On the Democrats, or Down with Will Rogers Thought

 

“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat,” comedian Will Rogers spoke these words almost a century ago. Back then it was a tongue-in-cheek good natured ribbing of a party that had just come out of a convention that required 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate. Yes, you read that right. In 1924, the delegates to the Democratic National Convention had to vote 103 times to nominate a man who would end up losing in a landslide to Calvin Coolidge. At least the Democratic Party of that era could contain its chaos to one gathering every four years. Today, the party’s disarray is on display 24/7. It is disorganized at every level of government and jurisdiction, at least where it can manage to get elected at all.

I know. Out of the Democrats’ recent defeat, a thousand think pieces have bloomed. Yet, most of them seem to ignore the essential issue Mr. Rogers' diagnosed a hundred years ago. They would rather focus on that nebulous term “messaging.” Among other issues with this analysis, it makes one crucial mistake: it assumes the Democrats have some secret message that they keep failing to deliver. They are otherwise unified and organized and at the same time forgetful of what needs to be expressed.  If only the Democrats could just put the right words together, the America people would fall over themselves to vote for any name with a donkey next to it. Extending this logic further,  maybe the Democratic Party can make a game of it, sending every American a decoder pin so they can figure out the “messaging” of the next election cycle like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.

All of these postmortems focus on messaging because it is convenient for the people posting them with their bylines attached. It requires no deeper reckoning with what the last two hundred years of the Democratic Party’s disorganization has led to in the present. They are also in line with the class interests of those who write them. On a personal level each one of these authors is hoping that their specific diagnosis will pique the interest of the party so they can get a gig consulting for it. Beyond that, on a more philosophical level, it helps to justify their whole line of work. Since they make a living trafficking in words, they have every incentive to promote the idea that a political party’s fortunes are tied to matters of vocabulary.

But the problem cannot be reduced to messaging while the party is such a mess of contradictions. We have seen that anything promised by one wing of the party, gets shot down by another. Or the so-called Parliamentarian gets to reject this and that proposal (you remember voting for them, right?) The Democratic Party has too many competing factions whose interests cannot be fundamentally reconciled. It is the party of billionaires and unions, landlords and renters, peaceniks and neocons, tree huggers and frackers, Zionists and Muslims, Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter More. In short, the Democrats are trying to serve both Mammon and the masses and failing at both. Any attempt to salvage the Democrats has to begin with meeting this problem head on.

Of course, contradiction is nothing new in the Democratic Party. At certain times the party managed it for a generation or so. They did it after Jackson and then after FDR. But these partisan constellations were only able to do this for two critical reasons. First was the opening of new economic frontiers that allowed competing groups to get a cut of a growing pie. Second was the lack a national issue that could divide the coalition. Eventually both of these advantages ended and the Democrats fell apart. In the case of Jackson's Democrats, they were undone by the very national issue of slavery. For Roosevelt Democrats, their coalition collapsed from the pressures of confronting racism and war in Vietnam.

It seems unlikely that the Democrats will find themselves in such a fortunate position again. The era of free real estate is over and the era of free refills is coming to a close as well. As for national controversies, the Democratic Party can no longer sidestep these. Politics in America have become homogenized thanks to TV and the Internet. Take, for example, People running for school boards. They are no longer focused on the picayune details of lunches and bus routes. They run on the red meat buffet of culture war issues such as transgender rights and so-called historical revisionism.

For the Democratic Party to win in these conditions, it has to reinvent itself. It has to become a party that either Will Rogers or his present incarnations cannot make fun of for a lack of unity. Think about it this way: if the Democrats were a serious party with long term goals, Trump's people would have been running their own version of ads warning about a "Democrat Project 2025." Or 2029. But of course, they did not. And will not. This is but one small piece of evidence the alleged party of the people needs to reorient itself in order to fight the rightward lurch of the country. Because what is at stake is more important than which gang of politicos holds office. The installation of a complete oligarchy is at hand. 

Unfortunately voters have been presented with few choices to stop this. The Republicans are the party that will make this transformation happen on purpose. Meanwhile the Democrats of the current cycle have become the party that will let it happen. Whether on purpose or not, the effect is the same. What kind of Democratic Party (or any party for that matter) would be better suited for the challenge of the day? The answer is predictable if you know me, but I do not care. The best version of the Democratic Party is one that has a solid base in the multiracial working class and is built around their representative organizations. While there will disagreements here and there in this model, at least this party will not be haphazardly built on top of known and active political fault lines.

Now for my most controversial drop. The historical and current iteration of this Democratic Party, amounts to little more than a rent seeking entity. It is run by a consulting class that inserts itself between activist groups and the avenues of power. Those who want to improve conditions for labor, minorities, women, or the environment have to go to this party, hat in hand, and beg for them for promises of change. As a result, those who run the current donkey show demand increasing contributions of cash, political labor, and votes when a simple majority is claimed to be not enough. 

It is helpful to compare the trajectory of the Democrats with the Republican Party, a party that fears its activists and works aggressively from election to election to enact its agenda. Whether they win or not is not the immediate issue. Commentators have rightly noticed the aggressively ideological character of today's GOP, though what they fail to remember is that the party was created as an explicitly ideological project. Of course that free soil, free labor, and free men ideology is in no longer in force among Republicans. Nevertheless, there was a clear political objective at one point and it echoes through to the present day. Today's Republicans have learned from that era. They have a party setup to deliver specific results. 

Know this. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans can point to a specific time and place (1854 Ripon, Wisconsin) when their party was established. They can also explain what led to this event, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But what do Democrats have? A party built on various patronage networks, unifying urban sachems and rural courthouse gangs. It is a party that was founded by Jefferson, or Burr, or maybe Andrew Jackson, or quite possibly Martin Van Buren. It was not even consistently called the Democratic Party during all the times of its apparent founding. 

The Democrats of that era, the Democrats of Will Rogers' day, and Democrats of today have tried to pretend their messy big tent approach to politics is a secret strength that allows everyone to somehow feel represented. It should be increasingly evident this is not working. Creating a big tent in American politics ultimately leads to a sideshow, with figures like Manchin and Sinema gumming up the works. A real party with actual aims would be able to discipline these prima donna types, or better yet make sure they did not feel at home in the Democratic Party to begin with.

As it stands, the Democrats are awakening to see themselves restricted to coastal enclaves, a handful of cities in the interior, and the Black Belt in the South. Former strongholds in the Rio Grande Valley are going red, along with the rural upper Midwest. Appalachia is completely gone and if the Democrats are not careful they might start losing New Jersey in presidential and senatorial races. In the face of these changes, a complete structural reorientation is needed. The party needs to become a new kind of machine that is controlled by working class organizations, mobilizing working class voters across race and gender, to delivers real change to all working class Americans. 

Or the Democrats can continue on their current path. It is certainly easier emailed than done. Crying wolf to fundraise and waiting for the Republicans to screw up so much that it puts the Democrats back into power. Unfortunately this time around, if they continue with this approach they may find themselves joining the Whigs and Antimasons in the graveyard of American politics. Who knows what else they will take down with them when this comes to pass. Maybe a little Free Soil will be there to help ease the journey with Henry Clay Charon.  

 

Part IV: Dear God No

This is the penultimate installment of my series on the Democratic Primary. Previously, I gave an overview of the general field as I see fit, and then proceeded to discuss the general camps the candidates fall into. So far, I’ve withheld my “endorsement” as it were. That’s not to say I don’t have a preferred candidate, I do. However I think it’s important to explain my views, reasoning, and standards before finally saying who I back. It helps to explain the “why” behind my choice. It isn’t about the personality, it isn’t about the optics, and it isn’t about the narrative. It isn’t even about the vague concepts of “electability” or “normalcy.” It’s about the policy I support first and foremost. Okay, the overall direction and structure of the Democratic Party is important too, but that’s tied up in policy as well. What good is it to restructure and redirect the party without an aim to effecting its positions?

Before I explain who I support and why, I want to discuss who should absolutely not get the nomination. There is a cluster of candidates who would be a step backward in nearly every way for the party. The previous essay introduced the concept of the Mountain and the Plain. To recap, visualize a convention hall. Near the front are gatekeepers and defenders of the establishment. In the rear, sitting above the proceedings, are the radicals, which I call the Mountain. In between these two groups is the Plain. The candidates of the Mountain want drastic changes to be made and the candidates in the front want to stop them. The candidates of the Plain want to negotiate between the two. I called the group up front Backset Democrats. You could call them candidates of the Dais as well.

But there is a group of people running who I think can’t even be considered that liberal. They are behind the Dais, if you will extend the metaphor. They are in the shadows of the Convention, refusing to acknowledge the Plain, let alone the Mountain. Their issue isn’t necessarily one of ideology. The trouble is they don’t really have much of one, which means they uphold the dominant thinking of our time without even understanding why they believe the things they do. Money explains a good deal of their positions and why they are men of style and no substance. Yet even the style they affect is one that is dull and uninspiring. Nominating the men who stand in this position would be a disaster down ballot, not to mention for, you know, human civilization.

So, who are these shadowy figures?

John Delaney
Tim Ryan
John Hickenlooper
Joe Biden

This cadre of candidates includes three people with very little shot of winning the nomination and the candidate who is currently at the top of the polls. I know it may seem strange that the most disastrous men running occupy these two extremes of viability. But this is a strange bunch of candidates. They think Trump is an anomaly and the major problems facing this country are matters of rhetoric and civility. The current state of the Republican Party doesn’t register with them and they’ve forgotten what happened during Obama’s presidency. The Rich aren’t to blame for our problems either. These men believe in bootlicking for the ruling class and bootstraps for the rest.

Maybe some of these names can be swapped out with the Backset Democrats. One of the things that makes the Backset a little bit better is that they are younger, more diverse, and occasionally have a new insight or idea. They may be Neoliberals, which at least means they have something “new” to them. The above mentioned men are Metaliberals. Their positions are abstract like metaphysics, and again, they are falling behind the center of the party. Unfortunately thanks Biden, there is an overwhelming amount of funding, press, and endorsements held by this faction.

Why would nominating these candidates be a disaster as I keep saying? Overall, they are out of step with the party faithful in an era where turnout is more important than appealing to some fabled center. They have no vision for combating automation, climate change, and wealth inequality. On all other forms of inequality they seem to be just as clueless. They back the American imperial project wholeheartedly and at home seem to have no issue with the carceral state. Specifically? Let’s start with the first three. John Delaney is the product of gerrymandering in Maryland, and calls himself “a solutions-oriented moderate.” Tim Ryan ran against Nancy Pelosi because he thinks she is too far left. A former aid to Jim Traficant, Ryan is shaky on abortion rights and wants the nation to practice mindfulness to solve its problems. Finally there’s Hickenlooper who is in the pocket of the fracking industry. Oh, and he opposed marijuana legalization, which may or may not have something to do with being in the brewpub business.

These three candidates don’t merit much further discussion. They are polling around 1 percent each at best in the polls. On average, they’re more likely to reach 1 percent together. They are not a threat to Sanders, Warren, Harris, or any of the candidates whose politics seem to deal with the reality of America as it is rather than the misremembered dream of what it once was. That’s why it’s important to focus on Joe Biden.

The former Senator from Delaware and two-term Vice President is currently leading in the polls. He was also leading in all the polls taken before he announced, which was a little presumptuous of the media. It’s hard to say how strong this support is or what accounts for it. It’s safe to say it’s mostly nostalgia at this point, a desire to return to the Obama presidency. Since Joe Biden ran with Obama, it’s easier to see how voters link the two together. Hilary Clinton made appeals to those who missed her husband’s time in power, and Biden is making a similar appeal. Of course, Hillary was always a much stronger candidate on her own than Joe ever was. She did win the popular vote in the 2008 primary, whereas Joe went nowhere in his runs back in 1988 and 2008.

That’s why the high level of support Biden needs to be treated with skepticism. It could very well implode when punctured by the appropriate scandal or screwup on the debate stage. It could also change based on something Trump does. I think it’s highly sensitive to the strength of the economy. There’s an increasing risk of a recession every month we get farther away from the end of the last one. When the economy goes south, Biden career defending financial interests might not look so appealing to the primary electorate.

Then again, nostalgia may carry the day for Joe like it did for Argentinians and Juan Peron in the 1970s. It certainly seems to carry him around very much in his everyday life as well. He seems to pine for a time when a senator could be friends with a segregationist then pal around with lobbyists and fundraisers, without anyone giving him flack for it. We don’t have many previous elections to go by when judging how strong this nostalgia factor is. There have been candidates campaigning on normalcy (Harding and Eisenhower) and candidates who made appeals to a mythic past (Reagan and Trump). But they never represented a previous era of politics so strongly in their person. The closest I can think of it Hillary Clinton in 2008. Her run, in part, represented a return to the glory years of the late 1990s after the tragedy of Dubya.

Yet, even with her run against Obama, she could make a legitimate case that a vote for her was moving forward. If nominated, and then elected, Clinton would’ve been the first female President (a feat that would’ve been no less true if she was elected in 2016 as well). Joe Biden doesn’t have that kind of historical feel behind him. A vote for Biden only means a change in so far as Trump isn’t president. There is no sense of the future about him. He’s all about the past, a walking historical reenactment. He was yesterday’s man in 2008, when he floundered in the primary and was raised from a political dead end by Obama. He’s like LBJ in that sense. Successful in the senate but unable to reach national office on his own, LBJ depended on JFK to give his career the boost it needed to get him into the White House.

Okay, it also depended on Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, Sam Giancana, Fidel Castro, and the Hunt Brothers as well.

Could Biden surprise us all and pull a turn like LBJ? I suppose it’s possible. It’s possible Trump is a secret Marxist accelerationist too (who else has ever made Capitalism look so bad?) People often forget that while he was a standard New Deal Democrat in economics, socially LBJ was still conservative. He watered down Civil Rights legislation in the Senate, when he couldn’t defeat it’s passing outright with other Southern Democrats. Once he became president, LBJ became our most left-wing president. He expanded the New Deal, passed Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation, and opened up immigration. Biden might decide that Washington is worth embracing mass politics.

It would be an impressive turn. Biden was an opponent of desegregating schools via busing. He opposed abortion until the 1990s. He authored several punitive crime bills that disproportionately oppressed communities of colors. Biden even clashed with Elizabeth Warren back in the day over bankruptcy legislation, that made it harder for families to discharge medical debt. His foreign policy record is abysmal too. He voted for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and increasing military budgets. To give credit where it’s due, he authored legislation to fight violence against women (Fight? Combat? Destroy? I wish there was a stronger word I could use that isn’t itself violent). However, he did put in an exemption for backrubs and hair sniffing. Oh yeah, and his treatment of Anita Hill helped put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.

Despite all that he could be the candidate who ends our wars abroad, repeals the Patriot Act, closes Guantanamo Bay, passes healthcare for all, demilitarizes the border, kills Taft-Hartley, brings back Glass-Steagall, recognizes Palestine, opens up full relations with Iran and North Korea, takes us off our carbon addiction, or at least makes progress to all these goals. Then again, I remember when people thought Obama was going to do some version of this as well. Back then, it made sense to project on him. He didn’t have a record. Biden does and that record is bad. Bad for a Democrat even in 2008, bad for the Democratic Party today, and bad for America and the world.

Biden could certainly beat Trump, despite the fact he’s more of a subsidiary than a candidate. However a victory against him isn’t necessarily as guaranteed as people make it out to be. The Republicans will use his record against him too. Now, Trump has done worst than Biden but that doesn’t matter. The party in power (and conservatives by and large) can always be hypocritical. It’s not fair, but it’s true. They’re not the ones trying to change things. Everyone else who is a Democrat, a Liberal, a Progressive, or a Leftist is. As a result, the people hold them to a higher standard. One can’t think of Trump’s crimes and character flaws canceling out concerns about Biden. Rather, Biden’s issues will put a damper on his criticism of Trump. This is especially bad if you’re trying to appeal to voters in the “center” which is Biden’s whole strategy.

It’s this reliance on the center that also makes his nomination problematic. Elections today are determined by turnout and inspiring people to vote. Clinton’s loss in 2016 is more about the collapse of the Obama coalition since 2008, than any other factor. She failed to boost Democratic turnout and as a result fell short of victory. Now, if we didn’t have an Electoral College she would be president. It’s true her numbers in 2016 roughly matched Obama’s in 2012. But you have to play by the rules of the elections we have, not the rules you want (you wouldn’t run for Prime Minister of America, would you?)

Now, Biden could still win with this strategy. There’s another important issue with it though. It will impact down ballot races, where motivating the base is especially vital. The Democrats need to hold the House, win the Senate, and capture state houses and governorships. Otherwise, any attempt to pass legislation or appoint judges is dead in the water. And no, Republicans won’t change after Trump is defeated. Remember how we thought that happened after McCain lost in 2008? Or Romney in 2012? It didn’t happen then, and it won’t happen after 2020. The Democrats need an inspiring candidate who will bring out voters loyal to the party in all races. Trying to win over moderate Republicans means only that you end up with more divided government. They will vote against Trump and for every reactionary ghoul in other races.

Once in office, Biden will almost certainly side with capital against labor, and with growth against the environment. Joe Biden thinks he can compromise with Mitch McConnell over Supreme Court judges and the Planet Earth over Climate Change, I don’t know which is more delusional. As a result, he will burn all bridges of working-class support leading him and the Democratic Party vulnerable as the crises of late stage capitalism literally heat up. A Biden victory in 2020 most likely means another GOP sweep in 2022, and the possibility of a competent fascist getting elected in 2024. Maybe it’ll be an Ivanka Trump/Stephen Miller ticket, or Tom Cotton/Steve Bannon.

The Route of the Next Women's March on DC

Hopefully, we won't have to have another march like the one yesterday ever again. Nevertheless I think we need to be prepared for next time. While there was a planned route, it quickly broke down. It was for the best of reasons though, namely that so many people showed up! Inspiring as that may be, I doubt we'll have the freedom to organize ourselves and spread out peacefully under the noses of the authorities in the future.

Now I have no intention of mansplaining here, this is just an idea for the route of the next possible march to take. I think we should start at L'Enfant Plaza and from there head north. Just as a baby was born there once, so shall the next march be born there as well:

This will take the march through the Mall and next to all the important museums. Tourists won't be able to avoid us. After politicians, I think they're the next most important group to reach out to. Then at H Street we will branch off into two groups. Going any farther north will be trouble because there won't be enough space and amenities to support the protest:

One group will head east and curl around Union Station and end near the Capitol grounds to make our case heard to the legislative and judicial branches:

However, that will still leave the executive branch to reach out to, and reach out we will! How? By walking over to 17th Street, then going down past the White House to occupy the space between it and the Washington Monument:

So the next Women's March on DC will look something like this:

Wikipedia's diagram is insufficiently pink

Louis H. Berman of Annapolis, Maryland Is an Idiot

Sometimes I read a letter to the editor at the Washington Post and suffer a minor attack of apoplexy. Unfortunately since I cannot go to a doctor for a cure and the apothecaries are all closed, I must turn to the next best substitute for leeches: a blog post. Louis H. Berman's letter here, buried away in the paper like a hateful jewel, is today's culprit. In a few spare paragraphs, Mr. Berman asserts the following about what's wrong with the Millennial Generation and while he spouts nonsense, in the process he reveals what is most wrong with the United States: namely that we have become a country willing to believe the most absurd and malicious lies about our fellow Americans. In sum, this is Mr. Berman's "argument:" 

1) Millennials are spoiled and lazy 
2) This is the fault of the Baby Boomers 
3) However, the reason for high unemployment is still not their fault.  Even though they were not in charge of Wall Street when it wrecked the economy, blame falls on the Millennials instead.
4) There are plenty of jobs for Millennials but they are too spoiled to find one. 
5) Millennials are supposed to "learn something" from their parents (who spoiled them in the first place) about what being in a real workplace means. 

I think Mr. Berman needs to go back and actually read the classifieds and want-ads some time. Sure there are plenty of jobs, but many require several years of experience and a decent portion of what do not are unpaid. Try looking for entry-level work Mr. Berman as I have, for multiple companies, in several fields, in different cities. It might be better than just talking out of your ass to tell the damn kids to get off your lawn. Now, you may claim that the Millennials are just too spoiled to take minimum wage, which was supposedly good enough for the folks of your generation. Remember that minimum wage was good enough for all of you because it was higher. A minimum wage job today pays less now when adjusted for inflation. Also, you may not know this because higher education used to cost a lot less, but many Millennials have college debts and need to earn money so that they can pay them off, debts they incurred in the first place so that they might not have to work for minimum wage all their lives.

I'm going to be generous Mr. Berman and assume you are not being motivated by spite, but rather an adherence to the just-world fallacy. In your view, unemployment is high because people are lazy and spoiled, especially young people. I hate to break it to you (who am I kidding, I enjoying enlightening you), but there are not enough jobs to go around. Roughly speaking, there are 3.5 unemployed people per each of the much vaunted job postings you discussed. No matter how many skilled people apply for a position, they are not all going to get it in this economy. The same applies even if they all decide to take minimum wage jobs. Have you been following the news? 44% of minimum-wage workers have either attended or graduated from college. I think we can safely assume they are not waiting out for their dream job. Their dream job is having a job. Mr. Berman, these attacks on a generation are a red herring, especially when you consider long-term unemployment rates among the Baby Boomers. But I guess they must be lazy and spoiled too, because of how the GI Generation raised them. 

This economy sucks. Period. Blaming the unemployed does nothing except possibly make you feel like unemployment could never happen to you. You seem to view joblessness as something that only exists for other people who must have done something wrong. Mr. Berman, this is a fallacy and an insult to the millions of formerly hardworking Americans who have been laid off in the past few years, and all the Americans of all ages, races, creeds, and classes who want desperately to work. Many of us loved our jobs before we lost them. Many of us have taken what we could find in the interim, only to lose those jobs as well. Many of us are the victims of discriminatory hiring practices that make it difficult for the unemployment to get work. Many of us graduated in the middle of a terrible market and could never get a leg up. Many of us have put having families on hold. Many of us have put owning a house on hold. Many of us avoid seeing our friends and family out of poverty and shame. Many of us go to bed every night praying for either a miracle or to be allowed to die in our sleep. 

And here Mr. Berman, is where I am going to engage in the same kind of attacks that you have, employing (see what I did there?) both the ad hominem and the gross generalization. Now, I am not doing this because it helps my argument, but because it is fun. You sir, are a dumb asshole. Unfortunately, you are not alone. The audiences of the GOP debates were filled with your ilk. You do not have any facts to back your assertions up, relying instead on worn-out narratives that have been applied to every previous generation. Despite setting yourself up as some sort of expert, you offer no real solutions to the problems you decry either. You lack any long term vision and fail to grasp the structural issues we are mired in. On top of this, you are callous. You are mean. You are judgmental even though your previous ignorance shows you have no right to claim any sort of capacity for judgment. 

Now if you were smart and an asshole, you would at least have enough self-interest to be worried about the true causes behind the problem of persistent unemployment because it affects you. Instead of spouting off against the usual suspects guilty of the usual sins, you would have some intellectual curiosity about several real solutions. If you were dumb and kind you might not grasp the nuances of the situation, but you would at least have nice things to say to those who are suffering. Of course, it would be best if you were both smart and kind, but I am willing to settle for the other two options if it keeps you from writing another letter to the editor at the Washington Post ever again. 

Don't Hide the Madness

My Mother once asked me what the definition of a "tool" was. She wasn't talking about hammers and levers, but the use of the word to describe a person. At the time I had trouble explaining it to her, but recent events have given me plenty to show her what a tool is even if I can't explicitly tell her.

Here is example #1: The Man In The White Shirt

Example #2: The Grown Man In The Costume

Example #3: The Man Defending A Lack Of Philanthropy By Claiming That A Billionaire "Gave" Us All A Good Time.

Example #4: These people (also a good example of false consciousness) 

On a completely unrelated note, I have supplied my intellectual labors and creative endeavors for free to Catapult to Mars and The Plebian Rag.