Who decides what policies the DNC chooses for their national platform? Obviously corporate donors effect the bottom line of the organization, but who are the power brokers internally at the DNC that make the decisions to create those policies that favor corporations over people?
This is their leadership team, but something tells me they’re not the ones making the decisions to not advocate for Medicare for all, or other widely popular left wing policies.
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It’s a combination of:
- Political consultants whose grasp of reality for normal people and the problems they face is nonexistent
- Donors, who add to that lack of understanding an explicitly hostile attitude to anything left-wing if it will cost them or their clients money
- The politicians themselves, who rarely if ever interact with anyone outside of these three groups
There are some exceptions, of course, but they’re rare. DC is really an incredibly strange and sociopathic place on a human cultural level.
This is why I don’t understand the attitude that the way to progress is to keep punishing the Democrats until they figure it out on their own. The ones who haven’t figured it out, which is most of them, aren’t going to figure it out, any more than Google is going to realize that ruining search was a bad idea and they need to start making products people like again. It’s just not in their DNA to think that way.
This is why I don’t understand the attitude that the way to progress is to keep punishing the Democrats until they figure it out on their own. The ones who haven’t figured it out, which is most of them, aren’t going to figure it out, any more than Google is going to realize that ruining search was a bad idea and they need to start making products people like again. It’s just not in their DNA to think that way.
If the Democrats are fundamentally unable to respond or adapt to what people want, then they are doomed to fail and become irrelevant, and the only way forward is by abandoning them and building a different party. I would prefer it if they just learned their lesson, or if they could just be reasoned with at all, but if not then I don’t see a reason to bother with them in the first place.
The Democrats are not a monolith.
I think a good way would be pushing to change the system so that it won’t naturally fall into being a money-fueled duopoly, supporting progressive Democrats and semi-Democrats like Sanders, and limiting the damage that the Republicans can do in the meantime. If you want to call that “bothering with them,” then I would want to bother with them.
What I am criticizing is this idea that we have to keep doing our best to have Republicans win, until the Democrats “learn their lesson” as you put it.
I’m more than happy to support progressive democrats, and I voted democrat downballot. But “limiting the damage that Republicans do in the meantime,” while a valid goal, is not worth sacrificing efforts to replace the duopoly. Time is not on our side, and as conditions decline, it is inevitable that the Republicans will gain strength because Democrats are associated with the establishment and the failing system.
We should not “be doing our best to help the Republicans win.” That would mean voting Republican, which would make no sense whatsoever. What we should be doing is building up an alternative party. Had more people who stayed home come out to voice their support of a left wing third party, it would serve the dual purposes of affecting the narrative by making it harder to pretend the problem was the Democrats weren’t far enough right, while also paving the way for the replacement if they continue to stick their heads in the sand.
The idea that a third party could never be viable or replace an existing party is a self-fulfilling prophesy. But in my mind, it’s a simple fact that organizations either adapt or die, and so if the Democratic party cannot be made to adapt, it is doomed and the focus should be on preparing to take advantage of their eventual collapse. Yeah, it might be a longshot, but to me, “keep voting forever for people who are fundamentally incapable of listening to you,” is an even clearer dead end.
That’s a really precise breakdown and appears to hit the nail on the head.
What would be the most effective strategy to wake them up to the new political realities? Because I don’t think even this election did that.
I really have no idea. Maybe joining up with the sensible ones and hoping they multiply, and supporting Bernie Sanders in whatever he’s wanting to do to adapt to the Trump era.
Also, joining with a union and your workplace and wielding political power outside of the professional politician class sounds like a good idea.
I’d agree that it’s a bad idea to try and convince any existing leadership to move left. The post came across as more of a “How can we take over the party like the Tea Party did to Republicans” though, which seems productive.
The tea party was still an astroturfed movement by many of those same rich people that were in power, like the Koch brothers.
That’s true, but it was still an effective hostile takeover. Can it be done without support from billionaires, or did it only work to the tea party because it was bankrolled by them?
I wasn’t aiming my snark at OP, although it might have sounded like I was. I was just expressing some annoyance with some people I’ve been talking with on Lemmy over the last couple of days. The “if we just keep hurting the Democrats, it’ll all work out for the best” crowd has a suspiciously large and vocal representation on Lemmy.
I think for a productive solution, we should wait for Bernie Sanders’s promised announcement about next steps for the Trump era. God knows, I have no idea. It seems pretty bleak.
Donors, who add to that lack of understanding an explicitly hostile attitude to anything left-wing if it will cost them or their clients money
If that is their only concern why are they not supporting the party that wants to tax them less?
It’s mostly a contest of rich people who want as much as they can get, but do want the US economy to continue being okay, versus on the other side rich people who don’t mind burning it all down as they as they pay less taxes for the next few years. The Democrats are largely propped up by the former group.
The occasional leader like Biden or Obama who wants to be to the left of Reagan doesn’t change the fact that the “don’t burn it though” donor class is in charge of the Democrats. This is at the root of a lot of the things that make people say “but if Biden is good, why hasn’t he solved climate change or Israel or wealth inequality yet? Checkmate libs, he’s clearly the exact same as Trump.”
Mostly it all works out, over the long term, as a safe equilibrium for the majority of the wealthy people. The Republicans get to do their arson about half the time, which makes the super-wealthy even more wealth for a short time, and before it can get out of control, the Democrats come into power to put a check on it before it can start hurting the people who were born privileged. This election, that equilibrium has been upset, and Trump is planning to become unremovable and then badly hurt everyone, rich and poor alike, which probably means the rich people will manage to realize they fucked up and turn their media empires solidly against Trump and get rid of him. If they can. There may be a significant amount of damage that gets done by the time their now-antiquated weapons can accomplish that, if it’s even possible at all with Russia and a bunch of techbro rich idiots solidly in the tank for him. They may all have to simply shrug and abandon the US for some new parasitic host, leaving the corpse behind.
Of course you’re entitled to your view but I consider that an egregiously cynical take, not to mention a bit convoluted and with a hint of conspiracism. The fact remains that the Republicans are offering more money to them, up front, now, so the simplest explanation is that they are motivated by higher ideals than just money.
It comes across to me as much more realpolitik than needless cynicism. I also don’t think there’s any conspiracism in there, it’s much more game theoretic, in the sense that we’ve reached an uncoordinated local optimum that’s hard to break out of. There’s not nearly as many smoke-filled back rooms where deals are made as people think, but there is a lot of shared interest in not rocking the boat among wealthy people.
It’s an incredibly cynical take. I think it’s accurate, though. Observe how the Democrats generally treat Bernie Sanders, or for that matter how they treated Dan Osborn. I don’t think the idea that Washington mostly runs on money takes any kind of X-Files leap to take seriously.
I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t support Democrats, especially because they are the only viable party that has some nuggets of actual care for the people embedded within them in a few random places. But I don’t see any other explanation than the one I gave, in answer to OP’s completely valid question about why they keep giving such lukewarm endorsement to such incredibly sensible and popular ideas.
Also as a side note if anyone would like to help moderate this community please message me. I’ll try to respond in a day or two.
I think if you’re interested in changing the direction of the DNC, you’ll probably need to target local branches first. Ken Martin for example is the party chair of the DFL (MN org for Democrats), and got elected as DNC Vice Chair:
In 2017, Martin was elected by his peers throughout the country as the President of the Association of State Democratic Chairs (ASDC), and by that election became a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). On January 21, Martin was unanimously re-elected President of the ASDC. Upon his re-election, Martin pledged to continue “our important work of strengthening Democratic infrastructure across America.”
That voting process is probably what you’d want to target. He’s also probably the sort of “status quo” politician that you’d want to get replaced with a progressive.
You’re absolutely right, this is the fundamental problem. We need to find a progressive to run the DNC where Keith Ellison almost succeeded (he didn’t win).
Ken Martin is also one of a handful who will likely be elected chair next since the current chair is stepping down.
Owner class dictates the real policy, DNC’s job is to frame in such a way that normies can accept it.
They have been failing at this recently since peasants are getting restless with endless promises and jack shit to show for anything besides some “cosmetic” shite to run in the fake news headline.
I doubt peasant class will be able to work within DNC framework to drive policy change. Got to go into opposition to two party regime IMHO
Also, we all can do some direct action and deny these owner parasite class profits where possible…
As a worker, you need to advocate for your wage. Remember that your primary job is being paid, what you do to get paid is secondary. Your employer’s job is to underpay you… they are your enemy.
