Radical Chic
Dems’ base pushes party to extremism
THE Democratic Party isn’t interested in an electoral autopsy. The slow-motion disaster of its search for a new Democratic National Committee chair proves it.
Unlike the Republicans, who commissioned one quickly after Mitt Romney’s defeat to President Barack Obama in 2012, many on the left have coped with Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss by sticking their heads deeper into the sand of California’s lovely beaches.
Besides, as far as Dems are concerned, who needs a lessonslearned study: Hillary won the popular vote, and only because of the archaic, backward and (sure, why not?) racist Electoral College did Donald Trump steal the presidency from a woman who deserved it more than anybody else. To many Democrats, winning the popular vote was clearly a validation of their party’s platform, if not a mandate to move further left.
Just look at the slate of candidates for DNC chair.
Among the eight official candidates, only two have a serious chance of winning: Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison and President Barack Obama’s former secretary of labor, Thomas Perez.
Already, reporters and pundits have described the contest as the grassroots against the establishment. After former veep Joe Biden endorsed Perez for the job this week, Politico remarked that this helped fuel the perception that the DNC race “was a proxy battle between the pro-Sanders wing ... and the establishmentoriented wing” of the Democratic Party.
As the last election cycle taught us, slapping someone with the establishment label can be a political death sentence. Of course, framing the race this way would be more compelling if it made any sense.
It doesn’t. While “Establishment vs. Grassroots” makes sexier (and simpler) headlines, a more apt description would be “an echo, not a choice.” After all, Perez and Ellison differ little on policy and both solidify the Democrats’ departure from any semblance of 1990s-era Clintonian pragmatism. Sure, Perez worked for President Obama, but if that makes you a sellout then we’ve sure come a long way from Hope and Change.
More important, the contrived “establishment vs. base” debate distracts from the real, meaningful differences between the two: the disturbing allegations of anti-Semitism from Ellison and his devotion to radical politics for radicalism’s sake.
Just this week, a long Mother Jones profile of Ellison buried a nasty anecdote from one of his college classmates, who remembered “Ellison maintaining that an oppressed group could not be racist toward Jews because Jews were themselves oppressors.” According to the Mother Jones piece, Ellison also allegedly argued that “European white Jews are trying to oppress minorities all over the world,” and that he had a penchant for going on “all the time about ‘Jewish slave traders.’ ” How progressive. These are just the newest allegations. Before becoming a congressman, Ellison worked closely with the Nation of Islam and repeatedly defended the group’s anti-Semitism. As a congressman, he has been a consistent and vicious critic of Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism.
Problem is, this sort of outspoken radicalism is precisely what makes Ellison attractive to bitter base Dems. They see the DNC’s concerted effort to help Hillary Clinton overcome the Bernie Sanders insurgency to win the Democratic presidential nomination as the ultimate betrayal. The enthusiasm for Ellison is as much a cathartic exercise for disillusioned Bernie Bros as it is a commitment to so-called progressive principles.
As the culinary and hospitality union UNITE HERE put it in their endorsement, Ellison “can tell uncomfortable truths.” In other words, his controversial history only makes him more worthy.
Democrats would rather go down in flames while sticking up two middle fingers than give any so-called establishment figures more power. Such an exercise in nihilism might provide momentary pleasure, but it certainly doesn’t create winning coalitions. And it’s strategically stupid: Perez is no moderate, but the media treats him like one, which would help the left’s ideas gain mainstream acceptance. Instead, they choose to lash out.
Considering that elected Democratic officials are close to being on the endangered species list in many states, alienating voters seems even more absurd. All the more so when they don’t need to do it. The fact that they reject Perez not for his policy stands but because he isn’t an offensive-enough firebrand tells us Democrats not only ignore attempts at conducting an autopsy, it guarantees they’ll need another one soon.