Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader, but he is the worst leaders Democrats could have at the worst time. In this screenshot (video), he is seen during a press conference, attended by a few other congressional Democrats and representatives for teachers’ unions in May 2018. The Democrats were introducing a plank of their “Better Deal” platform. I believe that the Democrats came up with a newer slogan, but I forgot how it went. That’s how forgettable it was.
What could threaten a blue wave in 2018? Quite frankly, the Democratic establishment could. Other top Democratic leaders can, as well.
These midterms should be a referendum on Donald Trump and the Republican agenda, but for both to be successfully rebuked, the opposition needs to be united and to have a cohesive message. Unfortunately, far too many Democratic leaders have gotten in the way of the messages presented by progressives while presenting none of their own. On top of that, these so-called leaders have failed to capitalize on the Republicans’ forced errors and have committed a series of their own missteps.
All these things have threatened to depress the vote and to undermine the energy on the left and make the notion of a blue wave seem like a distant dream. In this post (another LAP — sorry), I will explain why I’ve come to that conclusion.
Al Franken, Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Rodney Frelinghuysen, and Trey Gowdy all announced their retirements in January 2018.
Before the midterms began, the Republican party was still grappling with retirements in Congress and Sen Al Franken, a Democrat, said goodbye to his colleagues. How much happened January and February 2018? The first two months of the year were busier than you might think, primary-wise.
The guy on the right is Ben Ray Lujan, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Committee. I don’t really discuss him in this post, but his DCCC is responsible for giving new candidates a questionable memo.
In the previous posts in this series, I talked about current congressional candidates who are running as Democrats (with or without the party’s backing) and some possible presidential candidates. And in each post, I hinted at my displeasure of the party’s process (with regards to promoting and supporting candidates).
The party is still crowing about taking a seat in a red state which last elected a Democratic U.S. senator 25 years ago, but there is still much to learn. Sure, Black voters in Alabama were rightfully praised for showing up and largely supporting Jones, but there were several lessons that race the party needs to take to heart.
Instead, the Democrats are taking all of the wrong lessons from Doug Jones’ victory. Doug Jones himself is taking the wrong lessons from his victory. In particular, some people screamed from the rooftops to tell everyone that centrism worked. They felt that they found a recipe for winning in the age of Trump. But they conveniently ignored other factors in the race.
The truth is Jones barely beat a child predator who refused to be part of a debate. And Jones didn’t even earn a majority of the vote at that.
If the allegations against Roy Moore had never surfaced during the race, Jones would have lost by at least 20 points. Think about that for a minute.
Could Jones have pulled off a more convincing victory under the same circumstances? I honestly don’t know, but the Democrats will need to have stronger showings across the country, but Democrats are doing a lot to mess that up.
What Does This Have to Do with Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein?
There is a connection to Jones, Clinton, Feinstein, and its name is centrism. The party’s leadership and donors prefer centrists, repeating the “consensus” belief that centrists won’t alienate conservatives.
What can I say about the current state of the Democratic Party? Oh, boy …
In late July 2017, the Democratic National Committee’s Deputy Vice Chair of Civic Engagement Frank Spencer spoke during a #DNCTakeBack news conference at Politicon. Mr. Spencer took around ten minutes clarifying some parts of the Democrats’ “bold” new platform. Spencer said that the party had listened to the people and would thus promote a populist platform. During the question and answer section, Spencer admitted that the Democrats tried to run as centrists largely because the party’s donors wouldn’t let the party’s candidates run on populist issues.
As it turns out, that news conference in Pasadena, CA was a fake one. It was staged by The Yes Men, with the help of grassroots activists, for a bipartisan audience of 100 people. Andy Bichlaum of the parody duo played the part of a DNC representative who came to talk about the Democrats’ “A Better Deal,” the platform the party had released a week prior.
Bichlaum had a few people going for a while. Yet sadly, in telling people things they wanted to hear, he made a commentary on the sad state of affairs in “the party of the people.”
With that in mind, Let’s review some things I have already talked about in this series, while discussing what has transpired over the past year-and a half.
Shmaltz and Menudo 
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