The House loss through unforced errors

I read the transcript for the Gaslit Nation episode for Tuesday, November 15, a week after the election (and before Republicans won the House and Pelosi stepped down). Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa host the show and I wanted to get their take on the results. It’s been a while since I’ve read one of their regular episodes, mostly because what they have to say can be rather grim – Kendzior describes herself as a writer of horror non-fiction. Chalupa described a case by what she calls a Vichy Democrat. This one is Sean Patrick Maloney, who acts more like a rich Republican than a Democrat, though he is the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Mondaire Jones is a gay black man from New York’s Hudson Valley and was a part of the House Progressive Caucus, a rising voice. He had won on an environmental platform. Maloney declared that as head of DCCC he could push Jones aside and be that candidate of that district. Maloney lost because the people of the district didn’t like the way he betrayed Jones. In the process Maloney spent money on his own campaign that would have more wisely been spent helping Democrats in tight races. This is a Democrat whose policies are more Republican pushing out a progressive Democrat and because of that betrayal lost the seat to an actual Republican. This is the leadership essentially giving the seat away. This is an unforced error (I looked it up – a loss because of a player’s blunder, not an opponent’s skill). Chalupa said that Pelosi had to have known about it and gave at least her tacit approval. Chalupa added Maloney was serving a mega donor class though he is a leader in a party that doesn’t need money from the mega donor class. Democrats have done quite well raising lots of money through small dollar donations from regular people. Another example was Christy Smith in California, who is also a progressive. In 2020 she won by a tiny margin. In 2022, instead of giving her solid backing, the Democratic Party primaried her, which drained her resources. Though she won the primary, the party didn’t fund her and she was massively outspent. She lost. Two progressives down. Two seats handed to Republicans. Kendzior said:

People turned out in droves once again, in particular young people and in particular young women. People did care about the threat to reproductive rights. ... The thing that is holding us back—besides the fact that we are a burgeoning mafia state, but this goes hand in hand with that—is the lack of campaign finance reforms. It's all of these proxy networks that want to manipulate our elections, often for foreign countries. ... I look back to 2017/2018 before the Democrats won the House and as a party they were in much better shape because everyone was kind of on the same page and they were not backstabbing each other so relentlessly. That backstabbing is a product of one, Pelosi and her style of leadership in putting people like Maloney in charge of things like the DCCC, but also their incredibly shady, awful dark money donor network, which is not as bad as the Republicans but is really out there.

And with the Republicans in control of the House the voters will be told, You didn’t vote hard enough. To which Chalupa replies. Oh, yes we did! Maloney, even as head of DCCC, doesn’t get the credit for the tiny red wave. The voters do. The voters were responding to the Supreme Court endangering the lives of women. That’s why they voted and did so in record numbers. They voted against Republicans, not necessarily for Democrats. They voted with the realization that Republicans protect rich people and may not protect less wealthy white people, that their government will also treat them as disposable. Where did Democrats have their greatest defeat? Not in red Missouri, but in New York, what was thought to be blue, but is really purple. Coastal reporters like to find people with MAGA hats in a diner. But the real heart of the nasty guy base is Wall Street. It’s rich people – like Maloney. New York is just as racist as the South, as the rest of the country, though it doesn’t wave the Confederate flag. That racism is, of course, in government. The point of mentioning that is parties should not base their spending on old stereotypes and generalizations, one being that New York is blue. Campaigns also need to be local. Fetterman did that in Pennsylvania, even using lots of in-jokes. He was able to portray his opponent Dr. Oz as an outsider. Another example is a ballot measure in New York that would have given Democrats an advantage over the redistricting process. Republicans, of course, spent massively against it. Democrats spent ... zero. It lost. There is also lots of talk of New York City being a cesspool of crime. Perhaps because someone is calling for bail reform? Yet crime statistics show the city is much safer than 40-50 years ago. Yeah, politicians are saying that. So are newspapers – which represent the rich people of the city. Kendzior said:

Whereas the real crises of New York City, they're happening in skyscrapers. They're happening in boardrooms. They're happening on stock markets. They're happening in the police force. That is where the real brutality of New York City lies. That is how people—ordinary New Yorkers—are getting hurt in New York City; not by criminals and thieves and whatnot. That is so minor compared to the terrible, terrible white-collar crime and governmental crime that is being perpetrated against the people in New York. And I just wanna throw that in there in case people think I hate New Yorkers. I don’t. New Yorkers are great. It's the New York City apparatus that built Trump and Giuliani and all these other horrible people that I can't stand. So just to make that clear.

There is a crime problem – incorrectly described. There’s also a mental health crisis due to the pandemic, and an education crisis. So what are candidates running on? Crime perpetrated by black people. Crime that is tolerated by progressives. New York Democrats suffer from believing the divisive lies of Republicans and a state party system that has calcified. The leaders are at war with progressives when they should be at war with fascists. The first Gen Z member of Congress, a Democrat, was elected in Florida. But isn’t Florida deep red? Only because Democrats surrendered it, stopped investing in it. That Gen Z member won through grassroots effort, not because of Pelosi and the Democratic leadership. Gen Z is coming for the leadership’s jobs because they’re pissed, not because it is their job to clean up the messes. I had written about Pelosi stepping back from Democratic House leadership and all the praise articles written to honor her 20 years in leadership. I heard and read more of those sorts of pieces today. Many mentioned how she got the Affordable Care Act passed and how she kept her cool during the Capitol attack, among many other accomplishments. She does deserve the praise. But it isn’t the whole story. As I mentioned before she had accepted donations from Russians, which calls her loyalties into question. And this discussion by Kendzior and Chalupa shows that she protected the Democratic establishment, which meant sorely needed progressives were defeated. Yes, it is time she stepped off the stage and I’m glad she recognized that and did it.