A civil war in the Democratic Party between the populist left and the neoliberal centrists finally, belatedly has broken out. An "Army of Progressive Primary Challengers" aim to overturn the out of touch Democratic establishment nationwide.

However, it is in California, where Democrats are strongest, is where the front lines of this battle will be fought. The touchstone of this battle is health care.



Stoked by a contested race for state Democratic Party chair and the failure of a single-payer health care bill, activists are staging protests at the capitol. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon reported receiving death threats after shelving the health care legislation late last month, and security was tightened at the statehouse after activists disrupted a floor session last week.

The rancor, a spillover from the contentious Democratic presidential primary last year, is aggravating divisions in a state regarded nationally as a lodestar for the liberal cause.

The origin of this battle started last month.

Kimberly Ellis, a Berniecrat, was denied the state chair by a razor-thin margin, that included a combination of both Super Delegates and ineligible votes.



In a recent podcast with Jonathan Tasini, Ellis revealed that during a meeting a few weeks after she announced her campaign for the California Democratic Party chair position, party insiders asked her, “Who the hell do you think you are running for this?” during a private dinner. She was told her campaign would be political suicide. The insiders threatened to personally participate in “politically murdering” her. In line with their behavior in other contests between these two factions, the party’s establishment used corrupt, undemocratic tactics to ensure their preferred candidate, Bauman, won.

... “Excluding the more than 200 ballots with signature mismatches and questions around dues-payment eligibility requirements, at least 47 ballots for Bauman in the chair’s contest were ineligible or bear the hallmarks of organized manipulation. More than 30 ballots for Bauman should have been, but were not, disqualified. Several Bauman proxy votes, or ballots cast in the name of Democratic delegates who were not present, came from people who were not qualified under Party eligibility standards to cast ballots, were not registered to vote, or who were not registered as Democrats.”

If that wasn't enough, the underhanded way the Democratic establishment pretended to push for single-payer health care and then killed it without a vote is just about the last straw.



Explaining his decision to temporarily stymie the Healthy California Act, Rendon called the bill “woefully incomplete” since the measure included no specific provisions for financing or provider payments.

Rendon is actually telling the truth to a certain extent.

Jimmy Dore explain in the video below how Prop 98 prevented the bill in it's form from ever being able to pass.

But that causes one to question why the bill ever made it so far? Why did the Democratic legislators promise so much? What it looks like is a very insincere effort at temporarily appeasing the progressive wing of the party, after robbing them of the state chair.

And it doesn't appear to have worked at all.



People need to understand that the governor has not supported single-payer for a long time. And everyone has known in advance that that this bill was doomed to fail—that the governor would never sign it. And the only decision about this was where, and in what committee, it was going to die. That's it. I know I'm sounding very cynical right now, but they never had the intention of passing this.

California Democrats, and Democrats nationwide, are guilty of defending a health care system that doesn't work, while promising to fix it's problem without telling us how.

The battle over Obamacare is a good example. Republicans are trying to pass a horrible, gruesome repeal bill, while the Dems fight to preserve Obamacare. The problem is that Obamacare is slowly dying.



Results of the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index were released Monday, showing some 2 million U.S. adults lost insurance coverage this year alone. The uninsurance rate grew from 10.9 percent at the end of 2016 to 11.7 percent in the second quarter of 2017

The battle over health care reform is mostly about Big Money + Ignorance + Big Corruption versus the grassroots.

We have the numbers and the logic. They have everything else. The trick is washing away the ignorance.

