Many of us who understand our current political system know one thing, Americans hate both parties. What they hate is the two parties’ establishments, the corrupt leadership that serves the same masters, the Plutocracy. This move by the Democratic Party and restrictions on candidates increases headwinds unnecessarily.
Yahoo News reported the following.
The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee adopted a new rule on Friday that would prevent outsiders like Bernie Sanders from seeking the party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential race. The move seems to be the latest salvo in the ongoing jockeying over the party’s future that emerged following the at times bitter primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Sanders in 2016.
But while the rule change left some of Sanders’s top allies thinking the party was being driven by “spite,” it likely won’t affect him directly and could pave the way for one of his favorite reforms.
DNC member Randi Weingarten, who is president of the American Federation of Teachers, posted a photo of the rules change shortly after it was added to the proposed draft call for the 2020 Democratic convention. Weingarten, who attended Friday’s DNC meeting in Providence, R.I., wrote that the party “changed the rules to ensure to run for President as a Democrat you need to be A Democrat.”
The new rule would force candidates in Democratic presidential primaries to state that they are Democrats, accept the party’s nomination if they win the 2020 primary and to “run and serve” as a member.
“At the time a presidential candidate announces their candidacy publicly, they must publicly affirm that they are a Democrat,” the rule says. “Each candidate pursuing the Democratic nomination shall affirm, in writing, to the National Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee that they: A. are a member of the Democratic Party; B. will accept the Democratic nomination; and C. will run and serve as a member of the Democratic Party.”
The rule seems like a clear response to Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate but has steadfastly maintained his status as an independent. Sanders ran to the left of Clinton and identifies himself as a “democratic socialist.”
To be clear, the Democratic Party has the right to create and apply whatever rules it wants. If it wants to win, it will make sure its rules are flexible enough to expand the party even to those who don’t consider themselves affiliates of any Party.
The values of the Democratic Party as expressed in its platform are decidedly Progressive. As such most Progressives, irrespective of their self-described party affiliation, ultimately coalesce around the party as the only structure where we realize those values. Putting up roadblocks to the likes of Bernie Sanders do much more harm than good.
I know too many Progressives who feel prostituted for good reason if they officially joined the Democratic Party. And the Republican Party and many others are not viable options for them either. Many of these people will vote in the Democratic Primaries and for the Democrats as long as they don’t feel they must make a commitment to the Party. It is a bargain they make with themselves to do the pragmatic thing and not fell the sting of self-deception.
Codifying that a Democratic candidate has to sell their soul to the Democratic Party Establishment to run on Democratic/Progressive values is shortsighted. The common ground is to state one would caucus with Democrats only. Blue Dog Democrats fit the requirements perfectly but do they offer better benefits and outcomes? The answer is no.
This silly rule is a continuation of the Bernie/Clinton feud that needs to stop. Democrats and unaffiliated Progressives need to put country before ego. In effect — and I don’t speak this way — they need to stop being stupid and work to achieve the big picture, a broad Progressive tent that serves all Americans.
Here are some comments the article elicited.
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Please read my article “No need for Democrats to fear their Progressive wing, join it.”