There was some discussion at the tail-end of the wee-hours thread about how the efforts to rebuild the Democratic Party are going so far. The Perez-Sanders unity roadshow is widely seen as a flop since there hasn’t been a whole lotta…unity. But was the purpose to display unity or try to get there by airing differences?
I dunno. As I mentioned in that thread, Perez has successfully run large, focused organizations, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. As for the next phase, rebuilding, Kay said something in that thread that resonated with me:
I haven’t witnessed this finely-tuned Democratic machine that effectively excludes progressive candidates and slots in centrist candidates. It is NOTHING like that. In some ways I wish it were like that because that’s a defined problem that could be fixed or changed.
I have been involved with House candidates ranging from a former minister who was anti-abortion to an out and out labor candidate- he was basically “the candidate the Steelworkers gave us”. I didn’t discern the slightest bit of difference in how these two people were “supported” by the “national Party”. I put “national Party” in quotes because I feel like it’s almost an exaggeration to give them that much influence in these races.
It doesn’t matter because as I said I’m not in Bernie’s “movement” and even if I were I hate visioning sessions, but looking at it from the outside I think it operates from a flawed assumption- that The Problem is a command and control centrist Democratic Party. I have never seen evidence of this coordinated effort to hold down progressives. I don’t think it exists. They’re organized around a problem that isn’t the problem, doesn’t exist. For some reason Bernie people LIKE this problem, this is the one they want to solve, but you don’t get to settle on the problem you want to have and then pretend it’s the central issue and solve that.
It’s easy for Perez to accommodate them on the problem they’re presenting him with because it doesn’t exist so he doesn’t have to change anything.
Kay’s description of how the party functions tracks with my experience as an extremely insignificant local-level party member. I know some of y’all are meeting-attending Democrats as well. What have you seen on the ground?
Anyhoo, we need to figure this shit out, and fast. Something valued commenter Kindness said in that thread rang true to me as well:
As a nation I propose we don’t do what Maine did twice in electing LaPage.
Yep. I’ll add Florida’s example to the mix as well since this purplish state twice elected ambulatory dildo / obvious crook Rick Scott with less than 50% of the vote total. We’ve got to be up to the job — us, not some vague, faceless “them.”