I just got an email from “Kamala Harris” asking me to donate to the Democratic National Committee. It caused me to organize my thought on the subject and write a response. I realize that no one is going to read that email, so I thought I would post it here:
The Democratic National Committee has made its position quite clear in many ways, including its treatment of David Hogg. It continues to support the wealthy over the working class and it stands in the way of actually fixing many of the problems in our country. Moderation is not the answer to our increasingly extreme situations. Moderate amounts of fascism, a moderate lack of healthcare, moderate homelessness, and moderate levels of civil rights are not what this country needs.
I will continue to vote for progressive Democratic candidates, but I will not support the Democratic National Committee unless radical changes are made. It is certainly not doing anything to support me.
Totally sensible. Why do they even need donations given they are really the only choice now.
David Hogg is a tool of the oligarchs to disarm the working class. That doesn’t make the DNC any better, but that argument fell really flat with me.
The way they dealt with him was a demonstration of their corruption, whatever you think of his policy positions.
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A lot of people on the left don’t support Democrat sponsored gun control initiatives. Do you trust our government? Even if you do, are you confident we’ll be able to trust them with a monopoly on force for generations? The working class must not be disarmed.
Honestly they’d probably do a lot better if they would forever denounce gun restrictions but they won’t. A lot of their other positions on working class rights and benefits are very popular even among the R voters in my family, obviously anecdotal.
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This makes me wonder where else you could donate. You could send money directly to specific candidates, but I wonder if someone trusted like AOC could run a collection and distribute the money to true progressives to replace the DNC, especially for primaries. After all, money is how the DNC remains relevant and hard to replace. It’s also the main way they ensure their picks win primaries.
I would follow Bernie Sanders into hell, if he said it was necessary. He would be the ideal choice to anchor a new progressive party if he were just a little younger. Not that he couldn’t do it now, it’s just likely to turn some people off. AOC would be my second choice.
Getting anything resembling a new party off the ground seems nearly impossible under the US system. You may be right that our best option, at least for now, is an informal organization of progressive candidates and supporters.
I think the question is if we can either reach a competitive level of fundraising, which seems unlikely, or find ways to make the money a less overwhelming factor. There have been enough races that money failed to buy to show that it is possible. It just isn’t very common. For something like this to work, we will need almost everyone to become an activist.
