The Rebellion of the Progressive Base against the Democratic Party
I remember when I was much younger my grandfather telling me about a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt and about how this 32nd President of the United States had come into office in the midst of the Great Depression. My grandfather remembered the soup-lines, the mass unemployment, the mass hunger. He remembered when, a few years before FDR became President, over 43,000 World War 1 vets camped out on the D.C. Mall because then conservative President Herbert Hoover's administration had reneged on their benefits. Eventually units of the U.S. Army, including 6 tanks, were used to remove the veterans, burning their tents and belongings and killing two of them.
When these WW I vets organized a 2nd demonstration in May 1933, Roosevelt, newly sworn in a few months before, provided the marchers with a campsite in Virginia and provided them three meals a day. Roosevelt arranged for his wife Eleanor to visit the site unaccompanied. She lunched with the veterans and listened to them perform songs. She reminisced about her memories of seeing troops off to World War I and welcoming them home. The most she could offer was a promise of positions in the newly created Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). One veteran commented: "Hoover sent the army, Roosevelt sent his wife". In a press conference following her visit, the First Lady described her reception as courteous and praised the marchers, highlighting how comfortable she felt despite conservative critics of the marchers who described them as communists and criminals.
What's the point of this you might ask? Simple. THAT was the Democratic Party of the 1930's. The Party that passed Social Security and in later years Medicare as well as the recently gutted Civil Rights Act. It was the Party that fought FOR Unions and the rights of Workers and the American People. It was the Party not only of Roosevelt and Kennedy, but of Harvey Milk and Dr. Martin Luther King. It was a Party that had learned the hard way that working for the People was HARD. It was a constant struggle, a no-holds-barred FIGHT against moneyed interests, corruption, and apathy on the part of business and industry more concerned with profit margins than their employees or the publics safety and health.
That is NOT what the Democratic Party is today...
Today the Democratic Party is complacent to suckle from the corporate tit. The Democratic Party of today doesn't really want to fight for universal healthcare, or a living wage, or want to join much of the world in publicly funded higher education. And there is a REASON for this. Money. Lots and LOTS of money.
The Democratic Party of today, instead of FIGHTING the moneyed interests and mass corruption, is OWNED by them. And it's not like they are trying to keep it a secret. With every election cycle, we see a Democratic Party establishment candidate chosen, their message vetted, polished, and gone over by the best political strategists the DNC establishment can muster and packaged for the mere formality of a primary season. It's always the same, traditional message of ambiguity. A message invoking the names of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Dr. King. Names designed to engender trust and belief in a candidate that will do very little to further the platforms and political ideology behind those names. A platform and message designed to pay lip-service to the progressive base while the corporations and banks funding the DNC and party establishment power-brokers are assured (behind closed doors) that there was no need for concern, the fix was in, their profit margins and power-bases were safe and the status quo would continue...
Recently, Debbie Wasserman Shultz was asked why Super Delegates exist, The DNC Chair responded that Super Delegates " exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists,”. One of the candidates, and it turned out NOT to be Bernie Sanders, took to a podium in late August of 2015 and blasted the Democratic National Committee on the subject of there only being 8 debates scheduled. And that the debates were scheduled in a way to guarantee the minimal amount of viewing possible in order to prevent any support growing for a candidate other that Hillary Clinton. “This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before," Candidate Martin O'Malley expounded. O’Malley added, "We are the Democratic Party, not the UN-democratic party." Not only had O’Malley DARED to say this, but had said it with Debbie Wasserman Shultz sitting not 10 feet away…. The look she gave him would have cut through solid steel…
No one was supposed to notice. No one was supposed to SAY anything about how the DNC had set up the process to nominate Hillary Clinton and ONLY Hillary Clinton for the top of the democratic ticket… Heads would roll, retribution would be swift, and Martin O’Malley was affectively black-listed by the Party, rarely to be heard from, if at all, from then on. We have also seen the DNC break it's OWN rules on corporate funding limits in it's craving for more corporate sponsorship. We have seen the argument, in THIS Primary season, that " Never been indicted " is a viable reason to keep supporting the DNC's chosen favorite for the nomination.
So over the course of the last 25 years, we have watched the DNC, once the party OF the People, become the party of the Super-PAC's, the Party of corruption, the Party of empty promises and shell-game shenanigans. But the Democratic Party Elites, in all their power and might and glory, forgot one... small... thing... The American People.There are People, millions of them, who see ethics and morality as something broader than party loyalty. These people are actually concerned about the growing trend in our society to enable conduct that is unethical and immoral. These are people for whom the phrase “never even indicted” is not an adequate response to questions about ethics. Building houses for Habitat for Humanity and taking money in quarter million dollar chunks are both legal for former office holders. But some of us do not find the choices morally equivalent. We are allowed to take such choices into account when deciding how to vote. And THIS election cycle, the establishment Democratic Party is discovering that the People will NOT be silenced, will NOT be bullied or patronized, and will NOT be ignored.
