Rumblings On The Right... Of The Democratic Party

Democratic Hopefuls by Nancy Ohanian

There are now 21 Democrats running for the party nomination. Other than Biden, the front runners are all either progressives or running as progressives. But what about on the right of the party? Biden owns this lane... but he doesn't he really have it to himself. McKinsey Pete is waiting to move in and swallow up the establishment when Biden (inevitably) slips and breaks a political hip. Many inside the Democratic status quo establishment prefer steady-as-she-goes Pete to the less self-controlled Biden. Pete, for the establishment, was a less quirky version of Beto or Biden, a text-book moderate with a shiny blue cover.

Then there are the two entrants from Colorado competing for the lane. Frackenlooper penned an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal Sunday: I’m Running to Save Capitalism, his anti-socialism rant. But his anti-Medicare (For-All) pitch-- not all that dissimilar to The Journal's own reactionary OpEd, The Burdens ofBernieCare, yesterday-- was nothing compared to the ratings of one of the most conservative-- and ineffective-- Democrats in the Senate, Michael Bennet (yes, he's running too).

Bennet's was a full-frontal conservative attack on progressivism, especially on Medicare (For All) on CNN. He actually repeats the twisted GOP lies you hear from the Fox propaganda machine that seem really strange coming out of the mouth of a politicians with a "D" next to his name. That's "D" for Democrat; as far as his ProgressivePunch grade, Bennet had a solid "F," at all times and in any circumstance, one of the Senate's 10 worst Democrats, always someone who can be counted on to muddy up the Democratic brand and make casual voters say that there's no difference between the two parties.

Bennet, pontificating on New Day: "When you tell people the first thing about Medicare for All-- either that it takes insurance away from 180 million Americans that have it through their employer or the taxes we would have to pay to afford that $30 trillion program-- that 70 percent support falls to the mid-30s. I think we need to level with the American people."

Today, insightful DC-based journalist Skip Kaltenheuser asserted that "Any litmus test for candidates ought to start with condemnation and rejection of all dark money, and with demands for complete transparency of donors. The Democratic Party needs to cultivate squads of candidates like Eliot Ness’s Untouchables. Candidates need to channel the late William Proxmire (D-WI), who despite heading the Senate Banking Committee, turned down the legalized bribes he could easily have cultivated and kept up the pepper on banks. That’s the only way for the Democratic Party to cultivate credibility with Independents. It’s hard to imagine more superfluous groups and functions than big dark money groups creating levers of well-heeled influence ostensibly to inform candidates how to target voters with viable messages for working people. If candidates don’t know by now, why are they running? Have they never listened to speeches by Bernie? Bernie seems to have come up with very viable messages without knocking on dark money doors or incurring IOU’s coming due down the road."

You read something like that and you know what's coming: another attack on Status Quo Joe. Last week, the Center for Responsive Politics, reported on the Biden-connected Future Majority 501(c)(4) nonprofit-- a new "dark money" group, labeling itself the strategy center for Democrats in 2020. They expect to spend as much as $60 million combatting Trump's lies is wing states next year. They claim they will help Democrats "craft messaging that they are fighting for working people while countering conservative talking points."

They will not disclose the source of their funds. Why? What are they hiding? Why are they Democrats? Are the crooks and gangsters supposed to be in the other party? And why are all these efforts associated with people like Bidena nd the Clintons and never with straight-forward values-driven Democrats like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren?

Earlier this year, Democratic fundraiser Matthew Tompkins formed a super PAC called America’s Future Majority Fund PAC. He is also listed as the custodian of records for an identically-named nonprofit run by Riddle and is listed as governor on incorporation records for Future Majority. The two long worked together at New Leaders Council (NLC), a nonprofit that helps recruit young progressive leaders. ["Progressive" meaning Democratic Party not actually progressive in any sense of the word.]

The revolving door between the new nonprofit and NLC doesn’t end there. Incorporation records show Future Majority’s incorporator is Cathedral Strategies LLC, a limited-liability company with a paper trail linked to Brett Avery Seifried, who was general counsel of NLC.

With Tompkins, links between Future Majority and presidential contender Joe Biden begin to emerge. The Hill reported that Tompkins recently launched a pro-Biden super PAC, titled For the People PAC, with the aim of raising tens of millions of dollars to support Biden’s campaign.

The group hasn’t emerged in FEC filings yet, but the Washington Free Beacon reported that Tompkins established a committee called Biden PAC on April 26. The same day it was established, the PAC renamed itself to G Street and removed Tompkins as its treasurer.

Several of the operatives tied to Future Majority have long histories in former President Barack Obama’s political circles.

Dustin Robinson is listed as the designated agent for Future Majority in D.C. incorporation records and the agent for America’s Future Majority Fund in FEC records. He also served as NLC’s communication director and worked as an organizer for Organizing for Action (OFA), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit created by former Obama campaign aides to pick up where the campaign left off.

Future Majority is also enlisting Philip Munger, who served as an OFA director, and Julianna Smoot, a deputy campaign manager on Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection effort who went on to serve as the director of Obama’s foundation and treasurer of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Incorporation records reveal another group named Future Majority existed-- at least on paper-- from 2008 until 2011. Potentially an earlier iteration of the newly launched nonprofit, the group’s listed agent was Ivan Frishberg, OFA’s climate-change manager.

OFA shifted its direction in early 2019 to become All On The Line, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gerrymandering primarily in Republican-gerrymandered states.

Although Obama isn’t poised to endorse a particular candidate in the crowded Democratic primary leading up to the 2020 presidential election, former Obama aides appear to be laying the groundwork to support their candidate of choice-- whoever that may be.

Biden’s campaign has said it doesn’t welcome support from super PACs, following a similar stance to most 2020 Democrats. Whether these public disavowals make an impact remains to be seen, as super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with candidates and may independently spend to support or oppose any candidate-- with or without their permission.

Tompkins did not respond to a request for comment on whether the pro-Biden super PAC will work with Future Majority. Future Majority did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will back a candidate in the primary.

Tompkins isn’t the only person linked to Future Majority to throw support behind Biden. Actress Alyssa Milano, who is reportedly working to promote the group on social media, strongly defended Biden in a recent interview with MSNBC, putting an emphasis on nominating a candidate who has the best chance of beating “this horrible, horrible president.” Biden has pitched himself as having the best chance of beating President Donald Trump-- and the polls, for the time being, back up his argument.

Riddle told Politico he is worried about 2020 Democrats being labeled as socialists-- an increasingly common Republican talking point entering 2020. On its about us page, Future Majority, urges Democrats to use the terminology “Smart Capitalism” when describing economic plans. The group also subtly pushes back on Medicare-for-All, calling for Democrats to improve healthcare by “strengthening the Affordable Care Act and protecting Medicare and Social Security.”

Although Future Majority is not required to disclose its donors, the group told Politico it is backed by Democratic megadonors Philip Munger, Dan Tierney and Keith Mestrich [members of the "anyone but Benir or Elizabeth Warren cabal]. Munger has already given to 2020 hopefuls-- the maximum $5,600 to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and $5,600 to Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-CA) congressional committee. Tierney has given to four 2020 Democrats thus far-- $2,800 to former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and $5,600 to Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg.

Future Majority is soliciting donations through ActBlue Civics, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that acts as a fundraising conduit for other overtly political nonprofits such as Demand Justice and Priorities USA. On its donate page, the nonprofit uses language such as “Let’s Win! Donate now to support Future Majority!” to describe its activities.

While groups operating as purported social welfare organizations under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code are allowed to engage in some political activities, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prohibits them from having politics as their primary purpose. But the IRS has not established any “bright line” rules governing what constitutes too much politicking.

“The IRS has allowed the determination of political activity to operate within a grey area,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “A group like Future Majority can likely feel comfortable pushing the legal envelope expecting the IRS will let them get away with it.”

Lack of clarity in IRS or FEC rules allows politically-active nonprofits to make a major impact in federal elections-- totaling $1 billion in all-time FEC-reported dark money as of 2018. Dark money was dominated by conservative groups for several consecutive cycles prior to 2018, when liberal groups shelled out more on FEC-reported outside spending than their conservative counterparts.

The surprising shift was sparked by the emergence of Majority Forward, a Senate Democrat leadership-linked 501(c)(4) nonprofit that spent a cycle-high $40 million. It also contributed directly to super PACs, including a $1.1 million contribution to the closely-aligned Senate Majority PAC.

As Hamilton Nolan mentioned in a Guardian OpEd last month-- Clinton-era Politics Refuses To Die. Joe Biden Is Its Zombie That Staggers On, Biden is wrong in thinking that "he’s well positioned because after the shock of the Trump years, people want to go back to where we were." As we've mentioned all year, the Biden campaign is nothing but a brain-dead resuscitation of Warren G. Harding's Back to Normalcy campaign, which led to, arguably, the worst presidency ever (until the current one). "You cannot," explained Nolan, "understand politics in America until you understand that in the Democratic party, which ostensibly represents the left side of our nation’s political spectrum, there are a significant number of people who genuinely believe that Joe Biden is the best possible presidential nominee. Their belief is not cynical, or at least not wholly cynical."

His constituency is real. It is not illuminating to think of them just as centrists, arguing for the gentlest sprinkling of sugar over the top of America’s poison. It’s better to think of them as zombies: the product of three decades of self-serving, triangulating brainwashing. They are the Democrats who had their eyelids propped open and were forced to watch the Clinton era, year after year after year. It is not so much that they do not, deep down, harbor a vague wish for a better world; it is that, like stray dogs dining exclusively on garbage, life has taught them that this is the best that they will ever get.

Consider what it says about the state of America’s political system that in the left party, the presumptive frontrunner for the presidential nomination did not think twice about kicking off his campaign with a fundraiser hosted by the founder of a union-busting law firm, days before appearing at a major union-hosted rally. And why should he? He gets the money, and then he gets the union support. He knows his audience well. This is how Democratic politics has been done in Joe Biden’s lifetime. This is how it works.

It is not remarkable in the least for Joe Biden to come right out of the gate by filling his coffers with money from telecom and health insurance executives. Who is going to tell him that he shouldn’t? The lobbyists advising his campaign? The zillionaire media executives feting him in a Hollywood mansion? The superstructure of Obama administration functionaries who see him as the most established of the establishment brand names? For the people who matter, Joe Biden is doing just what he is expected to do.

And that is just it. Millions of people-- including, most importantly, Joe Biden himself-- have yet to see any evidence that he is not playing the game exactly as it should be played.

We are talking about a person who built his career as the credit card industry’s man in Washington, while simultaneously cultivating a reputation as a down-to-earth everyman. We are talking about a man who voted against gay marriage when it was unpopular-- and then won plaudits for his bravery by changing his mind years later, when it was popular. We are talking about a man who played a key role in launching America’s war on drugs and mass incarceration epidemic, yet who is widely perceived as a sensitive man with hard-won empathy after losing a son. We are talking about a man who voted in favor of the Iraq war even while giving every indication that he knew it was a bad idea.

Later, he apologized. After that, he became the vice-president for a president whose bona fides on the left were based in large part on his opposition to that war. And now, he will try to ride his connection to that popular ex-president into the White House. And all of the pundits will say that he is the man to beat, and all of the money will come flooding in, and the corporate executives will wink at him even as the firefighters union gives him that big labor endorsement. He is well on his way to uniting everyone who likes to watch the world burn.

I am not mad at Joe Biden. He is a type. His type is “The Old Way of Doing Things.” Now that he is in the race, his type is represented. He rounds out the field. Now, Democratic voters truly have the entire buffet of choices, from “True Leftist Insurgent” to “Bland, Winning Young Résumé-Polisher” to “Indistinguishable Ambitious Congresspersons” to “The Same Old Kind of White Guy As Always.”

This is nothing to fear. This is healthy. This is a perfect referendum on where our country is now. Joe Biden, the avatar of the past, believes that he’s well positioned because after the shock of the Trump years, people want to go back to where we were. Wrong. People want to go somewhere new. I fully expect Joe Biden to step out of his campaign headquarters and fall directly into the huge pit that has opened up as America moved tectonically to the left. There is nothing scary about the candidate that represents the political philosophy that produced in the public the deadly cynicism that gave us Donald Trump. This plain fact will never be accepted by the sort of people who believe that Joe Biden is the answer, because accepting it is an indictment of an entire generation of leaders who consider themselves quite successful.

The Republican party has long been a corrupt tool for serving the interests of the rich by lying to the poor; dwelling on their role in bringing us here is like scolding an alligator for biting off your hand after you stuck it in his mouth. The Democrats are the ones who were supposed to save us. It was their failure in this duty that allowed the catastrophes to pile up. They failed to stop the post-Reagan explosion of economic inequality; they failed to stop the militarism that has embroiled us in endless war; they failed to argue for things like healthcare and education as rights rather than purchases; they fed our most vulnerable citizens to an evil machine labeled “criminal justice” in exchange for votes from racists. They earned their turn in power by agreeing not to use that power for the common good. And here we are: incredibly divided, hopelessly unequal, justifiably sick of our broken institutions, and very, very angry.

Good luck on the campaign trail, Joe. You’re about to meet an America that has already left you behind. I’m sorry you’ll have to find out the hard way.