The Democratic Party Of The Future

I think everyone looks at problems differently. Much like Shaun, four years ago, I looked at the state of the Kansas and Missouri Democratic Parties and I said: this is a shambles. Good people, good intent for the most part, but parties in trouble for multiple reasons.

The easy answer, frankly, is to quit. Throw up your hands and say “good riddance, I don’t want anything to do with that”. And, for people like me, writing bombshells on the internet and getting spots on news media doing so would have been easy. Over the years, I’ve had pretty good success building up decent contacts where I need them to make my argument.

What I knew, though, was that if I quit or stayed on the outside, absolutely nothing would improve. Shaun King’s argument is: quit and it will force them to reckon with reality. My counter argument: when you quit, you remove a progressive voice from the room and you increase the voice that people you oppose have within the party. And mathematically, that is hard to deny.

Shaun King’s solution only entrenches the problem, meaning that those Democrats you oppose and shake your fist at? They gain more, not less, influence within the party. The plan of a third-level progressive party? You splinter the left and you basically guarantee Republicans win more, not fewer elections, which is also contrary to your goals.

Knowing that the party needs more progressive voices, how does someone get involved? Depending on how you want to be involved, how much time and effort you want to put into it, there are opportunities to build the party you want in the future… from the inside.

You have some spare time?

Unhappy with your county party? Run for a position as a precinct person, and get enough people to do it with you. If you have enough votes in a county precinct meeting, you can take over your county party. www.precinctproject.us

A little ambitious and committed?

Unhappy with your state party? Work to get yourself places on the state committee, a caucus committee, or a member of staff.

Really ambitious?

Become the chair of a caucus in your state, a member of the executive committee of your state party.

All in to change your party?

Get the votes together and become one of these roles: State Chair, State Vice Chair, State National Committee Member, Executive Director.

The Ultimate commitment: run for office.

That’s it.

It is pretty easy to quit. And it feels good. There have been jobs in my life — I can think of a few — where I stood up and said: F- this, this is wrong, I quit. I have no second thoughts about any of those. The reality is, in those situations, my role meant I had no chance to actually change the corporate makeup.

But a party really, really doesn’t work that way. Looking at issues within the party, the easiest answer for all of us is simple: quit. Get out. Doing the real work of actually changing things, yes, that’s hard.

Revolutionaries Aren’t Quitters.

I’m excited to say that I’ve encouraged more Bernie supporters and Bernie active members to become precinct members, state committee members, and run for office here in Kansas.. as Democrats. We will have several candidates in Missouri who were also part of the Bernie revolution.

Numerous Bernie supporters have helped take control of and rebuild organizations like LGBT outreach in Missouri and Women’s organizations in other states. It’s hard work but they understand they are the party of the future. Unhappy with their county chair? Outwork them. Unhappy with another position, you OUTWORK THEM.

King offers this piece of advice:

www.nydailynews.com/...

I am in full agreement with both Reich and Alexander. Whatever happens between now and the Democratic Convention - what's next is that we form a brand new progressive political party from scratch.

This advice, though, is the reverse of any idea of “revolution”. A revolution is defined as: “An overthrow of government or social order.” If you take your ball and go elsewhere, you aren’t overthrowing anything. You are, instead, saying you can’t be bothered doing the work of changing something, and you’d prefer to just start all over. It leaves untouched the organization you are trying to change.

While some would contend: well, it is a “kind” of revolution if we build a strong alternative that takes over the old, but that it is also predicated on fairly illogical premise that the only people who would join you in a 3rd party would be perfect examples of your goal, and all of the people you want to be free of would stay where they are, in the Democratic Party.

Shaun also focuses his blame on Debbie Wasserman Schultz an her service as DNC chair. Well, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will not be DNC Chair next year, and, for unhappy Democrats there is a chance to also change that in a race in Florida for US House.

Don’t Grumble About Change. Do It.

Shaun ends his message this way:

Don't believe what anyone tells you — the ball is in our hand and we have more power than progressive people have had in a very long time in this country. I will fight for Bernie Sanders until he is no longer running for president.

Shaun on this point is right. Progressives have more power than we have ever had. What Shaun King is telling you, though, is that for all that power, progressives are completely powerless to change their party. They can’t change it at the state level, they can’t change it at the county level, they can’t change it at the national level. That, for Shaun, is just too damn hard, and starting over with a new organization, one which will likely hand Republicans win after win after win in a 3 way divided contest is in some way preferable.

Well, just a heads up to Shaun. I watched a Bernie delegate stand up at a district meeting in Wichita and say out loud: “It’s up to us to be the revolution!” What is he doing now? He’s running for state Senate. I was in Western Kansas where Bernie supporters, unhappy with the outreach of their county party, TOOK IT OVER. I watched a Missouri Senator unhappy with what she feels is lack of attention by a Democratic Congressman announce her support for Bernie and file to run for US Congress.

Hell, me, myself, wanting to change the national party.. it’s easy to quit, Shaun. You know what’s hard? Being willing to rock the boat and force change. It’s why I ran to be national committee member. It’s why I encourage others to run for office and precinct members.

The Democratic party is what we make it, and unfortunately, quitters don’t get to make it anything. So, Shaun King, let me introduce you to someone who is truly a Bernie Revolutionary, and tell you I’ll back people like Gabriel Costilla, who stood up and put himself out there to change that party.

I’m sorry, Shaun, you are unhappy. But there is no courage in quitting. And I will take school teachers and precinct people who are trying to change things as the people who build that revolution over people who throw up their hands and quit.

UPDATE/EDITS: Note, I’ve made a few small edits to flesh out two sentences and to add a sentence to better point out how a third “progressive” party would actually work contrary to all goals; more importantly, I want to make it clear that without a plan of any sort, the goal of “let’s start over” isn’t a strategy to be taken seriously, any more than me saying I plan to climb K2 or Mount Everest without a plan is serious, so I can’t treat such pronouncements as a serious function of political discourse.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: So this is an important, but off topic update. Since publishing this diary, I’ve had a lot of good feedback, but since it went out and was linked somewhere else (reddit maybe?), and my email address is easy to see, I’ve also had some negative feedback. One of the negative feedback I’ve had from this is associated with my work for CTR. People have seen this show up linked to me, and they assume it is “Correct The Record” and have made pretty negative comments in regards to this. I’d like to point out “FOR THE RECORD”, that CTR is my initials: Christopher T Reeves.

So, if you’ve read the supposed association, wherever it has been published, it is completely false.

Thanks.