'The Democratic Party aims to make the Berniecrats' lack of political
viability a self-fulfilling prophecy.' (photo: Travis Heying/AP)
The Democratic Party Is Undermining Bernie Sanders-Style Candidates
By Jamie Peck, Guardian UK
17 April 17
In Kansas, the Democrats barely lifted a finger to help James Thompson, a
progressive who came painfully close to winning. That's a losing strategy
Since losing the presidency to a Cheeto-hued reality TV host, the Democratic
party's leadership has made it clear that it would rather keep losing than
entertain even the slightest whiff of New Deal style social democracy.
The Bernie Sanders wing might bring grassroots energy and - if the polls are
to be believed - popular ideas, but their redistributive policies pose too
much of a threat to the party's big donors to ever be allowed on the agenda.
Even a symbolic victory cedes too much to those youthful, unwashed hordes
who believe healthcare and education are human rights and not extravagant
luxuries, as we saw when the Democratic establishment recruited Tom Perez to
defeat the electorate-backed progressive Keith Ellison for DNC chair.
The Democrats demonstrated this once more this week when, in a special
election triggered by Trump's tapping of Mike Pompeo for CIA director, a
Berniecrat named James Thompson came painfully close to winning a Kansas
Congressional seat that had been red for over two decades, and his party
didn't even try to help him.
If Thompson's picture is not on the Wikipedia page for "left-wing populism,"
it really should be. Following a difficult upbringing during which he was
homeless for a time, he joined the Army and attended college on the GI bill.
He went on to graduate from Wichita State University and Washburn University
before going into practice as a civil rights lawyer. He owns guns and looks
natural in a trucker hat.
In a Reddit AMA, Thompson said he was "inspired to run by Bernie" and talked
about "progressive values" like universal healthcare, education, and a
$15/hour minimum wage. He also spoke in favor of taxing and legalizing
marijuana, regulating Wall Street and overturning Citizens United. It's no
surprise he received the endorsement of Our Revolution, the progressive
political action organization spun out of Sanders' candidacy.
After beating an establishment Democrat in the primary, Thompson promised to
take on Trump and the Republicans, as well as the state's unpopular
Republican governor Sam Brownback and Kansas-headquartered oligarchs the
Koch brothers.
In one campaign ad, Thompson shoots an AR-15 rifle at a target before
delivering a broad, class-based appeal: "People of all colors, all races,
all religions, they want the basic same thing . they want to be able to
provide for their family, provide a good education for their kids. We've got
to get back to this country being about the working class family."
While his candidacy initially seemed like a long shot in a district that had
re-elected Pompeo just last year with 60.7% of the vote, in the weeks before
the election, the race grew unexpectedly close.
This led to a sudden infusion of cash from the National Republican
Congressional Committee to Thompson's opponent Ron Estes, who in the end
raised $459,000, $130,000 of it from the NRCC. He also received massive
donations from representatives of big business and help from such national
figures as Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, and the president himself, who
tweeted about the race.
Estes spent much of his money on TV attack ads, like the one that claimed
Thompson supports using tax dollars to fund late term abortions, as well as
abortions performed because parents don't like the gender of their baby.
Given our current political climate, you'd think the Democrats would have
jumped at the chance to take back a Congressional seat and demonstrate
opposition to Trump, but you'd be wrong. While Thompson managed to raise
$292,000 without his party's help, 95% of which came from individuals,
neither the DNC, DCCC, nor even the Kansas Democratic Party would help him
grow that total in any substantial way. His campaign requested $20,000 from
the state Democratic Party and was denied.
They later relented and gave him $3,000. (According to the FEC, the Party
had about $145,000 on hand.) The national Democratic Party gave him nothing
until the day before the election, when it graced him with some live calls
and robo-calls. He lost by seven percentage points.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Perez confirmed the DNC would not
be giving Thompson a dime. "We can make progress in Kansas," he said. "There
are thousands of elections every year, though. Can we invest in all of them?
That would require a major increase in funds." Fact check: the DNC has a
fund just for Congressional elections, of which there are just ten this
year.
Contrast this with what Perez said just a few months earlier when he
promised "a 50-state strategy" complete with "rural outreach and organizers
in every zip code." In a post-victory interview with NPR, he specifically
name checked Kansas as a place Democrats could win. Why the sudden about
face?
In defending their decision, party mouthpieces have taken the absurd line
that giving Thompson money would have actually hurt his chances of winning,
because then everyone would have known he's a Democrat, and Kansans hate
Democrats. (Let's take a moment to appreciate these are the same people who
keep saying the party doesn't need a new direction.)
"You do not get to the single digits in a district like this if you're a
nationalized Democrat," DCCC communications director Meredith Kelly told The
Huffington Post. "End of story. That's just the way it is. There are just
certain races where it is not helpful to be attached to the national D.C.
Democrats." End of story, idiot.
Nobody must have told Kelly that Thompson was already attached to the
"national DC Democrats" by virtue of being in their party, a fact Estes was
happy to exploit in an attack ad that showed him waist deep in a literal
swamp he hoped to drain.
"The liberals are trying to steal this election by supporting a Bernie
Sanders backed lawyer, because they know he will vote how Nancy Pelosi tells
him to," he claimed. Seems Thompson got all the bad parts of being a
Democrat this time around, and none of the good ones.
One person the party does not think will be hurt by their help is Jon
Ossoff, who is running in a similarly red, but much wealthier, district in
Georgia. To date, the DNC has raised some $8.3m for him and has committed to
sending nine field staffers to organize on-the-ground efforts.
Although he is young, he's an acolyte of the Democratic establishment,
having worked for Representatives John Lewis and Hank Johnson, and he
endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary. He went to Georgetown followed by
the London School of Economics and speaks fluent French. He has the support
of several Hollywood celebrities.
Democrats think Ossoff is just the guy to bring his affluent suburban
district back into the fold. (Clearly, losing a national election was not
enough to reverse course on that most doomed of 2016 strategies: trading
blue collar whites for wealthy, suburban ones.)
Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Michael Smith said this is the state
organization's chance to "deliver the White House its first electoral
defeat." Liberal bloggers are wetting their pants over this "weather vane"
of early Trump backlash. It's like Thompson's campaign never even happened.
By refusing to fund the campaigns of anyone but centrist, establishment
shills, the Democratic Party aims to make the Berniecrats' lack of political
viability a self-fulfilling prophecy: starve their campaigns of resources so
they can't win, then point to said losses as examples of why they can't win.
If that means a few more red seats in Congress, so be it. The more they do
this, though, the less of Bernie's "political revolution" will be absorbed
by the Democratic Party and the more will go shooting off into third parties
and direct action.
Feel free to keep eating your own, Democrats. At this rate, we'll have a
socialist party in no time.
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