Chair of the DNC needs to lead the party, not a movement

by | Feb 6, 2017 | Democrats, Editor's Blog | 15 comments

This weekend, The Nation endorsed Keith Ellison for Chair of the Democratic National Committee. They support the Congressman from Minnesota because of his commitment to “build an activist party” at a time when “when movements matter more to tens of millions of Americans than partisan labels.” Their reasoning is exactly I why don’t support him.

The job of the DNC should be to elect Democrats, not impose litmus tests. If Democrats are going to take back Congress and legislatures across the country, they are going to have to win with the tens of millions of people who don’t believe in either party labels or movements. Democrats need a bigger tent, not a narrower one.

I also don’t believe the fundamental premise of their endorsement. Parties and movements are separate vehicles and should be. Movements have goals and ambitions that transcend electoral cycles. They’re meant to move specific ideas into the political arena and build support regardless of party. Parties are vehicles to elect people to office based on broadly shared values.

Parties should have core principles to provide a large umbrella. Democrats of my youth stood up for the little people, believing that everyone should have a shot at the American dream. In doing so, they defended workers’ rights, stood up against discrimination, and promoted equality for women, African-Americans, and LGBT citizens. They also fought for a strong social safety net, worker protections, and fair wages. Movements informed the politicians, but the politicians didn’t necessarily conform to all the goals of the movements.

Democrats need to get away from believing that ideas flow from the top to the bottom and understand that, now more than ever, we need ideas to flow from the ground up. Democrats in swing districts don’t need to be told what to believe and support by the Chair of the DNC. They need the resources and tools to defeat Republicans. Candidates are better suited to figure out what’s important to the voters in their districts than anybody in Washington. What motivates Democratic voters in Lumberton might be dramatically different than what motivates Democratic voters in Detroit.

There are far more voters who are not tied to movement politics than voter who are. They’re people who work hard, play by the rules, and have still been left behind by our economic system. They come in all colors, nationalities, and religious affiliations. They won’t be marching but they should be voting. Democrats need to understand them and their needs better. Judging from the recent Women’s March on Washington, the activists are doing just fine.

15 Comments

  1. Lawrence Gilbert

    The Democrats lost because Hilary and her advisors forgot about half the country who never saw or listened to the Hilary’ message. I wrote letters to her and her “team” but I doubt that they read them since nothing changed except that they elected Trump rather than Clinton. After 6o years of voting Democrat I quit. The ;people they talk about running the Democratic ;party reinforce my decision to stop sending money to that party. They should pay millions to hire those who found out how to win i.e. a Republican publicist. It is not how you play the game, it is winning.

  2. William A. Franklin

    Mills, well, your hood is slipping. But what can you expect. You want to revert to the losing Clintonian strategy of trying to please everyone everywhere. We do not get anywhere with Perez, a retread from DLC and Third Way. Can you people not see that these “new Democrats” were architects of the current disaster. Reckon not. Now you can burnish your credentials (not that I thought you had any) by running and losing. Following the DNC, DSCC and DCCC is the path to another major loss, and we cannot afford more of them. We have followed the rule adhering to “kakistocracy”, or governance by the worst people. And you are proud of the racist, class ridden Democratic Party of yesteryear? The one which went out and looked for fumbles to adopt. Ellision is a man who will not drag HRC back over the threshold like Perez will. The Republicans have proven their ability to keep a single strategy in mind over more than two years and adjust to changes. You and the Democratic Party is still steeped in old political wives tales refusing to do the hard work to modernize the Party, continuing to drag all the relics around. In NC the “old guard”, including you, has fought new people to the death without any strategy worth noting, relying only on fund raising and GOTV and no planning. That is the HRC movement in NC. It is bankrupt and corrupt, and will not change quickly. Look for Democrats in NC to gain political parity in 2030, it then. As a pundit, you are certainly closed minded. Read “The Argument” by Matt Bai if you can manage.

  3. Randell Hersom

    Keith Ellison is an excellent fit for the platform that NC Democrats actually did adopt last year. It was a genuinely progressive document. Bernie Sanders supported Keith Ellison because he is more supportive of real change than Tom Perez.

  4. Darren

    So pick an old white guy so the DNC has less problems? Good to see Trumps having an impact!

  5. Stephen Lewis, Sr.

    I agree with Thomas, the DNC should get out of the movement group. Most voters don’t identify with this progressive movement. It is my opinion that this progressive movement has been preventing the party from spreading its wings and moving into a competitive status.

    • DJ

      Comments on the progressive movement hindering the DNC in 2016 need to be fact checked. The DNC lost to the worst candidate in history (or 2nd worst?) because of its attachments to BIG bankers and Wall Street. People don’t need to self identify as progressive to hate everything about crony capitalism, Democrat or the Republican version. This can be proven by the segment of Trump supporters who almost had an identical rally cry as Bernie’s people.

      And don’t Democrats have to win over at least some Trump voters? There is no way Tom Perez will be able to do that with the same old, same old watered down Democratic agenda. Call it progressive or whatever else you want. There won’t be any enthusiasm for a Democratic nominee in 2020 who’s pitching a Hillary-esque centrist agenda. Keith Ellison can bring much needed change to the DNC, starting with fair elections.

      • Paul Shannon

        Will there be enthusiasm if we pitch an Obama’esque centrist agenda?

        • Darren

          Obama won the 2008 election on a progressive agenda

      • Stephen Lewis, sr

        I don’t even know where to begin. There was not a lot of overlap with trump supporterse and bernie supporters. Trump supporters said Bernie supporters were socialist and Bernie folks said Trump people were racist. Also I don’t see many Trump supporters being part of the Democrats anytime soon. I can see anti Trump republicans coming over but the Democrats must welcome them if they want there votes. I am not sure what fair elections are or are not but this massive voter fraud crap is getting old. When it comes right down to it you can not serve two masters you loyalty is either to the Democratic party or the progressive movement. I want a charming who loyalty is to the party.

        • Stephen Lewis, sr

          I I meant chairman that blasted spell check put down charming

  6. Paul shanmon

    I agree with Thomas’s approach. The DNC should not be setting our agenda. Let’s do that locally.

  7. Randolph voller

    At its core I believe the party is about winning the battle of ideas in communities across the country and winning elections. If we do not win the battle of ideas in our communities we are unlikely to win elections, but when we do win and have not sufficiently demonstrated that our ideas and values are better than our opponents we will likely cede ground and lose subsequent elections. We must have energy in the party for the fight.

    Democrats have made a series of decisions over time in some areas of the country to embrace centrist values instead of fighting for our core values. The result has been a hollowing out of the party and the embrace of identity politics by some of the party’s neoliberal adherents in a cynical effort to mask the responsibility on our side for political malpractice and in effect the mortgaging and foreclosing of the working class and middle class of America over the past 35 years by certain elements of the Democratic Party in cahoots with a cadre of financial interests, “third way” proponents and less radical Republicans.

    The new DNC leadership should advance inclusive policies and defend the defenseless, but it must also push the message on the real problem of wealth and income inequality in America and its corrosive effect on society.

    I hope the DNC makes the internal wholesale changes that need to be done and focuses on rebuilding and rebooting its state and county party infrastructure across the country.

    To me that will make all the difference.

  8. Erik Olson

    Dems have lost ~1000 state level seats in the last 8 years. They did that by not listening to those, “people who work hard, play by the rules, and have still been left behind by our economic system”. Many of those people voted for Obama then went for Trump who IS running a movement campaign.

    If now’s not the time for a movement in this party, then when is?

    • Jay ligon

      The impact of Citizens United is being felt across the country and it could look like a movement, but it is a coup d’etat. Massive infusions of cash into local races are changing the politics of the United States. It is not a movement away from Democrats so much as a cabal of billionaires filling the airwaves with propaganda to change politics from the grassroots.

      For example, the Koch brothers spent lavishly not only on Congressional seats and Senate races here, they poured money into Raleigh City Council races and on Wake County School Board races. The Kochs live in New York City and Kansas. Why would they care about Wake Country schools and traffic lights in Raleigh, NC? Billionaire funds have penetrated colleges and universities, hundreds of think tanks and races big and little all over the country. Their product? Propaganda. They want to restructure life in these United States for the betterment of a thousand families. The rest of you can to go bloody hell.

      Propaganda works. It works in Communist China; it worked in the Soviet Union. It worked in Nazi Germany, and it works in the United States.

      Americans actually believe that unions are bad for workers, that billionaires had nothing to do with exporting jobs to the third world, that women have no rightful place in the job market, that banking regulations hurt depositors, that weapons of mass destruction will be found some day in Iraq, that Republicans have a plan to solve the health insurance crisis, that their problems are caused by minorities, Muslims, and Mexicans. None of that is true. Never was true. But people have been inundated with false information from the right which is intended to make them vote against their own interests. AND it works!

      The large megaphones of right wing money shut out the message of ordinary people. The final stage of the takeover of democratic institutions by oligarchs is demonstrated by the emergence of a con man, a sexual predator, Russian puppet. and outrageous imbecile and his crew of totally incompetent stooges. Their job? To dismantle governance and to destroy the areas of government they are sworn to protect.

      The Trump movement is a bulldozer which will destroy this country as the few grab everything worth having. Suckers and marks who believed them will scratch their heads.

      In the dystopian world they are creating, there will be billionaires and little people. If you aren’t a billionaire, this world isn’t for you.

  9. Ruby

    If the party is not a movement it will continue to fail even when the majority of voters clearly support their policies. I’ve often wondered if NC progressives would be better off without the NCDP in the way sucking up time and resources and flushing them down the toilet. I’m starting to wonder if this is the case with the DNC as well.

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