they’re spending time and resources mounting challenges to their fellow Democrats? But others in the party, many of them progressives, argue that the DCCC shouldn’t discourage primary opponents from challenging any Democrat-- even the longest-serving incumbents. After all, what if such incumbents no longer represent the interests of their constituents?

The protesting College Democrats, whose views run the ideological gamut, argue that the DCCC’s new vendor rule shows that the party is ignoring its younger voices—their voices—in favor of maintaining the status quo. The policy, they say, will only serve to stymie the evolution of the Democratic Party, which is skewing younger, browner, and more female.

The DCCC might see the victories of outsider candidates in 2018, such as Ocasio-Cortez, as a reason to impose the vendor rule. She mounted the first primary campaign in more than a decade against Joseph Crowley, beating the powerful Queens-based congressman who was long considered a future speaker of the House. But the College Democrats argue that victories like hers are evidence that the party should be allowing, if not encouraging, primary challenges, especially in safe blue districts; clearly, they say, the district was ready for new representation. (That’s not to say that progressive candidates were responsible for the House majority; to the contrary, moderate candidates provided the most wins in the last midterm elections.)

“We are stakeholders in the future of the Democratic Party,” says Ruby Schneider, the 20-year-old chair of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, which worked on behalf of several state and federal candidates during the midterms, including Representative Elissa Slotkin. “We want to see a party that reflects diverse identities and is open to change.” Primary challenges, Schneider adds, allow for “necessary shifts.”

Several of the College Democrats I spoke with cited increased voter support across the country for progressive proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and suggested that preventing progressives from launching primary challenges will hinder the party from achieving those goals. “We have a bunch of younger and progressive Democrats who want the party to be taken in that direction only to see the leadership and the establishment not be responsive to our needs,” says Ben Pearce, the president of the University of Southern California College Democrats.

Pearce’s chapter, whose members helped phone-bank for candidates such as Representative Katie Hill in 2018, plan to avoid DCCC-sponsored volunteer events during the 2020 election, and will instead work directly with candidates. “I don’t think it does the party any favors to protect incumbents who might not be as responsive to the new voices that are coming forward,” Pearce says...

But the consequences of the DCCC’s new policy are already being felt on the ground, and the College Democrats I spoke with are troubled by it. Marie Newman, a 55-year-old progressive and former nonprofit executive, is challenging the anti-abortion Democrat Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s third congressional district. Newman, who has the support of several progressive lawmakers in her party, ran against Lipinski in 2018, but lost by 2 percent. She’s trying again in 2020, but since the DCCC’s new vendor policy was enacted, four different consultants have dropped her campaign, Newman has said. (On the bright side for her campaign, however, the attention that progressive activists have brought to the vendor rule have helped her raise almost $45,000.)

Interesting that Shane Savitsky at Axios tried making the case that the establishment is losing power inside the Democratic Party. I wish it were so. But... well, let's hear Shane's rationale. "Traditional political kingmakers like the parties' national committees and powerful insiders," he wrote, "have lost their edge for 2020 as buzzy, insurgent campaigns have the ability to seize control of the narrative-- and bundles of cash. The smoke-filled room has burned to the ground, and the advantage now lies fully with the electorate to determine what they want. For Democrats, that means making sense of a massive field of more than 20 candidates-- while, for Republicans, that means bending to the originator of this trend: President Trump. We're seeing it as the 2020 race heats up, and the traditional voices of the establishment stay silent":

• The closest thing to a kingmaker for the Democratic field is President Obama. If you believe the spin from Joe Biden's team, they didn't seek his endorsement to allow the former veep to stand on his own. And Obama's team wants to stick close to a long-held D.C. custom: former presidents sit above the fray.
• The Republican establishment has been remade in Trump's own image and the old guard-- the Bushes and Romneys-- that could conceivably mount some sort of challenge are out in the wilderness, neutered.

OK, true for the Republicans, absolutely. But who cares. They could all drop dead tomorrow and the world would be a better place. As for the Democrats... that's a really weak argument. Biden, a congenital liar on a grand, almost Trumpian, scale, begged Obama for his endorsement and when Obama turned him down, he made up some cock'n'bull story about wanting to win it on his own.

"We're seeing it in the policy platforms that the 2020 candidates are putting forward-- many of which scare the hell out of the establishment," he wrote. Yeah, but those policies are being killed by Pelosi, even before McTurtle or Trump can get them. Neither the Green New Deal nor Medicare-For-All will ever pass the House while Pelosi and Hoyer are in charge-- not to mention $15 minimum wage or free public colleges. The Establishment doesn't want it and it doesn't make any difference to them that the grassroots or even the presidential candidates do. Which brings us to the Establishment candidate, Status Quo Joe, who they are determined to give the nomination to as clearly as they were determined to give it to Hillary, even though Biden will be beaten by Trump even worse than Hillary was.

And when you're part of the Establishment little things like this happen: "Cable News Is Covering Biden As Much As Every Other Democratic Candidate Combined." Biden was mentioned in more clips that any other candidate across the three networks last week, and he was mentioned almost four times as often as Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had been getting the most coverage of any 2020 candidate before Biden joined the race. For the second consecutive week, Biden was mentioned in about as many clips as all the other candidates combined.

Poll: Michelle Obama Would Be Frontrunner in 2020 If She Ran

Michelle Obama in New York signing copies of her $65 million memoir. To date it has sold more than 10 milliion copies. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

It's no secret that the Democratic Party establishment wants nothing more than to eliminate the possibility of a rebel ("change") candidate getting into the general election under its banner. That means, no one like Bernie Sanders — not Sanders himself, nor Elizabeth Warren, nor anyone else who would actually implement policies of broad, real, Sanders-like "change" — will be allowed to represent the Party in 2020.

Faux-Change candidates, yes. No-Change candidates, yes. But no actual rebels. The history of the 2016 primary, plus the histories of any number of races interfered with by the DCCC, the DSCC and the DNC, attest to this fact. We could expand on that, and will, but not here.

Which means that the current leaders and controllers of the Democratic Party have a problem, a Sanders (or Sanders-like) problem, since Sanders-like policies are extremely popular with actual voters.

So how could these leaders defeat the Sanders-like candidate? There can only be two ways: A) find a corporate-friendly Faux-Change or No-Change candidate who can acquire more delegates than any of the rebel candidates, then let the superdelegates confirm her on the second ballot; or B) prevent a front-running rebel candidate from winning enough delegates to win on the first ballot, then let the superdelegates select a "compromise" none-of-the-above candidate and confirm her. 

• With the current field of candidates, it's hard to imagine the first option occurring. Look at the polling below.

If Biden enters the race then falls below Sanders, he won't be able to recover. People now think as well of Biden as they will ever think. As soon as the truth about Biden starts getting splashed in people's faces and they start really paying attention, they'll turn away. None of that truth is good.

Who among the rest of the candidates can overtake Sanders, or Warren should she surge? Top cop Kamala Harris, lingering well below the leaders, the hardnosed California prosecutor who proudly and coolly bragged about smoking dope, then jailed anyone else who did the same? How does that play to millennials? Cory "Don't be mean to Bain" Booker? The fast-rising Mayor of South Bend, Indiana? Robert Francis O'Rourke, the fossil-fuel-friendly, corporate candidate in JFK clothing? Amy "Clean my comb" Klobuchar? She's tied for seventh tied "Someone Else" and the needle for her isn't rising at all.

• Which leaves option B: Keep the Sanders-like candidate's delegate count below 50%, then introduce a "compromise" candidate, someone acceptable to both corporate Democrats and the voting public, to take the nomination (reluctantly of course) on the second, third, or fourth ballot.

Yet who has enough popularity, and clean enough hands, to pull that off? Certainly no one on the list above.

Enter (reluctantly, of course) Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama would be tied with Biden as frontrunner if she ran in 2020, poll shows

Former first lady Michelle Obama tied with former Vice President Joe Biden as the top choice among Democratic voters when asked who should be the party's nominee in 2020.

A Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday [February 19] found that 25 percent of Democrats said they would back Obama in the party primary over nine other declared or potential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).

Obama has said she is not running[.]

And there, I think, is the knight in neoliberal armor, someone widely popular with the Democratic voting public, acceptable to return-to-the-status-quo independents, and more than acceptable to pro-corporate Party leaders. No other surprise, waiting-in-the wings candidate has this combination of qualities, not one, and I've looked at the whole list, from Oprah to Stacy Abrams to Tammy Baldwin.

The only question, of course, is how to manage the switch without leaving the country in shock and filling "change" voters with rage. That will be the subject of a longer piece. Stay tuned.