Have Democrats Learned Anything Going Into 2018?
No, not really.
The end of 2016 was a bleak affair for Democrats as they found themselves routed out of power at every level of government. The question that has been on the mind of pundits and onlookers has been, will Democrats be able to win? The answer to that has proven to be yes, but I don’t believe that’s the most important question that should be asked of the Democratic Party. We know that opposition parties can win, especially when the party in power is unpopular. This happened in 2006 with Bush, 2010 with Obama, and likely in 2018 with Trump. The real question is whether Democrats can build sustainable power and if they’ve learned from their failures last time they were governing. Almost every sign says no.
At almost every opportunity Democrats have sought to stifle any left grassroots energy that may cause reforms in the party that would at all change it’s dynamic as one half of the ruling class. The first opportunity came with Keith Ellison’s run for chair of the DNC. Despite receiving support from Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, two Senators from opposite ends of the Democratic Party, the donor class swiftly moved to prevent Ellison’s election. Former President Obama specifically recruited Tom Perez, his former Secretary of Labor, to run against Ellison. One of Obama’s former advisors and key allies Valerie Jarret personally lobbied DNC members with Obama’s name readily being used. Prominent Democratic donor Haim Saban and political pundit Alan Dershowitz launched an incredibly racist and Islamophobic attack on Ellison by trying to smear him as an anti-Semite. Tom Perez won, and Keith Ellison was given a made-up position as “Deputy Chair” resigned to carrying water for the party but not holding any real power.
In California you saw a similar dynamic, Kimberly Ellis running against establishment Democrat and Pharma lobbyist Eric Bauman for head of the California Democratic Party, only losing by a handful of votes in a suspect process. The party and the pundits that cheer for it have praised the mantra of “listening to black women” but don’t elect a black woman to a leadership position. Despite the attempts of Democrat stans to position the establishment as champions of the large minority demographic in the party, this has merely been to obscure those who hold power are white donors. Because of this, every single issue, from abortion to opposition to Confederate Keebler Elf Jeff Sessions is up for compromise. We’ve seen the biggest critics of the Democratic Party, and all its established figures be validated over the year. Obama has spent his post-Presidency hanging out with rich donors, endorsing a racist French president, and then stifling Ellison being his most explicit political move. Tom Perez has been an abysmal failure as chair of the DNC despite the attempt to frame him as just like Ellison. The party refuses to change.
2016 should have been a shock to a party that had been operating in a fundamentally different reality. In 2008, Obama and Democrats were looking to compromise while Mitch McConnel was looking to make Obama a one term president on day one. As Republicans have moved further right and their priority is clearly holding power and passing their agenda rather than upholding “shared norms”, Democrats are trying to piece together the torn up pages of the rulebook that Republicans spent the past decade putting into a shredder. The talking point Democrats most often employed for their opposition to the repeal of the ACA, or the massive tax giveaway to the rich was the impact on the deficit, or that the process was not to their liking. The material well being of their constituents and of all Americans is always on the backburner to a bunch of rules that mean nothing when those in power choose to ignore them. They have so far refused to put pressure on Republicans by threatening to shut down the government unless they pass a DREAM Act or CHIP renewal. The only thing they’ve showed any concern about is the Russia investigation and Mueller’s probe. Neither are day to day material concerns for Americans. Whether that’s out of ignorance or a willful decision to stay on their moderate donor friendly path is up for judgement.
If you want a preview for how a future Democratic majority will govern look no further than what Democrats have done in California. While they’ve made some legislative achievements, it largely exists as a neoliberal technocratic bastion. They went backwards with their cap and trade renewal bill, struggled to pass what will amount to a slight dent into the housing crisis, and completely stifled single payer efforts. Many Democrats simply concern trolled, an attempt to feign support for a policy they have no intention of ever getting behind.
Democrats believe they can win on auto pilot, that they don’t have to make any expansive effort, they can just be generic. Because of how awful Trump is they might even be right. But this simply means we return to the seesaw of power, where we will bounce forth between Democrats simply looking to maintain a rotting country, and Republicans looking to loot it for all that remains. A Democratic Party that was concerned with building and maintaining power would put forth an affirmative agenda that focuses on the material benefits of their base. In addition, they’d implement automatic voter registration, make DC and Puerto Rico states, pass card checks and other reforms that would go to reverse the voter suppression Republicans passed to rig elections for themselves. There’s no indication Democrats have any intention of doing that. We can already see after the victories in Virginia and Alabama for Ralph Northam and Doug Jones respectively what this “blue wave” of Democrats will contain. Politicians eager to already buckle on their campaign promises, and throwing parts of their base under the bus.
While many have talked about how these elections stress the importance of black voter turnout, and how Democrats can’t keep taking the vote of African Americans for granted, the Democratic consultant class will not be looking for any affirmative message to their base, one that would reverse the austerity and state violence that has been inflicted upon them for decades. If you read or listen to the conversation between Ezra Klein and Joe Trippy, chief media strategist for Doug Jones, you hear talks of moving to the middle ground and compromise repeatedly. Ezra speaks of a candidate who should “just say they want to bring things back to normal again.”
This is nothing more than a return to a previously still untenable status quo. These appeals are meant for white moderates and suburban Republicans, which shows Democrats refuse to learn. And this will never keep Democrats in power longer than 2 or 4 years. Talking about how awful the Republicans are, how toxic their agenda is, and then saying you want to compromise with those same people is the most confounding concept ever. Even those who pay little attention to politics can see how entirely fraudulent it is. Almost the entire Republican Party got behind Roy Moore, a clear pedophile and sexual predator, so they could hold onto power. Democrats want to compromise with a party that supported a pedophile. Nothing more needs to be said about the virtues of “compromise” than that.
There is only a small glimmer of hope for those thinking there may be a hint of change. A handful of Democratic Senators, all likely 2020 hopefuls, have made themselves clearly opposed to Trump and even embraced the single payer plan of Senator Sanders. This doesn’t mean a true change in the leadership or fundamental nature of the Democratic Party. It is nothing more than a small opening, in which the party could get dragged kicking and screaming to a different type of politics. Anything less than that will be a waste of our time.
