The Democratic trouncing last week has set off a contest for control of the party. So far, three individuals have stepped up to announce their bids for chair of the Democratic National Committee, vying to replace interim chair Donna Brazile. It’s a race that pits a left-wing member of Congress against two corporate lobbyists.
First, there’s Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to Congress. Ellison has long been an advocate for his party’s left faction, and is currently a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
In announcing his bid for DNC chair, Ellison emphasized the need for the party to adopt a full-time organizing approach and build a multiracial coalition.
“It is not enough for Democrats to ask for voters’ support every two years. We must be with them through every lost paycheck, every tuition hike, and every time they are the victim of a hate crime,” he said in his announcing statement. “When voters know what Democrats stand for, we can improve the lives of all Americans, no matter their race, religion or sexual orientation. To do that, we must begin the rebuilding process now.”
Two other individuals have thrown their hats into the ring, and both have deep ties to Washington’s lobbying industry.
First, there’s Vermont’s former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean, who said that the party needs to re-focus on “the young” and rebuild its 50-state strategy, which he emphasized during his own tenure as DNC chair between 2005 and 2009:
The dems need organization and focus on the young. Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again.
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) November 10, 2016
Interestingly, Dean told MSNBC last week that he objects to Ellison’s bid because he’s an active member of Congress and “you cannot do this job if it’s not full time. Period. Full stop. End of story.”
But he isn’t exactly unemployed himself. His day job is as a “senior advisor in the Public Policy and Regulation practice” at Dentons, a massive lobbying and law firm where he worked alongside another key Dentons staffer — Trump-backer Newt Gingrich — to promote the firm’s business.
Dean has in the past angrily denied that he lobbies, and it is true that he is not a registered federal lobbyist. But we know, for example, that he was retained by the drug industry — and began writing in favor of its policy agenda. He has reversed himself on a campaign pledge he made during his presidential bid in 2004, now arguing that Medicare should not be able to negotiate for lower drug prices. Additionally, he has given paid speeches for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a fringe Iranian exile group, while attacking the nuclear agreement with Iran — just like another Trump backer, Rudy Giuliani.
Last, we have South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison. Harrison appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday to announce his bid. “I love this party. Everything I am is because of this party,” he told the host.
Harrison is a registered lobbyist at the Podesta Group, a powerful D.C.-based lobbying firm.
In the past, he’s lobbied for clients including Wal-Mart and Lockheed Martin.
He informed Maddow that he’s taking an unpaid leave from the firm, to the chagrin of his wife. “People you know they criticize lobbyists all the time,” he said. “And what I tell people is that is how I take care of my family. I pay my grandmother’s mortgage. I have $160,000 in student debt. And when you’re a poor kid, who grows up, and you’re able to be successful to do this, I mean -”
“What about people’s concerns, though that your lobbying roster would be the special interests that you’d serve as chair?” Maddow interrupted.
“The special interests that I care about are people like my grandmother,” he replied, saying that he moved back to South Carolina because he cares about the state.
Top photo: Rep. Keith Ellison speaks during a press conference about Islamophobia at the National Press Club on May 24, 2016, in Washington, DC.
Stop Cheating…
The Democratic Party is like a wife who for years has been cheating on you right in front of your face. Who you have been been warning her for years if she does not change her ways and be loyal to her commitment to the progressive vows she made in the beginning of the marriage there would be consequences! She continued her adulterous ways, bringing her Neoliberal Warmongering Conservative Wall Street lovers to fornicate in the home in front of the family! So what happened is what any sane or intelligent thinking spouse would do… Divorce that bitch (no pun intended) and send her on her unfaithful way! And just maybe she might stop taking the relationship for granite when she finds herself out in the cold! Beauty is only skin deep! And Pride and Arrogance ALWAYS proceed a FALL!
Bottom Line… the Democratic Party needs to seek “Relationship Counseling” and STOP blaming the family (voters) and everyone else (non voters) for the divorce which came via its own Infidelity to the Family (progressives)!!! !
The Democratic Party is like a wife who for years has been cheating on you right in front of your face. Who you have been been warning her for years if she does not change her ways and be loyal to her commitment to the progressive vows she made in the beginning of the marriage there would be consequences! She continued her adulterous ways, bringing her Neoliberal Warmongering Conservative Wall Street lovers to fornicate in the home in front of the family! So what happened is what any sane or intelligent thinking spouse would do… Divorce that bitch (no pun intended) and send her on her unfaithful way! And just maybe she might stop taking the relationship for granite when she finds herself out in the cold! Beauty is only skin deep! And Pride and Arrogance ALWAYS proceed a FALL!
Bottom Line… the Democratic Party needs to seek “Relationship Counseling” and STOP blaming the family (voters) and everyone else (non voters) for the divorce which came via its own Infidelity to the Family (progressives)!!! !
When are the ruling pro-war classes going to learn? Until they bring the struggling to the table, they will remain clueless. They’re asking us to choose between “no fly zone” in Syria or two corporate stooges. Didn’t we just have this “lesser of evil” identity politics a couple weeks ago? Nina Turner shoulda, coulda, woulda.
But of course, Nina Turner didn’t jump on the bandwagon when the going got tough, and now, they’re going to try to dismiss her; like they told her they would, from the beginning.
Maybe, they should email Podesta, their moral compass, as if they don’t already.
**Debie from Sane Progressive: “identity politics.”
Ellison, who went on his Hajj paid for by an organisation designated as a Muslim Brotherhood front group (MAS) by Muslim brotherhood internal memos, close association with CAIR (unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial, for funding HAMAS) and attends meetings by the Muslim Brotherhood ISNA, also a co-conspirator. Look up the cuddly “Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum”. Ellison speaks up on their behalf also and as such is as much a lobbyist, in his case against the constitution.
Huh. Just when you think the democrats are about as out of touch as they can get, they bring it to another level.
Obviously, you Dems don’t learn easily–even when hit over the head with a 2×4. You just don’t get it. We will have Daddy for eight great years!
Jaime Harrison has clearly already disqualified himself.
If THAT ridiculous response is the best he can come up to Maddow? softball questioning, Democrats ought to be worried.
Especially when responding to a corporate drone like Maddow, who´s basically just an honorary Podesta Group / Center For American Progress / Clinton Foundation / Project For a New American Century / Foreign Policy Initiative / Raytheon / Lockheed Martin employee (it? all the same bloodthirsty imperialist enterprise) at this point, as Wikileaks have revealed.
I wonder if she and Huma take turns eating Hillary out every night.
I delighted watching her internal organs shut down when Trump won and she displayed her utter failure to understand the Electoral College, democracy, pluralism, or the idea that a vote for ANY candidate in the states Hillary won no more helped or hurt her.
It never ceases to amaze me how many overeducated, hermetically sealed liberal elites who never met a problem they don´t think can´t be solved with more government overreach can´t grasp the concept of voting third party in a ¨safe state,¨ but plenty of actual human beings who breathe real oxygen and touch real soil and have actual beating hearts can understand voting for who you believe in without much difficulty at all.
The herculean intolerance of the left strikes once again.
As long as they don’t ignore the real liberals. As long as they start to the remember the down trodden and Social Security which Hillary was going to privatize or worse (as she said in an email to Pedestal released by Wikileaks). As long as they stop pandering to rich donors because that is all they have been doing for many years. It will be a long haul back to even a bit of power but truly the Democrats deserve to loose for the way they treated their old base. Ellison sounds good but who knows at this point. And the Dems should allow a voice to the people as they still bill themselves as the voice of the PEOPLE but never say which people. It was the voice of closed ears and minds that killed Hillary. And her own mind and ears.
Not sure Democrats are capable of endorsing true progressives as leaders – Chuck Schemer as new minority leader is not a good omen.
Chuck Schumer Named Senate Minority Leader
Howard Dean says being the DNC chair is a full-time job. But if he really believes that, then how come he wasn’t calling on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to step down? After all, she was both DNC chair and a member of the House of Representatives. Dean can’t think of a good reason why Keith Ellison shouldn’t be the new DNC chair. Perhaps he should make a stronger case for himself. Why should Dean, or anyone else who was an early backer of Hillary Clinton, lead the party? You don’t give a promotion to someone who got it wrong. But you do reward the people who were proven right.
Not sure leftists and progressives should leave the “Dem Party behind”. This is the perfect opportunity to take it over, and force out those who would work against the following (now for the umpteenth time–it is not mutually exclusive to stand against racism/misogyny et al, and try and forge alliances for all “working class” including members of the white working class who can be reached and who aren’t hardcore racists/misogynists (and yes there are many and you only need a few percent everywhere to clean GOPs clock consistently)).
Again, while there is no hard and fast blueprint for doing this, it has been done in the past and can be done in the future, but we’re going to have to abandon the silly elitist rhetoric and mealy mouth triangulating appeals to various groups and go for the “class jugular” together with anti-racism/misogyny if we’re ever going to stand a chance again in the future. That’s the only viable way forward, and that means for lack of a better word–a purge of corporatists Dems and find a way fund campaigns all over the country like Bernie Sanders largely did (small dollar donations and union donations–you can’t take an “ultra-capitalists” corporate money and have any credibility claiming your the party of the working class, just ain’t gonna happen IMHO):
http://samadlerbell.com/trump-and-the-working-class/
Thank you, Clark, for perfectly stating how I feel about this whole mess. Progressives need to leave the Dem. party behind.
The Demos have lost touch with the working class, their frustration with economic stagnation, and anger at the elitists in Washington from both parties. Trump his the soft spot with his mix of right-wing extremism and religious zealotry. Trump succeeded at least of destroying the old order of both parties, Clinton and Bush family entitlements. Finding a new voice and a new message for the Progressives is a huge burden, going beyond the efforts of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. My $27 is in the mail to Our Revolution.
“Our Revolution” is highly suspect
as it is another Sanders project.
People who identify as “democrat” go from false hero to false hero,
just like the republicans.
Here are some quotes from Keith Ellison about Hillary Clinton
after Sanders and his supporters were finally shut out this year.
“I’ve always admired Hillary Clinton, always thought she was good.”
“I believe she’s demonstrated a capacity to listen to the grassroots.”
“I told her I was here to help and I think my first job is to help
progressive activists and Bernie supporters understand that we
don’t lose by supporting Hillary Clinton.”
“We’re going to be well served by President Clinton.”
“She’s tough as hell.”
I guess the fact that Ellison is Muslim is what separates him
from a Dean or Harrison as Chair.
You are not “progressive” if you are a democrat or republican,
unless you mean progressively worse.
Ellison or anyone else from the Progressive Caucus would still be a huge improvement over the garbage we’ve had since Bill Clinton and his ilk took over the party.
All of that “garbage” was supposedly “progressive” before
it really wasn’t AND
no one epitomizes that “garbage” more than
Ellison’s beloved Hillary.
Wake up. They are republicans who lie.
That’s simply not true. Bill Clinton and his buddies convinced the Democratic Party that if they wanted to regain the White House after 12 year of Republican presidents, they had to cozy up to corporate America. There’s nothing progressive about that. The Clintons represent everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party.
Ellison is far from perfect and I’m a Green, not a Democrat. But I’d much rather see a Democratic Party led by people like Ellison than people like Clinton.
Badly written. Biased appraisal of the facts, for example, totally dismissing the idea that being a part-time DNC chair is a bad idea, bad formatting, click-bait headline.
That said, Ellison should be chair.
Howard Dean is a lobbyist for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Why would anyone want him for anything? Howard only takes care of Howard.
35th most prolific fundraiser out of 435 in Congress (source http://www.twincities.com/2016/09/21/stassen-berger-why-is-keith-ellison-raising-and-spending-so-much-money/)
Telegenic, articluate, exceptional communication skills
Safe seat, elected with over 70% of the vote in a 64% white, predominately Christian district
Solid progressive who endorsed Bernie Sanders, resisting pressure by the Clintonoids to defect to Team Her™
Has the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Liz Warren, Chris Murphy, Chuck Shumer and Harry Reid and others
Meanwhile, elsewhere, some nice and intelligent people with good ideas step forward and propose a new and happier future for all and Americans ignore them.
Well, there’s one potential Democratic candidate who came out of the election with their reputation mostly unscathed… and he’s just getting started.
The Clintons sucked all the blood out of the Democrat party. It’s an empty husk. So, the answer is to double down on Identity Politics and become more divisive?
They need to hire Alan Grayson.
Agreed. To me, Trump’s victory does not represent the rise of White supremacy, but something more basic: people are sick of identity politics. Race and gender pride serves only to divide us.
A simple example: I’m bi. I have a great deal of respect for the crap that gays have to put up with. But gay pride seems like an absurd concept. You don’t win acceptance by standing up and saying “I’m gay, I’m proud, and I’m not going anywhere!” You win acceptance by integrating normally with society, so when the particulars of your orientation happen to come up, your friends will say “huh, that’s different, but he seems like a good person.” THAT is how acceptance happens.
Wow I think I’ve just read the most intelegent post on this site! Thank you for your common since approach. Very refreshing especially on this site!
My dad often makes statements like yours, “Why can’t black people protest nicely?” or “Why do we need gay pride? Aren’t I a white supremacist if I have white pride?” It seems like a great strategy to “just accept and integrate,” but it doesn’t work in reality especially when other groups attempt to vocally marginalize you through legislation. Did sitting on the back of the bus respectfully help to further the civil rights movement? Respectability politics are great until they don’t work.
Also, isn’t it possible to affirm and announce your value as a human being without denigrating others? I think that being threatened by gay pride is also an absurd concept.
right, the way beyond race, gender and sexual orientation is to play them down, not up. that should be obvious. initially, it’s only the bigots who make an issue of innate personal characteristics. they should simply be ignored. as long as their hatred is expressed only in speech, let them speak. draw the line at violence and intimidation. enforce anti-discrimination laws. insist that we all be judged as individuals based on the content of our characters. when the left engages in identity politics, it’s just following the lead of the bigots. identity politics empowers bigots because it accepts the premise that these innate personal characteristics are significant. this should all be obvious, but the left at this point is completely fucked up
Wow, Mike that is some Jim Crow, we disenfranchise and segregate blacks for their own protection, bullsh/it right there. Blaming political correctness for President Trump is like blaming the civil rights movement for Jim Crow, or feminism for rape culture, or Stonewall for anti-gay hate crimes. It’s every battered wife who has been murdered by her husband when she tries to leave. It’s “I wouldn’t have to hurt you if you’d just behave.” It’s a disingenuous rationalisation peddled by people who know they did nothing to help when Trump’s Voltron of hate was gathering steam and are suddenly terrified because the stock market is crashing. Oh, now you’re afraid? Now you’re angry? Welcome. You’re late. You spent eight years obsessing over college students’ opinions on standup comedy and now a racist clown is president.
Trump is a man who believes in registering Muslims, restraining black protesters with violence, building a wall on the Mexican border and non-consensually grabbing women by the genitals – and you don’t think he has a vested interest in tamping down the dissent of Muslims, black people, immigrants and women? He is institutional silencing personified. Are you sure political correctness went too far? Are you sure we were overreacting?
And what do you actually want us to do on a practical, day-to-day level? Shrug at blackface when black churches are burning? Accept being misgendered when trans women of colour are murdered at staggering rates? Smile at catcallers when only 3% of rapists in the US are ever punished? Never defend our boundaries until they shrink down and garrote us? It’s not an option. Political correctness is not voluntary; it’s survival.
If you consider yourself a good progressive, but you spent the past eight years parroting the troll party line and tittering at the silly activists – mocking us, baiting us, treating us like children, eroding our credibility – and now you’re pointing at black people, Muslims, rape victims, immigrants and everyone else who is petrified for their lives under a Trump regime, and insisting that we brought this on ourselves by fighting too hard, then screw you. You didn’t fight at all. And you will suffer the least.
I’m more concerned with the 25-50 people at the DNC below the leader. If the democrats can learn anything from this and recent elections, it’s that details matter as much or more than grand gestures. If Ellison is at the top and everyone he holds meetings with is a Clintonite used to the old way of doing business, mad at him since they’ve been climbing the ladder at the DNC for the last 15 years, business will continue as usual.
If the DNC really wants to change (they don’t) they will clean house and everyone higher in rank than intern will have to do one more half turn through the revolving door and take that wall street job they’ve been keeping in their back pocket.
It’s time for real change, not a thin veneer of newness.
I’m more concerned with the 25-50 people at the DNC below the leader. If the democrats can learn anything from this and recent elections, it’s that details matter as much or more than grand gestures. If Ellison is at the top and everyone he holds meetings with is a Clintonite used to the old way of doing business, mad at him since they’ve been climbing the ladder at the DNC for the last 15 years, business will continue as usual.
If the DNC really wants to change (they don’t) they will clean house and everyone higher in rank than intern will have to do one more half turn through the revolving door and take that wall street job they’ve been keeping in their back pocket.
It’s time for real change, not a thin veneer of newness.
So, two old establishment New Dem party hacks and a fresh, progressive face. This will indicate the survival, or not, of the Democratic Party as a political force. More of the same arrogant, corporatist, self-serving and self-satisfied crowd who created disasters in the last two elections, or will they finally move into the 2lst century and recognize that, if the people have anything to say about it, and they will one way or the other, the jig is up on the plutocracy?
Ellison the hard left and BLM inspire antisemitism. According to Dershowitz Ellison has many Jew hating supporters. Which seems so odd considering how tolerant Muslim countries are with Jews, gays and Christians.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/15/dershowitz_hard_left_is_very_anti-semitic_keith_ellison_black_lives_matter.html
And he offers nothing concrete to back this up, except he claims he hears antisemitism from students he deems to be “hard left.” That level of evidence is safe to ignore. Let us know when yo have something better.
Keith Ellison is an American.
Dershowitz…Dershowitz…You mean Alan Dershowitz? The accused child rapist and pedophile Jeffry Epstein character reference?
Alas the classic hard left tactic in which one assasinates ones character to discredit the argument. You lefties really need to change your MOA your so predicable these days.
Isn’t that exactly what Dershowitz would be doing by calling Ellison anti-semetic?
Centrist liberals are invited to be quiet and learn things now. All you had going for you was your alleged realism. Now you are exposed as the true fantasists.
Bingo.
If the Democratic party wants ot have any chance, whatsoever, at coming back and winning anything, they MUST embrace true Progressivism becasue that is precisely where the populace, their voter base is going. And with voter base I mean the independents who were supporting Sanders and came out n record numbers to support him but not her during general elections.
The Democrats MUST embrace progressive policies becasue their refusal to do so is what’s been disgusting and alienating voters for years, culminating in them just feeling so beat up and neglected and exploited, and fooled – watching those they repeatedly entrusted with their vote to represent them bail and instead do the bidding of banks and the 1%-, throwing them to the corporate wolves while enacting just enough legislation to prevent them from being fully devoured – that they could not even be bothered to get out of bed this election and vote for the candidate the DNC had been shoving down their throats for the past 8 years.
These are the people who dont want the status quo anymore and who rejected Clinton summarily becasue she was the status quo instead of the reform they so direly needed and sought.
They want socialism while Democrats were offering them more Reagan era conservatism. I have always said that Obama and Clinton would have done wonderfully in a Reagan administration becasue other than some gender and race issues, they are about as Reagan-conservative as it gets. In fact, on some issues, they may actually have been standing Right to Reagan, which tells us just how much everything in the American political landscape has shifted to the Right. Today’s Republicans make some of those 1980s ones look like flaming liberals.
The progressives of today want taxes on the rich, a robust social safety net and are tired of subsiding the rich via wealth redistribution bottom to top. They are tired of endless war and bigotry. Because remember, these progressive are the ones who determined the outcome of this election, not coal miners in West Virginia or factory workers in Michigan and Wisconsin. The rural’s people way of life is outdated and obsolete. No one can bring that back and there is nothing admirable or great about anti-intellectualism.
Democrats need not worry about them. They are forever doomed to vote along party lines and against their own self interest.
The Democratic party’s undoing did not happen overnight. It’s been in the making for decades. And people took it, they slowly watched their leaders chip away at their livelihoods and social safety nets – a bit here, a little more there – always promising to do more but never really giving them grand wins. We still dont have universal healthcare, larely thanks to Democrats who opposed Obama when he did have House and Senate majority and the crappy ACA is about to be dismantled.
Obama did not do crap when the governor of Michigan knowingly poisoned the people of Flint. He did not even ask for him to resign. He never held speeches at least talking about prosecuting Wall Street banksters who knowingly gambled away peoples’ livelihoods, knowing that the government was going to bail them out anyway while they got to vilify and scapegoat the poor and immigrants. Not once did Obama ask for the prosecution of a single wall street crook, even if to just begin a national conversation. We all know he is not elected king and faced a lot of obstructionism, but there is a lot e could have done and he failed the middle class. From student loans to taxes to re-scheduling pot, death penalty, oil subsidies to handing over billions to an apartheid state, Israel, while growing numbers of Americans live week to week and can barely feed their children.
Hillary was silent on Standing Rock, as Obama had been silent on so many things (police murder of unarmed black men for example).
People toil for minimum wage, as guest workers in their own country. Unpaid internships are now the norm. College degrees mean shi/t.
When you have fifty bucks in the bank, how important is it that Trump makes sexist jokes?
I remember earlier this year Clooney organizing a fund raiser for Hillary at $400,000 a plate. That is not only an appalling huge number but it exemplified just how removed these people were from the average American, and I DONT mean the anti-intellectual hayseeds and white supremacists of the BIble and Rust belts. I mean those underpaid and underemployed, student loan ridden college educated intellectuals and liberals, both words that have become pejoratives for a nation populated with stupid people.
For the record, no one spends $400,000 a head to help poor people. And that disconnect and the shamelessness of it became painfully obvious to everyone but the Clinton bots and surrogates who seemed to find nothing hypocritical about any of this. Who were winning based on Citizens United while at the same time vowing to overturn it (?).
So, yes, DNC, if you to not self cannibalize, become PROGRESSIVE. Socialism and its ideals were what inspired people to go vote for Sanders and its suppression,dismissal and ridicule what made them stay home, refusing to cast a vote for a Wall Street kingpin. Learn your lesson.
2 who would continue the disastrous business-as-usual and 1 who carries some ideological baggage but has a progressive record and is endorsed by Bernie. If either dean or harrison get the position then it’s time for progressives to form a 3rd party.
If Howard the Duck wants to run, I say let him. He’ll be crushed and maybe then his pernicious run can be allowed to subside. Keith Ellison on the other hand would be a great choice. … I have no idea who the hell that third corporate douchebag is.
Let me tell you something .
Organized killing beats unorganized killing every time .
The “ORGANIZATION” is a bit worried at the present time that the people will organize . Not for voting ,, but for killing .
Even this forum editors have now turned to inflaming hatred among the peasants !
OFF WITH THEIR FUCKING HEADS !!
Please seek professional help.
If the DNC goes with anyone other than Ellison there needs to be a mass exodus from the Democratic Party. Schumer and his Wall St. ilk can vote with the repubs if they want. If the election wasn’t a wake up call, they are a lost cause.
They will all kill for the money !!!
“Harrison is a registered lobbyist at the Podesta Group”
Yeah, THAT Podesta Group. Wikileaks, take me away…
Yesterday the Intercept said it was Schumer who was going to be the top Republican:https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/chuck-schumer-the-worst-possible-democratic-leader-at-the-worst-possible-time/
It seems to me that Republicans would be delighted with Ellison or Schumer running the DNC. If Ellison gets the job it will be proof that the Democrats are “the enemy” because their top man is a Muslim. If Schumer gets the job it will re-enforce the thinly veiled anti-semitic dog whistle politics of Trump.
How is Howard Deans networth 4 million dollars?
Does anyone know what amount the drug industry/Dentons has paid Dean?
This is a bullshit headline. Keith Ellison’s accomplishments is that he’s the first Muslim congressman?? That’s all you got?? Nothing about support for him amongst progressives. Nothing about his support for Bernie Sanders during the primaries? Nothing about whether his own constituency likes him or not (which they do)?
This is lazy writing Zaid.
I agree. This article was just plain odd and bizarrely incomplete, offering no information one would expect from a write-up in The Intercept. I would have advised delaying publication until the subject could be fleshed out properly.
What’s most intriguing about the fight for the DNC is its pathetic effort to defend Hillary as the candidate and to protect her legacy. The Establishment candidates–Dean and Harrison–obviously want to squash any notion that Hillary herself was to blame for this loss. Were it not for Comey, they insist, she would have won, avoiding the root cause–were it not for Hillary detaching herself from the pledge for transparency in govt by using a secret server during her tenure as SOS, there would have been no Comey in the first place. Her other weaknesses, the secret Wall St speeches, also did her no good in a campaign dealing with our rigged govt.
But what blows me away is how Dean insists Democrats must rethink things and try to figure out how to form an economic message that resonates with the base and how to bring young people into the fold. Excuse me, this WAS figured out and with great success by Bernie Sanders. That these Dem Officials continue to ignore Bernie’s candidacy and the impact of his clearly stated, unequivocal, non partisan campaign themes is incredible. Not once has Dean suggested that the party might benefit from upholding Bernie’s platform, although remembering how Dean relentlessly bashed Bernie during the primaries, I’m not surprised he avoids the topic. The dishonesty of these people is their biggest roadblock to success.
Yeah, I’m still pissed about it and about how obstinate these people were in their commitment to Hillary, so blinded by it that they refused to interpret the data that was jumping and waving its arms right in front of them for months. Hello! it said, look over here! Income inequality! Working more hours for less pay! Crushing medical and college debt! Affordable housing! Criminal justice reform! Endless Wars! We can’t afford to rescue people in Flint for two years now from the scourge of poisoned drinking water, but we can lickety split give Israel $39 billion. What kind of sense does that make? Really, I’m shocked that these Dems have the gall to put themselves forward for anything given the damage they’ve done by electing Trump. Their punishment is way too iight–they won’t get West Wing offices or invites to the xmas party. Instead, we’ll suffer unbearably for their arrogance. We’ll live under a white nationalist govt and watch our social security and medicare get gutted. We’ll see the wealthy get more tax cuts and the police get more militarized and emboldened. They need to be replaced and I hope Bernie and Keith are coming up with a plan to do away with them. The lives of Hillary & Bill won’t be affected by Trump’s presidency. Their money insulates them from his most damaging choices. They can live without social security, medicare, health insurance and can educate their children without borrowing any money. What they get paid for one speech can pay for the college education of 4 or 5 students. Sayonara to them.
This is where we decide, the tired, decadent past or the hopeful future.
“First, there’s Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison…”
“First, there’s Vermont’s former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean…”
Glenn you need editors. No longer start-up cute. Hit me up if you care.
Dean was first in the section on lobbyists.
It hurts Dems’ feelings unless everybody is first.
I heard the Democratic Party was going to split.
One half is forming the Pizza Party and the other half is joining CPUSA
> Race for Next DNC Chair Is Between America’s First Muslim Congressman and Two Corporate Lobbyists
what does ellison’s religion have to do with anything? answer: NOTHING. it shouldn’t even be mentioned, but there it is in the fucking title of the article
the left is braindead. the left is incapable of learning. the left is a joke. donald trump is the president this country deserves
Some self-described “special dems” are getting together with ultra-speculator and manipulator, George Soros, to discuss the future of some dead and smelly party?
As Hillary Rodham Clinton would say, “Can’t they be droned?”
Sorry, Soros, but you are over — as are all the Clintons (even the stupid one, Chelsea), Rahm Emanuel, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, etc., etc., etc.
Anyone who still supports your bunch aren’t just losers — they are psycho losers!
If somebody has any neurons left, they will organize aProgressive Party, with Real Progressives — not a couple like the Clintons, who:
established their Extraordinary Rendition Program in 1995 (which was involved in the torture and deaths of pro-democracy activists in the Middle East) while supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda; selling out the Northern Alliance leader (another secularist who was anti-Islamic state and anti-Russia), Ahmad Shah Massoud, and quashing the arrest warrant in 1998 from Interpol, submitted by Muammar Gaddafi — for the arrest of terrorist, Osama bin Laden, while using al Qaeda to attack Serbs and Roma in central Europe because the Serbs wanted to set up a socialist state, not one based upon predatory capitalism!
(And I haven’t even mentioned all the colossal giveaways to the bankers and super-rich between 1992 to 2000, and the fact that after Hillary’s receipt of $25 million from Saudi Arabia, she kept quiet with her criticism of them as the primary supporters of Sunni terrorism around the world, or that Bill accepted large sums from Qatar, and had nothing but positive comments for a country where a stadium was built, costing the lives of almost 1,000 Asian workers!)
The two worst presidential candidates in 2016 were Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump — and who in bloody hell would vote for either one of them?
And what lunatics would vote for the bloodthirsty Clintons, for God’s sakes????
Now Howard Dean is talking about making a comeback as chair of the DNC — because of the successful 2008 Obama campaign — except there was never any follow-through on Obama’s part: no banker went to jail as he promised, monies were disbursed for high-speed rail, yet there’s nothing to show for it; $500 million spent on a ghost division of nonexistent rebels in Syria (Division 30); more support for the head choppers of Saudi Arabia in Yemen against anti-al Qaeda rebels there, while supporting al Qaeda in Syria, and much data suggests helping to finance ISIS along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Until I see something promising on the horizon, I’ll continue voting Green Party, if I ever bother to vote again!
Ah, you’re going to love President Trump.
Rachel Maddow has turned into the worst Third Way shill since Killary, whom she adores. I used to just love her analysis and quirky ways but I can hardly stand her cutesy dissembling now, esp after watching her lick Shiller’s ankles during the campaign. But its when she talks about Bernie and uses an especially obnoxious kind of grin spin, a sort of mockery where she implies that he’s a bit of a joke, that I really part company with her. That was a Clinton specialty in the 90’s and I loathe them for it. I didn’t vote for T-rump but I’m sure not sorry to see them defeated? Now let’s get on with the real Democratic Party: Elison, Bernie, Warren, Merkley, Teachout, Feingold, and a few other bonifide hones ties.
Opps, I meant “defeated!”
Couldn’t agree more with your fine assessment.
Did you notice that during the early stages of Bernie’s campaign–before he became the insurgent candidate who was filling up arenas with thousands–she was respectful, supportive, and expressed genuine appreciation for him being a “true progressive?” In one interview, she thanked him for his brave stance on supporting/defending gays back in the day when it was politically risky to do so.
As soon as the Clinton campaign was feeling nervous, she started using a much more aggressive “gotcha” interview style in an attempt to make Bernie stumble.
I could actually hear the marching orders from above. (That’s how obvious the shift in tone.)
It will be interesting to see how she treats Bernie going forward. What face is she going to put on now that the Clinton Era is behind us?
As much as I am alarmed by Trump–and my anxiety is growing by the day–I now recognize that it had to take a complete party meltdown in order to get rid of Clinton, Inc. and the Obamas. Will be interesting to see what develops. If the progressives don’t take over, time to start a 3rd party.
We should all be alarmed. I have to say, for the first time ever, I feel that we are in real trouble. This isn’t going to be normal this year or next. In the best case the GOP over reaches and the country says…what in the world? It has happened before but the damage they do is extensive.
What a difference an election season makes. We really don’t have much time. GOP controls too many State Legislatures because Dems spend time squabbling and then fail to fight hard and dirty enough to win. The midterms are coming and 2020 is too. We should take a page from Trump’s book….WIN.
Agree wholeheartedly.
Remember when Rachel Maddow wasn’t a Clinton sell out?
http://www.alternet.org/story/149700/rachel_maddow%3A_in_america_today,_republican_president_dwight_d._eisenhower_would_be_bernie_sanders_in_the_u.s._senate
Rachel Maddow makes about $7 million a year. Chris Hayes makes about the same. Their salaries depend on not upsetting their corporate masters very much. It follows that they cannot be expected to be anything more than gatekeepers for the establishment, even if they sincerely wanted otherwise.
And there ^^^ it is right there. Hayes and Maddow aren’t bad people, but they’ve become bad journalists. They’d rather be a part of the corporate power structure than actively work against it by speaking out against using the tools those executives give them.
Granted, if they did, they’d last about as long as Cenk did, and it is precisely why nobody will give someone like Glenn Greenwald or Nina Turner a prime time platform. Millions would watch, but they couldn’t control what someone like Glenn or Nina would say. And they don’t want to jeopardize, or give a platform to, the very forces that spend billions on advertising all across the mainstream media spectrum (regardless of nominal ideological platform).
They (places like MSNBC or CNN) let people like Glenn on periodically to maintain the fiction of being balanced or adversarial, but let on 5X that number of centrists or right-wing shills (Steve Schmidt, Michael Steele et al).
It is the number one reason that the only person I actually considered a journalist on mainstream media was Bill Moyers, and he was allowed to do what he was because OPB had to maintain the semblance of “mainstream public broadcasting” otherwise it would have lost the remainder of its “leftist/progressive” audience, and devolved into the centrist-right wing clap trap it has become.
Democracy Now I don’t consider to be part of mainstream corporate media, but that would be the only other television media that I place one iota of stock in for a willingness to speak truth to power, to deal honestly with “facts”, and report on what corporate media does not want to touched if it threatens to gore their corporate ox corporate advertisers interests.
That and I find most television journalism to move too slow, I can read 5 times the content from more diverse sources, in the same hour as I could watching it.
Which is not to say television is not a powerful medium, but leftists/progressives and the Democratic Party will never be able to disseminate the right message to enough people using it given its ownership structure. They are going to have the pour the resources into doing it on the ground, small groups of potential voters at a time, and person to person if they ever want to turn this mess around.
How can registered democrats have a voice in who is selected as the next head of the DNC? What is the best strategy to influence the outcome?
Keith would be fabulous. Anti domestic surveillance to the core. To my mind on the right side of almost every issue.
TPP. Gay Marriage. Syria. Trump.
He even supports glasnost and a detente with a Russia (Putin and Lavrov) our US REPUBLOCRATS and their MSM lapdogs endlessly describe as POTENTIAL foreign interventionists who pose an existential threat to international peace simply for defending the very borders NATO encroaches on today.
My thoughts:
I’ve never heard of Harrison and I’m from SC. I’m not that trusting of lobbyists. He’s out.
Dean helped bring the Democrats out of the wilderness after Bush, but he’s also a big fan of the Marxist terrorist MEK.
Ellison is a progressive, but he thought bombing Libya was a good idea.
I do wish Alan Grayson was among the choices, but the Democrats effectively forced him out.
Thank you but i was not aware of Rep Ellison’s support for bombing of Libya.
And Rep Grayson is progressive except for Palestinians. He supported Israel on bombing of Gaza.
http://www.wrmea.org/2014-october/congress-backs-israels-right-to-slaughter-palestinians-in-the-name-of-self-defense.html
Like the writer and editor of this piece I support Ellison. Unlike them, I am sick to death of bullshit, dishonest and unfair headlines and commentaries that think so little of its readers and seeks only to persuade them.
Anyone wanting to support Rep Ellison, can do so here……
https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/keith-ellison-dnc
Bye Bye Bernie Sanders, you sell out. I voted for you and now it’s obvious you never meant “getting billionaire influence out of the democratic party” by first endorsing Soros puppet, Shillary, and now your second -Keith, heir to the Soros pathological crime family. It’s Good bye to the Democrats who failed to learn anything from the last election and Good Bye Bernie. Have fun getting out the vote, Party of corruption, deception and fraud.
His support for her was transparent and was him keeping his word. Hard to swallow, I know, but he now can’t be rejected as someone who hurt the party/Clinton campaign and caused her to lose. The Nader myth is still trying to be applied against him, but it is bunk. He has a chance at reshaping the party and that is the only way it survives.
We will break the party in half if they block his reforms.
Rep Ellison should be the choice of “real” progressive democrats AND of those who believe in Justice for ALL.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/07/gaza-conflict-divides-congressional-progressives