Perez removing Ellison supporters from DNC

[JA]

“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided.” Tom Perez as he silently removes dissent.

He's right. The democratic party must remain united behind capitalism. If they become the party of Bernie, Trump will be re-elected.

I forgot how Hillary soundly defeated Trump last year by defending her record with Wall Street, wooing "muh moderate suburban Republicans," and running the exact opposite of a populist campaign. That damn memory of mine...

[JA]

“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided.” Tom Perez as he silently removes dissent.

He's right. The democratic party must remain united behind capitalism. If they become the party of Bernie, Trump will be re-elected.

I forgot how Hillary soundly defeated Trump last year by defending her record with Wall Street, wooing "muh moderate suburban Republicans," and running the exact opposite of a populist campaign. That damn memory of mine...

Remember three words: Private Email Server. Take that away, and she wins in a landslide.

Prove it.

[JA]

“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided.” Tom Perez as he silently removes dissent.

He's right. The democratic party must remain united behind capitalism. If they become the party of Bernie, Trump will be re-elected.

I forgot how Hillary soundly defeated Trump last year by defending her record with Wall Street, wooing "muh moderate suburban Republicans," and running the exact opposite of a populist campaign. That damn memory of mine...

I don't get this idea people like you get that "suburbans are bad but rural white can totally be a corner stone part of a coalition with minorities" like Hillary's "deplorable" comment was awful but on the flip side you guys down play too much how racism plays a key role in rural culture and how much that has factored in den collapse/Trump rise in the group

When did I ever downplay anyone's racism? Most rural White people are racists. Yes, it's true. I never denied that. But, it's also true that the self-interest of working class White people, including rural ones, is more important than their racist beliefs; if they sense that they will personally benefit by voting for a candidate that represents a multiracial and multicultural working-class coalition, regardless of how they feel about the other members in it, they will vote for them. That's why Obama performed relatively well despite all the absurd fears that they'd abandon him because he's African American with a foreign sounding name. In 2008, he dominated the Rust Belt, even capturing Indiana, by running a populist (albeit flawed) campaign. Clinton hemorrhaged support, primarily because of the White working class defecting to vote third party, vote Trump, or abstaining altogether.

Trump held White college-educated voters and the White middle and upper classes. Trump held the suburbs. There was no mass defection of "moderate suburban Republicans" to Clinton for a simple reason: anti-racism isn't as important to them as economic self-interest. Suburbanites, college educated Whites, upper-class Whites, and so on have been proven, through social science, to be statistically no less racially biased than non-college educated, rural, or working class Whites. The only difference is that one group is more socially adjusted to politically correct behavior and virtue signaling; racism may be socially taboo, yet that hasn't encouraged all these supposed anti-racist moderates to pursue structural changes to reduce racism and discrimination. As soon as racism requires more effort than slogans, hashtags, and rhetoric, when it means tackling the increased police presence in minority neighborhoods and profiling that increased in response to urban gentrification, integrating low-income families into good school districts, providing affordable housing alongside luxury developments, and tackling wealth inequality between the races, they recoil.

While the White working class may be more openly racist, those with greater class consciousness and a sense of self-interest realize that all of those policies that help disadvantaged minorities also help them. White or PoC, poor is poor and we all benefit from policies that help each other.

[JA]

“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided.” Tom Perez as he silently removes dissent.

He's right. The democratic party must remain united behind capitalism. If they become the party of Bernie, Trump will be re-elected.

They will do exactly that - and they will continue to lose elections.

Well they can't adopt Bernie plan either. Socialism and even left wing populism can not work in American politics because Republicans will use it as a racial wedge issue. Democrats do not want debate whether football players should get free tuition or illegal immigrants get free health care in 2018 or 2020.

Because they're cowards.

No, because these are the kind of incendiary divisive topics that split the electoral just the way Trump likes, which is why he always harps on this stuff. It pits the majority of the electorate against the "other." A better way is to craft a broad appeal to the personal self-interests of the vast majority of the electorate, like Corbyn's "For the Many" slogan, which is a message well-suited for left wing populism, anyway.

I'd argue Corbyn's success has more to do with his convictions and the strength with which he defends them, not his slogan.

If you (in the general sense) think a slogan is at all important in a political campaign, you likely fall for the ridiculous notion that campaigns can be treated like a marketing strategy. Look at how well that technocratic bullsh**t has done. People care about conviction, honesty, faith that the candidate cares about them and their interests, and, most importantly, a mass social movement that primarily operates at the grassroots level. Sanders, Corbyn, and, to a lesser extent, Obama, knew this and used it to their advantage.

[JA]

Why are they doing this?  This is so goddamn petty and shortsighted....

Does Perez realize that by conducting this Red Wedding of all the Sanders and Ellison supporters, he is not so much stabbing the knife into their backs, but into Democratic hopes of winning the 2020 election, and ending the Trump nightmare?  You can't win without their (enthusiastic) support.  

They want to win with a platform friendly to corporate interests, or not at all.

[JA]

I applaud Perez for these actions. He needs to be clear that the Bernie 2016 uprising was nothing more than an aberration, and do all he can to keep it from happening again. Look over at the republican side to see why - In 2010, the tea party uprising happened. Rather than rot it out, republicans tried to figure out a way it could comfortably exist alongside the establishment. It sort of worked through the 2014 election cycle, but then in 2016, everything crumbled. The Tea Party and similar elements dominated the presidential primaries - Of the Final 5 candidates (Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, Carson), three were part of reactionary elements to the establishment's right (Trump, Cruz, and Carson). In the end, their most radical candidate, Trump, got the nomination - a true disaster for the establishment, creating real wounds that may never go away. They were forced to embrace the candidacy, especially after it won the general election, and the party is now irreparably damaged. Maybe the republican party stays relevant for several more decades - but now it must deal with true, outspoken racism and anti-Islamic sentiment being the image of the party, as opposed to the comparably tame faces of the Bushes, Bob Dole, and Mitt Romney. Tom Perez can see this just as plainly as I can - rot out the Bernie element now, or watch the Democratic equivalent of Donald Trump (and Bernie doesn't represent this, someone even more radical than him will rise up) show up in 2020, 2024, or 2028. He knows that can't happen if the party establishment, which he stands for, is to have any chance of long-term survival in its current form. The path to victory in 2020 isn't to run Sanders (although he may very well be able to beat Trump, he would send the country in an irreparably socialist direction), or Warren (who would lose heavily) - the path is to run a strong capitalist with the likability and populism to win. I'm talking about a Steve Bullock. I'm talking about a John Hickenlooper. I'm talking about a Sherrod Brown. And yes, I do think it is better for the party to lose with one of those candidates than to win with Bernie or someone from his wing.

Isn’t it against the law to forget to name your sponsor?

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[JA]

DEMOCRATIC PARTY DRAMA PUTS DEPUTY CHAIR KEITH ELLISON IN A TOUGH SPOT

A PURGE OF PARTY officials loyal to Keith Ellison is putting the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee in a difficult position, calling into question his ability to shape DNC decision-making. Ellison’s decision to accept the number two spot at the DNC was controversial among his backers, but he argued that he would be able to influence the party from the inside, and help steer Chair Tom Perez in a progressive direction. People close to Ellison say that he is feeling the heat and acutely aware of the difficulty he is in, unsure exactly how to do right by the party faithful. Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesperson for Ellison, declined to comment on the unfolding situation.

Buckley made a bid for DNC chair earlier this year, running on a platform of reform. His familiarity with the arcane rules, bylaws, and byzantine procedures of the DNC is widely considered to be unmatched. After he dropped out, he backed Ellison’s bid for chair, opening up the perception that he was removed by Perez for supporting his opponent. The public response from Perez to complaints from Ellison backers has only exacerbated the tensions, as Perez, like Hinojosa, has insisted that the changes were made only for the sake of “diversity.”

Yet the three Ellison backers removed from the key committees are themselves a diverse bunch. Ellison, of course, is African-American, Muslim, and represents a working-class district, while Barbra Casbar Siperstein is transgender, Zogby is Lebanese-American (and Catholic), and Buckley is gay. While removing long-serving DNC members seen as favorable to Ellison and Sanders, Perez moved to maintain positions at the party for a number of corporate lobbyists. The at-large members chosen by Perez include Harold Ickes, a lobbyist for a nuclear energy company; Manny Ortiz, a lobbyist for Citigroup; Joanne Dowdell, a lobbyist for News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News; and Jaime Harrison, a former lobbyist for coal companies, big banks, and tobacco companies.

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/20/democratic-party-drama-puts-deputy-chair-keith-ellison-in-a-tough-spot/

How long before Ellison quits? The Rules committee which will decide the Unity Commission recommendations have 0 representation from the so-called Sanders wing.

If Ellison doesn't quit or say anything then he's a total cuck.

He should quit. Berniecrats can vote for Dems if they want to, but should have no role within the party. The Tea Party has inflicted serious wounds on the republican party, and the Berniecrats cannot be allowed to do the same to the democratic party, regardless of whatever short-term electoral gain it may get them. Win as capitalists or don't win at all.

You do realize that’d be about 40% of the Democratic Party, yes? I’d like to know how exactly you expect party to fiction as a major political organization if it lost about 40% of its voters.