St. Louis' 8th Ward at the Board of Aldermen is not exactly high-stakes politics, but how things have played out there in just the last 24 hours speaks volumes about the Democratic Party.



Immigration lawyer Annie Rice wanted the job, but Paul Fehler had the backing of the city's Democratic Central Committee. So Rice had to run as an independent.



Rice had defied the central committee, of which she herself is an elected member, to run as an independent after the group gave Fehler its endorsement. The committee's vote allowed Fehler to run as the official Democratic candidate, which historically has often been enough to claim an aldermanic seat.

But Rice won the passionate support of progressive voters in a ward that increasingly does not support the city's old-guard Democratic machine.

Last night, Rice took 1,279 votes to Fehler 853, a margin of nearly 60 percent.

Good guy/gal wins. So end of story, right?

Not this time. The Democratic establishment had been embarrassed by lowly progressive voters. This will not stand.



But later this month, the Democratic Central Committee will weigh a bylaw change directly aimed at punishing Rice's supporters. If members approve the proposed amendments, anyone who "supports or endorses" candidates like Rice "shall be subject to censure." Committee members who follow in Rice's footsteps and run for office without the party's blessing could face removal. The ugly situation says a lot about the mutinous mood — and old guard pushback — roiling the St. Louis Democratic Party these days. Progressives have taken aim at the Democratic establishment in recent years, winning some key victories (Bruce Franks Jr. for state rep) and coming tantalizingly close in others (Tishaura Jones for mayor). In St. Louis, it's no longer enough to ask whether someone is running as a Democrat; the real question is whether they're allied with the upstart progressive wing or the establishment one allied with the powers that be and the party's longstanding donors (developers, lawyers, lobbyists).

Well that certainly sounds "democratic".



If the proposals are approved, members who backed Rice would be forced to defend themselves at an "administrative hearing." If found in violation, they could lose the right to vote on the committee or even address it...

That committee members — who are, after all, voted in by the Democratic primary voters, not party bosses — must defend themselves against charges of impurity has drawn pushback. Marie Ceselski, the committeewoman for the 7th Ward and a Rice supporter, calls it the "great activist purge."

The Great Activist Purge happens 9 am Saturday @ STL Dems Meeting @ Crusoe’s, 3152 Osceola. Agenda: Proposed New By-Laws to punish @AnnieRiceStL for running as Independent and other Dems for supporting her. Open to the Public. NOT ♿. Public Transit: #73. pic.twitter.com/91IHRtrt2V — 7th Ward Woman (@stl7thward) February 12, 2018

There you have it.

This is just the latest example of a corrupt "democratic" party that doesn't represent you.

You won't read about this on DKos, because they value partisan loyalty above values, morality, and most of all, the needs of the voters.

Fortunately, people are waking up to this everywhere.

You've probably noticed what happened in West Virginia the other day.

I love that woman.

Nevertheless, what isn't talked about is who she is fighting against.



The episode is all the more significant because Lissa Lucas is running for West Virginia House of Delegate’s in the state’s seventh district, which is currently held by Harshbarger, and lists property rights and getting money out of politics as two pillars of her campaign. While national pundits continuously play on the state’s historic shift from blue to red, the populist call of the Bernie Sanders’ movement – that concerned citizens can and should get more involved in politics – has struck a major nerve. The goal for many of West Virginia’s progressives is not even beating Republicans like Harshbarger; it is to reform a Democratic Party they see as corrupt and out-of-touch.

"I remember knowing for a long time that the underlying problem to everything is how money in politics is used to manipulate people," said Selena Vickers, a West Virginia educator and social worker who is running for the West Virginia House of Delegates in District 32. "Lissa is a friend of mine," she added. "We are both committed to fixing the [Democratic National Committee], which we know is broken."

I've heard people use the term "woke". This is what I think of as "woke".