What’s the best way to support deep-seated change at the DNC? No more superdelegates and closed caucusing please? Time to wipe away the sclerosis
Somebody asked this question in a Facebook post. I held onto my answer until I could compress a lot of thinking into a small space.
Let’s do the forensics on the question and then on its answer.
Deep seated change: The Democratic National Committee was governance, access to capital and administered over the States Democratic party apparatus. It is now, unfortunately, just a SuperPac. In advance of the Clinton corporatocracy running Hillary for President, they worked from state to state taking over those party systems. They did this by having almost unlimited political contributions to direct to their choice candidates and electeds. The DNC became nothing more than a mechanism to steer large checks and to exceed campaign contribution limits. All that remains of the Democratic National Committee is a facade, it appears to have continuity from what it was, but it is now actually something much different.
No More Superdelegates. In almost every country in the world it is a closed primary, the party establishment decides who will run and you can either vote for that person, or not. This is why other countries have such high voter participation, because choice A nd B are the same. America has open primaries, we choose all our candidates in a (relatively) democratic way. To better manage the outcomes tactics are used: voter suppression, wiping voter rolls, gerrymandering, overly complex voting regulations, not requiring legal ID. Unlike almost every country, our voting is an honor system amongst political thieves. Lastly, as a failsafe, the Democrats use Superdelegates, the Republicans have their equivalent.
Time to wipe away the sclerosis: What if the sclerosis doesn’t want to be wiped away? Let’s look at one of my favorite electeds, Cory Booker and one of my favorite Attorney Generals, Jeff Sessions. The two are friends, wrote a bill together and have a great relationship. Cory knows that Jeff is not a racist. So why did Cory take the unprecedented step of appearing in the confirmation hearings to testify against Jeff Sessions? Cory was coerced by the Democratic party to do this. Why?… cos this is politics. The Obama, leftmost wing of the Democratic party wants to neutralize Cory Booker and they know that giving him hypocritical visibility will hurt him in his future presidential ambitions. Sorry to tell you this, but Obama (I voted for him 2x) wants to preserve the ‘black’ vote as uniquely his province.
And now I ask you: Why do you have a committment to the Democratic Party?
People choose their own reality. I have heard extremely convincing and factually asserted argument on both sides of manmade global warming. There is no ‘true’, nothing corresponds to absolute facts. If almost all the variables are removed and complexity is reduced to a coloring book nothing is unconditionally ‘true’. Both sides will use ‘alternate facts’, each accusing the other of being the lesser.
What have you emotionally attached yourself to? Where have you gone looking for human connection? How do you see you own identity? People have an inner dialogue “I am the type of person who____” and “I want people to think of me as the type of person who would____”.
People, primarily women, marched throughout the country wearing pussy hats. It can be infused with any deepness that you want, but too most sensible observers it was just brand ambassadors, walking Pepsi, or Coca-Cola, billboards. Tell me when the protests are in front of the Saudi Embassy.
Do you think the Democratic Party is a vehicle for a better tomorrow? You, my unknown friend, are smoking crack. If in fact you are not, you should start, you are unprepared for where the world is going. In 20 years your children will tell you that allowing your country to run up massive debt and fight in 5 wars was the wrong side of history.
Marching about fiscal discipline isn’t exciting, yet debt is the single biggest threat to your future. It is a nuclear bomb that has detonated, you just don’t want to look up and see the mushroom cloud.
If I understand the essence of the question, I can give this essence of a response: find a politician you believe in, a Councilperson, a Congressperson, someone you can become close to, someone you think is ethical and shares your true beliefs. Support them, give them money if you can, host meets and greets for your friends. If you want real change, start at that local level. Once you get into the Democratic National Committee ‘stuff’, it’s all about business and payback.
Lastly, I want you to understand the actuals of Trumps historic win, it is important to understand that maybe your reality is different from theirs. The image used in this post is the map, he won all the red:
(please note an addendum at the end of this post correcting these numbers. I wanted to leave the original intact)
There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Trump won 3,084 of them. Clinton won 57
Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes
In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump. These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles. The United States is composed of 3, 797,000 square miles.
The End?
Addenda: Someone who was kind enough to read my post on FB commented that the numbers I gave conflicted with another set of county numbers presented by Politifact. I unconditionally accept the following:
Trump won Trump 2,623, Hillary Clinton won 489. Hillary won the popular vote by 2.8 million votesDisclaimers, trigger alerts and microaggression:
I was born and raised in NYC. I am 50 years old. My bio is here.
I am a (liberal?) Democrat. I have given, hosted, bundled, been on finance committees. I’ve split the vote. I can read polls. I can make up compelling statistics
I was infrequently in school, I cut a lot of classes. I was inadequately indoctrinated and only partially assimilated.
Hobbies: I study Supreme Court decisions, Roman, Greek & American History. I play scrabble.
I have an unpleasant but occasionally profitable habit of asking ‘why’ until I understand all the complexity of something.
I voted for Trump, I wrote about it here
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18Feb