Yves here. It’s easy to get whiplash trying to keep one’s eye on the many fallout fronts after Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday. One evolving spectacle is the much-needed Democratic party recriminations and hopefully the purging of the too many who hitched their fates to elites and failed even to credibly pretend that they cared about ordinary people. Indeed, as I have had some members of the PMC tell me before the election, they were repelled by the mainstream Democrat hostility towards whole swathes of Americans and the offensive insistence that they were superior and therefore solely entitled to rule.
If the party is to sufficiently reform itself, it needs to expel its architects of failure, starting with the DNC. Naturally, the guilty are instead loudly trying to shift blame. The latest, revealing spectacle comes in Common Dreams. It features the head of the DNC getting ugly over Sanders’ correct and long-standing critique that the party has abandoned its roots (he of all people should know, given how badly he was treated).
In an interesting bit of synchronicity, the Hill has just published a story that indicates that many party operatives understand what a disaster the election was and that a big course correction is necessary. But will enough of the old guard close ranks to keep them largely on their current bad course? The Hill’s Trump win leaves Democrats talking about how to start over suggests that at least some insiders have reached the 12-step bottom-hitting phase:
Democrats say they need a fresh start after President-elect Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Harris, which saw him sweep the swing states, narrow Democratic margins in various blue states and win over key parts of the electorate….
“We have to burn the house down and begin anew,” said one prominent Democratic strategist who has worked on recent presidential campaigns.
“We had a warning in 2016 that this wasn’t working, we had another chance in 2020 to realize Trump wasn’t going away and was only growing his base, and we ignored it and pretended this was a midterm election.”
As Democrats perform the autopsy of Harris’s campaign and piecing together what went wrong, they are quickly concluding that their party apparatus and strategies are dated or nonfunctional….
Democrats in recent years have lost their way, the strategist added, appealing to “New York Times elites” while snubbing working-class voters who traditionally supported Democrats.
Contrast this perspective with the DNC blather below, which repeats blatantly bogus defenses, like Biden was the best labor president evah when most unions members thought otherwise.
Nevertheless, despite the breath of fresh air from the Hill account, at least in my media ganders, I see way too much desperate clutching at the story lines that led to the Democrat loss (and divert attention from voter concerns about their standard of living and immigration) such as Trump is a fascist and his voters are misogynists.
By Julia Conley. Originally published at Common Dreams
After U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders offered his perspective on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election—repeating his consistent warning that the Democratic Party must center economic justice—top official Jaime Harrison signaled once again that the party is unlikely to hear Sanders’ call.
Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former lobbyist for clients including Bank of Americaand BP, called Sanders’ statement “straight up BS” and touted pro-worker policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting that the party has sufficiently worked for economic justice—and appearing to ignore all evidence that working-class voters gravitated toward Trump and the Republican Party.
“[President Joe] Biden was the most-pro worker president of my lifetime—saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line,” said Harrison.
This is straight up BS… Biden was the most-pro worker President of my life time- saved Union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line and some of MVP’s plans would have fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial… https://t.co/6s4iR5Xtdq
— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) November 7, 2024
Biden has been praised by progressives and labor unions for establishing pro-worker rules on overtime pay and noncompete agreements, urging Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize, presiding over a National Labor Relations Board that investigated numerous unfair labor practices by large corporations and sided with workers, and becoming the first U.S. president to walk on a picket line with striking workers.
He also worked closely with Sanders on one of his signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested in expanded child tax credits, public education, and free community college, among other provisions—but the bill was torpedoed by right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), then a Democrat, and the Republican Party.
In his statement on Thursday, Sanders said “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
He asked whether the “well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party” would “learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?”
“Probably not,” he added.
While Harris included in her platform plans to end price-gouging in the food industry, expand the child tax credit, and extend Medicare coverage to home healthcare, dental, and vision care, she alarmed progressive advocates by proposinga smaller capital gains tax for wealthy Americans.
As Common Dreamsreported on Thursday, Biden advisers have also posited this week that Harris muddied her early message that Trump was a “stooge of corporate interests” by elevating billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as one of her top surrogates.
Whether Democratic leaders including Harrison will listen to those concerns from Biden’s inner circle remains to be seen, but he expressed hostility when the message came from Sanders.
“There are a lot of post-election takes and this one ain’t a good one,” said Harrison.
Journalist Mitchell Northam noted that the Democratic Party has studiously ignored and expressed hostility toward Sanders’ call for centering economic justice and cutting ties with Wall Street since the 2016 election, when the senator ran for president as a Democrat.
Bernie had a pulse on where all of this was heading back in 2015/16. He had a coalition. He was speaking to voters. And the Democratic party shoved him out of the way.
Also, as chair of the DNC, this result has to land on Jaime Harrison's shoulders too. Just take your L, man. https://t.co/ZMv4hdnuZt
— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) November 7, 2024
Sanders’ message this week got an unlikely boost from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2020 dismissed the veteran, consistently popular senator as “useless” and “marginal.”
“I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center,” wrote Brooks. “But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn’t work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption—something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.”
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch applauded Brooks’ “striking moment of self-awareness.”
Progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid expressed hope that Democratic leaders such as Harrison will do the same.
“Typically, after a major electoral defeat,” he said, “party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven’t yet had a chance to lead.”
The real fireworks will start on Jan. 21 when people wake up and realize not much has changed since Jan. 19.
one can only use over-the-top language a discrete number of times before words like “1935 German” lose all meaning as a rhetorical device. which is a shame and disservice to the actual victims of 1930’s social movements.
The real fireworks start when people realize a narrative about who appeals to the working class isn’t the same as any actual policy that stops the rising inequality, homelessness, etc.
Yeah, we can ask the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians etc. how they feel about it
Never looked at Harris’ platform because nothing attached to her name had any history behind it. When every word out of your mouth is a generality or trash talk about your opponent, you don’t get to fall back on empty words in defense of serious allegations like Bernie’s.
Biden has not been a friend to labor, he’s been a friend to donors. He screwed the railroad workers and leaned on the dockworkers. Thanks to Biden the scourge of wokeism (extremely misinformed and weaponized identity theory) has soaked into union culture. That will not help at organizing time.
Struggling with “voices that haven’t yet had a chance to lead.” This was the cover used to source and elevate spokespersons for nearly nonexistent movements within the party, a cynical ploy to diminish African Americans descended from slaves as a new generation of ADOS were having trouble figuring out why they were Democrats. To replace them, the borders were opened. I do “get” that strategy. Modern ADOS make lousy fieldhands and someone has to pick those vegetables.
But my real anger has always been over the elevation of transgender voices at the expense of the gay community. None of these new voices were brought in to widen the dialogue, all were used to silence other (older) voices who were tired of not being heard and who were who were making noises about replacing their “selected” leaders.
Just an uninformed theory from a nonscientist but I very strongly believe the party’s pro-transgenderism is about something else entirely. Our food is changing us biologically and rather than own up to which additives are doing what, I believe Big Food stealthily funded wokeism as a cover for the sudden upswing in gender confusion. If I’m right, future generations will have a gendered generation gap that will make culture, if not life in general, very interesting.
Oh, and for the record Bernie is well to my right and always has been. I still wish he was finishing up his second term if only for the one million Ukrainians and Palestinians who would still be alive and in possession of all their limbs, all lost in service to empire.
I guess Democrat’s party advances one funeral at a time. And apparently there has to be lots of funerals before they even to stop digging in.
The acceleration of the “funerals” are as necessary on the RINO side as well, whether physical or by any other means.
The RINO’s all need to be purged, especially the war mongers – starting with Graham and McConnell.
The RINO”s will be an easy out compared to the Marxist Democrats.
Marxist? Do we even know what that means? Have you ever read Capital vol. 1? or vols 2 or 3 ?
Folks make themselves look ignorant when they throw around these grand, sweeping political labels incorrectly. Although he became politically active, Marx was primarily an economist.
Got that note from Bernie on Thursday.
Really affirmed that aligning with his Politics and Values was a good, right and solid political choice for me years ago. The wife’s timeline reminder Monday was a photo of us with him in 2015.
Smiling all—younger, happier and optimistic about a possible future.
Still got some of that.
Too bad things turned out differently.
This is the nut now:
Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power?
Class politics!!! Good luck with that. Until you or your neighbor start selling apples for a nickel the wokeists and their corporate, academic and media patrons will rule the day. This Harrison guy…I wonder where he gets his manicure? We would have called him a brother back in the day, but in the new day we will call him ‘a person of color’. That’s sufficiently adjacent for he and his ‘associates’ to don their (D) monogramed knee pads and patronize all the guys with the smudged overalls and name ‘Bill’ on their plumber uniforms.
Until the labor unions get ‘woke’, cut the Dems off and begin proposing their own political and economic solutions we can expect the glacial change to continue. Labor leaders need to be forced by the rank-and-file to reach out beyond their own narrow constituency. Sure there is a risk of getting thrown out of the increasingly small tent. But what are the Dems gonna do…make sure the wanna-be unions don’t get card-check? I wanna hear some working class dialogue.
Thanks for this post. The neoliberal Dem estab’s big tent is getting smaller and smaller. Useful Idiots Katie and Matt list a quick rundown of everyone the Dem estab is blaming. / ;)
Dems Shoot Themselves in the Face (with the help of Dick Cheney)
Corporate media manages to blame every possible demographic…except Democrats
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/dems-shoot-themselves-in-the-face
Sorry Bernie. Grassroots anything isn’t going be allowed in the Democrat party as it exists today. Just keep an eye on the reaction to your mild suggestion that maybe, just maybe, the Dems ought to take a teensy tiny look at the way they are doing things and have a “very serious political discussion” about it. (Is that like a sternly worded letter?) Expect more reactions like Harrison’s. Harris ran the most perfect campaign evah! Even Queen Latifa endorsed her! (So did Bernie Sanders, come to think of it…)
The time for discussions has long since passed. The Democrat party can not fail, it can only be failed. I agree with the anonymous strategist. Burn it down and start over.
Dems know they can satisfy their donors or the electorate, but not both. So they do what’s important to them. No rocket science here.
Yves ty for this post and your lead-in to it. Rod above commented on ideas for taking on the oligarchy. Until there is some organization all most of us can do is work local, We have an inclusive radical Black legacy here which has reached out to bring Jill Stein as a speaker. There was a surprisingly large and accepted amount of support for her, despite all the pulls of identity politics spurred by democrats/liberals trying to force Harris upon us. The genocide has been (tragically) a recruiting tool in a sense. Some of us created a “first Tuesday” event in the West, giving away clothes, produce and meals while bringing in guest speakers. We had some Green Party here as well as locals running for city council. If nothing else we can keep some of the community warm and fed. Inshallah maybe more.
Here’s a question for Jaime Harrison: Is it possible for Joe Biden to have been the most pro-labor of your lifetime and for labor to be worse off than they were four years ago?
Harrison was born in 1976, just as the neo-liberal anti-labor agenda was taking hold and gathering steam. So while Harrison may be arguably correct on Biden’s record, that’s a bar an earthworm would have difficulty limbo-ing under. Meanwhile, real wage growth is negative over the the last four years.
Harrison, and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership class, will never, ever, consider that their’s is a failed strategy. Afterall, how can it possibly be a failure when they and everyone immediately surrounding them prosper regardless of the electoral results? I wonder if this is the narcissism among the elite IM Doc was referring to in the clinical sense several days ago.
Both of my parents were new deal democrats, my mother was twice president of her union CALMT and my uncle Pete was president of ILWU local 54 in Stockton for many years.
They would be disgusted at what the Democratic party has become.
Burn it to the ground, salt the earth and bury it under 20′ of concrete.
This was Harris campaign to lose and with a great deal of effort and more than a $1,000,000,000 spent she managed to lose to Trump by running what is arguably the most tone deaf Presidential campaign ever.
She did have a little help from her friends the Bidens and whoever designed her commercials produced the most offensive political ads I have witnessed in 70 plus years.
Assume we have a “democracy” where one person has one vote and money is not legally equated with “political speech”. Where political bribery is severely punished. Where there is meaningful choice in policies. Where the world’s richest oligarchs are in danger of not being allowed to hoard all the resources and power and cannot bribe Congress or benefit from blatant conflicts of interest and institutional corruption. A fantasy
Alas…
Sen. Bernard Sanders, like AOC and many other so-called progressives, talk a good game then do the old bait-and-switch and herd the D faithful back into voting for the status quo. The cynicism and hypocrisy are just as bad or worse than the R faction of the Country Club.
Recall Sanders ran for pres before, and said that he would endorse the D candidate if he did not win the primary. That spells it out plainly. The late great Bruce Dixon explains how the game works in detail. Others have written about it
https://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary
IMHO, BOTH so-called parties are corrupt to the core. And even worse, the entire legal/institutional framework is corrupt to the core. When we have massive financial crimes, war crimes, abuses of power, legal bribery, conflicts of interest, genocide etc. where no one is held to account…How can one speak of the “rule of law” and “democracy” with a straight face? A radical overhaul and crackdown on both institutional and illicit forms of corruption.
It is more convenient and easy to project the rot and corruption onto the Other: China/Russia/Iran are “autocratic” or commie dictatorships where there are no civil liberties, no rule of law, and people live a miserable, shackled existence and have no way to express their opinions or vote for leaders.
As comments above point out: how do we break up the oligarchy, and monopolies? Who has the political will and political power to do that at this stage of the historical cycle? Is it too late for the slowly decaying empire?
I was watching an MSNBC clip talking about why Harris loss. The person tied it to ending the Afghanistan war in a “disorganized fashion”. He stated that Biden’s approval rating started dropping at that time. I think its funny how the war propagandists get in front of the parade and claim that its for their cause. I recall at the time that a lot of people, young people, were disappointed about the failure passing the Federal 15 dollar minimum wage and the president’s lack of effort in trying to pass it. The young people were definitely not disappointed about the Afghanistan war ending.