Not sure how Democrats recover from this thing no one without severe internet brain damage is aware of.
— DSA DNC Caucus (@agraybee) July 13, 2019
Chakrabarti and Trump both think they’ll benefit from a Democratic civil war
— Doremus Jessup (@DoremusJ) July 14, 2019
Since one of my self-imposed duties around here is finding the positive note… I did not foresee the Squatter-in-Chief and the Cosplay Socialists teaming up to convince wavering (non-‘base’) Republicans and ‘independents’ that Nancy Pelosi is Snake Plissken: A stone-cold killer, and yet their only real defense against the ravening hordes from urban hellholes like the Bronx, Detroit, Roxbury, and Minneapolis…
As CoS to @AOC, Saikat Chakrabarti is a new type: the movement chief of staff. Your boss is invested with the hopes of millions of Twitter followers, and your job involves both scheduling for the next week and planning for the ages. @Saikatc @aoc https://t.co/Nyjb8NKOar
— David Montgomery (@dmontyjr) July 10, 2019
I personally suspect this slobbery beat-sweetner first originated in the Sanders’ campaign sagging poll numbers. Chakrabarti and his running buddies started the “Justice Dems” when it became obvious that Bernie would release control of “Our Revolution” approximately six weeks after his death (and that’s assuming Jane can’t find a way to continue the grift work as a memorial to the fallen martyr). They’re not Democrats and they’re not interested in actual grubby politics — it’s all about Move Fast, Break Stuff, (personal) Profit!
He got lucky when he ‘discovered’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — she was, as I remember it, the only one of last cycle’s 17 or 18 Democrat-challenging JD candidates who actually won. But if she’s half as smart as she seems to be, she’ll find a quiet way to get this guy out of her staff offices, because a Chief of Staff who considers himself the starmaker / puppeteer for somebody’s kid sister is hardly an asset:
… In the spring of 2016 — even before Sanders conceded the primary race — Chakrabarti, Exley and other Sanders organizers, including Alexandra Rojas and Corbin Trent, were thinking of next steps for the movement. To enact change, they reasoned, it was vital to transform Congress. They formed a group called Brand New Congress with the mission to recruit hundreds of community leaders and working-class candidates to run on a vision of getting corporate money out of politics, tackling climate change, transforming the economy, providing health care for all, standing for racial justice and stemming mass incarceration. They sifted through more than 10,000 nominations to find the best recruits. “Our biggest criteria was, basically, find someone who had a chance to sell out and didn’t,” Chakrabarti says.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was then a bartender from the Bronx, was nominated by her brother. It was Isra Allison, another member of Brand New Congress, not Chakrabarti, who had a key initial recruiting interview with her. But Chakrabarti drove the overall effort… Nasim Thompson, who also helped recruit candidates, told me: “It was clear from the very beginning that the ship was moving with his guidance. … He was so focused that it naturally created a gravitational pull. … He was sort of relentless in that, and simultaneously just so pleasant, it was shocking. Almost not human. I used to say, ‘How do you stay so Zen?’ ”…
After she was elected, Ocasio-Cortez said in a video to recruit a new crop of Justice Democrats: “I’ve literally been movement-first and accountable to social movements the entire time I’ve been running for office.” The office Chakrabarti manages in the Cannon Building operates in that spirit. “We think of ourselves as an office that’s … a component to a larger infrastructure,” he says. “Literally, our mission statement in the office talks about what do we, as a movement, want to do in the long run, and that’s how we set our goals.” A draft of the mission statement brainstormed at a staff retreat begins: “To boldly and decisively spur a people-led movement for social, racial, environmental and economic justice.”…
That’s all very well, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, but who’s handling your Chief-of-Staff duties?
I don’t think Chakrabarti views himself as a “staff guy”. He’s a founder of Justice Democrats. AOC and Omar were recruited by JD. I think on a deep level he thinks AOC works for *him*.
Sooner or later she’ll have to decide if she agrees.
— Andrew S. (@shoutingboy) July 14, 2019
Guy wants to raise his profile by throwing rocks, he’s gonna get some return fire…
Rep. Terri Sewell, New Dems vice chair, has tried several times to reach AOC about her chief of staff's tweets. Her calls have not been returned, Rep. Derek Kilmer told members during a meeting in Pelosi's office last night.
W/ @sarahnferrishttps://t.co/ldLdKPFsKg
— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) July 11, 2019
There should be calls for @AOC to fire Saikat Chakrabarti. Seriously, as Chief of Staff he put AOC in a bad spot. I cannot imagine too many COSs surviving this. This is bad. https://t.co/JKPzxNTqT2
— Hercules Mulligan (@johnvmoore) July 11, 2019
Justice Democrats: the group founded by Cenk Uygur that uses non-Black PoC as window dressing as it attacks Obama's legacy and builds a war chest to primary Black politicians. https://t.co/yjGBB3AVpO
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) July 12, 2019
Engineered the electoral strategy that won back a Democratic majority in the House. https://t.co/b8IfDKRAfc
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) July 13, 2019
It’s actually one asshole who’s throwing a hissy fit and making a bunch of blue checks lose their shit, the party is not being “torn apart.” https://t.co/oXQUJL1yQm
— DSA DNC Caucus (@agraybee) July 13, 2019
Progressives have lost repeatedly to Pelosi. The face of the D wave is, in reality, the freshman class from Virginia, AOC won a safe D seat running left of an establishment opponent. @RepSpanberger won Eric Cantor's old seat. So who should we really be listening to?
— David B. Larter (@DavidLarter) July 14, 2019
What AOC is really good at is Twitter, and getting lots of followers by pwning the conservatives. And I think we learned with Trump not to discount that. But important not to overstate it either.
— David B. Larter (@DavidLarter) July 14, 2019
Full disclosure: First I ever heard about Chakrabarti was during the midcycle primaries, when he badmouthed Sharice Davids as ‘not a real progressive’ and airlifted some random white dude into Kansas to run (unsuccessfully) against her. In my defense, Saikat’s still carrying a grudge about Kansas, too…
@AOC needs to either relieve @saikatc of his duties or he needs to resign.
His characterization of Sharice Davids, one of the first Native American Women to be elected to Congress, as an old Jim Crow era Southern Democrat in this thread is unacceptable. #ResignSaikat https://t.co/jkuzcBYfpF pic.twitter.com/Q5QSIyLrRj
— ???????????? ???? ?????????????? (@__WeStandUnited) July 12, 2019
NotMax
Peyton Place on the Potomac, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: To be sure. Meanwhile, I hope she kicks his ass to the curb.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
Mary G
He’s a ratfucker Bernie Bro. AOC seems too smart to put up with him for long. I notice she has continued to put down Republicans on Twitter, but maintained radio silence on this guy all weekend.
sukabi
@Mary G: her silence on that subject is probably a positive sign that she’s looking for a graceful way to cut him loose without him going scorched earth on her and others.
Brachiator
Tough spot to be in, but the Democrats’ enemy is, and always will be, Trump and the GOP. Forcing AOC to bend the knee over trivial bullshit will make Beltway asswipes feel better, but accomplish nothing.
And I support Pelosi, but if you ain’t impeaching Trump, don’t try to distract me with whining about how AOC needs to oust her CoS.
Kdaug
Yeaahhh
?BillinGlendaleCA
On a lighter note…a fellow photographer wanted me to join him on a trip to UCLA for some IR shooting(I know the place pretty well). I took a few pictures…Royce Hall and Kerkhoff Hall.
Baud
Glad to see push back against progressives when they cross the line. We didn’t really have this is 2016, and it hurt us.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Are you spreading misinformation or do you have a cite to Pelosi demanding he be fired? Last I saw, she said it was up to AOC.
gene108
Should’ve fired him for the snarky ass comment about the Green New Deal banning airplanes and cars has given the Republicans endless fodder to demonize the Green New Deal.
He is a toxic asshat.
Syphonblue
Boy this is some garbage. Abigail Spanberger, who voted against Pelosi as Speaker and against gun control measures is absolutely NOT who the party should be listening to. Enough with the moderate blue dog Dem assholes. Every single time we try to make ourselves out to be Republican-lite, we get creamed. It happened in 2010, 2012, and 2014 when Dems ran away from Obama and the ACA and other accomplishments as fast as they could. If they think that’s what caused them to win the House in 2018, they’re morons. It was more about the utter hatred of the orange creamsicle in the White House than anything else, and his pushing suburban white women and anyway with a moral compass away.
CarolDuhart2
Yes, it was the hatred of the creamsicle, but it was health care that was the foundation It was the SALT deductions. It was fear that than all-Republican delegation would shut down Medicare and Medicaid, start another war, and do other crazy shit. People knew that all a Democratic House could really do was be a brake of sorts in that no new bad stuff could get through. And believe it or not that’s happened despite the keening of some people here. Trump may bellow about war, but he’s not getting anywhere with that.
Can you imagine what would be happening without the Dem house to provide at least some transparancy? Mueller would have not even had a chance to speak. The atrocities at the border wouldn’t even have been known. Maybe there would have been another round of meaningless Hillary investigations. Who knows what awful laws might have been passed?
And there’s no sign that suburban white people have been pushed away right not. Impeachment has 39% support so far, and it’s July with few voters really paying attention. This thing takes time to get going anyway, and even though it may look like no action to those of us in the internet bubble, there are things going on none-the-less.
The law, which counts, is slower than network television, takes longer than commericials, and is necessary if we are to hold these people finally to account in the real world.
cs
I understand impeachment and investigations are a slow process. But, what I don’t understand is why Pelosi goes out of her way to be discouraging about it. All that does is demoralize the base while encouraging Trump. It offers zero benefits and, for a politician of her high caliber, it’s just a pointless move. At first I thought it was some 4D chess move on her part. But in the face of scandals, rapidly rising number of allegations, and the concentration camps, this chess move just seems weak.
Also don’t understand why she’s often going out of her way to insult the progressive Democrats, especially the four in the House. It wasn’t the progressive wing that tried to keep her out of the Speaker’s seat. AOC was an early and vocal supporter of Pelosi in that regard. Again, seems like a very weak move. All it does is increase the “dems in disarray” crap, demoralizes a portion of the party base, and increases the number of circular firing squads. Considering how the party badly needs high youth turnout, and the youth are largely progressive, these insults are not very useful or well-thought out.
Kirk Spencer
@cs: Nancy keeps saying not yet, not never. Since in the end impeachment is political, I think she’s trying to avoid a Clinton bounce when (as likely) McConnell neuters the trial and Trump doesn’t let removed. I also think an active process done while voters are paying attention will give Democratic challengers stronger positions
As to the slamming, I keep noticing who reports these and how often it’s either a paraphrase or a partial quote. Makes me wonder if maybe there isn’t a bit of rodent copulation in progress.
Another Scott
@Syphonblue: You’re aware, I’m sure, that there are 435 House districts and that it’s a big country. AOC would have no chance of winning the Virginia 7th. Spanberger did (50.3:48.4:1.2).
We need every Democrat we can get. We don’t need purity tests. Purity kills.
Cheers,
Scott.
Searcher
I don’t know that I expect AOC to act on the public outcry.
A solid 30, 40% of AOC’s entire brand is people getting outraged and publicly telling her to do things and her telling them to pound sand. It’s worked out for her because most of the people trying to tell her what to do are idiots and/or white supremacists, but I have no idea if she has stood firm because she has good sense or because she’s just contrarian.
So I have no idea if, should there be outcry telling her to do something smart, if she’ll be all “yeah that makes sense” or if she’ll double down and stand her ground.
Richard Guhl
@Syphonblue:
One thing the GOP understands perfectly well is that before you can accomplish anything, you need to gain power. When Nancy Pelosi was asked about the Democratic candidates running who said they wouldn’t vote for her to be Speaker, replied, “Just win.”
Personally, I find Dems-in-disarray media narratives tiresome. The vast majority of voters don’t care. The squabbling of renegades will soon be forgotten.
As for why Democrats lost in 2010, 2012, and 2014, two things were at play —
1). The unemployment numbers were horrible. Even though the fault for the Great Recession was all on W and the GOP, all the pain stuck on Obama and the Democrats;
2). Historically, two things happen to Progressive administrations. If they accomplish their goals, the opposition is enraged, so they lose the midterms, or, if they fail to accomplish their goals, their supporters shrink, so they lose the midterms.
Don K
@Another Scott:
Right. The road to the majority was paved with wins in places like VA-7, MI-8, MI-11, NJ-11, and NJ-3, which are not at all lefty, and where center-left Dems are the best we can hope for (and are, in any event, light years better than whatever turds the GOP toilets coughed up). Look, I dearly love AOC, Pressley, Omar, and Tlaib, but theirs are all lefty urban districts that were in Dem hands no matter what, and it’s just a matter of how far left you can go in winning the primary.
Haley Stevens (MI-11) and Elissa Slotkin (MI-8) aren’t going to be full-bore leftists, but then full-bore leftists never would have won those upper-income suburban and exurban districts in the first place (I’ve lived in two different places in MI-11, so I think I know whereof I speak). Any Dem House majority is necessarily going to be ideologically diverse, and we’ll just have to accept that fact rather than reject center-left members for insufficient purity.
kd bart
@Don K: I live in Georgia-6. The same applies here.
Shalimar
@Mary G: I agree. Chakrabarti is a shit-stirrer. He doesn’t want Democrats in power. There is more attention and personal profit being in the minority fighting the evil machine. He doesn’t even seem to care which evil machine he is fighting. Trump and Pelosi are equally wrong.
Ocasio-Cortez has shown herself to be a much smarter and more effective politician in her short time in the spotlight. The asshat is not good for her politically. She is bigger than his narrow brand.
SWMBO
This is an interesting take on why Pelosi is cautious about impeachment.
https://twitter.com/joshHuder/status/1134066502372667393
Also as efg would say, it took two years to get Nixon to resign. It takes time to build a consensus over something this big. And anyway, fuckem.
Gelfling 545
I don’t know a lot about Davids but what I see of her on the social media is a congressperson moving methodically through her district, meeting with quite an array of groups and individuals and beefing up constituent services. That’s how you get re-elected. She has essentially avoided the bomb throwing as far as I can tell and is focused on her district. “I’ve met her” and “She helped me solve my problem” are good vote getters.
kindness
Bernie’s Henchmen don’t have we liberals best notions at heart. They have their own.
I’m less offended in the ‘we want to remake the party in our image’ toddler thinking than I am of the money spigots they have pointed at themselves with their contracts. They are just they other side of the coin from the Tea Party grifters.
Lymie
All this fuss about a CoS. If he is helping AOC change the conversation, good. Let him say the more extreme things and draw fire, then let the message sink in. The only damage is happening because pundits are pearl clutching, it’s not real or long lasting.
Go back to attacking K-A Co.
kindness
@Lymie: – with all due respect tweeting that other elected Democrats are southern racists is wrong enough to demand his firing.
Your notions of how Democrats can present themselves as a unified force kinda suck.
Brachiator
@Baud:
What? I never meant to suggest that Pelosi was demanding that the guy be fired. This entire story is minor Beltway gossip. There are bigger fish that need catching.
L85NJGT
The issue becomes constituent services. If they’re just running a national agit-prop shop, and ignoring the district, she’ll get primaried out.
One seat. Bloomberg’s PAC targeted 24 and won 21 – their key metric was educational attainment. That is Pelosi’s majority. Anyone insisting otherwise is probably not a good faith actor.
goblue72
This is some Grade A level Boomer white lady sneering.
Keep digging that hole, Boomers, keep digging that hole.
Gretchen
@Gelfling 545: This. We elected Sharice over an R who refused to hold town halls or meet with constituents. She is making sure not to repeat that mistake. There are a bunch of people on Twitter saying she’s a secret R advancing Trump’s agenda, all because she voted with the rest of the caucus, except for the squad, on immigration funding. These guys are sure that if people just have the chance to vote for a « real progressive » in Kansas, they would, even though the Bernie-bros tried that experiment and lost to Sharice. And AOC was arrogant enough to come here and tell us to vote against Sharice before she’d even won her own race. Bernie came too. I hope she wakes up out of the Bernie koolaid.
sherparick
I know this is just going to inflame the one side of this, but I am going to link to Erik Loomis, at LG&M, about what a fiasco the last two weeks have been for the Democrats and gift for Trump and the White Supremacist & Plutocrat Party, and that sadly, Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team and aides are mostly to blame. Chakrabarti is no saint, but first, he did not call out Congresswoman Davis by name and had already deleted the offending tweet when the House Democratic Leadership twitter account when full Trump on him. The result, as Professor Loomis who is as far from a Bernie Bro or consumer purity voter as you can find, is a pure disaster as Trump drives his White Supremacy joined with Crony Capitalism agenda forward (and the goal is monarchy in Trump’s mind and 45% of the country would be not only fine with it, but ecstatic with that result). The sad part is the Center Left keeps thinking that 45% would vote for them if the Black people would just be quiet. Most of these people have not voted for Democrat ever, and their grand parents stopped voting Democrat in 1964.
“…Well, I’m glad basic competence is too much to ask for.
But there is more happening as well. Let’s go back to the latest attack on the four freshmen that Dayen just briefly mentions, the all-white poll of voters with lower levels of education that Democrats leaked. I hate to link to someone like Mike Allen, but he’s the right person to read on how the spin of garbage like this matters in the Beltway.
First, the fact that Democrats would even take this poll is a sign of how badly they misstate what will bring them back to power. Second, where are the polls of all-black or all-Latino voters? Do they even exist? Third, why would you leak this poll? I know why–you leak this poll because you have bought full-on into believing that the only path to power is through conservative whites with low-levels of education. This is incredibly stupid. Democrats won their House majority in 2018 through well-educated suburban whites, not through rural Pennsylvania and Kentucky. AOC may well be defining Democrats with these voters, but that’s because Fox News is defining Democrats. Yet House leadership drops this poll as part of their dirty war against the left of the caucus.
This is all just pathetic. I think there are at least 4 major problems here with House leadership. First, Democrats consistently overstate the conservatism of voters. Scott has written about this here frequently and it’s true. They simply haven’t learned any lessons since 1988.
Second, leadership was really freaked out by the Kavanaugh hearings reaction by conservatives and are determined to not let anything like that happen again in 2020. The problem there is that there is nothing they can do about it. Republicans will just gin up something ridiculous. Need I remind you (as I evidently do need to remind Democratic leaders) about the EBOLA!!!!!! scare of October 2014 that immediately disappeared the day after the elections?
Third, leadership actually thinks that if they just keep their caucus in line and don’t rock the boat that voters will reject Trump because he is so awful. This is ridiculous. It was already proven wrong in 2016. White people vote for Trump BECAUSE they like his behavior, not in spite of it. That’s not going to change in 2020. Yet, Democrats seem to think this is a strategy.
Fourth, Democratic leaders still seem to think that reasonable bipartisan compromise is possible and so isolate their loud left wing to keep that possibility alive. I don’t even know what planet they are living on here. Obama believed in this until the last day he left office and, in spite of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Donald Trump and all the Freedom Caucus whackos and everyone else involved in this over the past two decades, Democratic leaders just can’t get over this fundamental belief, as per Joe Biden.
There’s no doubt more to all this as well, ranging from some legitimate annoyance at some of the staffers now in Washington to the Congressional Black Caucus wanting to defend the Obama legacy and thinking that hunkering down is a smart strategy to other things that I just can’t know.
In any case, Pelosi needs to get her shit together. The problem with the attempt to replace her after the election is that the clowns like Seth Moulton who wanted to do it would be far worse, conservative white men who want to move the Democrats to the right. The left has no legitimate challenger. But if Pelosi can’t focus on what is important–attacking Donald Trump, even outside of impeachment, then we need a strategy to replace her in 2021. I am skeptical of whether that happens, largely because most Democratic representatives share her delusions about the state of American politics. But this is all really awful and Pelosi has earned a lot of the blame.
This is almost unquestionably the worst performance by a party controlling the House responding to a historically awful president in American history. That is already part of Pelosi’s legacy. Much of the rest of her legacy depends on what she does from here….”
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/07/dems-in-legitimate-disarray
Sadly for me, Pelosi’s tweet yesterday denouncing Trump’s attack on the four is emblematic of her adherence to the trope that “we must be seen as working together with Republicans” if Democrats want to succeed as she circles back to to this statement: “…Rather than attack Members of Congress, he should work with us for humane immigration policy that reflects American values…” I know she must know that Trump’s whole political raison d’etre is to create an inhumane immigration policy from the day he came down the escalator, but somehow she and her political aides think they must put this line in to keep “centrists” from abandoning Democrats for Republicans if they don’t treat Trump as normal, and not a mortal threat to the Republic as well as all non-white Americans.
What do I think she should do?
1. At his week’s press conference say, “last week I said I had no regrets, but after consideration, I do have regrets and we all need to stop th sniping at each other and look at the crimes this administration is committing and that the current President and his administration are both cruel and crooked.” Behind the scenes tell everyone in leadership and the Blue Dogs to cool it since the Progressives were right, we were played by McConnell, Mulvaney, and Trump on the Border Supplemental Bill.
2. Tell the House Committees to put pedal to the metal on all investigations into the Trump administration and the scandals festering in each department and agency. Start making Republican malfeasance the headline and stop making Democrats in Disarray the headline.
Chakrabarti
Feathers
@sherparick: Yes. Pelosi could end so much of this by just setting up investigatory hearings. Part of the problem is how much is known. Reporters don’t like go cover “OMG! Look how much shit there is! And everywhere!!!” They like secrets uncovered. So have some hearings. Set them up to uncover secrets. Play the “You didn’t know this!” card. If there isn’t a hearing somewhere in the House every day, they aren’t doing their job.
Elie
I dunno but this smells to me like a little inside Russian ratfucking.
We should be “vewy vewy” suspicious of this shit and AOS and the squad had better figure it out fast (if they are going to). I don’t intend to spend another 4 years with Trump due to their bullshit. This is definitely meant to impact the Democrats in the short and long term. If you can’t see that, its only because you don’t want to. These young women are just a convenient tool for the Alt-Left to do assigned damage. Do y’all really think this is just innocent difference of opinion? These folks aren’t making substantive attacks — they are trying to ramp up emotions and inflame discord to split the party. Heads up, folks. Shouldn’t be a surprise.
EthylEster
@Brachiator wrote:
Who does you refer to in the above?
I read it the same way as Baud: …if you (Pelosi) ain’t impeaching Trump, don’t (you, Pelosi) try to distract me with (your) whining about how AOC needs to oust her CoS. But perhaps you meant something else.
Raven Onthill
“IT SHOULD NOT BE CONTROVERSIAL TO OBSERVE THAT VOTING TO GIVE TRUMP $4.6 BILLION TO USE AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER IS VOTING TO MAINTAIN A WHITE SUPREMACIST SYSTEM. And that’s what @saikatc observed.” – https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1150858170362978305
What Pelosi did opened the way for Trump. It was a damnfool thing to do, and makes me question her competence.
Litany
The bill the House voted yes on contained very little oversight on how the money allocated to border enforcement was actually going to be spent, and even if that language WAS in the bill anyone who knows shit about how government runs under Trump should realize that widespread corruption and misapplication of funds is the rule and not the exception. Moderate Dems can dive for their fainting couches and protest how giving the president a green light on his concentration camp program is actually for the good of the children, but let’s please be honest about the implications of this kind of collaboration. Democrats already had a very poor record on immigration and reigning in abuses at the border to begin with; ask any activist who works seriously on these topics what they thought of “Deporter-in-Chief” Obama or the appalling way that complaints of widespread human rights abuse and sexual violence in detention centers were covered up during his administration. This most recent vote merely confirms what plenty of us paying attention already know: Democrats don’t like the optics of Trump’s border policy but by and large tacitly agree with many of the methods being used and the larger ideology at work behind them.