The Working Families Party National Director, Maurice Mitchell, made an appearance at the Daily Kos Caucus at Netroots Nation 2019. He discussed centrism and electability in a manner all Americans must hear sooner rather than later.
The Democratic Establishment for too long has equated centrism with electability. Mitchell pointed out some unfortunate truths that the party would do well to heed.
“These narratives carry with them all kinds of political interests when talking about electability,” Mitchell said. “Sandwich in that word are all these biases and all of these political interests. We have one of those crucial decisions to make. Our country is choosing to either go further towards neofascism, return back to the sort of Third Way triangulation of sort of corporate Democrats, or take the leap forward to a more progressive more inclusive, a more socially Democratic country.”
Maurice Mitchell: What they are asking for is surrender
Mr. Mitchell then addressed the issue of electability.
“The intervention we need to make is around this question of electability,” Mitchell said. “Or what it takes to actually beat an ascendant white Christian identity movement that Trump rode to the White House.”
Mitchell went on to point out that many, attempt to describe centrism as nonideological. He made it clear that that is not the case. In fact, the centrist ideology is corporate ideology. He said that when the Establishment talks about unity what they really mean is the surrender of our Progressive values.
The WFP National Director further made it clear that Progressives can only win if they provide Americans with the forward-moving policies they want. That is what will have them discussing the election in their social institutions which will ultimately ferry them to the polls.
We cannot do much about the corporatists within the Democratic Party. The thing is, there is a small number of those. These corporatist Democrats are dependent on psychologically tested scare tactics to convince the rank & file to succumb to some mythical center and with that a center or center-left candidate. That is a recipe for disaster.
Progressives should take these next few months and respectfully make the case to the rank & file. One need not address the corporatists as they will only listen to their masters, the plutocracy. Ultimately, the corporatists will have to follow a unified Democratic Party. It is not the Progressives that are divisive. Let’s be clear, it is the corporatists who are not looking out for the masses but for the wealthy few as they leave scraps for the rest to fight over.
Watch the full speech here.
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