From the corrupt, corporate, anti-Bernie wing of the Democratic PartyAs I reiterated yesterday, despite Bernie’s backing for Tom Perriello in Virginia, Perriello’s loss was no blow to progressivism. During his single term in Congress, Perriello proved himself to be a careerist hack with just a worthless patina of fake progressivism and, a dishonest and untrustworthy politician. On Friday Shaun King, in an insightful essay on why progressives and liberals continue to feel like unwelcome guests in the Democratic Party, sited Perriello’s loss as a loss for the movement. He’s correct in pointing out that the Virginia victor, conservative, semi-Republican Ralph Northam, has been a crap Democrat, but that doesn’t make Perriello anything but-- if that-- the lesser of two evils. Northam’s values, he wrote “simply don't line up with that of most progressives, including my own” and he’s right. But neither did Perriello’s who is just a faker who managed to take in an awful lot of people, including Bernie… and Shaun, who wrote that he doesn’t “know of any better illustration for the current dilemma of American progressives than this [Virginia] race and its result. The Democratic Party is moving to the right.”He’s right about the party establishment moving even further to the right. Guys like Perriello are, however, the polar opposite of the answer.
The Democratic Party has shifted to the right. It's not anti-war. It's not strong on the environment. It's not strong on civil and human rights. It's not for universal health care. It's not strong on cracking down on Wall Street and big banks or corporate fraud. Ralph Northam was and is weak on all of those core principles of the progressive left, but we're expected to get behind him, and candidates like him, as if we're just a few small details away from seeing eye to eye with him. We aren't. He's not a progressive. He's not a liberal. He's hardly even a Democrat.Millions of us who ultimately voted for Hillary Clinton felt the very same way about her. On issues ranging from war, to corporate fraud, to campaign finance, to universal health care, and so much more, her positions were not discernibly different from the most basic Republican talking points.Was she better than Trump? Of course she was. But I'd literally rather have a Kardashian sister or Curious George be President of the United States over Trump. Someone being better than Trump cannot be our key metric for choosing candidates.I'm hearing more and more of my progressive friends talk seriously about the need for us to form our own political party. I get it. At the very best we are slightly tolerated guests in the Democratic Party. We are as different from establishment Democrats as those establishment Democrats are from everyday Republicans.Being begrudgingly tolerated is a terrible feeling. We are an enthusiastic, organized bunch, but I certainly don't feel welcomed.MSNBC's Joy Reid all but confirmed as much in a widely shared tweet earlier this week in which she said, "Bernie and his followers are like that college friend who stays at your place for weeks, pays $0, eats your food & trashes your aesthetic.”That Reid, who makes a living as a political commentator, came to this conclusion about Bernie Sanders and his millions of followers was deeply disappointing, but revealing. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America. He has done far more for the Democratic Party than it has for him.When the new head of the Democratic Party, Tom Perez, went on a speaking tour recently with Bernie, the enthusiastic crowds of thousands didn't show up at every single venue to hear Tom-- they were there for Bernie. Tom didn't do Bernie a favor, Bernie did Tom a favor. Bernie got behind Hillary Clinton and campaigned for her all over the country and asked his supporters to follow his lead.I was one of those people who did just that. I've been a Democrat all of my life and have campaigned for and donated to so many Democratic candidates across the years. That the millions of us who support Bernie and his values have been reduced to bad guests who don't pay our way, eat up all the food, and trash the place, is a terrible insult rooted in something other than reality.Democrats lost the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the strong majority of state houses and governorships across the country. I agree that it sure does look like somebody trashed the place, but it damn sure wasn't Bernie and his followers. Anybody saying that is delusional.
Shaun shouldn’t take an establishment shill like Joy Reid any more seriously than he would take any other establishment shills on TV, from Chris Matthews to that Greta thing MSNBC hired from Fox. Reid’s just another former Republican elitist who found her way to the party of the establishment Democrats. He shouldn’t waste his time fighting with her on Twitter or writing about her anti-progressive views in his column. She doesn’t have anything constructive to offer and perspective is typical of any Blue Dog or Third Way hack.Shaun is part of the effort the progressive grassroots has been making to take over the Democratic Party and return it to its traditional role-- at least since the 1930s-- as a legitimate vehicle for the aspirations of America’s working families. That’s what Bernie is as well, of course. It’s an on-going, never-ending effort-- and one that will always be opposed by the entrenched forces of Big Money, which can-- and does-- buy people like Reid.