DNC in Disarray While the Sanders Campaign Gains Momentum
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
07 February 20
As a center of elite power, the Democratic National Committee is now
floundering. Every reform it has implemented since 2016 was the result of
progressive grassroots pressure. But there are limits to what DNC Chair Tom
Perez is willing to accept without a knock-down, drag-out fight. And in
recent weeks, he has begun to do heavy lifting for corporate Democrats -
throwing roadblocks in the way of the Bernie 2020 campaign as it continues
to gain momentum.
The fiasco in Iowa, despite its importance, is a sideshow compared to what
is foreshadowed by recent moves from Perez. For one thing, he appointed
avowedly anti-Bernie corporate operatives to key positions on powerful DNC
committees. The flagrant conflicts of interest have included entrenching
paid staffers for Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign on rules
committees for the DNC and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
Perez soon followed up by abruptly changing the official rules to allow
Bloomberg to participate in the debate scheduled for three days before the
Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses. The egregious decision to waive the requirement for
large numbers of individual donors rolled out the blue carpet for Bloomberg
to the debate stage.
"Now suddenly a guy comes in who does not campaign one bit in Iowa, New
Hampshire, he's not on the ballot I guess in Nevada or South Carolina, but
he's worth $55 billion," Sanders said Thursday when asked about the rules
change. "I guess if you're worth $55 billion you can get the rules changed
for a debate. So, to answer your question: I think that is an absolute
outrage and really unfair."
Inconvenient facts - such as the reality that Bloomberg fervently endorsed
President George W. Bush for re-election in 2004 (in a speech to the
Republican National Convention, no less) or that as mayor of New York he
championed racist stop-and-frisk police policies - are less important to
party chieftains than the humongous dollar signs that self-financing
Bloomberg is bringing to the table.
The mayors of San Francisco, Washington, Anchorage and Albany, among others,
have already succumbed to Bloomberg's wealthy blandishments and endorsed
him, as has former Black Panther and longtime disappointment Congressman
Bobby Rush. To corporate elites, the moral of the sordid Bloomberg story is
that most people can be bought, and Bloomberg might be the deus ex machina
to lift them out of an impending tragedy of Sanders as nominee.
The glaring subtext of all this is the now-frantic effort to find some
candidate who can prevent Sanders from becoming the party's nominee at the
national convention in July. Early corporate favorites like Beto O'Rourke,
Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris fizzled and flamed out. Joe Biden appears to
be sinking. Amy Klobuchar staked her hopes on Iowa without success. That
appears to leave Pete Buttigieg and Bloomberg as the strongest corporate
contenders to prevent the corporate Democrats' worst nightmare - the
nomination of an authentic progressive populist.
A traditional claim by corporate Democrats - the assumption that grassroots
progressive campaigns are doomed - is oddly matched by the assumptions of
right-wing media and some on the left that the DNC can successfully rig just
about anything it wants to. Fox News has been feasting on the Iowa meltdown,
pleased to occasionally invite leftists on the air to denounce the DNC,
immediately followed by routine denunciations of Democrats in general and
Sanders in particular as diabolical socialists eager to destroy any and all
American freedoms with a collectivist goal of tyranny.
Meanwhile, some progressives have such an inflated view of the DNC's power
that they propagate the idea that all is lost and Bernie is sure to be
crushed. It's the kind of defeatism that's surely appreciated by
right-wingers and corporate Democrats alike.
Perhaps needless to say, if Bernie Sanders had such a fatalistic view of
electoral politics, he never would have run for president in the first
place. People on the left who say the DNC's elite power can't be overcome
with grassroots organizing are mirroring the traditional scorn from
corporate Democrats - who insist that the left can never dislodge them from
dominance of the party, let alone end corporate dominance of the nation.
Like millions of other progressives who support Bernie 2020, I realize that
the forces arrayed against us are tremendously powerful. That's the nature
of the corporate beast. The only way to overcome it is to organize and fight
back. That's what the movements behind the Sanders campaign are doing right
now.
In the words of a Latin American graffiti writer, "Let's save pessimism for
better times."
