The Moment The Democrats Picked Cheri Bustos As DCCC Chair, As I've Been Saying For Two Years, They Baked Terrible Losses Into The Cake

 

DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos, Born To Lose by Nancy Ohanian

House Democrats are freaking out over more losses as the ballots get counted. According to a Politico piece, House Dems brace for more losses by Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris. Already officially gone are Abby Finkenauer (IA), Joe Cunningham (SC), Kendra Horn (OK), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL), Donna Shalala (FL), Collin Peterson (MN) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM) and close to losing Anthony Brindisi (NY), Max Rose (NY), Susan Wild (PA), Harley Rouda (CA), Ben McAdams (UT), Abigail Spanberger (VA), Gil Cisneros (CA), Lauren Underwood (IL)... What do all these candidates have in common? Well, first off, except for Donna Shalala (in a "safe" D+5 district) they all have "F" scores from ProgressivePunch. Shalala has a "D." All of them, with the encouragement-- urging-- of the DCCC decided to stake their career on the false notion that the way to win is by taking the Republican-lite route. That's why they all either lost or are hanging by a thread.

The Democratic Party-- as long a sit holds the majority-- is better off without them. They are almost all Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. They shit all over the Democratic brand and confuse voters and alienate working families while spouting Republican talking points and allowing Fox and other right-wing media outlets to set the debate in terms designed to always result in Republican advantage.

It's worth listening to this shrt talk from Alan Grayson who recorded it while he was the congressman from Orlando, the first Democrat to have represented Orlando in decades.





According to Mutnick and Ferris, "The most likely scenario for Democrats is a net loss of between seven to 11 seats, according to interviews with campaign officials and strategists from both parties. That toll has prompted some tense discussions within the Democratic caucus about its message, tactics and leadership, with an internal race intensifying to succeed Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos (D-IL). And the fallout means the House is indeed in play in 2022, and the battle will be fought on a whole new set of district lines, most of which will be drawn by Republicans who maintained control of key statehouses."

Pelosi, delusional, said-- after spending over $100,000,000 to win Republican seats-- "We lost some battles. But we won the war. We have the gave." She claimed Democrats in Trump districts faced "almost insurmountable" obstacles, but neglected to mention that outspoken progressive Matt Cunningham-- also in a Trump district-- won his seat while advocating for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, unlike all the Bustos-Pelosi losers. Maybe voters in his northeast Pennsylvania district actually understand that he represents them, not the elites they hate. He's the whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and his ProgressivePunch score is "A." Trump won his district by 10 points in 2016-- 53.3% to 43.7%. Right next door, where New Dem Susan Wild is hanging on for dear life, Hillary won the district by a tad over a point, but Wild is barely a Democrat another's no reason for anyone to vote for her.

They'll both likely win reelection-- as will conservative Democrat Conor Lamb on the other side of the state-- but Pelosi should make an attempt to understand why working class voters hate her and hate where she and other Democratic leaders have taken what they once thought of as their party.

Right now there is just one challenger still standing in a California race against a Republican incumbent: Liam O'Mara-- and he ran in an R+11 district where Trump beat Hillary by 12 points-- who took on Corrupt Ken Calvert with exactly NOT ONE PENNY from the DCCC. Yet he's offering more of a challenge to Calvert than most of the Democrats who Bustos decided to spend millions of dollars on did in their own races. So far-- with thousands of absentee ballots, mostly from Democrats, to be counted, he has 44.5% of the vote. The DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC spent millions on Pelosi's costliest 2020 gamble, Blue Dog Sri Kulkarni in Texas, who she and Bustos spent over $7 million on-- and just wound up with 43.0% of the vote. Had they spent a million of that on Kulkarni, O'Mara would have wiped the floor with Calvert. But the DCCC hates progressives and would rather have Republicans in those seats than progressives.

Republicans were ecstatic this week. In a press call held Wednesday afternoon, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer (MN) mocked Democrats for their upbeat predictions and poor messaging.

“Cheri Bustos laughed in my face when I made the argument that the Democrats’ socialist agenda was going to cost them seats, during a panel that we both attended in September of 2019 in Austin, Texas-- by the way where they didn’t flip a single seat,” Emmer said. [They did-- a single seat.]

The latest DCCC memo was sent to members hours after Bustos and other top Democrats held an emotional three-hour caucus call on Thursday, where some lawmakers traded blame as they processed the string of losses-- even as Democrats are increasingly likely to capture the presidency.

On the call, Bustos declared that the campaign arm would do a post-mortem in the coming weeks. No Democrats on the call directly criticized Bustos or any other Democrat about the losses, though several in the caucus have begun privately lining up to succeed her as chair. Bustos has not said whether she will run for the position again.

Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California [one of the most sleaziest and most corrupt members of Congress and a child rapist] has told members he is interested in running, and Reps. Linda Sánchez of California, Marc Veasey of Texas and Sean Maloney of New York [a Wall Street pawn who makes his campaign calls out of the office of a hedge fund] are also in the mix, according to multiple Democratic sources.

The DCCC is facing a litany of criticism, from its spending decisions to its Latino outreach to its polling. While health care again remained a central theme in down-ballot campaigns, Democratic candidates and outside groups were yoking their GOP opponents to Trump in dozens of TV ads in districts from Texas to Illinois that the president will likely end up carrying.

Swing district Democrats-- many stung by tighter-than-expected margins in their own races-- say they’ve been privately sounding the alarm about the party’s anti-Trump messaging, which they say hurt in areas like upstate New York, Staten Island and Miami.

Shalala, who holds a South Florida seat Trump lost by 20 points in 2016, said her polls didn’t pick up how harmful the GOP’s “socialism” attacks could be. But those tags-- along with accusations that Democrats would defund the police amid widespread protests over racial injustice and police brutality-- “caught on.”

“It’s not just Biden, it's the whole Democratic establishment that has to work these districts consistently,” Shalala said. “We had not been working them over a generation. It just takes a lot of work. Could we have done more? Absolutely.”

Progressive Democrats have disputed any finger-pointing from the caucus’s centrist flank about the party’s 2020 message.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a member of the progressive Squad, argued that moderates did, in fact, steer much of the legislative agenda for the last two years-- the reality of a House Democratic majority with tight margins, which are only likely to shrink in the 117th Congress.

“They were very much centered and prioritized... No one was really sounding many alarms to me about how they felt about their race,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview.

Help Shock The DCCC-- Help Replace Crooked Ken Calvert With Liam O'Mara In Riverside County

 

In 2016, Trump won 7 of California's 53 congressional districts and all have relatively strong red PVIs. Only one of those districts is in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, CA-42 in western Riverside County. The district goes from Eastvale and Norco just west of Riverside down through Corona, the Temescal Valley and Lake Elsinore to Menifee and Murrieta. The PVI is R+9 and Trump took the district 53.4% to 41.4%. Whites are a plurality there-- 42.9%-- with a large Latino population (38.5%) and electorally significant Asian (9%) and black communities (5.2%). It was the only congressional district in southern California to vote against Gavin Newsom for governor in 2018 but the district has been slowly, slowly, slowly turning from red to purple.

The current congressman is an amoral, corrupt, out-of-touch hack, Ken Calvert. When Fox News was looking for an example of congressional corruption for a TV special, they came up with three of the worst in DC, one being Calvert. Watch while Chris Wallace explains why:





Calvert has served the corrupt corporate agenda of big-moneyed donors and lobbyists. Since 1993, he has used his power and influence against Inland Empire working class and marginalized communities. His largest donors are part of the military-industrial complex, and he has pushed ever greater corporate welfare for bomb-makers, while voting for every use of force and sending American youth to die for oil and foreign infrastructure contracts. Along the way he has championed the expanding police state, and resisted every opportunity to make life better for the residents of his district.

This cycle, the California Democratic Party endorsed history of ideas professor Liam O'Mara, an outspoken, working class progressive. But the DCCC showed no interest in the district or in O'Mara, who they would consider "too progressive" and far too independent-minded. He is campaigning on issues the DCCC and Democratic Party establishment oppose: Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal, UBI (universal basic income), and systemic government reform. When I first met him last year he told me that the very same ideas that have helped members of Squad beat entrenched establishment Democrats in blue strongholds can work to defeat entrenched establishment Republicans in red strongholds. His point was that by sticking to progressive policies which address the economic interests of American workers-- and framing those policies in ways that make sense to them-- progressives can go back to winning elections all across the heartland, and finally have the numbers in Congress to address the major challenges our time is crying out for. He told me that the American Dream is "being murdered by conservative and neoliberal economic policies which strip wealth from ordinary Americans and siphon it into the accounts of an oligarchic elite. As a historian, I pay close attention to the lessons of the past and the way they help to explain the present. Nothing about the Trumpist phenomenon has been a surprise; indeed, I have long argued that this turn towards neofascist populism was inevitable in the Republican party post-Reagan.

We live today in a world created by Reaganite policies-- a world very like that of the Robber Baron era, when most of the country’s wealth was held in a tiny number of hands, and people today are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Nearly a trillion dollars was lost by the bottom 50% of the country in the last few decades. Meanwhile, the top few per cent have seen record-breaking levels of profit.

The media is lying when it talks about economic growth, because-- let’s face it-- the stock market and job-creation numbers do not paint a full-enough picture of what is happening. Despite higher levels of workforce participation and more education, Millennials earn less than Boomers did at the same age, and have a far higher cost of living. The reasons for this are not complex-- wages have remained flat for nearly fifty years. As productivity levels have soared, poor tax policy has allowed those gains to translate into wealth for a few, and rising debt for the many.

It is this disparity in wealth which has made the Trump era possible. When the liberal orthodoxies only increase inequality and fears for the future, and no left-populist or socialist alternative is available, workers will drift into the arms of demagogues who offer simple solutions to their ills. It’s the immigrants! It’s China! It’s the fake news media! When people are hurting, and someone offers them an enemy, it is all-too-tempting to listen.

Trump’s rise was made possible, not by latent racism or by conservatism, but by the failure to articulate a rational alternative. An alliance with financial elites may have translated into some short-term successes in the 1990s, but even these were illusory-- Bill Clinton won the presidency both times with less than half of the vote because an independent populist sapped votes from the two major parties. There was a lesson to be learned from Ross Perot’s “great sucking sound,” and unfortunately it was some in the Republican party who listened.

Income inequality lies at the core of the collapsing American Dream. What we need to be talking about is equality of opportunity-- giving people the resources they need to pick themselves up and make whatever they want of their lives. This is what made America great! There is a real irony in watching a reactionary Republican party herald a past “golden age” of prosperity which was created by the very policies they most despise! Post-war America built a strong welfare state on the back of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Republican and Democratic presidents alike, from Truman and Eisenhower, through Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, all accepted its basic outlines. Massive federal spending was supported by progressive taxation and steady growth. That growth itself was a result of tax policy, as it incentivized investment in the real economy and good pay for workers. Fordist logic-- the principle whereby workers are paid enough to be able to afford your products-- was the order of the day, and factory workers could afford a suburban dream-home just as easily as dentists and lawyers.

If we are going to fight back against the destructive influence of the Chicago School’s neoliberal economic ideals, we have to get back to talking about those bold liberal visions that created the middle class in America. And that means taking a class-conscious approach, reaching out to working class voters regardless of education levels, and telling them our ideas will make them richer-- because they will!

Failure to heed this strategy has been disastrous for Democrats and for the country. Letting our emphasis on the workers slip has allowed a Republican party whose ideas are harming workers to claim their loyalty. We must get back to fighting for those same hearts and minds, and we can do that by talking about basic economics again, and showing the voters that we have a path forward that will help all Americans.

This morning, with the election just days away, he is busy putting his get out the vote program into action with no help at all from the DCCC. He told me that "When this race began I knew that the 42nd and Calvert got ignored across the country, and that we're usually written off as safely red. So, my team and I came at this with a different strategy that better suited the demography and the unique issues in the area, and the proof of that is in the pudding. We have had countless Republicans and conservative independents reach out to say they are voting for me, despite knowing I am a solid progressive, because I frame issues in ways that make more sense. That effort is starting to get noticed, too. Even the conservative predictive models used by FiveThirtyEight show a solid chance of flipping this seat, potentially one of the very best chances for any progressive in a red/purple district, and about seven times the chance of any Democrat here in the last dozen years. And turn-out is already historically high. Every single day of early returns there have been more Democratic ballots than Republican, and if this continues we are on track for a historic upset."

Currently, Liam's campaign has three different ads in Spanish running on Univision stations, and an English radio ad on major Inland Empire radio station KOLA. They're being heard four and five times a day and the campaign needs to keep them on the air through Tuesday. Despite the cluelessness of Cheri Bustos and the DCCC, CA-42 is a flippable district, but Liam needs to keep those phone banks running and those ads on the radio! Blue America is making one last appeal for you to flip one of the last Republican districts in California. Please click on the thermometer on the right, which takes you to a unique ActBlue page for progressives running in districts that Trump won in 2016. These are the seats we are concentrating on for our final 2020 push. The DCCC is ignoring them but they are among the most important gains progressives can make this cycle. Please consider giving what you can to help Liam flip this seat.

Abandoned By The DCCC 2020

 

With a tiny handful of exceptions-- basically Kara Eastman in Omaha, Joyce Elliott in Little Rock and Dana Balter in Syracuse (who is running in a D+3 district)-- Cheri Bustos and her DCCC have once again decided to spend all the big money primarily on corporate-friendly conservative candidates backed by the Blue Dogs and New Dems. To say movement candidates don't get a fair shake from Bustos, would be the understatement of the cycle.

Sri Kulkarni is a good example. He's running in TX-22, Tom DeLay's old district in the suburbs south and southwest of Houston, primarily Fort Bend County with a chunk of Brazoria and a sliver od Harris. With a PVI of R+10, Trump beat Hillary there 52.1% to 44.2%. Kulkarni lost to Republican Pete Olson in 2018-- 152,750 (51.4%) to 138,153 (46.5%), a good showing but not as good as Beto O'Rourke had. Olson is retiring now and it makes sense for the DCCC to chase the district. Kulkarni, though is an extremely flawed candidate on many levels. We'll just mention one: he's been endorsed by the Blue Dogs and New Dems. The Blue Dogs have been known to reject conservatives who they don't view as conservative enough. They see Kulkarni as right up their alley.

Kulkarni has outraised Republican Troy Nehls $4,863,231 to $1,532,299. But the big spending is the district is coming from the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC and from Kevin McCarthy's Congressional Leadership Fund. As of last week, the DCCC and Pelosi had spent $5,749,664 slamming Nehls and bolstering Kulkarni. Meanwhile McCarthy had put $5,692,407 into slamming Kulkarni and bolstering Nehls. Those are signals that the committees are serious about backing candidates. Corporate conservatives like Christy Smith (CA), Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA) and Amy Kennedy (NJ)-- all endorsed by the New Dems-- have also been benefiting from mega-DCCC independent expenditures. Progressives? Nope; with a couple of exception-- just peanuts that send a very different signal.

We've just re-activated Blue America's Abandoned by the DCCC ActBlue page, which you will find by clicking on the thermometer on the right. These are progressive candidates who won their primaries and each is on the verge of flipping a red seat blue-- without any real help-- or in most cases, without any help-- from the DCCC, which endlessly whines that progressives are "too liberal" for the districts they're running in.

I spoke with a movement candidate who looked over the list of the DCCC favorites. He said, "I think we can persuade some of them to vote progressive at least some of the time." OK, better than nothing, but what about candidates you don't have to persuade, leaders like Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Beth Doglio and Cori Bush who have already proven that they don't need any persuading?

I'm thinking this is going to be the last Blue America ask before the election. So please read what history of ideas professor-- and Riverside County progressive candidate-- Liam O'Mara told me about what's behind the DCCC abandonment of progressive candidates.

"The idea that I am 'too progressive for the district' is rubbish... We currently have the best early return rate of any Democrat in recent memory, and that follows a primary cycle that saw more votes to the Dems than any previous primary in ages. Right now FiveThirtyEight gives my campaign a better chance of flipping the district than they've seen yet, and a higher chance of flipping the seat than quite a few candidates in the long list of candidates the DCCC is spending on. Progressive-populist leaders used to dominate in the most socially conservative corners of the country, because more people vote their wallets and their hopes than anything else. To say that we are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the electorate is to surrender preëmptively to Republican control and Republican arguments... when what we ought to be doing is standing out there and winning over hearts and minds. The Democratic party needs to stop focussing on safely blue seats and start trying to win people over... and we can't do that with tepid, half-baked conservatism."

The Florida Democratic Party never looked seriously at the north-central Florida district centered on Gainesville, but this year, after Ted Yoho announced his retirement, 27 year old Adam Christensen has made a real race out of it. If he win, the DCCC will be in shock-- especially because he's the kind of independent-minded progressive that the establishment fears. "The DCCC hasn’t spent a penny on this race," Christensen told me. "They wrote it off a long time ago and refused to even look our way. Even without their help we have managed to raise more money than anyone who has ever run here, all from small dollar donations, and have brought an 'unwinnable' within the margin of error. If we had $100,000 more this race would be over. It is the best Return-On-Investment of any race in the  country and would winning it would flip Ted Yoho’s R+9 district. So if anyone wants to make a good investment Florida CD-3 is about as good as you can find."

Any Blue Will Do? Screw That!

Thursday night during the debate Biden accidentally answered "yes" when asked if he favored closing down the oil industry. He had had a senior moment and he didn't mean that, explaining to journalists a short time later that "We’re not going to get rid of fossil fuels. We’re going to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels." A step in the right direction. But two worthless, reactionary Blue Dogs-- Kendra Horn (OK) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM) immediately distanced themselves from his statement. [Note: the DCCC has already spent over $10,000,000 on these two worthless corporate shills, money that could have gone to electing actual Democrats.]

Blue Dogs and New Dems-- the pro-corporate Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- have shredded the Democratic Party's brand starting... when? When Bill Clinton embraced Wall Street in 1992? When Jimmy Carter was sworn in in 1977 or when JFK became president in 1961? When the conservatives in the party establishment forced FDR to remove Vice President Henry Wallace from the ticket in 1944?

Leaving the Senate aside, let's start with House incumbents. Over 100 of them have "F" grades from ProgressivePunch. 17 have voted more frequently with the GOP against progressive roll calls than with the Democrats! From terrible to worse:

• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 48.00% with the Democrats
• Conor Lamb (PA)- 47.33% with the Democrats
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- 44.44% with the Democrats
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 44.27% with the Democrats
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 43.21% with the Dems
• Abby Finkenauer (IA)- 41.98% with the Dems
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 41.25% with the Dems
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 40.74% with the Dems
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.02% with the Dems
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 39.11% with the Dems
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.08% with the Dems
• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 34.57% with the Dems
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 28.40% with the Dems
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)- 28.40% with the Dems
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 27.16% with the Dems
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 24.69% with the Dems
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 23.46% with the Dems

And in case anyone forgot the 2018 DCCC star recruit from New Jersey, Blue Dog shit-eater Jefferson Van Drew, he flipped to the GOP in the middle of the year and has a record of having voted 17.50% of the time with the Democrats.

Post-primary season, the Blue Dogs have 8 anti-worker/pro-corporate candidates they have endorsed. Under no circumstances should you support any of them, not with volunteer hours, not with campaign contributions, not even with votes:

• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Gretchen Driskell (MI-07)
• Margaret Good (FL-16)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
• Christina Hale (IN-05)
• Josh Hicks (KY-06)
• Brynne Kennedy (CA-04)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)

And the New Dems have 31 putrid candidates they are backing, each and every one of them having passed the test to prove they will make America worse. This is the list of the 31 candidates to be avoided-- unless you support the idea of corrupt, corporate governance:

• Alyse Galvin (I-AK)
• Hiral Tipirneni (AZ-06)
• Christy Smith (CA-25)
• Qualcomm heiress Sara Jacobs (CA-53)-- opposing progressive Democrat Georgette Gomez
• Margaret Good (FL-16)
• Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA-07)
• Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL-13)
• Christina Hale (IN-05)
• Hillary Scholten (MI-03)
• Dan Feehan (MN-01)
• Jill Schupp (MO-02)
• Deborah Ross (NC-02)
• Kathy Manning (NC-06)
• Pat Timmons Goodson (NC-08)
• Amy Kennedy (NJ-02)
• Nancy Goroff (NY-01)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
• Kate Schroder (OH-01)
• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Wendy Davis (TX-21)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)
• Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23)
• Cameron Webb (VA-05)
• Carolyn Long (WA-03)
• Marilyn Strickland (WA-10)- opposing progressive Beth Doglio

(the New Dem "watch list")

• Ammar Campa-Najjar (CA-50)
• Kathleen Williams (MT)
• Desiree Tims (OH-10)
• Hillary O'Connor Mueri (OH-14)
• Christina Finello (PA-01)
• Sima Ladjevardian (TX-02)

I know half a dozen of these people personally. They all seem... nice. They just have strange idea about what a Democrat is. I've watched Congress long enough to know for sure that I wouldn't vote to put a single one of them in office. That's how toxic it is to be a member of the Blue Dogs or New Dems.

In the next 10 days the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC will spend millions of dollars helping to elect these conservative candidates-- and not much helping progressives. (The ones in blue are the progressives.) These are the candidates that these groups had spent the most (over a million) on before this weekend:

• Rep Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $7,866,938
• Christy Smith- $7,728,919 Includes the spending in the special election she lost)
• Rep Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- $7,621,687
• Rita Hart (IA-02)- $5,896,987
• Sri Kulkarni- $5,749,664
• Rep TJ Cox (New Dem-CA)- $5,320,109
• Carolyn Bourdeaux- $5,126,518
• Rep Xochitl Torres Small- $4,988,768
• Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)- $4,978,578
• Amy Kennedy- $4,830,590
• Candace Valenzuela- $4,533,197
• Rep Anthony Brindisi- $4,396,328
• Kate Schroder (OH-01)- $4,371,004
• Rep Kendra Horn- $4,165,196
• Rep Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $4,155,685
• Dana Balter (NY-24)- $4,131,598
• Rep Ben McAdams- $4,068,280
• Rep Andy Kim (NJ)- $3,973,965
• Jackie Gordon- $3,649,928
• Kara Eastman (NE)- $3,510,587
• Betsy Dirksen Londrigan- $3,500,820
• Gina Ortiz Jones- $3,464,091
• Dan Feehan- $3,437,352
• Jill Schupp- $3,434,612
• Rep Joe Cunningham- $3,354695
• Hiral Tipirneni- $3,383,888
• Eugene DePasquale- $3,188,406
• wealthy socialite Rep Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- $3,056,114
• Rep Abby Finkenauer- $3,003,170
• Rep Abigail Spanberger- $2,876,863
• Kristina Hale- $2,839,768
• Wendy Davis- $2,818,222
• Kathleen Williams- $2,729,430
• Rep Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- $2,310,273
• Rep Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- $2,227,113
• rich lottery winner Rep Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- $2,192,622
• Hillary Scholten- $1,985,694
• Rep Cindy Axne- $1,911,390
• Christina Finello (PA-01)- $1,686,457
• Nancy Goroff- $1,641,713
• Rep Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)- $1,563,736
• Diane Mitsch Bush- $1,525,481
• Rep Elaine Luria- $1,336,672
• Rep Pete DeFazio (OR)- $1,287,300
• Joyce Elliott (AR-02)- $1,173,133
• Cameron Webb- $1,073,021
• Rep Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)- $1,054,635

So many millions of dollars wasted on worthless incumbents who no one likes! And spending on progressives who really need the money-- next to nothing other than for Kara Eastman, Joyce Elliott and Dana Balter. What about Jon Hoadley, Mike Siegel, Julie Oliver, Audrey Denney, Nate McMurray, Adam Christensen, Liam O'Mara to name a few. "Too progressive for the district" is what the DCCC always says (off the record).

I spoke to Liam O'Mara, a professor of the history of ideas, who is also a candidate running in Riverside County's CA-42-- with no recognition from the DCCC whatsoever. "The idea that I am 'too progressive for the district' is rubbish," he told me yesterday. "The most progressive prior candidate out here also happens to have done the best against Calvert. We currently have the best early return rate of any Democrat in recent memory, and that follows a primary cycle that saw more votes to the Dems than any previous primary in ages. Right now FiveThirtyEight gives my campaign a better chance of flipping the district than they've seen yet, and a higher chance of flipping the seat than quite a few candidates in the long lists above. Progressive-populist leaders used to dominate in the most socially conservative corners of the country, because more people vote their wallets and their hopes than anything else. To say that we are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the electorate is to surrender preëmptively to Republican control and Republican arguments... when what we ought to be doing is standing out there and winning over hearts and minds. The Democratic party needs to stop focussing on safely blue seats and start trying to win people over... and we can't do that with tepid, half-baked conservatism."

Let me make a suggestion: click on the 2020 ActBlue congressional thermometer above and show Liam O'Mara some love. Unlike most of the DCCC candidates, he would actually make Congress a better and more productive place.

Reforming Government-- Raúl Grijalva Wants To-- Pelosi And Her Team Want To Pretend They Do Too... But They Don't

 

McConnell's never going to allow the Senate to debate it and even if he did and it passed, Trump would never sign it. But that didn't stop Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) from introducing new legislation to end the common practice of hiring lobbyists in a revolving door scheme that swampifies the executive branch-- and it's not just something corrupt Republican do. Corrupt Democrats do it too. Last week, writing for the American Prospect, David Dayen showed how Grijalva is forcing corporate conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party "to take a stand on whether they will hold a potential Joe Biden administration to at least the same anti-corruption standard that Barack Obama held for himself as president."

Grijalva's new bill would "deny confirmation of any nominee to an executive branch position who is currently or has been a lobbyist for any corporate client or officer for a private corporation, in this or any future administration. That would include all Cabinet officials, and any of the roughly 1,200 Senate-confirmed positions throughout the federal government. The letter, endorsed by Demand Progress, the American Economic Liberties Project, the Revolving Door Project, and the Sunrise Movement, represents a baseline request for personnel in the next administration. Groups had proposed something similar to this for months, but not this sweeping a ban, and not with the full-throated support of a House committee chair."

The Grijalva rule is a stronger version of President Obama’s lobbyist ban. Under Obama, any registered lobbyist was barred from government service in the issue area where they lobbied until they had been unregistered for two years. On the way out, these officials couldn’t lobby the government for the remainder of the administration. Obama’s rule was a little leaky, as it didn’t apply to unregistered, de facto lobbyists who were obviously engaged in influence-peddling, lobbyists registered outside the two-year ban, or lobbyists hired for a government job outside their lobbying area.

It’s been long forgotten and is now somewhat risible, but Donald Trump also has a lobbying order in place, which replaced his predecessor’s. The Trump rule allows lobbyists into the government as long as they recuse themselves from anything they lobbied on for two years. It also allegedly bans former executive branch members from lobbying the government for five years, though it only applies to the agency where they worked.

According to one count, 281 lobbyists had worked in the Trump administration as of last October, including the secretaries of defense, interior, energy, labor, and homeland security, along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler. In addition, several former Trump officials found a way around the modest post-government lobbying ban.

The Grijalva rule tightens the Trump and even the Obama standard significantly. Not only is there no safe-harbor period for former lobbyists-- they’re out of government no matter how long ago they lobbied-- but the rule includes all officers of private corporations, of which there have been many in the past two administrations.

...Biden hasn’t committed even to restoring the weaker Obama-era order on lobbying, despite promising a kind of Obama restoration throughout his campaign. Numerous business types have been pitched for top slots in a Biden administration, and his transition team includes former Apple lobbyist Cynthia Hogan, Facebook director Jessica Hertz, and Jeffrey Zients, former Facebook board member and president of Cranemere, a conglomerate that buys and sells businesses. TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson and co-CEOs of Ariel Investments John Rogers and Mellody Hobson have also been mentioned as potential Cabinet-level officials.

Yesterday Grijalva told me that "No democracy can survive if it has one set of rules for the public and another for insiders. Americans have seen decades of special corporate favors and billion-dollar giveaways, and they won’t accept that as the natural state of things any longer. If we’re going to restore faith in our government, we have to end the revolving door, not just reverse it, and we have to end corporate government once and for all." We need to ask ourselves what the leaders of both parties find unacceptable about that premise-- and why they are so doggedly in favor of the status quo. 

Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a Pelosi-generated piece on House Democrats' unveiling "a sweeping package of reforms... designed to strengthen Congress’s ability to check the executive branch and prevent abuses of power, especially by the president." No mention of Grijalva or his proposal-- just more bullshit from Pelosi and her disgustingly GOP-like, corrupt leadership team. "The package," wrote Karoun Demirjian, "which its architects have informally referred to as “post-Trump reforms,” includes measures to restrain the president’s power to grant pardons and declare national emergencies, to prevent federal officials from enriching themselves, and to accelerate the process of enforcing congressional subpoenas in court. It also includes provisions to protect inspectors general and whistleblowers, increase penalties for officials who subvert congressional appropriations or engage in overt political activity, and safeguard against foreign election interference. Taken together, the proposals represent the Democrats’ long-awaited attempt to correct what they have identified as systematic deficiencies during the course of President Trump’s tenure and impeachment, in the style of changes Congress adopted after Richard Nixon left office. Unlike the post-Watergate reforms, however, which took years to enact, today’s House Democrats have collected their proposed changes under one bill reflecting several measures that have been percolating piecemeal through the House."

It's all about Trump and doesn't touch any of the systemic corruption that has made DC one of the swampiest cities on the planet. Pelosi and Hoyer should have learned a lesson from all the millions of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016. They're incapable of learning any such lesson.

Shahid Buttar is the San Francisco reformer running for Pelosi's seat in November; there's no progressive, just a contest between a corrupt garden variety Democrat and a real fighting progressive. Today, Buttar told me that "Unfortunately, Democrats have followed the Republican playbook in Washington for years. The bipartisan revolving door between K St. and Capitol Hill is the dirty secret of Washington-- and a big part of the reason why our government has grown so unresponsive to the needs of voters struggling to endure the compounding crises of our times."

He said he's "running to replace the leading corporate Democrat in part to help the party grow more responsive to grassroots concerns, and to help make our government more responsive to We the People. I’d be eager to support Rep. Grijalva’s bill in Congress, and to promote other checks and balances to limit and counteract corporate influence peddling in Washington."

Demirjian continued that "In a joint statement, seven committee chairs [though not Grijalva] signaled their legislation is intended to 'prevent future presidential abuses, restore our checks and balances, strengthen accountability and transparency, and protect our elections. It is time for Congress to strengthen the bedrock of our democracy and ensure our laws are strong enough to withstand a lawless president,' the statement says. 'These reforms are necessary not only because of the abuses of this president, but because the foundation of our democracy is the rule of law and that foundation is deeply at risk.' All good stuff... except for the steaming pile of hypocrisy sitting in the middle of the room in plain view.

Nate McMurray is the progressive Democrat in western New York taking on the newest slimy little Trumpist in Congress, hereditary multimillionaire Chris Jacobs, a complete knee-jerk kind of politician. Nate, in contrast, is an independent-minded leader who told me yesterday that "The Democratic leadership is not really well connected to working people and communities. And it really shows-- Democrats lost a lot of ground over the years at the state and local level. But the situation is fixable. The grassroots of the Democratic party has bold initiatives that excite and inspire voters to get involved, and the Democratic Leadership would do well to really listen."

Liam O'Mara is running for a southern California seat occupied by one of the most overtly corrupt members of Congress, Crooked Ken Calvert. When Fox News was looking for a corrupt slimebag to use as an example of DC corruption, they did a Mike Wallace special on Calvert's corruption. This morning Liam told me to call him old-fashioned or "an idealist; call me whatever you like-- but I believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people ought to serve only the people-- not corporations and wealthy special interests. Our elections need to be publicaly funded, and all lobbying, in the sense of contributions, needs to end." The topic boils his blood. He continued:

Lobbying used to mean catching someone in the lobby and pressing your case-- that's it! And advocates for bills make perfect sense to me. But when someone can come at you flush with cash from a corporation and say, please vote for things we like, and here's a million bucks to keep your job... that shit needs to be illegal. Now. Right fucking now.

We have hundreds of congresscritters taking vast amounts of cash for their campaigns, and that should be understood as bribery, plain and simple. A bribe is something offered in exchange for a decision in your favour. What else can we call it when someone takes a corporation's money, then votes to advance that same corporation's interests? It's a damned bribe!

I don't care which party you call home-- if you take a big wad of cash from someone and then push their legislative agenda, you are violating your oath to serve the people and the Constitution of this country. It's way past time for some changes. We need to apply the laws properly against bribery, pass a total ban on cash lobbying, introduce publicaly-funded elections, and, as the president disingenuously put it, drain the swamp!

 

Neofascism and the Trump Phenomenon-- A Guest Post By Liam O'Mara

 

Liam O'Mara is a history professor running for a Riverside County congressional seat held by Trump enabler and crook Ken Calvert. Because there are so many incorrect conceptions about fascism floating around, and because Professor O'Mara teaches his students what it actually is, I asked him to do a guest post on how fascism and the Trump Regime intersect.

The video up top is an ad Blue America is running in Riverside County right now and has nothing whatsoever to do with the post below. The video at the bottom contains a number of lectures Liam sent us from classes he has given on fascism and you might want to watch after you read his essay. Another thing I hope you'll want to do after you read his essay, is contribute to his campaign. Although he is being supported by the California Democratic Party, the DCCC is not enamored of independent-minded progressives taking on Republican incumbents in red districts-turning purple (like CA-42). So, to win this contest, O'Mara is going to need some grassroots love. He has an uphill but winnable battle against a corrupt right-wing slug who is self-serving and without a care when it comes to the benefit of working families in Riverside, in California or across the country. Time for Calvert to go. That's why I've included the Blue America 2020 Making California Bluer thermometer on the right. Please give it a click and consider contributing to Liam O'Mara's campaign.


Neofascism and the Trump Phenomenon
-by Liam O'Mara

Trumpism did not come out of no-where. Forty years of neoliberal policies have shrunk the middle class and strangled the American Dream. That decline has fuelled a reactionary politics that plays on fears, grievances, and insecurity about the future. But is it fascism?

The label of ‘fascism’ is thrown around a lot these days, despite people on all sides of the political spectrum often having an incomplete, or dead-wrong, understanding of the term. I am certainly guilty of using the term myself.

But as a historian of ideas, I often feel it is both necessary and warranted to raise the issue, given the global resurgence of the reactionary and nationalist right, and because I want more people to know what it means and where it ought to be used.

And we should better know what it means, given how many current leaders fit the mould of neofascism, despite rejecting the label. Vladimir Putin tends to call his enemies ‘the real fascists’, while literally quoting Russian fascist thinker Ivan Ilyin in his speeches!

We need to get better at recognizing what pulls together figures as diverse as Putin, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, and Trump. The simplest way I can think of to frame an article on this is to outline the nine essential characteristics I use in my lectures. I will, along the way, point to some applications of those ideas in contemporary geopolitics.

Fascism is anti-liberal – Fascism argues against democracy and/or makes supportive gestures towards authoritarianism and authoritarian rulers, and supports greater policing powers over people. It is critical of human rights discourses and individual rights, and sceptical about universal moral values. It attacks the free press, and argues that respect for difference, for the Other, and often common courtesy, are just a scam to emasculate us.

Have you heard someone arguing, ‘You have nothing to fear if you did nothing wrong’, ‘Don’t resist and they won’t shoot you’, or ‘It’s okay he killed those people because they were commies / gays / criminals /etc.’..?

I Can't Breath by Nancy Ohanian

Have you seen public figures eschew all pretence of civility and ‘political correctness’ in order to delegitimize institutions, the media, and opposing parties? Trump’s constant attacks on the news, and the far-right’s crusade against universities (which they call ‘Marxist indoctrination camps’) are examples of illiberal thinking.

Fascism is anti-conservative – Fascists are often socially conservative, but are reactionaries, not political conservatives. Conservatives believe in preservation for the status quo and for slow, managed change that respects tradition. Fascists argue for a radical regeneration of the nation, and restoration of an earlier golden age.

When someone argues that contemporary culture is ‘degenerate’, or that we need to ‘Make American Great Again’, they are saying that something is wrong and needs major change. In doing so they sometimes call for a return to traditional values, but just as often will innovate in the values they wish to instill in the population.

Fascism does not promise a conservative social vision, but a revolutionary one, with near-messianic promises of rebirth.

Fascism is nationalistic – Fascists focus on the ethnic nation and/or ethné and/or nation-state over the individual, disdain minorities and scapegoats them for problems, and either oppose outright or seek to limit immigration..

Fascism idolizes the military, or at least a particular ideal of military power, and gets caught up in symbolic displays of enthusiasm. Consider the way that Erdoğan shifts attention to the Kurds to cover up criticism of his domestic policies, and unifies the nation by bombing innocents across the border in Iraq and Syria.

To really get this one, we need to distinguish some commonly-confused terms. Nationalism is not like patriotism – they have entirely different objects.

A nation is a group of people with some features in common (shared history, ethnicity, religion, language, culture, etc. – which features are used varies). A state is a collection of institutions (the military, the courts and laws, civil administration, parliaments, borders, etc.). And a country is a state with sovereign control of territory.

A patriot is someone who loves and serves their country or state. A nationalist is someone who loves and serves their nation.

Nationalisms are, by definition, exclusionary, and while based on actual cultural elements and history, are always selective and artificial in their construction of a political identity. Consider the way that Trump’s view of the nation seems to embrace white supremacists but not Muslims or immigrants.

Wrapping oneself in the flag, preaching distrust of foreigners, calling for an ‘America First’ policy that disdains alliances, and blaming problems on perceived Others in society are characteristic of nationalism. Lost your job? ‘Mexicans took it’! Company closed down? ‘Competition with China is to blame’! Need to justify a war? ‘Muslims all support terrorism, donchaknow’!

Fascism is conspiracist – Fascism is defensive, and sees the world in terms of mortal struggle between the forces of good and a nebulous, hidden enemy. It sets up a mix of internal and external enemies which must be opposed by patriots and challenged aggressively by the nation.

But those enemies cannot be so strong as to be a real threat – fascists use them to motivate fear, but it must be a flexible fear without real consequence, and thus the enemy must appear rhetorically as an all-powerful existential danger, but one that can easily be contained by state policy and the Great Leader.

Conspiracies are illogical by definition, and not dependent upon empirical evidence. You can read between the lines and find support for the beliefs in almost anything, since it is the emotional satisfaction of the conspiracy that matters most. Belief in élite paedophile rings run out of pizza places by Satan-worshipping liberals determined to eliminate all borders and turn the country over to Jewish financiers is somehow appealing to people confused by a more interconnected world. But such Illuminati-style nonsense only works if it isn’t real. It has to be something that you can address by voting for your side, joining a ‘patriotic’ organization, and sending e-mails to your friends.

Fascism is anti-rational – One of the reasons fascism is so hard to understand is that it does not have a strong philosophical foundation that can be supported logically. Instead, it focusses on emotional appeals and rhetoric, setting aside the need for statistics or evidence and calling for belief instead.

Fascism addresses the fears of working people by talking about their victimhood, about how things are changing and seeming to up-end their idealized picture of the world. Building on public fears, fascism distracts from them with big rallies and patriotic displays, and puts on events that celebrate the nation’s power, such as military parades.

Folks like Duterte, Bolsonaro, or Trump do not depend upon reason, facts, or policies for their appeal, but rather on simple messages & images, on slogans, etc. It doesn’t matter if their ideas are incoherent or if they would bankrupt the nation – the details are invisible to their fans because of their presentation.

Human beings have an almost infinite capacity to rationalize beliefs and paper over contradictions. It is possible for someone simultaneously to claim support for liberty and individual rights, yet ignore the presence of literal concentration camps and the systemic abuse of innocents within. These things are either ‘not happening’ – it’s just ‘fake news’ – or they are entirely justifiable for this or that reason, and do not call into question their commitment to freedom.

Fascism is charismatic – One of the things that helps to sell the contradictions and hypocrisy is the charisma of the Great Leader. Fascism requires a leader-cult focussed on a central figure, showing that leader as the solution to problems great and small, and slapping his name and/or image everywhere. Fascists will argue that his/her pronouncements are more valid than the media or experts, so they denigrate the media and tell people to trust the leader and/or the party first, and to disdain higher education and/or experts and/or the universities. It thus builds on a long history of anti-intellectualism on the reactionary right.

While running for office, Trump sold himself as a god-like figure, a saviour, telling us that ‘only’ he could ‘save’ us, that only he knows what has to be done. He said that knows ‘more than the generals’, ‘more than the scientists’, that he has ‘secret plans’ to defeat our enemies and that the scientists don’t actually know anything.

Because there is no substance to the claims, he sells everything with ‘believe me’ appeals to his own credibility, and disparages any source which undermines his narrative, including his own government. This kind of leader-cult is not a feature of democratic societies, but of failed democracies and totalitarian states.

Fascism is corporatist – Fascism is both capitalistic and anti-capitalistic; it argues for private enterprise and markets, sometimes mixed with state-owned businesses, but geared always toward serving the nation. This means that it can criticize big banks and corporations, but refuse to address the private nature of them and their profit motive, since it views the cut-throat competition in markets to be beneficial, in the same way that it favours competition among individuals.

Consider again the ‘America First’ rhetoric – fascists tend to support tariffs and trade wars, viewing all foreign exchange in terms of competition and dominance or submission. The US is not buying from Chinese companies – China is taking advantage of America!

Corporatism is another commonly misused word in American politics, with many thinking that it means support for corporations (meaning, the business model). The corporations that it means are a kind of public middle-man layer where something like a guild will speak for the workers in the place of trade unions.

The reason for this is that fascism opposes utterly the idea of class consciousness, favouring national consciousness instead. Fascist corporatism is meant to neuter the labour movement, weakening the ability of workers to challenge the powerful, and instead suggesting that all Germans – regardless of class – are allies against all French people, for example.

This is, of course, one of the reasons it is utterly absurd to consider Nazism (or any kind of fascism) to be socialistic. Socialists talk about the world and the economy in terms of class struggle, with the workers held back as a permanent underclass by the bourgeoisie and the capitalists. Fascism throws this distinction out completely, subordinating both the workers and the bourgeoisie to the shared interests of the nation.

Fascism is populist – Fascists talk frequently about working class interests and fears. This is the other area of overlap sometimes seen, falsely, between socialist and fascist movements. Socialism can be seen as a form of left-populism, while fascism is a form of right-populism.

Whereas the socialists point to the class enemy as the source of trouble, fascists point to foreign and domestic enemies of the nation. It will talk about the ‘left behind’ and the ‘forgotten man’, but often with a racist or nativist component (whether dog-whistled or overt). And it builds a shared sense of persecution, of the common man as an entitled, aggrieved victim of strange forces beyond his control.

Neofascists movements, from Alternativ für Deutschland to the Rassemblement National in France to the Trumpists in the US will make their appeals to working class, mainly high school-educated voters, by explaining the world in terms of competition with nefarious enemies at home and abroad.

The immigrants are bringing crime and drugs and sexual assault, they are influencing your children and destroying your culture, they are bringing about a ‘white genocide’! And who supports these immigrants? Why, the universities and the left! Communism, socialism, and even liberalism are seen as an existential threat, and the left must be resisted by any means available, including violence, because to leave them alone is to watch them poison and destroy the nation.

All totalitarian movements depend upon fabrication of internal and external enemies to justify the power of the party – but fascism is distinct in merging nationalism and populism to create a philosophy ideally suited to a working class suffering decline in the face of neoliberal globalization and automation.

Instead of addressing the economic structures and bipartisan policies which have created this decline, it offers a a scapegoat, and easy promises of a return to prosperity if only the Great Leader is granted more power and time.

Fascism is misogynist – Another way that fascists exploit the fears and grievances of working class men is through sexism and literal misogyny. All fascist movements have been anti-feminist, because women have been such an easy target for worker fears – ‘She’s taking your job! Shouldn’t she be at home raising your children instead?’.

The fascists offer men an easy way to decrease competition for good work by supporting ‘traditional’ gender rôles and the patriarchy, and suggesting that women are naturally better suited to being mothers and caretakers.

This is intimately tied to nativist and nationalist rhetoric, since a female sex restricted to birthing duties could help to eliminate immigration entirely, allowing populations to replace themselves and grow without ‘harming’ the nation through ‘interbreeding’.

Fascist movements are obsessed with demographic decline, which makes a certain amount of sense given its origins in the early twentieth century. By the early 1900s, the major powers of Europe were already dependent upon immigration for the population growth needed to fuel industrialization, and the movement of peoples from within and without Europe provided an easy target for fear-mongering about a cultural Other who would undermine the nation.

Needless to say, this continues in the anti-immigrant hysteria of neofascist parties in Europe, the US, Australia, Canada, and beyond.

On Trumpism and the GOP – I hope that this run through of the key features present in fascist and neofascist movements has helped, both in clarifying how and when the word should be used, and in underscoring the danger in which we find ourselves in much of the developed world. Nationalist and right-populist movements have been in steady resurgence for decades, moving from tiny fringe parties in the ‘1960s and ‘70s, to forming governments and coalitions in countries on every continent by the early twenty-first century. The present crisis has been a long time coming.

Again and again I try to remind people that Trump himself is neither surprising nor unique, but instead the product of a steady drift on the American right which goes back many decades, and arguably all the way to the same moment in the early twentieth century which spawned the original fascists. In movements as distinct as that of Father Coughlin and the German American Bund we see prototypes for the arguments which began pushing into the mainstream under Reagan, in the campaign of Buchanan, and finally with Trump.

Beating Trump in November may be critical to the survival of our republican institutions, but it is not enough. We need to confront the very real fears and systemic failings that leave so many American vulnerable to the rhetoric of the far right. Until we manage to toss the faulty neoliberal consensus, and begin to build an economy that works for all of us, far too many will be tempted by the easy answers of neofascist demagogues..

Regardless of when we manage to escape Trump himself, the Trumpist movement will carry on, with new right-populist leaders stepping up to claim the Great Leader’s mantle. Whether they succeed in remaking America in their image is up to us.

Which Party Is Going To Have to Rebuild After The Trump Debacle?

Cone Of Shame by Nancy Ohanian

If someone was to start an essay with "I was a Republican for most of my adult life," there's a good chance I would stop reading. How much of a moron or bigot would someone have to be to have been a Republican for most of their adult life? I wasn't even an adult when I figured out that even a horribly flawed Democratic Party in practice wasn't as bad as the Republican Party in aspiration (and practice). But the title of the new Tom Nichols essay for The Atlantic-- This Republican Party Is Not Worth Saving-- I wouldn't have heard his compelling arguments from why defeating Trump is just the beginning of a process that needs to go much deeper. "No one should ever get a second chance," he wrote, "to destroy the Constitution." And he wasn't just talking about Mitch McConnell and the band of unspeakably anti-patriotic political hacks that make up the congressional Republican Party.

Nichols, basically addressing conservatives and Republicans, began by acknowledging that he understands "the attachment to that GOP, even among those who have sworn to defeat Donald Trump, but the time for sentimentality is over. That party is long gone. Today the Republicans are the party of 'American carnage' and Russian collusion, of scams, plots, and weapons-grade contempt for the rule of law. The only decent, sensible, and conservative position is to vote against this Republican Party at every level, and bring the sad final days of a once-great political institution to an end. Then build the party back up again-- from scratch. I’m not advocating for voting against the GOP merely to punish Republicans for Trump’s existence in their party. Rather, conservatives must finally accept that at this point Trump and the Republican Party are indistinguishable. Trump and his circle have gutted the old GOP and stuffed its empty husk with the Trump family’s paranoia and corruption."

This Facebook ad was made specifically for Liam O'Mara's campaign to replace Crooked Ken Calvert in Riverside County. But it sums up, elegantly, Nichols' entire argument for why the GOP-- not just Trump-- needs to go away. In fact, it goes deeper and beyond Nichols' argument. Take a look:





Nicholas wrote that "the transformation of the GOP into a cult of personality is so complete that the Republicans didn’t even bother presenting a platform at their own convention. Like a group of ciphers at a meeting of SPECTRE, they nodded at whatever Number One told them to do, each of them fearing an extended pinkie finger pressing the button that would electrocute them into political oblivion. Some Republicans, even while they grant that Trump is a sociopath and an idiot-- and how unsettling that so many of them will stipulate to that-- are willing to continue voting for Republican candidates because the GOP is nominally pro-life or because the administration’s judicial appointments show that the people around the president are doing what conservatives should want done. But Trump’s few conservative achievements are meaningless when compared with his war on American democracy, a rampage that few Republicans have lifted a finger to stop. Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have turned the constitutional order and the rule of law into a joke. If you’re Roger Stone or Michael Flynn, the White House will arrange pardons, commutations, or even the outright betrayal of the Justice Department’s own lawyers. Felony convictions are for the little people. The Constitution is just busywork for chumps."

I guess it's still too hard for him to understand why Republicans are now and have always been-- at least in our lifetimes-- unfit to be allowed to get behind the wheel. My biggest worry is that Republicans like Nichols are infiltrating and polluting the DNA of the Democratic Party and making it over into a Reaganite party where Democrats like Biden and Manchin and Schumer and Gottheimer will be perfectly comfortable, but where there will be no place for progressives or for anyone who understands the solidarity of the New Deal. Yesterday, in fact, Liam O'Mara, the same independent-minded progressive running for the Riverside County congressional seat, wrote that "Given the very real impact on ordinary people of rising costs and stagnant wages, this country needs to turn around. It elected Barack Obama because he spun a tale about hope and change that resonated with a country in the grip of recession. There was a historic opportunity in those first two years to realign the economy to favour growth for all, not just the one per cent. Alas, Obama failed completely to rise to the challenge of the day, preferring to bail out the people who caused the problem, not those who suffered its effects. At the end of the day, exactly the same people and ideas were left in charge. This is how we got Trump. And people really thought Biden was their best shot against him? For some reason, 'It's the economy, stupid!' remains one of the hardest lessons for this party to learn. If Democrats really want to win nationally, not just against Trump but consistently, and regain ground in the swing states, we must get back to our New Deal roots and tear up the nonsensical DLC crap that's driven the party since the 1970s. And a new batch of policy-driven challengers across the state and country give me hope that we're gaining ground at the grassroots at least. The Squad is already set to double this year, and there are a lot of great challengers running in red districts as well as the safely blue seats."

"GOP representatives in the people’s house." continued Nichols, "sneer at concepts such as oversight and the separation of powers. Rather than demand accountability from the executive branch on COVID-19, on the Hatch Act, on the Postal Service-- on anything, really-- they either repose in sullen silence or they take up the lance for the president and overwhelm committee hearings with Trumpian word salad. Meanwhile, senators who swore to be 'impartial' jurors refused to hear actual evidence during an impeachment trial. They confirmed a rogue’s gallery of incompetent henchmen and cronies to important positions. They continue to downplay Russian attacks on the U.S. political system and are now outfoxed by the likes of John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, a nonentity who has ruled that none of them, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to ask any pesky questions about election security in person."

“But Gorsuch,” Republicans chirp when pressed about their party’s demise, as if Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh will saddle up and save us when elected Republicans refuse to stop Trump from finally turning the FBI into his private police force or Barr from using the Department of Homeland Security as the White House’s own Belarusian interior ministry. (Kavanaugh, who warned during his confirmation hearings that “what goes around comes around,” might be exactly the justice to put his stamp on such moves.)

Conservatives must also let go of fantasies about saving the “good” Republicans, a list that is virtually nonexistent. (You can’t count Mitt Romney more than once.) The occasional furrowed brow-- a specialty of the feckless Susan Collins of Maine-- is not enough. The few, like Romney, who have dared grasp at moments of sanity have been pilloried by Trump and other Republicans. In any case, Romney is chained to the GOP caucus, a crew that includes the jabbering Louie Gohmert and calculating Elise Stefanik in the House, and the sniveling Ted Cruz and amoral Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

Would-be Madisonians among the Republicans warn that no party should have untrammeled access to the levers of power-- and especially not the Democrats. Yes, they say, we understand that Trump must go, but if Joe Biden is allowed to run the executive branch without a Republican Senate, America will become a one-party state that sooner or later will fall under the boot of the dreaded Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This faux constitutionalism is naked hypocrisy: I do not recall, during my days in the GOP, anyone on the right ever pleading that Americans should leave at least a few Democrats in office so that we Republicans would not go crazy and start force-feeding Ayn Rand or Friedrich Hayek to impressionable schoolchildren.

Nichols-- the lifelong Republican-- will never understand AOC or Liam O'Mara nor what they represent. When he asks "if the Republicans suffer a full-spectrum defeat in 2020, what comes next?," he is thinking about something that doesn't exist-- never existed and never will exist: "sensible conservatives-- who believe in limited government and the prudent, constitutional stewardship of national power and resources." He looks forward to them feeling "safe to run for national office as Republicans again. Those at the local level who were bullied into silence by their state organizations might be able to come out of hiding and challenge the people who led them to disaster." But what he's describing in the Big Tent neoliberal Democratic Party of Joe Biden. "Reconstructing the GOP-- or any center-right party that might one day replace it-- will take a long time, and the process will be painful." So why not just infiltrate the Democratic Party and kick out the progressives and make them go through the long, painful process of rebuilding? That's my fear and I see it already happening. I see Nichols' fear as well: "The remaining opportunists in the GOP will try to avert any kind of reform by making a last-ditch lunge to the right to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s culture warring and race-baiting. In the short term, the party might become smaller and more extreme, even as it loses seats. So be it. The hardening of the GOP into a toxic conglomeration of hucksters, quislings, racists, theocrats, and cultists is already happening. The party gladly accepted support from white supremacists and the Russian secret services, and now welcomes QAnon kooks into its caucus. Conservatives must learn that the only way out of 'the wilderness' is first to vanquish those who led them there. No person should ever get a second chance to destroy the Constitution. Trump has brought the United States to the brink of civil catastrophe, and the Republican Party has protected him from the consequences of all his immoral and illegal actions more ably than even Fred Trump did. Conservatives need to put the current Republican Party out of its-- and our-- misery."

How about a pitch for progressives in the Democratic Party now? This thermometer on the right will take you to a page with 17 progressives who won their primaries and now have to face off against conservatives in November. I've talked with each of these men and women. Some-- like Kara Eastman, Nat McMurray, Mike Siegel, J.D. Scholten-- I've gotten to know over years, not just over the phone, but over the dinner table and on the frontlines of the battle between progressivism and neoliberalism. Some I'm just getting to know but feel confident enough to recommend them. I doubt there are many DWT readers with the capacity to max out to each of the candidates on the page... but that has never been what Blue America is about. Our average contribution is around $45. We've raised between $6 and $7 million for progressive candidates and we've seen former candidates we've backed-- like Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Jamie Raskin, Matt Cartwright, Katie Porter... changing the national conversation and changing the way Americans look at politics, one painful step at a time. Many of our former candidates I see as in the middle of their journeys and I have every expectation that men and women like Randy Bryce, Mark Gamba, Hector Oseguera, McKayla Wilkes, Kaniela Ing, Robert Emmons, Tom Winter, Eva Putzova, Shaniyat Chowdhury, Robin Wilt, Morgan Harper, Keeda Haynes, Nabilah Islam, Tomas Ramos are part of America's future. Meanwhile. it will only set you back $17 to give each of the candidates one dollar-- or maybe you like what Liam O'Mara had to say above and you want to give him that whole $17. Or perhaps you live in Texas and want to split the contribution equally between Mike Siegal and Julie Oliver, or maybe you live in New York and want to give a boost to Mondaire Jones, Nate McMurray and Jamaal Bowman. Start by clicking the thermometer and give what you can to whomever you want. (And, hey, there's no better feedback for us at Blue America as we decide where to spend our last minute ad money.)

One thing is certain. If voters don't end Republican political dominance everywhere and at every level it exists, it won;'t be the rebuilding of parties that matter; it will be the rebuilding of our entire world and society. Nothing will survey the Climate Change that the GOP is still denying ostrich-like. Yesterday, Patagonia sent this out to all their customers and it really doesn't matter which party you identify with or if you're "non-political." It really is now or never.

The White Working Class Is Not Sold On Biden, But Will It Abandon Trump In The COVID-Election?

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg recently watched a series of focus groups of white working class voters in rural Wisconsin, the Mahoning Valley region in Ohio, northern Maine and suburban Macomb County, Michigan, all swing areas where Trump did well. Vote-rich Macomb County, for example, gave Trump a 53.6-42.1% victory over Hillary in 2016, after going for Obama both times he ran. Trump won the northern Maine congressional district, which also voted for Obama twice, by an astounding 10 points-- 51.4% to 41.1%. In 2018 though, the district ousted its Republican congressman and elected, Jared Golden, a Democratic state legislator in his place.

Greenberg wrote that what he watched told him that "the heartbreaking health care crisis that is ravaging working-class and rural communities threatens to cut short Donald Trump’s political career, and demands a forceful response from opposition Democrats. It will teach big lessons about how to reach working people who are struggling, regardless of color." He shared his findings with the American Prospect, noting that "In 2016, a white working-class revolt enabled Trump to win [working class] men by an unimaginable 48 points and women by 27. But disillusionment was real in the midterms: The Republican House margin dropped 13 points across the white working class. In the new poll, Trump lost a further 6 points with white working-class women, where Biden only trailed Trump by 8 points (52 to 44 percent). While Trump has been throwing a lot of red meat to his base, white working-class men have not been dislodged from their trajectory, as Trump’s margin eroded another 4 points."

These are mostly low-wage families, many with children raised by a single parent. They are consumed with rising opioid deaths and disabilities and a deadly expensive health care system. That was a big part of why they voted for Donald Trump in 2016: so he could end Obamacare and its costly mandate, and deliver affordable health insurance for all. When he failed to do so, many voted against the Republicans in the midterms.

But the pandemic was the perfect storm. I have never seen such a poignant discussion of the health and disability problems facing families and their children, the risks they faced at work, and the prospect of even higher health care and prescription drug costs. The final straw was a president who battled not for the “forgotten Americans,” but for himself, the top one percent, and the biggest, greediest companies.

That is why most in the Zoom focus groups pulled back from President Trump. Three-quarters of these voters supported Trump in 2016, but less than half planned to vote for him now. Even those who still supported him did not push back when other participants expressed anger with his doing nothing about health care, fostering hatred and racism, dividing the country, siding with the upper classes, and having no plan for COVID-19. This is a life-and-death issue for them, as much as nearly any other group in American society.

The same voters were still very cautious about Joe Biden, who seemed old and not very strong, but most importantly offered the prospect of only minor changes to the health care system and seemed unlikely to challenge the power of the top one percent. Like lots of other working people, they are looking for a leader who will make big changes in health care, fight for working people over big business, and unite the country to defeat the current economic and public-health crisis.

Working-class anger with the establishment after the financial crisis of 2008 ran deep into the Democratic base of Blacks, Hispanics, unmarried women, and millennials, too. Many were not initially enthusiastic about the Affordable Care Act, and in election after election failed to rally fully for Democratic candidates until the 2018 midterms, when Democrats ran on “health care, health care, health care!” The pandemic may allow progressives to battle for working people, regardless of color.

In today's working-class and rural communities, health care is everything. In introductory remarks, participants in the focus groups went right to the personal health care crises they were facing every day.

“My wife is disabled,” said one man from Wisconsin. “My daughter has 30 percent immune system left so she’s bouncing around from doctor to doctor and the wife says don’t bring [the pandemic] home.” Another Wisconsin man spoke of his terminally ill seven-year-old son. A woman in Maine explained how she nearly bled to death and had a $24,000 medical bill “on my credit report for who knows how long.” One woman from Ohio had two kids with autism, and another had a grandson with allergies, requiring access to a lifesaving EpiPen. “I haven’t been able to get him one for the last three years, I can’t afford it... my insurance won’t cover it,” the woman said. Prices have skyrocketed for EpiPens and remain stubbornly high.

As I was observing the Zoom group, I initially wondered whether the focus group recruiter had used some specialized list to find the participants. But then I checked the census data on disabilities.

Across the country, 12.6 percent of the population has disabilities, rising to 15.1 percent in rural areas. Black and Native American populations are more likely to have disabilities than their white counterparts. The rate is over a quarter for those 65 to 74 years old and half of those over 75 years-- all groups that are overrepresented in these rural areas. And structural racism has played a powerful role here: 20 percent of Blacks with disabilities were employed at the beginning of this year, compared to 30 percent of whites and Hispanics with disabilities.

Then I looked at census data for the congressional districts where these sessions were being held. It was a new window into America in the pandemic. In suburban Macomb County, the disability rate looks like the rural areas, with 14 percent of both whites and Blacks disabled. In northern Maine, the numbers show one in five with disabilities, slightly more for whites. In Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District, both one in five whites and Blacks are disabled. And seniors in these areas are even more disabled than other rural Americans.



TRUMP KNEW IN FEBRUARY-- AND LIED TO THE PUBLIC


So COVID violently brought together the personal health crises of these people and the failed and corrupted government response, breaking their emotional bond with Trump.

Just throw out the words “health care,” and people relayed a train of horrors: a “$16,000 deductible,” employers throwing them off health insurance, “ridiculous” premiums, a $400 bill for their asthma medicine paid for out of pocket. They spoke of the frustrations of making too much money to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to stay in the solid middle class. They explained how people avoid treatment because they can’t pay the associated costs. “The way we deliver health care is just unbelievable,” said one woman from Michigan, “the amount of waste and how much it costs to let people go bankrupt to pay for medical bills.”

Most of the respondents live on the edge in a virtual “minimum wage” economy, where companies don’t care about their employees and look just to enrich themselves. “You’re just a number now,” said one Ohio woman. They fight for every dime, as they are being overwhelmed by a health care crisis that they recognize Donald Trump has failed to fix. And importantly, for working families outside poverty, the health care reforms passed by the Democrats-- the Affordable Care Act and insurance on the health care exchanges-- just were not much help.

Discussion of the Affordable Care Act did not sound ideological, as they talked about their direct experience with insurance on the exchanges, which in the words of one woman “costs a lot of money and doesn’t pay for much of anything.” The health care system is failing them, and they want someone to fix it. And Joe Biden’s rhetoric has not been very reassuring that he would make big changes. “He’s been vague on health care,” one woman from Wisconsin said. “I want to know the specifics of what he’ll do to make it better.”

These working-class and rural swing voters voted overwhelmingly for Trump, but their response to him is now profoundly shaped by what has happened in the COVID-19 crisis. They think he failed to take the virus seriously and has just made a mess of it. They think he is failing at the most important issue for them.

What was striking is how the usual Trump deflect-and-blame strategy no longer works with these swing voters. “It seems like a lot of the stuff he’s saying could be proven wrong,” said one man from Wisconsin. “He just won’t admit where things are, he’s out of touch with reality,” said another woman. “It’s just embarrassing to have a country with the highest COVID cases, highest COVID deaths,” said a man in Michigan. “We’re supposed to be the leader in the world and we completely fumbled the ball on this.”

Respondents despaired about the lack of a national plan of action, with everyone “just left on their own.” Meanwhile, there was dismay that the president gave more care to his family’s businesses than the rest of the nation. One woman theorized that he didn’t shut down domestic travel “because he owns hotels.” These participants are paying a lot of attention to the position of Trump’s family in the administration and how the bailouts and loans are benefiting his family business, his cronies, and the top one percent.

At the same time, they are on a financial knife’s edge, worried about being one bad break away from being homeless. The focus groups happened after the $600 federal unemployment benefit ended, and those in the groups who were out of work despaired of getting by without that. Nearly all of them supported Trump in 2016 because he was a businessman who would grow the economy. But now they’re scared about the economic damage. Trump reminding these voters of his great economic successes before the pandemic fell flat. His economic bravado was not reassuring at a terrifying moment. “I remember my father watching the news and crying, and I find myself crying sometimes when I watch the news,” related a woman from Wisconsin. “And I think, oh god, I’m turning into my parents. You have no choice. The things you see are gut-wrenching.”

In emails we asked the participants to send to President Trump, you can feel that the spirit that led them to join the working-class revolt is just broken. While some hope he will get back in the right direction, most used their email to express their deep disillusionment. You can feel that they wanted a president who didn’t divide the country and make it a “laughingstock” (two writers used that exact word) internationally. They wanted a president who put the interests of the people, not just big business, first.

“I supported you in the beginning over Hillary but in the end unfortunately, you show me you’re just not for the people,” wrote one man from Wisconsin. “You lied to the American people about COVID,” wrote another. “You are everything that is wrong with America, you have effectively ruined this country,” added a woman from Ohio. “Congrats, you suck.”

It is critical to listen for what they did not say: “What an ass I was to vote for that guy in the last election.” They did not regret or say they made a mistake. All working Americans have been in financial trouble since the 2008 crash, and rising health care problems and disabilities, health care costs and deductibles, and empowered insurance and pharmaceutical companies were an explosive brew. It is why many working people voted for Trump in 2016. It is why many working-class Democrats of color and millennials failed to turn out and defend Obamacare in midterm elections and in 2016. All these voters had reasons for those choices.

COVID has shattered so many lives, but also seemingly insurmountable political barriers. The great majority of working people, regardless of color, are desperate for a government that stops taking direction from the pharmaceutical companies, and brings the boldest feasible changes to our health care system.

Western Riverside County (CA-42) is one of the fastest growing areas in southern California-- and one of the last southern California districts with a Republican member of Congress, in this case "Crooked" Ken Calvert. In 2016, Trump won the district, although by smaller margins than McCain or Romney. Still, his 53.4% to 41.4% win over Hillary was substantial. In 2018, the anti-red wave wasn't big enough to dislodge Calvert. This year, though, the Democrats nominated a better candidate, independent minded progressive Liam O'Mara. His district shares a lot of traits with the districts Greenberg was looking at. There is a white plurality and nearly 40% of the adults did not go beyond high school. About 21% are blue collar workers and 44% are sales and service workers. Liam had quite a lot to say about it, as you might expect. Please read it-- and then consider contributing to his campaign by clicking on the Bluer California thermometer below.

There is a lot of anger in the Inland Empire. The biggest challenges Democrats have faced out here have to do with the targets of that anger. Lacking the populist energy nationally to focus it on the élites who have kept wages low and costs high, too much of the population has been susceptible to fearmongering about immigration and crime. In election after election, Calvert has been all-too-happy to shift the blame for his policies onto working class brown and black people, maintaining a firm lock on the working class white vote in the district.

A couple of key factors now threaten that strategy, both in 2020 and long term. The first is demography. While white voters remain solidly in the majority for the district, they are not as monolithic in their views, with many more recent migrants from other parts of southern California attracted by lower housing costs. And the district is a lot more diverse than it once was, with large immigrant communities from Asia, and with Hispanic people making up more than a third of the total.

The other important change is to the national conversation on economics. It is true that Biden is exactly the kind of milquetoast neoliberal who has said he cares about the people but delivers mainly for the super rich, and he will not excite people at the polls. That he isn't Trump just won't be enough in this area, even with the pandemic raging. Bernie won the district by a very solid margin in the primary, and were he our standard-bearer, retiring Crooked Ken Calvert would be much easier. But the shift in policy emphasis matters still for our own race, and it is why we have drawn in so many new voters and historic independents this year.

Given the very real impact on ordinary people of rising costs and stagnant wages, this country needs to turn around. It elected Barack Obama because he spun a tale about hope and change that resonated with a country in the grip of recession. There was a historic opportunity in those first two years to realign the economy to favour growth for all, not just the one per cent. Alas, Obama failed completely to rise to the challenge of the day, preferring to bail out the people who caused the problem, not those who suffered its effects. At the end of the day, exactly the same people and ideas were left in charge. This is how we got Trump. And people really thought Biden was their best shot against him? For some reason, "It's the economy, stupid!" remains one of the hardest lessons for this party to learn.

If Democrats really want to win nationally, not just against Trump but consistently, and regain ground in the swing states, we must get back to our New Deal roots and tear up the nonsensical DLC crap that's driven the party since the 1970s. And a new batch of policy-driven challengers across the state and country give me hope that we're gaining ground at the grassroots at least. The Squad is already set to double this year, and there are a lot of great challengers running in red districts as well as the safely blue seats.

The purplish districts are where the real action is, in my view. If folks like Kara Eastman, Blair Walsingham, and I can flip red seats, or at the least improve upon past Democratic performance in these areas, we can show that populist issues resonate with a wider share of the population. That is the path back to the unchallenged dominance which the Democratic party enjoyed in the House thanks to the FDR to LBJ economic consensus. Since those days, we have lamentably allowed the fault lines to shift to racial issues and law-and-order dogwhistles, thanks to Republican strategy.

But we didn't need to fall for it! It's the same shit they pulled in the late 19th century against the populist movement of those days, disrupting solidarity with racism. And as I like to remind people, those who reject the lessons of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. We need to get past the narrow focus on identity politics and work for all Americans again. Yes, the country is more diverse, and we should continue to embrace that diversity... but not at the expense of talking about the cost of living and the declining American Dream.

We need to be laser-focussed on the things that will get the attention of working people overall: The high cost of health care and housing, the unjust tax burden, the lack of affordable child care and elder care, the limited opportunities for education and business-creation, and the high crime rates caused by stubbornly-high poverty. We need to stop ceding the economy to the Republicans and the corrupt neoliberals, and start telling people that they can dream again.

I am running to lower the cost of living for working families, period. I don't talk about Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi because they have nothing to do with my race. I tell people that they'll have a fighter in me-- someone who will go to bat for them against anyone, of either party, who says they need to tolerate the poor conditions they face now. We deserve an economy that works for all of us, and that starts with replacing tools of the ruling class like Crooked Ken Calvert.