Social media was buzzing yesterday as copious amounts of people expressed their chagrin, and in some cases shock, for the votes cast by 13 Democrats blocking an amendment that would have allowed citizens to purchase cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. The majority of the acrimony was directed at Junior New Jersey Senator, Cory Booker and rightfully so. Booker, in the afternoon went from taking part in a turning point during the confirmation process of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, to becoming a turncoat in the evening with his vote to block the prescription drug amendment.

Sen. Booker Testifying at Confirmation Hearing of Sen. Jeff Sessions

I would argue that the shock expressed by so many loyal Democrats is not warranted and want to make one thing clear - Booker may actually retain authentic concerns for the possible elevation of a white supremacist sympathizer and civil rights law opponent to Attorney General. But his motivation to testify against Sessions was equally a soft announcement that he intends to run for President in 2020. Yet another pronouncement of the Democrat’s inauthenticity that contributed to the demise and eventual failure of Secretary Clinton’s second presidential run.

Members of the Democratic party must cease being surprised by the votes their lawmakers make and start realizing that this party is corrupted and influenced by the same monied influences as their GOP adversaries. By some estimates, the 13 Democrats who voted against the amendment hauled in over $4 million from the industry they protected, Big Pharma, at the expense of the people.

A quick review of history will reveal that this is nothing new, as this political party has been resisting true progressivism since the days of FDR — the legendary president Democrats continue to move farther and farther away from as they continue to fall deeper into the abyss of neoliberalism. As Thomas Frank reminds us in his seminal work, Listen Liberal, “When the left party in a system severs its bonds to working people — when it dedicates itself to the concerns of a particular slice of high achieving affluent people — issues of work and income inequality fade from its list of concerns.” This week’s vote on affordable drugs also indicates that issues of health and survival have also faded from the concerns of too many Democrats.

We all witnessed history repeat itself this year during the 2016 Democratic primary. The same surreptitious back door deals and procedural chicanery during the 1944 DNC Convention in Chicago that denied Henry Wallace the Vice Presidential nomination, was levied against Sen. Bernie Sanders. 1944 gave us President Truman who could fairly be considered a war criminal that catalyzed the Cold War and the legacy of global suffering that came with it and still plagues many to this day. The rejection of true progressive populism by the Democratic party in 2016 was a major variable that led to the election of Donald Trump. As such, the Democrats have proven the philosopher George Santayana to be a prophet as his prescient quote, “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it…” was put into practice.

The Democratic party is not just made up of lawmakers and the people who vote for them. It’s an equation that also includes the integers in the form of special interest groups and think tanks that very much resemble the party bosses who heisted the VP nomination from Wallace in 1944. As it pertains to special interest groups, the most nefarious element is the Non-profit Industrial Complex, especially historically white-led environmental groups that offer their support and endorsements for Democratic candidates, despite the fact that their environmental records are suspect at best, faster than the French surrender to Germany. These same groups that sound the alarm for humanity’s greatest challenge, climate change, corral their members and money to support candidates who support and take money from the fracking industry, who, in some cases voted twice to support Keystone XL, who back other pipelines that threaten to poison sovereign Native American land and water and who push incremental and anemic climate policies that won’t prevent a 2.0 degrees celsius increase in global temperature — a red line, that if crossed, will yield calamitous events that will change the course of human existence. These groups are as complicit as the party they serve and support in an obscene attempt to remain viable and visible at the expense of their members who blindly funnel their money to these groups, people of color who are too often ignored by these groups and the planet overall.

Dr. Cornel West once referred to outgoing President Barack Obama as, “a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface.” I would never assume that I could speak for a mind as generational as Dr. West’s. But I do believe the major premise of his criticism is rooted in the idea that Obama and the Democratic party has shown itself to be two-faced on numerous occasions. The same party that decried the abject racism associated with the Flint water crisis takes exuberant amounts of money from Big Sugar who poisons lakes, streams and the Everglades in Florida. The same party that decries the prison industrial complex rallied around President Bill Clinton (and later Secretary Clinton) who pushed for and signed a crime bill that fuels it. And, most recently, the same party up in arms about the GOP’s promise to repeal Obamacare just saw 13 of its Senators side with an industry that has as much interest in public health as Yankees fans do in the Red Sox’s success.

People of color, especially African Americans, have never fully received a return on their investment despite being a big factor in the electoral successes and failures of the Democratic Party. Through their policies, their obsession with “identity politics,” and embracing the myopia that their losses in 2010, 2014 and 2016 was due to lack of appeal to the so-called working class white voter, the Democrats have not fulfilled their end of the bargain to people of color, who are too often used as pawns in a political chess match. This despite the admonishment of Steve Phillips who in his book Brown is the New White reminds us, “The numbers show that additional working-class white voters are not a necessary component of a progressive majority given the current racial composition of the electorate.” Phillips goes on to say, “On the policy front, the Democrat’s focus on the wrong votes was evident shortly after the 2008 election. Time and time again, excessive caution and concern about how white swing voters would respond led Democrats to compromise, delay and water down policy proposals that would have galvanized the New American Majority.”

At a time when the most vulnerable people in this nation have become even more vulnerable with the election of Donald Trump and air tight control of the federal and State government by a right-wing political party hell bent on a political reckoning, the Democratic party is rattled, overwhelmed and bereft of innovative ideas that will best protect these people. For all the overt umbrage the Democrats have taken with their political adversaries, including the President Elect, they remain obstinate and intransigent at a time that calls for profound introspection. This is being proven by scandals and big money influence at the state party level, most pronounced in Florida, and at the national level as Democratic mega-donors have embarked on a smear campaign rooted in racism and Islamophobia against Rep. Keith Ellison.

In her new book Rules for Revolutionaries, along with co-author Zack Exley, Becky Bond offers us an undeniable truth, “You won’t get a revolution if you don’t ask for one,” explaining, “Movements require clear demands for solutions as radical as our problems, and you need authentic, credible leaders to deliver the message.” Based on the recent behavior through votes and lack of fervor against Trump’s cabinet nominations, the Democratic party is antithetical to the requirements Becky prescribes. It is, therefore, up to the people to demonstrate that the behavior of styrofoam progressives like Booker, Bennet, Tester, Warner, Coons, Carper and so many more is unacceptable and hold them accountable where it counts the most, in the voting booth.

Phone calls after votes have been cast are not going to cut it. Seattle activist Peter Gelderloos once remarked, “A minority of one knows its own interests better than the rest of society, and the rest of society can only be convinced of a truth if people start putting it into action rather than waiting for validation from the majority.” The society of the Democratic party must be given a choice by the people immediately, “reform or relinquish your standing as a viable political party.” Until we demonstrate this choice through action, they will continue to be a centrist, incrementalist party that will continually find itself vanquished and on a trajectory to oblivion at the expense of too many people who offer this party unwarranted blind support.