The Democratic Party, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its Elites (Super Delegates, National Officers and Executives, State Party Officers, and State Electoral College Delegates) need to get out of denial and admit their mistakes that put the current President in the White House.
Yes, we can acknowledge Russian sabotage, GOP Voter Suppression, election fraud, GOP led minority voter purges in key states, Bernie Sanders zealots who refused to vote after he lost the nomination, “apathy” by millennials and minority voters, and just plain “election apathy” and voter burn-out with regard to the two party dominance of American Politics, as all contributing factors. But, it still begs the question; how on God’s green earth did he win? Or rather, how did we lose?
The latter is the real question that needs to be answered by the Democratic Party apparatchik. To answer that question, we must first get out of “denial” and look at the performance of the party in retrospect. A retrospectroscope is in order. Where did the Democratic Party go wrong?
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I’m gong to use the game of Basketball as an analogy to the election and nominating process in the Democratic Party as a roadmap to Democratic Party self-critique of what we did to beat ourselves. To analogize to basketball post-game analysis, how did we beat ourselves? Did they take us out of our game, or did WE take ourselves out of our game? Were they superior in playing skills, or did we make mistakes that cost us the game? Did we miss our “free throws” and otherwise fail to capitalize on their mistakes? Did we insist on going to our star player even though we knew they had her boxed up? How come we didn’t go to another dependable outside scorer and playmaker who had recently joined the team but had proven himself by not only scoring but helping others score? Was it because he wasn’t favored by the coaches because they knew the Athletic Director, Administration and maybe even parents, might be upset, even though the coaches knew he would help the whole team win? Did the other players, who considered his recent transfer to join the team opportunistic and upsetting to the hierarchy of the team because he could, if properly deployed, mean their “spot” on the team and “promised” next season starter position might be taken away? Were the coaches’ decisions based on community sports politics rather than the potential of winning a championship with a recently acquired talent who clearly made the best interests of the team a priority and had the support of the fans and brought new fans with him?
If the Democratic Party properly utilize their “retrospectoscope” we should come to only one conclusion, WE BEAT OURSELVES. We put this President in the White House. We put a majority GOP Congress in place. We failed to put democratic majorities in state legislatures. We failed to recognize the democratic bases’ dissatisfaction with “stale party politics” and the elitism within the party.
We also failed to recognize the paternalism of the democratic elite, in supplanting the bases’ desire for a party of the people, rather than a party of “Big Money.” We failed to acknowledge the bases’ dissatisfaction with the corporate (Wall Street) mentality that has taken over the Democratic Party and the entire U.S. Electoral System. In capitulating our party to Big Money, and the top 10 percent of the Big Money families who own 85 percent of the wealth in this country and their corporate minions, we did not distinguish ourselves from that other party.
We also took the democratic base for granted, and the party’s apathy toward the traditional democratic base not only alienated those who typically vote Democrat but those who would have voted Democrat had they seen anything in the Democratic Party upon which to premise their vote besides “voting against” something or somebody.
The DNC and party elite refused to listen to what their traditional democratic base(s) and potential young democratic voters were telling them, and instead subjugated the voices of those who could have made the difference, to their own elite judgment. Those voices were expressing dissatisfaction with what they felt, and saw, as corruption within the DNC and the DNC elite who, it appears, had promised the nomination well ahead of the Democratic Primary (maybe even as early as the 2008 nominating convention) thus suppressing every Democrat’s right to have their vote counted. Yes, voter suppression/nullification within our own party greatly contributed to not only the dissatisfaction of the bases and potential new democratic voters, but also to those potential cross-over voters who were experiencing much the same dissatisfaction within the GOP and its takeover by the extreme right. The DNC and the democratic elite reaped what they sowed. They set themselves above everyone in the rank and file and above the will of the people. Huge mistake.
Harold Monteau is a Chippewa Cree Attorney and writes from New Mexico. He can be reached on Facebook or hamlaw@live.com.
