The Way To Beat Trump's Coup Attempt: Unity And Solidarity

Yesterday, the Trumpist Regime announced it will send more violent, provocative goons to occupy Portland. In response to widespread fury from the Democratic base that Pelosi and Hoyer do something about Trump's paramilitary forces invading American cities under the guise of the Department of Homeland Security, on Thursday Rep Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who represents Portland, proposed an amendment to the budget funding the department which would restrict its ability to use the pretext of protecting federal property to prevent constitutionally protected publicly assemblies and free speech.

On his congressional site, Blumenauer wrote about the appropriations bill amendment:

In response to the Trump administration’s continued occupation of Portland, Oregon and the president’s threat to expand such operations to other cities, U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), along with Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Chuy Garcia (D-IL), announced a new plan to block federal law enforcement officers from intervening in constitutionally protected protests across the country.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has relied on a section of the United States Code to justify the use of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal law enforcement officers to protect federal facilities. In practice, this has resulted in gross abuses of power toward protestors, including the nightly use of munitions and tear gas. Unidentifiable federal forces in unmarked vehicles have also grabbed protesters off the street in Portland.

On Thursday, the lawmakers filed three amendments to the Fiscal Year 2021 Homeland Security; Department of Defense; and Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bills that would further reign-in the Trump administration’s federal law enforcement overreach. These appropriations bills would defund the ability of DHS, DOJ, and DOD to use the pretext of protecting federal property to prevent Americans from carrying out their rights to public assembly and freedom of opinion.

“Our citizens, our local officials, our Congressional delegation and our governor have all asked the Trump administration to stop the lawless occupation of Portland. We will not stand for these abuses of power any longer,” Blumenauer said. “Congress must defund these secret police forces before they wreak havoc and inflame tensions in other cities.”

“We will not let Trump or his administration get away with militarizing our streets,” Bonamici said. “He is using camo-clad federal officers without identification badges to terrorize protestors, violate First Amendment rights, and dramatically escalate tensions in Portland. We will use every tool we have to make sure these officers are removed from Portland, and we will work to prevent him or any other overbearing executive from trying this again here or in other cities.”

While these amendments would not interfere with the authority of the Federal Protective Service to secure federal property, they will ensure that no taxpayer resources can be used to police protestors, unless explicitly requested by local authorities.

If federal support is requested, the amendments would require that non-military law enforcement personnel wear uniforms clearly identifying their agency of affiliation, rather than any uniform resembling a military-style combat uniform worn by the Armed Forces.

Yesterday the L.A. Times' Melissa Etehad and Laura King reported that Trump’s deployment of dubiously legal gestapo-like goon squads to Portland and other U.S. cities has reignited protests this weekend against police brutality and racism-- likely exactly what Trump was aiming for. "[A] string of fresh demonstrations," they wrote, "erupted in other major cities from Seattle to Baltimore, with marchers expressing fury at the specter of heavily armed, unidentified federal officers on community streets and ongoing anger at their initial targets-- police brutality and racism. In Portland early Monday, federal agents in camouflage waded blocks beyond the federal courthouse that the Trump administration has said they are there to protect-- against the wishes of local and state officials-- and pushed back demonstrators who authorities said had breached a fence."

Demonstrations also broke out in cities including Louisville, Kentucky, Chicago, Los Angeles, Richmond, Virginia, and Austin, Texas, where a protest took a fatal turn. Austin police said they were investigating a shooting death on Saturday evening of a man taking part in a Black Lives Matter protest downtown. Police said the slain man, who was apparently armed with a rifle, was shot from inside a vehicle that drove close to the demonstrators. A suspect was detained, police spokeswoman Katrina Ratcliff said.

...The reignited protests-- and the response of authorities with tear gas and rubber bullets-- are the latest incendiary strain on a country still shaken by the May death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and by generations of police brutality. After protests slowed down considerably in most cities-- except Portland, where they had continued unabated-- they reenergized over the weekend in the wake of President Trump’s move to send federal agents into cities in a strategy that critics say appears aimed at trying to shore up his flagging popularity ahead of the November election.

As Trump tweets all-caps messages about law and order, critics charge that the White House is making use of chaotic images of confrontations on the streets of Portland and elsewhere to whip up fears about a generalized breakdown of order-- mainly in progressive, Democratic-run cities.

The deployment, meanwhile, has instigated a new round of anger that centers on constitutional questions over federal authority and states’ rights. And it plays out amid a pandemic that is battering the economy and sending jobless rates spiraling upward. In some respects, it is reminiscent of the late 1960s, a time of gathering fury and frustration against the White House over the Vietnam War, civil rights and a sense of America drifting further from its ideals and vision of itself.

Over the weekend, Digby explained how Trump and Barr saw Portland-- a city with protests about on thing or another almost every day of the years-- "as an opportunity to use their federal paramilitaries to foment violence and create a backlash among white suburbanites... Everyone who thought Trump was some kind of peacenik had it so wrong. He loves war, he just doesn’t like foreign wars that were started by his predecessors. What he’s always wanted is a civil war. And so he’s trying to start one... I think we all knew on some level the moment they named the agency the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, that we were building an internal police force. And if you build it, they will use it. They’re using it."

She continued that "Blue America has joined with Oregon SenatorsJeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and others in sponsoring a petition demanding that our government:

• require federal agents and the agency they work for to be clearly identifiable.
• prohibit the federal misuse of unmarked vehicles.
• prohibit federal agents from patrolling city streets, outside of federal property, unless invited to do so by local authorities.
• require agencies to disclose how many personnel have been deployed and for what mission when they’re sent into our cities.

On Sunday, Juan Cole's Informed Comment published a "Waging Nonviolence" essay by George Lakey, Understanding Trump’s game plan in Portland could be the key to preventing a coup in November. "The feds," wrote Lakey, "began to arrive June 27 and have ramped up in numbers since. The Washington Post reported that a curious 53-year-old Navy vet, Christopher David, approached a demonstration where he saw agents acting aggressively. He asked the officers to remember their oaths to protect the Constitution. They attacked him and broke his hand. Agents were assembled from Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]. According to the New York Times, 'The tactical agents deployed by Homeland Security include officials from a group known as BORTAC, the Border Patrol’s equivalent of a SWAT team-- a highly trained group that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations, as opposed to protesters in cities.' Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called it 'an attack on our democracy.' That was before he was tear-gassed on the street in a demonstration. Oregon Attorney Gen. Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit, seeking a restraining order. Gov. Kate Brown, who called Trump’s intervention 'a blatant abuse of power,' said that the protests were starting to ease before federal officers arrived. What might have prompted Trump to act? Why Portland? How might this choice be strategic for Trump, both to bolster his chance to win the election-- and perhaps to remain in office even if he doesn’t win? And what can activists do about it?" [Portland's suit was rejected by a federal judge.]

Trump’s earlier hopes to win based on a strong economy and conquest of the coronavirus have faded. He needs another emotional issue that responds to people’s need for security: public order. The narrative couldn’t be clearer. In new advertising and tweets Trump has argued that Biden “is a harbinger of chaos and destruction.” During a two-week period in July the Trump campaign spent nearly $14 million to air a television spot suggesting that police departments won’t respond to 911 calls if Biden is elected.

Trump’s team figures that a percentage of voters who might otherwise be ambivalent about him can be tipped toward supporting him by appealing to their anxiety. In the 1960s, when the nonviolent civil rights movement moved national public opinion sufficiently to pass two landmark U.S. civil rights acts, I watched a series of riots in Philadelphia and elsewhere, from 1965-66, break the movement’s momentum.

...But why target Oregon for this intervention?

Portland is known nationally for having some activists who try to defend themselves against police violence in a violent way. By sending in federal agents who will escalate violent tactics, there seemed a good chance of getting video footage for Trump’s election campaign, proclaiming him as “the law and order candidate.” With luck they would get vivid pictures at the site of federal buildings that give the feds their protective justification for being there.

A long-time white anti-racist activist and conflict studies professor at Portland State University, Tom Hastings, told me another reason why Portland is an obvious choice for Trump’s team: Oregon’s electoral votes were already certain to go to Biden. It doesn’t matter for November’s election that Oregon’s major elected officials are protesting the federal intervention. Hastings also pointed out that the cities on Trump’s list for more interventions have Democratic mayors.

One key to a winning strategy is to figure out what the opponent’s strategy is and refuse to be manipulated-- in Portland and in the other cities on Trump’s target list.

Federal intervention in Portland has turned the previous hundreds of late-night protesters into thousands. Nonviolent tactics include dancing, a “Wall of Moms,” and orange-clad dads with leaf-blowers, who blow away tear gas.

Other activists have escalated violent tactics in response to the escalation by the feds. According to the New York Times, some of the protesters used lasers while federal officers fired projectiles into the crowd. Court papers claim that a Molotov cocktail was thrown and one protester was charged with hitting an officer with a hammer, while the Times reported multiple efforts by some protesters to set alight the wood on the façade of the federal courthouse. The fire attempt of course reinforces Trump’s dubious claim that the feds need to be there to protect federal property.

Activists everywhere can learn from the major shift in tactics made this year by looking at the national response to the May 25 police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd. Our spontaneous reactions expressed grief and anger in multiple ways.

The mass media (as usual) gave most headlines to the rioting. That meant, as historical research has shown, the impact of the movement could have set back the struggle for racial justice. However, from the start, the vast majority of people were protesting nonviolently. The more fact-based mass media caught up with that quickly. The rioting quickly ebbed, and the image of the movement shifted to one that fairly consistent uses nonviolent action.

When police in some locations continued to act out violently against the peaceable demonstrators, they only proved the point demonstrators were making. Their brutality displayed on nightly TV boomeranged against them, and more people joined the protests.

Almost all activists found far more effective ways to escalate than using fire and projectiles: They escalated the contrast between their behavior and that of the police.

By channeling rage and grief into nonviolent tactics, the Black Lives Matter surge sustained itself, grew exponentially, introduced new people to the streets and a national conversation about racial injustice. It continues to chalk up a series of limited victories. Bigger victories await even more focused nonviolent campaigning.

Any effective strategizing-- Trump’s or ours-- includes a back-up plan, and my guess is that the Trump team has one. If Portland activists refuse to play into Trump’s hand by adopting a nonviolent discipline, Trump has a list of other places to try. Trump can hope that in Chicago or Oakland activists might not see how much he wants them to fall for his ploy.

When announcing to the media his list of targeted cities, Trump revealed how important this narrative is to him. His next statement was that if Joe Biden is elected, “the whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.”

Although Trump would undoubtedly claim voting fraud because of mailed-in ballots, the emotionally more impactful narrative would be “hell” in the form of violent chaos in the streets happening in real time following the vote. He has plenty of armed Trump loyalists ready to do their part. While the courts wrangle about voting fraud, the chaos can serve as Trump’s immediate rationale for staying in the White House in January.

The “violent chaos” narrative is Trump’s growing emphasis, and I think it’s linked to his hope that police will give a break to Trump-followers in the streets. On July 19 on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Trump said again that he would not agree ahead of time to obey the results of the election. But then he added, “Biden wants to defund the police.” As I mentioned, his campaign is already investing millions in TV ads attacking Biden’s capacity to support the public’s basic need for safety and security.

Even a man as reckless as Trump likely knows that initiating a Constitutional crisis is an unusually chancy operation. He needs preparation even to have a chance of success. By “success” I mean at least making a deal in which he and his family would avoid the parade of lawsuits that await him when he is no longer in office.

I see him and his team taking a number of steps to prepare. Right now in Portland he’s trying out the narrative that justifies a refusal to exit.

Chaos is good for him. For years he’s been preparing his base to produce an armed force of “irregulars” that can generate chaos. Armed men are showing up in places of political tension and conspicuously being allowed to remain there by local police. Examples include April 30 in Lansing, Michigan, June 2 in Philadelphia and July 20 at the Utah State Capitol.

Trump also needs the legitimacy of a governmental force at his command. On his home ground in Washington, D.C. he experimented with soldiers in combat gear and military helicoptors attacking peaceful demonstrators to clear the way for a photo-op.

That test didn’t work out well. The demonstrators didn’t turn to violence to give him justification, so the media revealed a military behaving disgracefully. Trump received enormous push-back from military leaders. They clearly vetoed further use of the their forces for his own political purposes.

Still wanting the availability of loyal government guns, in Portland he’s testing civilian federal armed agencies that represent governmental legitimacy. Chad Wolf, the acting head of Homeland Security underlined his loyalty when he visited Portland on July 16. How that works out is yet to be seen.

Since Trump does believe in the art of the deal, if a take-over doesn’t work he needs also political enablers with some credibility who will step in to arrange a compromise that protects Trump and his family when they leave. He’s in good shape there. Republican leaders have plenty of practice enabling Trump’s corruption and presumably will be available for this service in the midst of a crisis that’s not turning his way.

...When Germans overthrew would-be dictator Wolfgang Kapp in 1920, they used a defensive strategy. It wasn’t easy. World War I left Germany intensely polarized, much more than the United States is now. The right wing saw an opportunity to try a coup d’etat, backed by some of the armed forces.

Germany’s center read the attempt as an attack on the integrity and security of the system, and responded to the left when it called for a general strike. Along with ordinary people staying home, governmental civil servants failed to show up for work.

Kapp found empty offices, with no one to type out a manifesto saying he was the new ruler of Germany. He needed to bring his daughter to the capitol the next day to do the typing!

Even an economically battered, partly destroyed, and politically divided Germany found so many leaders and ordinary people linked to that sense of integrity and security of the whole system that within a week the coup was defeated by nonviolent defense.

...The United States is a polarized country. The path of least resistance is for each pole to become obsessed by the other: The right wing wastes time learning about and despising us, and vice versa. That’s the trap.

The way out is to pay attention to the center, which especially in defense scenarios, is the prize. Learn about centrists, make friends with them, discuss your points of agreement and disagreement. Your growth as an activist is guaranteed.

Our own fear may urge us to “look good” to our comrades, perhaps by doubling down on whatever campaign we’re now involved with. Our campaigns (for racial justice, immigrant justice, stopping a pipeline, etc.) are in one sense addressing sub-systems. That’s good, because in ordinary times the sub-system offers concrete gains when we win.

However, if my analysis is correct, in this situation what’s in play is the national system as a whole, which will make it more critical for a moment-- and also will make the center available in a new way.

Remind your friends that because the center is easily alarmed by disorder and especially violence, its willingness to defend the whole depends partly on the degree to which it sees “our side” as nonviolent and “the threat” as violent. Because the overwhelming majority of Portlanders have been demonstrating for Black Lives Matter in nonviolent ways, elected officials are mobilizing against Trump’s intervention. If the majority had been violent, Trump’s intervention would be welcomed by the center.

Reduced to bare bones, our three-point plan in this political moment may be: stand with the community as a whole, communicate the power of strategic nonviolent action, and then-- as Hardesty reminds us-- as soon as Trump is really out, we can return to our disagreements and our struggle for revolutionary change!

Do Conservative Democrats Believe In Unity And Solidarity? Of Course They Don't

Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle, reporting for Politico yesterday, wrote about how congressional Democrats-- most far to the right of Bernie-- are planning how to run with him at the top of the ticket. Some-- like way-to-the-right Blue Dogs Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Joe Cunningham (SC) have said they flat out will refuse to back him. Many others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party want to write their own less progressive platform to run on. Ferris and Caygle wrote that "even as some Democrats privately test-drive rhetoric for sharing a Sanders ticket-- like how to talk up expanded health care, rural broadband or new workforce programs-- there are others who say they could have to strongly distance themselves from the Vermont independent if he wins the party’s nod."

“I’ve been consistent from day one that the answers to the problems that we all agree that we face today, the answers are not socialist economic policies,” said Rep. Max Rose of New York, a Mike Bloomberg backer, whose district went for President Donald Trump by 10 points in 2016. “That’s just not the case. And I stand by that.”

Sanders’ biggest supporters on Capitol Hill say he plans to make a concerted push to appeal to more of his congressional colleagues after Super Tuesday’s high-stakes contests. Much of that outreach, they say, will go toward finding common ground on policy and calming jitters among endangered House Democrats that a Sanders nomination would mean a down-ballot bloodbath.

Sanders maintains a relatively small group of allies on Capitol Hill, with just nine Democrats endorsing him in both chambers. But his supporters say momentum could shift toward him this week, with Sanders expected to do well Tuesday in delegate-rich states like California and Texas, potentially putting him on a path to winning the nomination.

“Everyone in this building is very good at politics, and it doesn’t take a lot to see that Sanders has a very good chance,” Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a national co-chair of Sanders’ campaign.

Khanna said some Democrats have approached him with concerns about Sanders’ bid, and that in some cases, he has relayed them directly to Sanders as they look to build a Capitol Hill coalition.

“We want to make members realize that whatever wing of the party they’re on, they’re welcome in the coalition,” Khanna said, adding that some of Sanders’ proposals-- like building rural broadband and investing in infrastructure-- could appeal to more moderate Democrats who have otherwise stayed far away from a platform centered on “Medicare for All” and a “Green New Deal.”

“People are beginning to see there could be a strong upside to a Bernie nomination as well, even though I understand many of them might be a little nervous,” added Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), who officially endorsed Sanders last week.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is acutely aware of the anxieties swirling inside her caucus. The speaker has even declared that while the party will unite around its nominee, House Democrats will run on their own agenda-- one that helps them hold the GOP-leaning seats that delivered her majority in 2018.

“My responsibility is to make sure that those we elected last time return to Congress, keep the majority and add to our numbers,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

“We have to win in certain, particular areas,” she added. “We’re not about a popular vote in the country or in particular states in terms of the Electoral College. We are district by district.”

...Democrats may disagree on whether to back Medicare for All or focus on strengthening the Affordable Care Act, for example. But the Trump administration and several GOP-led states are currently in court trying to completely dismantle the Obama-era health law.

“I think the campaign will be an opportunity to contrast where Republicans stand on all these issues,” Cicilline said.

Several moderate Democrats have said they would focus on Sanders’ health care message-- the biggest plank of his platform and a key driver of his base.

“I think health care is a good direction, I just don’t like how he wants to get there. Same with some of his other ideas,” said Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ), whose district barely went for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, and who has not yet endorsed a candidate.

“There are certainly parts of his agenda that are attractive to some people,” said freshman Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, noting the idea of universal health coverage is popular in parts of her purple district. But she said Democrats would need to find a way to achieve that outcome that doesn’t “burn the house down in the process.”

“I’m seeing it kind of like the process of legislation,” Wild added. “There’s going to have to be compromise all the way around.”

But not every Democrat is so optimistic that they can run with-- or run away from-- Sanders’ message and the “socialist” sobriquet Republicans are already trying to pin on every Democrat.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who offered a high-profile endorsement of Joe Biden ahead of the former vice president’s landslide South Carolina win, warned of “down-ballot carnage” if Sanders is the Democratic nominee.

“We want to see somebody on the ticket that will allow us to expand our numbers. Not having to run some kind of a rearguard campaign in order to keep from being tarnished with a label,” Clyburn said Friday on CNN.

The fears about keeping the House are most pronounced among the several dozen Democrats running in the most competitive seats, particularly freshmen, who have never run on the same ballot as Trump.

Freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, whose district went narrowly for Clinton in 2016, said he would go into his race “with the same degree of confidence” regardless of who leads the ticket.

But he said Democrats would have a much simpler message-- and better odds of beating Trump-- if they have someone other than Sanders on the ballot.

“All we’ve got to do is to say, we’re not messing with the economy, we’re going to improve health care, and we’re going to give you a president who tells the truth, respects the law, and can be a good moral example for your kids,” Malinowski said.

“Why we would risk this extraordinary opportunity by nominating someone who has a tendency to divide our own side is beyond me,” he said, though he added that he would “absolutely” support Sanders if he is the nominee despite their differences.

Still, it’s not clear that Sanders will be welcome on the trail with the most vulnerable House Democrats.

“We don’t know who the nominee is going to be yet, so I think that’s kind of forward thinking,” said freshman Rep. Gil Cisneros, who flipped a GOP district in Southern California, after being asked multiple times whether he would campaign with Sanders. “But again, whoever the Democratic nominee is, Democrats in my district are going to rally around that individual.”

Cisneros, basically a waste of a seat, was a professional potato chip taster who won the lottery and self-funded $9,252,762 to win the primary and then the open-seat general. He quickly joined the New Dems, quickly started voting abysmally and now has an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch. This cycle-- despite immense PAC contributions-- he's being outraised by Republican Young Kim. Yesterday he endorsed Biden.

Does it feel odd to you that there are no progressive members of Congress saying they won't vote for Status Quo Joe if he-- not to mention Republican oligarch Michael Bloomberg-- manages to steal the election at the convention? And that there are no progressive congressional Democrats talking to the media about how they will have to run on a more progressive platform than the pile of status quo garbage either Biden or Bloomberg will put together?

Last week, Mehdi Hasan asked at The Intercept if we can all agree that everything we were told about Bernie by the press, the pundits, the politicians was wrong. "And not just wrong, but completely, utterly, demonstrably, embarrassingly, catastrophically wrong." Hasan's post was particularly looking at electability but also looked at the smear that Bernie's "policies are extreme and unpopular." Bernie, he wrote "is a socialist who backs radical policies too far to the left of not just the electorate as a whole, but even mainstream and moderate Democratic voters. Yet in Iowa and New Hampshire... a clear majority of caucus-goers and primary voters backed Medicare for All over the current private insurance system. In Nevada, too, 6 in 10 Democrats said they supported a Sanders-style single-payer health care system. At a national level, a (narrower) majority of Americans support Medicare for All, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, then, it is Sanders, and not Biden or Bloomberg, who is the real centrist candidate-- in terms of pushing policies popular with most Americans."

A few days later, Scott Lanman and Stephanie Flanders went further, reporting that world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty, has explained how Bernie's agenda will be good for the American economy than the no fundamental change agenda Biden and Bloomberg and the transpartisan elites have in mind.

At the start of the 20th century, Sweden-- now held up as an egalitarian country-- was entirely controlled by wealthy elites and voting rights were determined by property. Within a very short space of time, and with little economic disruption, it became the social democratic nation that we now know.

This precedent bodes well for Mr. Sanders' policy goals of reforming American capitalism, Piketty suggested.





In his new book Capital and Ideology, Piketty examines the relationship between inequality and ideology, and how they shape each other.

The Sanders campaign has promised systemic change through economic policy to tackle inequality-- higher taxes of the rich, a wealth tax, a minimum wage, and “workplace democracy.”

Piketty, like Mr Sanders, advocates a progressive tax on wealth. “Remember that the U.S. is actually the country that invented progressive taxation of income and wealth in the 20th century,” he said.

Citing 30 years of data showing that U.S. workers have not seen any real per capita growth in that period, Piketty also said no country has a national determinism about economics and the US is not necessarily wed to its current system. Things can change very quickly.

“Warren and Sanders are not radicals, they are moderate social democrats by European standards… and the ideology of the U.S. is changing,” he said.

Piketty’s first book, 2014’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is said to have foreseen the Trump presidency-- predicting that voters who felt marginalised by globalisation would turn to radical solutions outside of the realms of traditional politics.

Could there be parallels in support for the Sanders campaign? A portion of the electorate that again feels left behind in a highly unequal society, who could turn away from "business as usual" solutions, and wants real structural change.

In a discussion with the Financial Times, Piketty described the two different policy reactions to this scenario-- the first wants to regulate the movement of goods and people, the other wants to regulate the movement of capital. One focuses on external factors (immigrants, unfair trade deals), the other on internal factors (inequality, education, health) advocating structural change at home.

At this early stage of the primary campaign it is still unclear whether the American voter will opt for the latter, and embrace Mr Sanders.

Freshman Members-- Already Showing Who They Are-- And They're Not All Like AOC

Jeff Van Drew, Mikie Sherrill, Anthony Brindisi-- which will be the House's next Kyrsten Sinema?

Last week, before announcing the $15 minimum wage bill, Pelosi had a meeting with her leadership team. The team now includes two elected representatives of the freshman class, one progressive, Joe Neguse (CO) and one New Dem, Katie Hill (CO). One of them told Pelosi's team that the $15 minimum wage, while fine with her, might hurt some of the reelection races for freshmen in red districts. Is that so? Is that what government is about? Reelection efforts for shit members from backward districts? That's why Obamacare is a failure-- conservative Democrats whining that a public option was too aggressive. Is the Democratic Party going to betray the working class because of some fat-ass freshman shitbag careerists who are nervous they don't have the brain capacity to defend what a minimum wage does? Thankfully, Pelosi over-ruled that concern this time.

Last week, the NY Times published a piece Shutdown Prompts Centrist Freshman Democrats To Flex Their Muscles, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg which leads off with a picture of one of the most conservative of the bad freshmen, Elissa Slotkin, a New Dem and ex-CIA operator from Michigan. Exactly one week ago, we mentioned that Slotkin has been whispering to other freshmen that they need to "compromise" with Trump on his vanity wall (since the pressure from Republicans in her district is more than she can cope with. This is what happens when the DCCC pushes this low calibre of candidate.

Stolberg then begins her essay by demeaning the freshmen worth anything, writing off the accomplishments iff organizing and inspiring by members like AOC and Rashida Tlaib. Nice they have the kids on twitter following them in their safe little unimportant blue districts filled with progressives and people of color but let's like at the the all-American heroes, "overlooked in the hallway protests and often glowing news media coverage, a larger group of more centrist Democrats has arrived with a different agenda. And now, they are quietly asserting their influence as the partial government shutdown, which has left them scrambling to explain why 800,000 workers are still without pay, enters its fifth week." Centrists? Compared to Republicans-- but way to the right among Democrats in this country-- and unworthy to represent the Democratic Party in Congress. But Stolberg bought right into the New Dem/Blue Dog/No Labels party-line: "The centrists, elected to seats held last year by Republicans, delivered Democrats their House majority, and their re-elections will be critical to keeping the party in power. They include a sizable subset with backgrounds in military, intelligence and national security, and won by promising to work across the aisle and to end dysfunction in Washington. Now they are caught in the most dysfunctional situation of all-- a record-breaking shutdown-- and they are under pressure from constituents to do something about it. This past week a group of freshmen in Trump-leaning districts convened a private strategy session to discuss how they could press Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reclaim the issue of border security for Democrats and to open the door to negotiations with President Trump. Some also aired their frustrations with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chairman of the Democratic caucus, who hosted a small dinner for freshmen from battleground districts."

Let's see what that guy from the Denver suburbs who Steny Hoyer, the New Dems and the DCCC got into office instead of the progressive who was running for the seat-- you remember, the pay day lender lawyer: Jason Crow.

"We have very real credibility on the border security issue,” said Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army ranger. “I did two combat deployments to Afghanistan. Both of those were on the Afghan-Pakistan border interdicting drug and gun smuggling and insurgents coming across from Pakistan and the tribal regions. So I like to think I know a thing or two about border security, and you don’t do it by building walls.”

Ms. Pelosi appears ready to listen. When Congress returns to Washington in the coming week, she is expected to bring up legislation that will include an additional $1 billion for border security measures, including 75 additional immigration judges and infrastructure improvements at ports of entry-- though no money for Mr. Trump’s cherished border wall.

She is also weighing whether to propose a Democratic homeland security bill that could lay the foundation for talks with Mr. Trump-- a step that would be a significant shift in strategy for the new majority, which has instead spent the past several weeks emphasizing the shutdown’s emotional and financial toll on unpaid workers.

"As someone who worked on preserving the homeland her entire life, I’m ready to talk about homeland security,” said Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, a former Pentagon official who also served in the C.I.A., and who organized the strategy session. “I don’t think we need a wall from sea to shining sea. But am I willing to talk about more fencing and more drones and technology and radar and border agents? Absolutely.”

Of the roughly 60 new Democrats in Congress, two-thirds, including a tight-knit group of 10 who are either veterans or have national security experience, flipped Republican seats. They represent a very different face of the party: pragmatic moderates who believe they were elected not just to resist the president but also to cooperate with him where they can.

“Every single one of them ran on a platform of going out to Washington, shaking things up and getting things done,” said Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, a member of Democratic leadership who focuses on electing Democrats in Trump districts. “From the day they were sworn in, the government has been shut down, and they don’t like it and the people they represent don’t like it.”

Several of the freshman Democratic centrists, all members of a bipartisan group called the Problem Solvers Caucus, met with Mr. Trump at the White House this past week. Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a former C.I.A. operative who handled and recruited spies in Europe, said she told Mr. Trump that people in her district, including prison officials and Transportation Security Administration officers, are suffering. She said Mr. Trump did a surprising amount of listening.

“I can’t speak for how he interpreted what we said, or how he listened to that information,” she said, “but it was a calm meeting. Most people spoke multiple times, and so I found that to be a positive thing.”

But while Democratic leaders understand the eagerness to quickly end the shutdown-- a sentiment shared by Democrats across the philosophical spectrum-- they are also urging caution, and sticking to their insistence that they will not negotiate with Mr. Trump on border security until the government is fully open.

“It’s fair to say that the freshman members of Congress, particularly the veterans and national security professionals, were sent to Washington to solve problems, and they would like to resolve the issue of border security in a bipartisan way,” Mr. Jeffries said. “That is the position of the House Democratic caucus as well, but it’s just a question of timing and the Republican willingness to stop acting like wholly owned subsidiaries of the Trump administration and engage in a meaningful conversation.”

After just three weeks in Washington, many of the centrists say the partisan split in the Capitol is even worse than they had imagined, and some have been quietly reaching out to freshman Republicans to see if they can find a way to bridge the divide and end the shutdown.

“When I think about being deployed on an aircraft carrier and we are simultaneously launching strikes against terrorist targets in Iraq and Afghanistan and I’m supervising the operation at the nuclear reactors, I don’t turn to one of the operators next to me and say, ‘Are you a Democrat or a Republican?’” said Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, who spent 20 years as a surface warfare officer and nuclear engineer in the Navy. “We’re all very frustrated by the partisanship.”

Ms. Slotkin, who was an acting assistant secretary of defense under former President Barack Obama, described what she called a lack of evidence-based planning to secure the border.

“If I was back at the Defense Department, we would look at an objective needs assessment for securing the border and we would build a budget to fund that security, and we would be negotiating on it,” she said.

But she said that when she asked senior House members if such a document existed, she was told that the White House had its needs assessment and Democrats had theirs-- and that neither was “truly objective.”

In talking points issued to Democrats, Ms. Pelosi’s office ticked off a list of items that the party favors as part of a plan for “strong, smart, effective border security,” including scanning technology at ports of entry to screen for drugs and weapons, drones and radar to spot migrants crossing illegally, filling more than 3,000 vacancies for customs officers and building up infrastructure at official border crossings.

The “service candidates,” as the veterans and national security professionals call themselves, see themselves taking a leading role in articulating that vision.

In addition to discussing the financial toll of the shutdown, Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor and Navy pilot, said Democrats needed to start underlining the “safety aspect” as well: “While we are arguing over border security, we’re not paying our Customs and Border Patrol agents, so we’re creating less security right now.”

But the emphasis on border security may not sit well with their more progressive colleagues, who are more apt to talk about abolishing the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency than stopping the flow of drugs at the southern border with Mexico.

“I don’t think we need to try to out-border security the Republicans at this point with this president,” said Corbin Trent, the communications director for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. “It makes more sense to focus on ways of creating an immigration system to bring people into this country to help build our economy and our society, rather than to help keep them out.”

But Ms. Slotkin said it was time for the voices of those who flipped districts to be heard.

“By the numbers, we should and do have a strong voice in the caucus,” she said, adding, “I think Alexandria has done a great job of attracting new young people into the political process and getting people engaged. I think that’s a good thing. Do I think she always represents every freshman? No.”

There you have it-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party already preparing the sell out on this and everything else. Most of them are already taking dirty money, despite the Democratic Party grassroots insisting they don't want corrupt legislators representing them. Funny how that always goes together-- selling out to the banksters and selling out to the conservatives. These are the Democratic freshmen who have already taken over half a million dollars from the Finance Sector, the fount of congressional corruption:

• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- $1,461,371
• Elissa Slotkin New Dem-MI)- $1,121,380
• Antonio Delgado (D-NY)- $1,083,890
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- $1,038,528
• Josh Harder (New Dem-CA)- $1,002,006
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)- $958,085
• Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)- $943,010
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- $892,148
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)- $866,186
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- $801,969
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)- $800,142
• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)- $781,377
• Katie Hill (New Dem-CA)- $780,946
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- $777,317
• Mike Levin (D-CA)- $749,053
• Andy Kim (D-MI)- $743,272
• Kim Schrier (New Dem-WA)- $715,247
• Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)- $709,329
• Conor Lamb (D-PA)- $702,991
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $697,360
• Katie Porter (D-CA)- $687,534
• Steven Horsford (D-NV)- $631,516
• Chrissy Houlahan New Dem-PA)- $631,180
• Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)- $625,938
• Donna Shalala (D-FL)- $612,552
• Ed Case (D-HI)- $554,917
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)- $543,793
• Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)- $501,830

America's Sweetheart, Part III

(Part I and Part II)

Watch the Justice Democrats video above where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explaining explains the difference between a real champion of the working class and a garden variety careerist Democrat who manages to ooze into Congress. "There's a lot of people in the Democratic caucus," she tells her colleagues. "When we are courageous enough to just puncture the silence on an issue, they will start to move. Don't people realize that the most powerful position you can be in is when you are not materially attached to a position of power? If you're a one-term Congressmember, so what? You can make ten years worth of change in one term if you're not afraid."

Wondering who the problem children will be in the 116th Congress? On Thursday, Joe Cunningham (SC), Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Conor Lamb (PA), Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY) and Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ) backed Trump on a government shut-down procedural vote. The bulk of the freshmen have voted 100% party line on roll calls. According to ProgressivePunch the only Democrats who have gone below the 90% mark are

Conor Lamb (PA)- 88.46
Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 88.0
Joe Cunningham (SC)- 84.62

The problem with the Benedict Arnolds who abandon the party on procedural votes to make themselves look "good." Democrats who have been in Congress for a while have been trying to walk freshmen through the ropes about why the caucus should stick together on procedural votes, particularly when the Republicans offer a random motion to recommit, which is what happened with the one above where we had the 6 defectors. Apparently Gottheimer and Moulton-- each notoriously out for himself and no one else-- never learned the lesson. Lamb, Rose and Van Drew, not especially sharp Blue Dog freshmen, decided to tag along. What that does to the freshmen in tough districts who stood with the party to just ignore the irrelevant GOP sideshow and instead just work towards reopening the government is to give a 2020 opponent an opportunity to exploit the faux-bipartisan nature of the motion to recommit. "Why didn't Harley Rouda vote with Seth Moulton and Josh Gottheimer and 4 other Democrats for this bipartisan attempt to..." whatever, is what Republican opponent Scott Baugh could be yelling at a debate. I would never expect anti-union faux-Dems like Van Drew, Lamb, Rose, Moulton and Gottheimer to understand the importance of solidarity.

What these 6 did is nothing but pointless fake independence. They accomplished nothing except, perhaps, their own selfish goal of being able to tell voters backs home they're bipartisan. Republicans will attack them anyway. This is a losing strategy. Independence is what Ocasio-Cortez does, a concept way beyond the ken of a Jeff Van Drew or Max Rose or Conor Lamb.

As for Republicans, the 10 members (none of whom are freshmen) who seem to be most open to crossing the aisle so far this session are:

• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)- 42.31
• John Katko (NY)- 38.46
• Elise Stefanik (NY)- 30.77
• Will Hurd (TX)- 30.77
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)- 23.08
• Chris Smith (NJ)- 23.08
• Justin Amash (MI)- 19.23
• Fred Upton (MI)- 19.23
• Greg Walden (OR)- 19.23
• Adam Kinzinger (IL)- 15.38
• Rodney Davis (IL)- 11.54