Outsiders v. establishment

Max Burns of Daily Kos discussed what Democratic voters really want. Four Democratic candidates for a variety of offices, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, got where they are “by campaigning as outsiders frustrated with Washington’s do-nothing Democratic establishment.” The Democratic establishment and the centrist group Third Way (see below) are fighting the Democratic Socialists in their own party. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gets an angry response when he tries to steer voters away from outsider candidates.

What Schumer, Third Way, and the Beltway barnacles that make up the aging Democratic elite fail to recognize is that this year’s election isn’t a battle between their party’s left flank and its centrists: It’s a referendum on the failed incrementalism of the Democratic establishment. ... That’s bad news for Democratic politicians who have spent decades promising voters that real change was just around the corner—and failing to deliver. The Democratic establishment “told you that every election for the last decade or two has been the most important election of your life, and then [they] get in power and aren’t willing to govern like this was the most important election of your life,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne argued on a recent episode of Lincoln Square’s “Strategy Session.” “It’s such a frustrating experience as a Democrat.” ... Cornered by their own disconnect from a base that demands Democrats actually start using their political clout, Schumer and Third Way can’t see that their desire to hold on to power actually harms their party’s ability to serve the American people. Worse still, Democratic establishment leaders seem more intent on defeating insurgent candidates like El-Sayed than in understanding and harnessing the message that made them so popular.

Robpos of the Kos community discussed Third Way. The group is preparing to use $15 million to “discredit democratic socialism.” Third Way is a dark money political organization. Its source of funding is hidden. Robpos looked over the most recent Board of Trustees. All in his list work for a big bank, such as Goldman Sachs, or for a private equity company. Robpos concluded:

These folks are not on our side. Third Way is NOT a “centrist” Democratic think tank no matter what they say, or how they are presented by the media.

Robpos noted that Third Way is trying to reduce it’s dependence on small donors (meaning more dependence on billionaires). Their goal, according to Robert Reich discussing a Third Way memo, is “to curb ‘far-left influence,’ adopt a ‘pro-capitalist’ stance, and stop ‘demonizing wealth and corporations.’” All this means Third Way is made up of people aligned with Republicans who declare they are “centrist” Democrats (and hope the media doesn’t look closely) with the goal of preserving the Democratic establishment who are already in the pocket of rich people. Put another way, the reason why Democrats have been making only incremental changes is they don’t want to annoy (with the resulting pulling of funding) their rich paymasters. This is the reason why voters see the party so unfavorably and why they are voting for candidates who are anti-establishment. Kelly Candaele, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos interviewed Sheri Berman, author of the book The Political Consequences of Economic Ideas: Neoliberalism, the Left, and the Challenges Facing Democracy Today. Here are some of the things they talked about. In the post-war era (aren’t we at a time when we should ask which war?) of approximately 1945 to 1975 the economic pie was growing and the slices were more evenly distributed with less privileged groups also gaining. Economists had thought we couldn't have both growing profits and growing wages and couldn't have growth without increased inequality. Both of those were shown not to be true in this era. That era ended with Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in America. They yanked their countries so far right that they were replaced by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton who were much more center-left than Democratic politicians before them. That created slow growth, rising inequality, relatively high unemployment, low productivity gains, and weaker unions. That weakened both the working class and middle class. And with the center-left turning away from strong worker support there was less reason to vote for the center-left. With the weakened situation of the working class, even the middle class, the ideas of the far-right have room to thrive. These ideas include: economics is zero-sum, therefore immigrants and minorities are why you aren’t getting ahead. Also, the system is rotten. Of course, the evidence of the post-war boom are obscured. Promoting the idea that economics is zero-sum leads to polarization and demonization.

But the polling tells us that while Trump has grown increasingly unpopular, the Democrats remain remarkably unpopular as well. If the Democrats don’t deal with their internal divisions — between radicals and moderates — and manage to unite around a platform that can prove attractive to a decent number of wavering and independent voters, they could still lose in 2028 and then face a Republican Party that will remain a radical threat to American democracy.

I donate to a lot of different organizations – LGBTQ of course, gun safety, voting rights, health research, etc. Over the years I’ve mailed off checks – and as much as possible I donate by check so credit cards don’t take a cut – and every few months a check isn’t cashed. I call the organization and they say they never received it. I don’t cancel the check because I discover the problem because the check isn’t cashed. I don’t investigate whether a cashed check was cashed by someone other than who I wrote it out to. The checks are just gone. There have been a few times when checks sent to a particular organization are more likely to be lost. When those mount up I sometimes stop donating to them. Yesterday an envelope was returned to me. I had addressed it to an organization I stopped donating to because the checks so often didn’t get cashed. It has the usual Postal Service yellow sticker saying “return to sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward.” I opened the envelope. The check inside was dated four years ago.