As 2018 kicks off, the two sides of the Democratic Party are hurling endless insults at each other. I’ve made it no freakin’ secret that I am part of what could be called the Sanders’ wing or really, the progressive faction of the party. On the other side there’s the Hillary Clinton wing, or as I like to call it, “There’s nothing wrong with the Democratic Party,” faction.
Now, if anyone has read my work, you’ll know that I’m held hostage in an insufferable suburb of New York City. I recently had a run-in with some people at a Panera Bread –don’t judge me, it’s all I have here in this chain store hellscape — when I was waiting for my order and found myself in a conversation with two other women.
Eventually, we sat down at a table chosen by corporate of Panera Bread. Now, I don’t know these women personally, but I know the type. I’m sure they’re lovely in ANY other context aside from politics. As we were chatting, the topic of the recent Democratic Party Unity Commission came up in conversation. I’ll admit that I just assumed that these moms with their haircuts that make them look 15 years older than they are; sweaters that couldn’t be more unflattering, and you can only imagine the jeans. Hate me if you want but JEANS MATTER you had a kid you didn’t take a vow of freaking celibacy, these figure destroying clumps of denim these women wear are fucking horrendous. So, I was SHOCKED they knew ANYTHING about the DNC Unity Reform Commission. I would have assumed these were the types who trade photos of their pets dressed up for the holidays and brag about their “perfect” kids on Facebook.
We ended up talking for over an hour. What was glaring was their hatred for the reforms that the Sanders’ wing of the commission was fighting for. Like, open primaries and same day registration. Reduction of superdelegates. Use and misuse of Caucuses, I was almost impressed, New Jersey isn’t even a caucus state, but they obviously had been well armed with talking points they read from Hillary Clinton stenographers like Joy Reid and that idiot, ‘Armando’ from DAILY KOS. Armando like his higher paid network friends like Joy specializes in distorting reality, claiming the Sanders’ surrogates were trying to engage in ‘voter suppression’ for instituting fair rules about registering for primaries in states like New York. It was more than clear that the information they were receiving and absorbing was coming from Clinton apologists.
I tried to explain the situation. I went over that in the end, the Hillary and the Sanders’ appointees actually DID vote almost unanimously on the measures. A gentle reminder to the folks in the dull center: the Unity Reform Commission’s job was to ultimately make recommendations that have to eventuality go to a vote of the DNC voting body. Think any reason or logic mattered to this low-info, “everything’s great!” suburban women sitting before me?
Answer: NO. Hell no. Not even a little bit.
In their blind devotion to ALL THINGS HILLARY, which AGAIN, Hillary’s appointees also voted on these same measures (obviously after months of debate, that’s for another article), they still couldn’t get over the stupidity they read. From hellscape sites like DAILY KOS to of fucking course, watching and LOVING Joy Reid.
Now I actually learned something interesting. I just assumed that not everyone or a much smaller fraction of folks were on Twitter. And if anyone is on that platform, that’s where Clinton apologists & hacks like Peter Daou and Tom Watson, the two founders of the too dumb to parody Hillary Men. By the way, we know who Peter Daou is, he’s the failed social media guru who hasn’t worked on a successful campaign in his life. But the real question is who the HELL is Tom Watson, by the way, and why the FUCK is anyone listening to him? In addition to these laughable “Hillary Men” the court of mean girl Hillary Defense League members Neera Tanden, Joy Reid, Sady Doyle, and well the list of left-punchers just goes on and on. What startled me is that they knew about these Hillary-enabler’s Twitter rants – as tweets from Twitter get passed around on the most nauseating website: Facebook. That’s when it all made sense to me.
Again, I can’t stress enough that these #TheResistance warriors only had information from the most rabid Clinton supporters and websites like fucking SHAREBLUE. You know, that ‘unbiased media outlet’ that is a venture of David goddamn Brock and YES Peter God Damned Daou. The “knowledge” they were dropping was oh, so familiar. It’s the exact same language one only has to read when they go on the aforementioned timelines on Twitter. Just distorting the goals and aims of the Sanders’’ appointees positions and intentions on the Unity Reform Commission.
When I asked (not even enjoying that fucking fabulous green iced tea!) if the party was “fine” why is it we don’t control two-thirds of the country? Are they concerned about the roughly 1100 legislative seats lost? Do they WANT to at a minimum, flip the House of Representatives? #TheResistance remains and always will be a total fucking joke engineered in a K Street comm shop designed to keep Wine Moms stupid and angry. What the actual hell are they “resisting”? I’ve said this a million times and I’ll say it again: its imperative one learns about what fuck happened to the Democratic Party. From the move away from labor in the 1970s to the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council and a faction of “third-way” Democrats voting along GOP lines economically. One article I reference is the great monopolies and antitrust expert, Matt Stoller’s piece in the Atlantic. I give this out as a primer: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/).
The answer I got was a lot about gerrymandering (which obviously there IS truth to this reality), and of course RUSSIA, but in the end, not much else. All they knew is in their minds, we Bernie Bros lost the presidency for the appointed heir of Democracy, Hillary Clinton. I explained as I always do, that I and everyone I know voted for her in the general; was met with eye-rolls. And what did that have to do with the particulars of the Unity Reform Commission? I mean, wasn’t that what we were talking about?
I then realized that these women really didn’t care about reforming the Democratic Party. To them, this was all about defending Hillary Clinton. It was there I knew I was sitting before, right there in that Panera Bread, future founding members of PUMAs 2.0. In other words, if Sanders gets the Democratic nomination in 2020, you CAN BET, there will be an entire group of “Party Unity My Ass” ALL OVER AGAIN.
And with that, I thanked them for chatting and grabbed my Marc Jacobs bag…and YES, I’m hypocritical AS FUCK, but at least I’m aware and aiming to be #woke, I excused myself and ran to my mom SUV. The official vehicle for the #woke suburban moms! Laughing all the way home.
I felt a sense that these pundits, news personalities, media outlets, blogs like KOS, etc, that Clinton had in her pocket remember she’s been running for President for 20 years have done such a thorough job at smearing, distorting the progressive left of the party, these women were just voicing what they’ve been reading and discussing at their equally vapid Indivisible meetings.
So, as the recommendations of The Unity Reform Commission didn’t go as far as some of us on the progressive side would’ve wanted them to go, there’s NO QUESTION that progress was made. 60% reduction in superdelegates. As a Sanders’ appointee and board member of the progressive group, Our Revolution, Dr. James Zogby stated in an email:
“Reducing the number of unpledged “superdelegates” in the presidential nominating process by 60 percent.
Electoral reforms and a process for rewarding states that have same-day registration, same-day party change, open primaries, and other measures that increase civic participation.
Commitment to reevaluating allocation formulas so primary and caucus winners receive more pledged delegates.
Commitment to reexamine the primary calendar, and offer incentives to states to ensure the calendar is appropriately spread out so voters in each state receive the necessary exposure to the candidates.
Steps toward financial transparency and oversight, the creation of an Ombudsman Committee, and strengthening the conflict of interest provision.
So, YES, progress has been made and we should celebrate this uphill climb. But as Our Revolution president and Sanders’ appointee on the Commission, Nina Turner stated in an interview the morning after the commission’s final meeting on the Bill Press Show, “ “It is progress, but that doesn’t mean grassroots folks can’t still push the rules & by-laws committee who are *not* bound by the resolution”
Note: there are still 280 superdelegates that aren’t bound.
So in sum, my question is, there’s this pesky thing called MATH. At some point, we are going to have to come together and instead of screaming from the rooftops, “get the fuck out of the party!”, (I admit, I’m guilty of this too, in moments of pettiness, I have told these Hillaynuts to go form their own centrist party, but I didn’t really mean it), we actually need THE NUMBERS to overcome the insane right-wing agenda. That’s just a goddamn reality.
One thing for sure, we must never stop fighting for a bold, progressive agenda. And if these Clinton loyalists don’t like it, I say: GET USED TO IT. The left is taking the HELL over. I say this as I’m sipping delicious iced green tea from Panera Bread.
