The Cost of Defeating Trump at All Costs

 

Guest Blogging: Drayton Aldridge

Around this time last year, the Democratic Party was in the midst of a heated debate over the direction the party needed to take to defeat Donald Trump and move the country forward. Early on, it was an exciting primary campaign defined by ideas. Bernie Sanders appealed to young and working-class voters with a bold agenda centered around economic, social, and environmental justice. Elizabeth Warren released a string of proposals that balanced progressive ideals with pragmatic solutions. Andrew Yang built a small but devoted following around his Freedom Dividend, a proposal to ease economic anxiety and spur innovation by giving every American $1,000 a month. And it wasn’t just the anti-establishment wing of the party offering big ideas. Democratic stalwarts like Jay Inslee and Julian Castro also got in on the fun with ambitious proposals on the environment and immigration.  

 

In the end, however, this campaign was never going to be about big ideas or any ideas at all. With a deranged psychopath occupying the White House and terrorizing blue America with every tweet, many Democratic voters simply were not interested in debating the intricacies of healthcare or tax policy, much less bringing about a political revolution. They wanted one thing and one thing only: to defeat Donald Trump at all costs.

 

Joe Biden decided to seek the presidency in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He promised to restore character and decency to the White House and heal the country after four years of bitter division. He offered Democrats a politically moderate, demographically low-risk (i.e., older white male) candidacy bolstered by strong poll numbers against Trump and the good will engendered by eight years as Barack Obama’s right-hand man. Other candidates had more buzz, more inspiring platforms, and stronger debate performances, but the Biden campaign bet correctly that most Democratic voters would forgive all of this if he could convince them of his electability. Biden’s nomination was not a foregone conclusion, and for a few weeks in February of 2020 it looked as if Democrats might get behind the far more revolutionary candidacy of Bernie Sanders. But by early March the party faithful had coalesced around Biden and before long his nomination was assured.

 

Democrats decided on a candidate but they never decided what kind of party they wanted to be. The big ideas were shelved and the soul-searching was postponed indefinitely. Instead, they focused their efforts on the singularly important task of defeating Donald Trump. To Biden’s tremendous credit, he delivered. Though the margin was considerably closer than the blue team had hoped for, Biden rode his message of character and unity to an electoral college victory. But this message came at a cost.

 

At the core of Joe Biden’s campaign was the idea that Donald Trump is an aberration from the great bipartisan tradition of American politics. This message implicitly cast Trump as separate from other Republicans and made those Republicans out to be decent enough people. Biden reinforced this message by playing up his own unique ability to work with political adversaries such as Mitch McConnell. Again this painted an unhelpful picture of Republicans as statesmen willing to compromise for the good of the country. The narrative worked well enough for Biden’s prospects but at the cost of letting the most dangerous Republican Party in American history off the hook. With messaging like this, it’s little wonder so many Americans voted for divided government.  

 

Joe Biden’s campaign did little to lift the Democrats down ballot, but the Democratic Party didn’t do much to help itself either. In what should have been an all-hands-on-deck year of record voter registration and get out the vote efforts, the party significantly pulled back its in-person voter outreach because it didn’t want to confuse its messaging on Covid-19. Instead, the party confused its messaging on whether it has any interest in winning elections. The party failed to articulate a meaningful agenda aside from being anti-Trump, and it failed to take Republicans to task for their damning record of treachery, corruption, and failure. Instead, in this most momentous of American elections, Senate and House candidates ran on such insultingly vacuous ideas as “access” to healthcare and “following the science” on climate change. Most of them lost, and they deserved to lose.  

 

There must be a better way. Surely the Democrats have the capacity to defeat a historically disastrous Republican Party all the way down the ballot while also championing a popular humanitarian agenda. If not it’s going to be a long and agonizing slide into the abyss. I’m not sure how many more of these victories the Democratic Party can take. 

 

Maybe the Graveyard Is Whistling Past Us

I shouldn't write anything until I see results tonight from 14 states. I shouldn't. I won't. I will.

The political party to which I belong is so goddamn fearful of the threatened blossoming of its own purported values that it is getting itself ready and psyched up to snatch the presidential nomination from Bernie Sanders, if it should come to that.

I posted results from a poll that showed a fear of "socialism" ranking higher than the fear of death among a significant portion of Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964. The very possibility of either a President Sanders or a President Warren (either!) rattles their timbers, though they are themselves prime beneficiaries of the very socialism they fear. The logic of that shivers my timbers.

Is there a psychologist in the house? I also think the Democratic leadership -- office-holders, Super Delegates et al. -- are mainly fearful of what it might mean to them personally if a popular revolt broke out in Democratic ranks for structural change to the levers of power -- scattering the money-changers and driving them from the temple. Oh my Gawd! Democratic pharisees are kind of in league with the money-changers, and get their money from them, but how to turn back a revolt from below? Oh, yeah. The pusher for change must be a "socialist." A dreaded socialist. Actually, probably a Commie.

Why, what would happen, O my brethren, if equality actually broke out? Expensive furniture thrown from high windows, torches in the street, hot tar and a big basket of feathers? Bankers and corrupt corporations, ridden out on rails?

It's a turnoff, the fear of the Democratic establishment amplified by cable TV (which is a calvacade of corporations, after all). It's not entirely that Joe is old and seems it. It's that he's backward (or "moderate," if you insist). Joe Biden's actual promise is to take us back in time to an Obama/Biden "decent" era, which was actually to me the embodiment of a hesitant, good-ish gradualism that took pains not to piss off Wall Street. That ain't the restoration to me.

Fear of socialism among the age group most set to receive its benefits through Social Security and Medicare -- the blessings of help for the sometime helpless, delivered via social contract which required -- or should require -- the cooperation of the rich -- Failure to recognize the irony amounts to political malfeasance. I'm embarrassed for my immature juniors, the Boomers, and for the Democratic establishment.

Fat Cats Are Purring This Morning

Merry Christmas, Wall Street!

You rolled the president again, got rid of a part of Dodd-Frank in the "cromnibus" so you can once again take huge risks on derivatives and get a guaranteed government bailout when everything goes south. Sweet!

You bet that Virginia Foxx voted for The Omnibus All-the-Crap-You-Can-Eat Budget Bill. She does not buck the establishment. The rest of the Republicans in the North Carolina delegation voted "yes" too, except for Walter Jones (who does buck the establishment, regularly) and Mark Meadows, the tea-bagger from the NC-11.

Also voting "yes"-- and it's a puzzlement -- was Democrat David Price. The other three Democrats from North Carolina -- Alma Adams, G.K. Butterfield, and even Mike McIntyre -- voted "no." Since the Omnibus Crap Fest needed 218 votes and barely got 219, we've decided to blame everything on David Price. Or Virginia Foxx. Yeah, Foxx is better! The wicked step-mother of woe.

Maybe Price got one of those calls from President Obama last night before the vote. The president was "whipping" Democrats to get them to vote yes, according to Rep. Maxine Waters, along with J.P. Morgan's chief executive Jamie Dimon, who was also whipping Democrats. When it comes to Wall Street, you can successfully whip some Democrats with wet noodles, let alone with CEO Jamie Dimon.

The Democrat who comes out of this colossal cluster-f**k with her integrity intact is Elizabeth Warren, who highlighted what was transpiring and tried to rally the troops. Of course, the Senate will pass this bilge later today over her objections, but as a voice for the people, Warren's standing is only enhanced.

Can These Bones Live? (Ezekiel 37:3)

Joseph Palermo, a history prof, offers an indictment of sorts of the contemporary national Democratic Party (which I certainly endorse) and a prophecy going forward if things don't change (hat tip: GC):

Right now we are facing one of the worst configurations of unchecked corporate power, militarism, market fundamentalism, and environmental crisis than at any time in our history, and the messaging coming from congressional Democrats right now appears to be that becoming Republican-Lite is the smart path forward.

Palermo's forecast of what the new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, combined with the old Republican majority in the U.S. House, will attempt come January seems pretty likely:

The Republican-controlled 114th Congress will attempt to privatize everything from the U.S. Postal Service to Social Security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his associates will try to gut every social program that benefits working people from Food Stamps to Medicaid. They’ll snuff out sustainable energy investments and plow ahead with expanding fossil fuels. They’ll figure out new ways to sell old wars. They’ll push austerity for anyone who can’t afford to attend a $30,000-a-plate fundraiser. They’ll push “free trade” deals that outsource jobs while leaving American workers holding the bag. They’ll slash unemployment insurance and other “entitlements.” And they’ll ensure that our economy continues to work for the benefit of the richest 1 percent.

Meanwhile, what does (and did) the Democratic power players in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac do, the Claire McCaskills, the Mary Landrieus, the Kay Hagans?

Unlike the Republicans, Democratic politicians seem to always neglect the care and feeding of their own base. They’re quick to turn against any organized movement from the Left – be it Occupy Wall Street, the World Climate Movement, teachers’ unions, students’ organizations, environmentalists, or the protesters acting in solidarity with the African-American community in Ferguson, Missouri – yet all the while they expect to win their votes.

Which brings Palermo and us to 2016 and the prospects of Hillary at the top of the ticket:

Unless Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders jumps into the Democratic primaries and caucuses and give the party’s base something to vote for, the Democratic constituencies will limp into 2016 just as uninspired as they were 2014. The Republicans’ cynical structural advantages they’ve institutionalized in recent years — infinite access to dark money, gerrymandered districts, voter suppression of minorities and young people – will stand rewarded and putting the brakes on the incessant move toward corporate oligarchy in this country will be even harder to fight back against.

It may be slightly different in North Carolina, with a profoundly disappointing first-term Republican governor running against a power-house Democrat who does not yet appear afraid of his own shadow, unlike those national party types.

Nearer, Our Wall Street, To Thee

Our own dyspepsia with the Obama administration grew after January 2009 the closer to Wall Street the president cozied up. The damping down of economic populism throughout the Democratic Party, from the top down, is at least partly to blame for the following recent developments: the electoral losses in 2010 and 2014, the blossoming of the Tea Party, and the Occupy Wall Street (and everywhere else) movement. Some of us believe that the loss of our populist edge is largely to blame for those displays of discontent.

Do you hear the loud smacking of lips coming from the canyons of Wall Street at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy? Yes, it's drowning out progressive and populist groans at the thought of even more sell-outs to the bankers and the other "lords of the universe."

That's why the Elizabeth Warren talk isn't going away. She looks very much like the best potential candidate, with plenty of economic smarts and a toughness of spirit. Hillary is stale bread compared to Elizabeth.

Jim Himes

Now comes news that the leading contender to become chief Democratic campaign operative, candidate recruiter, and fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is a former Goldman Sachs vice president and hedge fund suckup, Jim Himes of Greenwich, Conn. Nancy Pelosi gets to make the appointment.

Robert Kuttner asks, rhetorically, "So the last thing Democrats need going forward is an even closer affinity with Wall Street, right?"

Goddamn it all to hell if this comes to pass. The love of money is the root of all evil. I learned that in Sunday School. If the Democratic Party wants to become fully irrelevant, or merely the semi-official handmaiden to the billionaires (which is essentially what it's been for the last six years), then by all means, Nancy, signal your abandonment of the people by the appointment of Jim Himes as head of the DCCC.

"Money Equals Speech" -- So There!

Apparently, it takes a public clown to highlight the idiocy and corruption of our political process, the Citizens United, corporations-are-people, money-is-speech rabbit hole that our democracy disappeared down some time ago.

Thank Gawd Stephen Colbert is willing to go where no actual politician will tread (except for Elizabeth Warren!).