Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to Criticize Democrats From the Left?
By David Sirota, Jacobin
24 August 20
Progressives are being told by the Democratic Party to shut up until after the
election. Meanwhile, corporate Democrats are trumpeting how far right they are
— a message that could demoralize Democratic voters and depress turnout.
No doubt, you have been told to keep quiet. Just put on your big boy pants,
they say, and find the impulse control to at least muzzle yourself for the next
seventy-one days until the election happens. After that, fine — then and only
then will you maybe be permitted to speak your mind and politely ask the
Democratic Party to match its rhetoric with its policy agenda.
But until then, you are told to “shut the hell up and grow up,” as former
Barack Obama and Mike Bloomberg pollster Cornell Belcher put it during an
emblematic MSNBC segment berating progressives.
This kind of hectoring has become a defining part of the Democratic Party’s
culture. As the late great journalist Bill Greider lamented in this must-watch
clip: “The way the Democratic Party is run now for quite a number of
presidential cycles is they pick a nominee in a kind of half-assed process that
doesn’t really represent much of anybody, and then they tell everybody to just
shut up — don’t bring up anything that will complicate life for your nominee .
. . shut up, turn off your brains.”
There’s a superficial logic to this call for omertà — after all, Donald Trump
is destroying everything and he must be defeated. But here’s the problem: the
demand to shut up is only being aimed at the progressive base of the party,
while the corporate wing floods the zone with rhetoric that could de-motivate
voters.
Indeed, at the very moment many good progressives are blunting their criticism
and making clear that defeating Trump is of utmost importance, corporate
Democrats aren’t being asked to wait or hold their tongues. In fact, they are
doing the opposite: Rahm Emanuel — who has been advising Joe Biden — just went
on television to show that the corporate wing of the party is intent on using
the stretch run of the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime™ not to doggedly
focus on actually winning the election, but to instead try to predetermine
postelection policy outcomes.
Emanuel and his ilk depict themselves as evincing a nonideological “just win,
baby” attitude. But they are most decidedly pushing a very clear corporate
ideology — and they are doing so in dangerously divisive ways that could
depress the big turnout that’s desperately needed to defeat Trump.
“There’s No New Green Deal, There’s No Medicare For All”
The larger dynamic at play was exemplified by Emanuel’s television appearance
on a CNBC segment dubbed “Democrats’ 2020 Agenda: What’s at stake for
business?” As progressives are being told to keep quiet and not even so much as
tweet their concerns, Emanuel used the platform to demand that during this
health care and climate emergency, a prospective Biden administration must
reject the two major initiatives that polls show are popular.
“Two things I would say if I was advising an administration,” said Emanuel, who
left the Chicago mayoralty in disgrace after his city officials suppressed a
video of the police murder of a teenager. “One is there’s no new Green Deal,
there’s no Medicare For All, probably the single two topics that were discussed
the most. That’s not even in the platform.”
Emanuel is hardly a disinterested observer here. As Obama’s chief of staff,
Emanuel helped kill the idea of a public health insurance option. Now, he works
for a Wall Street firm that advises big health care and fossil fuel companies
on mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcy restructuring. Earlier this year,
Emanuel was set to be part of the featured entertainment at an oil lobbying
group’s annual meeting, during a $125-per-plate luncheon with GOP strategist
Karl Rove, before the event was canceled due to COVID-19.
Emanuel also isn’t just some random blowhard pundit spewing a corporate line.
The Chicago Tribune in May reported that “Emanuel is having regular
conversations with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and
his top advisers about economic policy.”
So when Emanuel is refusing to self-censor in the name of “unity” and making
these kinds of divisive declarations that stomp on progressive voters, he’s
speaking from a position of real power. And he’s not just tweeting these
comments, which could depress voter enthusiasm. He’s making them to a giant
national television audience.
Corporate Democrats Are Not Holding Their Tongues
Now sure, you could try to write off Emanuel’s rhetoric as just the anomalous
bloviations of a notorious super-villain who pushed NAFTA and anti-immigration
policies and who famously called progressives “F–ing retarded.” But sorry, this
isn’t a one-off — this is part of a larger pattern over the last few weeks and
months.
As progressives are told to keep quiet, Democratic Party officials engineered a
convention light on policy proposals, but one that gave prime convention
speaking slots to the anti-climate-science, anti-union former Republican
governor John Kasich of Ohio and to Colin Powell, who lied America into a war
that killed hundreds of thousands of people. In his CNBC interview, Emanuel
said, “This will be the year of the Biden Republican” — and he noted that
promoting these figures was designed to help Biden deliberately send an
anti-progressive message to voters because “John Kasich and Colin Powell don’t
exactly endorse (or) support big-P progressive policies.”
This is the kind of move that is potentially disillusioning for Democratic
voters who were previously told that a Democratic victory isn’t just a return
to the status quo — but a step forward in strengthening the movements for
climate action, workers’ rights, and a more sane foreign policy.
Similarly, as progressives are told to shut the hell up, Democratic aides on
Capitol Hill leaked word that the party’s lawmakers may immediately replay the
2009 debacle and block a public health insurance option after the election — a
move that is potentially de-motivating for millions of Americans currently
losing their private health insurance.
As progressives are told to mute themselves, Team Biden last week publicly
signaled that a new Democratic president might prioritize deficit reduction and
budget austerity in the middle of an economic crisis — a move that is
potentially deflating for millions of voters who have previously been told that
President Biden’s agenda makes him the next FDR.
As progressives are told to keep quiet, Biden’s campaign leaks to Politico that
the transition team building Biden’s prospective administration is being
advised by Wall Street pal Larry Summers and former corporate super-lobbyist
Steve Ricchetti.
And as progressives are told to muzzle themselves, corporate Democrats went
scorched earth and spent $15 million to intervene in primaries, stymie
progressive Democratic candidates, and tilt intraparty contests to
business-friendly candidates. Meanwhile, House speaker Nancy Pelosi works to
unseat Democratic senator Ed Markey, one of the Senate’s few progressive
lawmakers, and to crush a spirited primary challenge to Rep. Richard Neal, who
has used his committee chairmanship to block even modest health care reforms.
“Hold the Line. Win. Lead.”
Clearly, this is a coordinated campaign by the right wing of the Democratic
Party to prioritize its policy goals above everything — even motivating core
Democratic voters to turn out in record numbers during the general election.
The best response to such an onslaught isn’t to ignore it or succumb to
dishonest unity-themed demands for silence and fealty. After all, the folks
making those demands don’t actually want unity — they are aiming for corporate
victory at all costs, even if waging a war for that intraparty win could
depress enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.
The smarter response is to follow the lead of Democratic Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who last week pushed back against the corporate Democrats’
attempt to resurrect GOP-style austerity politics. Rather than just sitting
there and staying silent, she declared that if the party wins in November, it
must make “massive investment in our country or it will fall apart. This is not
a joke. To adopt GOP deficit-hawking now, when millions of lives are at stake,
is utterly irresponsible. Hold the line. Win. Lead.”
The brilliance of this kind of response is that it accomplishes two objectives:
it stands up for real change, and it reassures Democratic voters that there are
at least some people who are serious about going to Washington and fighting for
what the party purports to believe in.
Put another way, it fortifies the progressive agenda, and it helps energize
Democratic voters to turn out, because it casts the election not just as a
meaningless charade that won’t matter after November because everyone will sell
out anyway. It instead depicts the election as an event with high stakes beyond
Trump — a turning point that can create new policies that will actually matter
in people’s lived experiences.
This is how you avoid the 1988 Dukakis collapse debacle and motivate the big
turnout that can defeat Trump.
You don’t tell voters that “nothing would fundamentally change.”
You don’t blast out a story about how the Democratic presidential nominee told
his Wall Street donors that he isn’t proposing new legislation to change
corporate behavior.
You don’t turn your party convention into a pageant for Republican icons.
You don’t have the disgraced-mayor-turned-Wall-Street-guy advise your
presidential candidate — or have him go on corporate America’s favorite
television station during a health care emergency and a climate crisis to
effectively laugh at progressives who are pushing Medicare for All and a Green
New Deal.
To paraphrase one of the best tweets in history, you don’t try to turn the
election into a centrist rally for the idea that better things aren’t possible
— and you sure as hell don’t ask progressives to shut up.
You instead focus intently on telling your party’s voters how the election will
materially improve their lives.
Of course, the Democratic Party machine and the Biden campaign aren’t really
interested in doing that right now. They want to run an anti-Trump campaign,
and nothing else.
In light of that, progressives shouldn’t unilaterally disarm and stay silent
when corporate Democrats are getting bolder and more brazen about using this
preelection period to push their depressing, better-things-aren’t-possible
policy agenda.
Staying quiet in the face of that pablum doesn’t help. The real way to help
boost turnout and energize voters is for progressives to push back against the
corporate propaganda and make clear that, whether the establishment likes it or
not, this election can and will offer the opportunity to achieve something even
bigger than just getting rid of Trump.
