Chal­lenge, But Don’t Divide

By Dan Cohen

The 2018 mid-terms afford Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry vot­ers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port pro­gres­sive lead­ers with the cred­i­bil­i­ty both to inspire the Demo­c­ra­t­ic base and to restore the con­fi­dence of the many dis­af­fect­ed, frus­trat­ed vot­ers who sat out or swung to Don­ald Trump. Politi­cians like Trump and Illi­nois Gov. Bruce Rauner aren’t elect­ed based sole­ly on enthu­si­asm for their ide­olo­gies; they’re elect­ed because vot­ers lack con­fi­dence in a polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment that they view as cor­rupt, or elit­ist, or blithe­ly uncon­cerned with their needs.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lead­ers believe that they can side­step this cri­sis of faith with the mes­sage that they are ​“stand­ing up to Don­ald Trump.” But as long as they are vot­ing with the GOP to reau­tho­rize war­rant­less domes­tic spy­ing and mil­i­tary spend­ing while refus­ing to put for­ward a bold domes­tic agen­da, they are block­ing the solu­tion and the lead­er­ship we need. The par­ty seems to be torn between coun­ter­ing the GOP with a bold pro­gres­sive agen­da or with the not-so-inspir­ing 2017 par­ty slo­gan ​“A Bet­ter Deal” (trans­la­tion: ​“We might suck but they suck worse”). We need Demo­c­ra­t­ic elect­ed lead­ers who will actu­al­ly lead, and who embody a true com­mit­ment to social and eco­nom­ic jus­tice, inclu­sion and respect.

That means we need con­test­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­maries: on every lev­el of gov­ern­ment, in near­ly every dis­trict, as often as pos­si­ble. We should be chal­leng­ing not only con­ser­v­a­tive or cen­trist Democ­rats, but any Demo­c­rat fail­ing to act so as to restore con­fi­dence in our par­ty and in government.

Today’s polit­i­cal cli­mate enables can­di­dates to take pro­gres­sive stances that would have been unthink­able not long ago. Occu­py, Black Lives Mat­ter and the Bernie Sanders cam­paign have shift­ed pub­lic think­ing left. The more that peo­ple run on issues of social and eco­nom­ic jus­tice and win, the more that oth­er can­di­dates will fol­low suit. More peo­ple who have checked out of pol­i­tics might have a rea­son to get back in, too

But there’s a caveat. If we are run­ning to trans­form the par­ty in a more pro­gres­sive, inclu­sive direc­tion, we must fos­ter a cul­ture of respect for those with whom we, at least for now, dis­agree. Self-pro­claimed pro­gres­sives who hurl insults at their oppo­nents fre­quent­ly jus­ti­fy the tac­tic with, ​“The oth­er side does it.” But the GOP doesn’t have the same objec­tives that we do. The GOP ben­e­fits from people’s loss of con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment, while we need to restore it.

Like­wise, our pri­ma­ry oppo­nents are not the ene­my, nor are the vot­ers who put them in office. We need not com­pro­mise our val­ues, but there is a world of dif­fer­ence between say­ing, ​“My oppo­nent is a cor­po­rate shill,” for exam­ple, and say­ing, ​“I respect my oppo­nent and we agree on some issues, but we dis­agree on the need for a liv­ing wage now.”

And while the Sanders cam­paign helped inspire the cur­rent pro­gres­sive elec­toral turn, we can­not fall into the trap of relit­i­gat­ing that pri­ma­ry. Clinton’s pri­ma­ry vot­ers are not the ene­my, either. In fact, many agree with most Sanders vot­ers on most issues. That means when a Clin­ton vot­er says they hat­ed Bernie for such-and-such rea­sons but agreed with him on the issues, the answer should be, ​“I respect that, let’s talk about how to advance those issues.” Too often, though, the answer is, ​“What is wrong with you?” Not helpful.

We must remem­ber that we build move­ments over a longer time frame than one elec­tion cycle. Many of our chal­lengers will lose, at least their first run. My first Chica­go cam­paign as a strate­gist after mov­ing to the city was the 2012 state rep­re­sen­ta­tive pri­ma­ry chal­lenge by pro­gres­sive Will Guz­zar­di against a machine incum­bent. We were told Will couldn’t win. And he didn’t: He lost by 125 votes. But two years lat­er, he won by 21 per­cent. More than that, his cam­paign demon­strat­ed the cracks in the Chica­go machine and inspired a crop of pro­gres­sive can­di­dates in the 2015 munic­i­pal races. An even larg­er num­ber of pro­gres­sive can­di­dates are already plan­ning runs for City Coun­cil in 2019.

If we had a strong pro­gres­sive in every leg­isla­tive dis­trict on the fed­er­al and state lev­el in 2018, we would force thou­sands of cor­po­rate Democ­rats, at min­i­mum, to adopt some of our pol­i­cy posi­tions. What’s more, if we don’t beat them this time, it gives us lever­age to hold them account­able. All of which helps move the par­ty left, because when politi­cians pub­licly endorse pro­gres­sive poli­cies, it tells vot­ers, ​“That’s what Democ­rats are about.”

Dan Cohen has been a poll­ster and strate­gist for pro­gres­sive elec­toral and issue cam­paigns for almost 20 years. He is pres­i­dent of Blue Sun Cam­paigns, and splits his time between Boston and Chicago.

When Not To Primary

By Jane Kleeb

We all love our local beer. We go to the farm­ers mar­ket and buy local beef and veg­gies. The toma­toes in Nebras­ka are dif­fer­ent than the ones in Flori­da, and we cel­e­brate that diver­si­ty. Yet when it comes to pol­i­tics, for too many pro­gres­sives, the basic the­o­ry of local seems to go out the window.

Pri­ma­ry­ing con­ser­v­a­tive and mod­er­ate incum­bent Democ­rats sim­ply because they are not as pro­gres­sive as oth­er Democ­rats, as Dan advo­cates, has nev­er made much sense to me. Call me what­ev­er label you want, but I would rather have a Demo­c­rat who is with us 70 per­cent of the time than a Repub­li­can who is against us 100 per­cent of the time. Even more than that, I firm­ly believe that diver­si­ty is a strength — not just diver­si­ty of race, or reli­gion, or nation­al­i­ty, but also of ideas. A Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty that has both Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Hei­di Heitkamp makes us stronger. For exam­ple, when a farmer with a rur­al per­spec­tive on how health­care improve­ments could impact their com­mu­ni­ty sat at the table with an eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor, those per­spec­tives joined togeth­er to make Oba­macare stronger.

Amer­i­ca is a coun­try of 330 mil­lion dif­fer­ent peo­ple, each with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, back­grounds and ideas. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty needs to reflect and embrace those dif­fer­ences. Just as a banker in Oma­ha, in my home state of Nebras­ka, will have had dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences than a teacher in Scotts­bluff, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor from Indi­ana will have a dif­fer­ent world­view than a con­gress­woman from New York. If we define ​“being a Demo­c­rat” as hav­ing only one valid opin­ion about each of the many issues fac­ing our coun­try, that makes us weak­er, not stronger. As Democ­rats, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to broad­en our base, which does not mean aban­don­ing our val­ues. I come from the grassroots.

Whether it was work­ing in Nebras­ka to help pass Oba­macare, or tak­ing on the Key­stone XL pipeline, my back­ground is in the streets, at kitchen tables, in com­bines with farm­ers dur­ing har­vest, on con­fer­ence calls with young activists across the coun­try, and at ral­lies with Native allies. We each had dif­fer­ent ideas at dif­fer­ent times and did not always come to con­sen­sus. I learned that diver­si­ty made us more resilient, more endur­ing and, yes, stronger. There was a rich­ness in hav­ing a ranch­er come togeth­er with a Native elder, both tak­ing dif­fer­ent paths but work­ing toward the same goal.

Democ­rats in red states have no oth­er choice. Vot­ers expect lead­ers to work for the peo­ple, and that means reach­ing across the aisle to actu­al­ly get leg­is­la­tion over the fin­ish line, even when we do not agree with every­thing in the bill. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sens. Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester, both up for reelec­tion in 2018, rep­re­sent Mis­souri and Mon­tana, and the local issues fac­ing their com­mu­ni­ties are dif­fer­ent than those fac­ing West Coast Democ­rats such as Sens. Kamala Har­ris or Ron Wyden.

Nei­ther McCaskill nor Tester votes with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty 100 per­cent of the time. Nor should we expect them to. As Democ­rats, we do not act like Repub­li­cans, who ignore the fun­da­men­tal fact that their job is to rep­re­sent the peo­ple who elect­ed them. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is stronger for it. And so is, inci­den­tal­ly, any leg­is­la­tion we hope to pass as the major­i­ty par­ty. Democ­rats in red states make our bills more durable because they are reflec­tive of the broad vari­ety of peo­ple across our coun­try that the laws will impact.

A good exam­ple is the sup­port for ethanol and bio­fu­els by Democ­rats in red states. Some pro­gres­sive Democ­rats argue that divert­ing land to bio­fu­els will under­cut the food sup­ply. How­ev­er, those of us who live in agri­cul­tur­al states see the pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic impacts and the obvi­ous fact that bio­fu­els com­pete with Big Oil in the marketplace.

As a par­ty, we should be encour­ag­ing more voic­es to par­tic­i­pate rather than few­er. Vig­or­ous debate is a very good thing. I under­stand pri­ma­ry­ing con­ser­v­a­tive and mod­er­ate incum­bent Democ­rats is a path some will take. But to pri­ma­ry peo­ple not as part of a well-thought-out strat­e­gy, but sim­ply because they do not hold the pro­gres­sive line 100 per­cent of the time, is short-sight­ed and ulti­mate­ly weak­ens us as a nation­al par­ty. I pre­fer to walk the road of build­ing the par­ty so our bench is broad and we put an end to the cur­rent one-par­ty rule gov­ern­ing many of our states and our country.

Local is good. Local builds our par­ty. Local cel­e­brates the diverse ideas that Democ­rats bring to the table, cre­at­ing a win­ning coali­tion for our families.

Jane Kleeb is the founder of Bold Nebras­ka, chair of the Nebras­ka Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, a mem­ber of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s Uni­ty and Reform Com­mis­sion, and an Our Rev­o­lu­tion board mem­ber. She lives in Hast­ings, Neb.

Why the Left Must Contest

By Day­ton Martindale

For some of us fire-breath­ing rad­i­cals, it’s hard not to bris­tle at the argu­ments above. Dan scolds us on what we can and can­not say. (“But some of them are cor­po­rate shills,” part of me argues.) Jane goes fur­ther, telling us those we dis­agree with can help make the par­ty stronger. This seems not only wrong­head­ed but baf­fling: Jane has been one of the most effec­tive voic­es against the Key­stone XL pipeline, so why put in a good word for Hei­di Heitkamp, the Senate’s third most con­ser­v­a­tive Demo­c­rat and a sup­port­er of Key­stone XL?

I think both pieces, in dif­fer­ent ways, are guid­ed by an admirable prin­ci­ple: Meet vot­ers where they’re at. Yes, a win­ning coali­tion must include Clin­ton vot­ers and Heitkamp vot­ers, peo­ple skep­ti­cal of ​“big gov­ern­ment,” peo­ple who have read nei­ther Marx’s nor Piketty’s Cap­i­tal.

As a response, then, I look to my Catholic upbring­ing and say: ​“Hate the sin, love the sin­ner.” By this I mean: We should reach out to and com­mu­ni­cate with red-state Democ­rats, not think less of them. We should avoid call­ing our oppo­nents names. I am swayed that this rep­re­sents a more demo­c­ra­t­ic, humane and effec­tive approach to politics.

But when Dan says, for exam­ple, ​“Our pri­ma­ry oppo­nents are not the ene­my,” I wor­ry we aren’t talk­ing about the same fight. In a close gen­er­al elec­tion, sure, hold your nose and vote for what­ev­er cor­po­rate Demo­c­rat you need to if it keeps out the Repub­li­can. Even knock on doors. But in a pri­ma­ry, a Demo­c­rat who advo­cates for Key­stone XL or arm­ing Sau­di Ara­bia, or who oppos­es sin­gle-pay­er health­care, is sup­port­ing a world in which more suf­fer and die. It is impor­tant to be hon­est and up front that these aren’t rea­son­able allies with whom we hap­pen to dis­agree on a few mat­ters. They’re a seri­ous threat to a whole lot of people.

The dif­fer­ences between, say, a pro-frack­ing can­di­date and an anti-frack­ing can­di­date, one who wants to end the Drug War alto­geth­er and one who just wants to soft­en its edges, can have life-or death reper­cus­sions. We must con­vey this urgency if we want vot­ers to care. Our desire for mutu­al respect shouldn’t keep us from com­mu­ni­cat­ing the dras­tic dif­fer­ences in our visions. In fact, if we Marx­ists, anar­chists and rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists are seri­ous about our pol­i­tics, we should chal­lenge pro­gres­sive incum­bents, too, even Bernie himself.

As Dan points out — and as Bernie proved — pri­ma­ry chal­lenges pro­vide an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty for pub­lic edu­ca­tion. They allow us to expose the bank­rupt­cy of the sta­tus quo, to com­mu­ni­cate to our fel­low cit­i­zens that not only is there a bet­ter way, but a much bet­ter way.

Of course, care must be tak­en to engage peo­ple in a way that’s demo­c­ra­t­ic, respect­ful and non-con­de­scend­ing, that incor­po­rates their con­cerns rather than lec­tures them from above. Jane is right: In some con­texts, rad­i­cals must nego­ti­ate and com­pro­mise, among them­selves and with oth­ers, and learn to work in a polit­i­cal land­scape that con­tains diverse points of view. But ​“where vot­ers are at” is dynam­ic terrain.

Points of view are not sta­t­ic; democ­ra­cy requires not only incor­po­rat­ing dif­fer­ent val­ues but con­test­ing them.

In 1858, some Repub­li­cans sup­port­ed the slav­ery-agnos­tic Demo­c­rat Stephen Dou­glas over Repub­li­can Abra­ham Lin­coln in Illi­nois’ Sen­ate race. This was a gen­er­al elec­tion, not a pri­ma­ry, but the race shows that run­ning a prin­ci­pled cam­paign against a mod­er­ate can empow­er a movement.

In the debates, writes Brook­lyn Col­lege pro­fes­sor Roy Tsao, Lin­coln ​“mock[ed] Dou­glas as the only man in the coun­try with­out an opin­ion” on slav­ery. After Dou­glas won and took office, Lin­coln not­ed that his oppo­nent ​“nev­er lets the log­ic of prin­ci­ple, dis­place the log­ic of suc­cess.” In an April 1859 let­ter, he wrote:

Of course I would have pre­ferred suc­cess; but fail­ing in that, I have no regrets for hav­ing reject­ed all advice to the con­trary, and res­olute­ly made the strug­gle. Had we thrown our­selves into the arms of Dou­glas … the Repub­li­can cause would have been anni­hi­lat­ed in Illi­nois, and, I think, demor­al­ized, and pros­trat­ed every­where for years, if not forever.

One year lat­er, he was elect­ed president.

Day­ton Mar­tin­dale is an assis­tant edi­tor at In These Times.