Failing
to learn from the humiliating losses of the last election,
establishment Democrats continue to cater to their oligarchical
donors while rejecting the party’s progressive base and its future.
By
Whitney Webb
Part
1
The past year has not been kind to the Democratic Party.
Engulfed in major scandals in the lead-up to the election, Democrats
suffered humiliating losses in November, losing the majorities they
held in the House and Senate along with the presidency and several
key governorships.
In addition, major rifts within the party became
impossible to ignore. Many Democrats, energized and motivated by the
insurgent primary campaign of Bernie Sanders, felt betrayed and
ignored by the party establishment that did everything in its power
to ensure the nomination of one of the most unelectable candidates of
all time, Hillary Clinton.
Months after the bitter primary concluded, the
Democratic Party remains anything but united, as it is desperately
trying to keep Sanders-Clinton “proxy” wars from breaking out
while also fighting to brand itself as “the people’s party”
despite last year’s scandals. In spite of their best efforts, the
very type of “proxy” wars they were seeking to avoid between the
Sanders- and Clinton-supporting factions ultimately defined the
contest to choose the next chairman of the Democratic National
Committee.
DNC insiders came together in Atlanta on Saturday to
choose the party’s new chair after both interim chair Donna Brazile
and five-year chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz were disgraced by
various scandals. The lead-up to the vote, as the Intercept’s Glenn
Greenwald noted, had become “something of an impassioned proxy
war replicating the 2016 primary fight.”
In November, the Sanders-backed choice for DNC chair,
Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, announced his
candidacy with the endorsements of several notable progressives,
including Elizabeth Warren, as well as key establishment figures like
Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. At the time, Ellison appeared to be the
clear front-runner. However, the Obama White House worked hard over
the following month to convince then-Labor Secretary Tom Perez to run
for DNC chair. Perez launched his candidacy a full month after
Ellison, drawing speculation that establishment Democrats were
desperate to challenge Ellison’s election to the DNC’s top
position. As has been the case for so long in the Democratic Party,
Perez, the establishment candidate, was chosen over Ellison.
Source
and links:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/election-tom-perez-dnc-chair-shows-dnc-establishment-learned-nothing/225391/
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