Republicans Muzzling the People’s Will by Suppressing Ballot Initiatives

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

A ballot initiative process gives direct power to the voters to enact new, or change existing laws. It allows ordinary citizens to bypass their legislators by placing their proposed legislation directly on the public election ballot. These proposed initiatives first have to meet states’ qualifications regarding the number of petition signatures required and other criteria required by state laws.

This century-old fixture of American democracy allows voters to defy the wishes of their state’s representatives. In states now dominated by Republican-led legislatures, Democrats and independents have had recent success in passing broadly popular laws that are opposed by Republican legislators and governors.

The New York Times is running a story (5/22/21) about how state Republican legislators have begun passing new laws to limit or dismantle the ballot initiative in their state. This is part of a broader Republican agenda to suppress majority rule and cease permanent government control. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“But this year, Republican-led legislatures in Florida, Idaho, South Dakota, and other states have passed laws limiting the use of the practice, one piece of a broader G.O.P. attempt to lock in political control for years to come… So far in 2021, Republicans have introduced 144 bills to restrict the ballot initiative processes in 32 states… Of those bills, 19 have been signed into law by nine Republican governors. In three states, Republican lawmakers have asked voters to approve ballot initiatives that in fact limit their own right to bring and pass future ballot initiatives.”

Republicans lost the Presidency and control of the Senate in a massive voter turnout election. The people of America have spoken loudly, and they don’t like it. They pulled out all the stops and didn’t expect to lose. The manner in which they have conducted themselves before and since the election has tipped their hand to reveal their real intent. Their only goal is to suppress majority rule so they can take permanent control over the federal government. They have accomplished this in many states. These states served as models of how a federal takeover can be done. A critical piece of the plan was put in place when Mitch McConnell succeeded in packing the federal bench and the Supreme Court with sympathetic ideologues.

This was supposed to be the election to take over our republic. It was their only agenda. They literally didn’t have any party platform to run on. They offered no policy initiatives, no vision statements for how they would govern, no critical issues that might distract Trump’s carefully curated base from their cult-like trance. Now their decades-long plans for totalitarian control are out in the open, even as they try to cover their tracks. It won’t work. Everyone sees clearly what they are up to and how they are doing it.

This assault on state ballot initiatives described in the NY Times article details their attacks on the majority will of the people in their state. The “Anti-Republican” movement has opened yet another front in their battle to dismantle our democratic rule. We cannot let them win. We must not allow the United States of America to become a totalitarian country.

The Rise of a Disloyal Opposition

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

It isn’t too radical to say that the Republican Party establishment is no longer compatible with the democratic ideals on which our republic was founded. If that shocks you or disturbs you, you are in good company. This isn’t how most of us picture things. For well over a hundred years politicians in both parties have been unquestioningly loyal to democratic principles, to this republic, the Constitution, and the rule of law. This truth is the source of the phrase “the loyal opposition.” Members of the "other side" were always opponents, not enemies.

But politics isn’t static, of course. It evolves, and our understanding of how governments and society have changed must change as well. This is difficult because most changes unfold very slowly. We keep up by taking the occasional mental snap-shots of the surroundings, but the tendency to hold on to these images is strong as we struggle to manage our busy lives. We reconcile our views of events from day to day until one day some event or a crisis comes along that scrambles how we pictured things. We are living in one of those times.

Tracing the details of how our politics changed is too broad a topic. Seeing one essential feature, the decline of majority rule in government, is the point here. To help do that, the rise of the Christian-right in politics provides a helpful starting point. To be clear, these trends and changes impact every aspect of our politics, including the growing tensions now on display in the Democratic primary. But the impact is most obvious in the GOP as the majority of us struggle to understand the Republican response to the current impeachment inquiry.

The political rise of the Christian-right at the end of the Twentieth-century is not in dispute. Of the primary reasons for this shift, their views on legal abortion predominate. The standard means of resolving religious differences involves evangelizing until the majority viewpoint of citizens are swayed. In the 1980s the religious right came to realize that anti-abortion sentiment may never predominate in a modern, pluralistic democracy. That inability to convince the majority to willingly outlaw abortion is what brought the Christian-right into politics. They sought, and still seek to legislate what they cannot attain through indoctrination or persuasion.

But politics and power have a corrupting influence on religion. After gaining political influence and even after gaining positions as elected officials, the Christian-right was still unable to pass their unpopular legislation within a system based on majority rule. They would eventually compromise certain Christian and democratic values to join a coalition of other minority interests and fringe political groups under the umbrella of the GOP. Secular pluralism would come to be seen by fundamentalist Christians as American society’s moral decay, and government by majority rule would come to symbolize evil in the eyes of some fundamentalist Christians.

These same hard lessons about majority rule also frustrated the economic caste of America’s wealthiest elites. In the corporate world where decision making is proportional to one's ownership share (or wealth). One person-one vote was a significant barrier to enacting laws and policies that the industrial elite favored because they are so few in number.

But money is power. The Barrons of industry resorted to buying government influence in order to reshape state and federal rules so they could buy even more influence over time. They corrupted politicians with campaign cash and perks. This is particularly true in the Republican Party where the industrial elite focused most of their attention. Now the Republicans in Congress routinely pass and implement policies favorable to the rich regardless of how unpopular or harmful to the general population.

As stated above, this transition is a feature in both political parties, but it is especially evident in the GOP where frustration with majority rule has passed the tipping point.

Frustration with majority rule has become a unifying feature that transformed the GOP into an odd coalition of minority and fringe interest groups united by their desire to overcome the majority in order to achieve their unpopular agendas. The rise of Donald Trump and his corrupt, authoritarian style of leadership has accelerated this transition.

Just as the Christian-right has had to make some unchristian compromises, so have the industrial elites and every other minority or fringe interest group within the Republican coalition. In the process, the GOP has morphed into an anti-democratic movement that will do whatever it takes towards a totalitarian rule. This coalition of disgruntled minority interest groups will even propagate Russian disinformation talking points if it excites their base and wins over their support. 

The GOP is no longer faithful to democratic principles or even the rule of law. We have lost the consent of the minority to majority rule. Political opponents are cast as political enemies in an all-out battle for Unitarian control. The opposition is no longer loyal.

Understanding the truth is the first step in identifying ways to save our republican form of government.

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Further Reading:

Coup d'état – The Revolution Has Been Televised for Years

On September 19th Donald Trump Declared Himself our Dictator

ALSO: Listen to this interview by Bill Moyer of psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton. His new book is Losing Reality  https://billmoyers.com/story/losing-reality-can-we-get-the-truth-back/

On September 19th Donald Trump Declared Himself our Dictator

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

On the morning of September 19, 2019, history will note, President Donald J. Trump officially declared himself to be this country’s first authoritarian dictator. On that day he announced to the world, in a court filing, that he was assuming unlimited criminal immunity to act within or outside the law. He also declared that anyone who works for him on his behalf is also above the law and cannot be investigated, charged or convicted of any crimes as long as he is in office. By logical extension, if no violation of the law can apply to him while in office, then no election can remove him from office and no Congress can remove him by impeachment or check his powers in any way.

This isn’t how the first draft of history read that day. Trump’s dramatic claims received relatively little notice. They came in a court filing and were so outrageous and incredible that no one took it seriously. The headlines on that Thursday read like some variation of this one from the New York Law Journal:

“Trump Sues Manhattan DA Vance in Federal Court in Wake of Tax Subpoenas” 

In the wake of the Mueller investigation, with its assortment of indictments, trials, and convictions of Trump associates, there were over a dozen less noticed criminal investigations spun off to be conducted in other states by other prosecutors. It was a court filing in one of these lesser-known investigations that the President announced his sweeping declarations.

On October 7, 2019, District Judge Victor Marrero, of the Southern District of New York, summed up the President’s claim in an introduction to his ruling rejecting Trump’s claim. Judge Marrero’s ruling reads in part:

“The President asserts an extraordinary claim in the dispute now before this Court. He contends that… under the United States Constitution, the person who serves as President, while in office, enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind. Consider the reach of the President's argument. [As] the Court reads it, presidential immunity would stretch to cover every phase of criminal proceedings, including investigations, grand jury proceedings and subpoenas, indictment, prosecution, arrest, trial conviction, and incarceration. That constitutional protection presumably would encompass any conduct, at any time, in any forum whether federal or state, and whether the President acted alone or in concert with other individuals. Hence, according to this categorical doctrine as presented in this proceeding, the constitutional dimensions of the presidential shield from judicial process are virtually limitless: Until the President leaves office… [this includes crimes committed in*] his official capacity, but also to ones arising from his private affairs, financial transactions, and all other conduct undertaken by him as an ordinary citizen both during and before his tenure in office."
 "Moreover, on this theory the President's special dispensation from the criminal law's purview and judicial inquiry would embrace not only the behavior and activities of the President himself, but also extend derivatively so as to potentially immunize the misconduct of any other person, business affiliate associate, or relative who may have collaborated with the President in committing purportedly unlawful acts, and whose offenses ordinarily would warrant criminal investigation and prosecution of all involved.”

The judge concluded his introduction with these words:

“Because this finds aspects of such a [Presidential] doctrine repugnant to the nation' s governmental structure and constitutional values, and for the reasons further stated below it ABSTAINS from adjudicating this dispute and DISMISSES the President' s suit.”

The Trump Administration immediately appealed.

President Trump’s immunity doctrine stemmed from a criminal investigation to see if Trump’s non-profit organization falsified business records.

In summary, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. is a District Attorney in New York. He empaneled a grand jury to probe whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to money paid to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal prior to the 2016 Presidential Election to keep them quiet about his sexual relationships with them. These were payoffs funneled through Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Some of these payments were by checks made out to Cohen from the Trump Organization, a non-profit entity registered in New York. These payments were categorized as legal fees on the books of this non-profit.

Paying to keep damaging information from the public during an election is a violation of campaign finance laws. Using money donated to a non-profit organization for personal use is also a violation of the law, as is falsifying business records to cover up such misdeeds.

The grand jury investigating the business records of the Trump Organization requires documents, tax records and the cooperation of Mazars USA, the accounting firm hired by the Organization. Trump sent a letter to Mazars USA and forbade the company from releasing his tax records. The jury subpoenaed the company to release the last eight years of Donald Trump’s tax returns. That’s when Trump made his move on unlimited Executive power.

How this constitutional crisis resolves is critical to our republic. By elevating William Barr to Attorney General, Trump, and the Republicans have removed any chance that the Barr-lead Justice Department will ever challenge any illegality committed by the President or his administration. By ramming through two ultra-partisan Supreme Court Justices, and by seating so many highly partisan judges to the federal bench, Trump and the Republicans are betting that all legal challenges to both Congressional oversights, or judicial challenges to Trump’s limitless criminal immunity doctrine, will ultimately fail. The complicity of Congressional Republicans in installing this all-powerful authoritarian government should now be obvious. Articles of impeachment should still be aggressively pursued, but it is no longer a given that an impeachment conviction in the Senate would remove Trump from office. Under his unlimited criminal immunity doctrine, it isn’t even certain that he will honor Presidential election results, or even allow future elections.

Here is where I believe we stand. If the courts don’t uphold the rule of law, all hope for the republic is lost. If the courts do uphold the rule of law after House impeachment and Senate conviction, then it will be up to some combination of the President’s willing capitulation, law enforcement, the U.S. military or massive national citizen protests to assure that Donald Trump leaves office. If the Senate won’t convict Trump of impeachable offenses, it is up to the voters to set the stage for the same options mentioned above. If Donald Trump is reelected, however, it will probably be too late to save our Republic from dictatorial rule.

Warren vs. Sanders is at the Core of Who Democrats Are

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

In an excellent article written by Benjamin Studebaker, he clarifies the significant distinctions between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. To do this, he also traces the ways that the Democratic Party has evolved over the past several decades. His description of that evolution is perfectly aligned with the recent findings of Thomas Picketty’s scientific study of voting data over the last fifty years. In essence, both Studebaker and Picketty find that the Democratic Party increasingly ignores the poor and working-class in service to the growing influence of the wealthy elite, who left-leaning on social issues but pro-corporate and conservative on fiscal issues.









                 Above: Graphic depictions from Studebaker's article. A similar graph shows Biden supporting both the professional class and the 1%. 

I will not attempt to summarize the Studebaker or Picketty articles further here. Instead, I have provided links to them below and encourage you to read them. I only offer here a few personal reaction from what they have to say.

For me, Studebaker’s article raised profound personal questions I hadn’t thought about, beginning with the question, whose interests do I want the Democratic Party to address? How inclusive am I really when it comes to getting the attention I want? When times are good, and I am comfortable with my prospects, it is easy to promote the welfare of those less fortunate. But when even those with considerably more resources than me are feeling squeezed by the economy, egalitarian notions start to fade.

All this raises the idea that if we don’t limit the attention directed at the poor and working-class, will we get less attention then we deserve? But then, isn’t this the very question that the wealthiest 1% of voters are asking? Is the self-interests of middle-class voters just as toxic to the poor and less fortunate?

These are questions everyone should be asking themselves. We should be searching our soul and asking who should the Democratic Party stand for if not for everyone? Listen carefully to what the Democratic Presidential candidates propose and who they are proposing it for. Are they speaking for everyone, or only for those in the professional class who are feeling the pinch?

For me, the answer always come back to my belief that we are all deserving. The Democratic Party, indeed the whole of all governments, should fairly represent everyone’s needs. No one should be excluded or ignored.

The Main Difference Between Warren and Sanders

by Benjamin Studebaker

https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/08/07/the-main-difference-between-warren-and-sanders/?fbclid=IwAR1wXTx3m7RXworl6dg7wjjSBu-g77ARFKwq5ElXTm3R5oh2pQhEGkVHc-Y

Data Analysis Shows a Dem Centrist Candidate Loses

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/06/americans-new-political-landscape-as.html

And this can be contrasted with an article posted here in February of 2016 about Bernie vs. Hillary in which the battle to define the heart of the Democratic Party was getting underway.

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2016/02/bernie-vs-hillary-clearest-distinction.html 

Image credit: https://dnyuz.com/2019/07/30/bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-take-on-all-comers/

Data Analysis Shows a Dem Centrist Candidate Loses

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Here’s a quick summary of how U.S. politics has evolved over the last 50 years, according to a massive analysis of exit polling data conducted by economist, Thomas Picketty.

The ultra-wealthy elites were always conservatives on the political right in the 20th Century. They were traditionally represented by the Republican Party. The lower economic classes were always progressives on the political left represented by the Democrats.

Massive income growth by the wealthiest citizens and changing patterns of wealth accumulation at the top of the scale created a new, high education/high wealth class of elites on the political left. Their power and special interests realigned the priorities of the Democratic Party and shifted focus away from those on the lower end of the economic scale. For over 20 years Democratic candidates for election barely ever mentioned America’s poor. This is especially true for America’s rural poor. With neither party representing the interests of the working class or the poor, these citizens became disaffected and radicalized against elites in both parties, and also against the federal government in general. This gave rise to the Tea Party movement. A vast swath of the Democratic base switched allegiance and became the radical Republican base we have today.

To attract and hold on to these radicalized low wealth/low education voters the industrialist elites have funded and vastly expanded the alt-right media machines to appeal to their radical base. They also pushed radical policies to appease and manipulate their new base. The Republican party today would not have enough members to be a national party if this shift had not taken place.

So, this is how United States politics stands nearly 20 years into the 21st Century. On the Right, we have a radicalized Republican Party comprised of the same ultra-wealthy industrialists at its core. But today they have created this subversive coalition of traditional conservatives and a pantheon of disaffected, low education/low wealth former Democrats. These voters at the lower half of the economic scale include a disparate collection of alt-media radicalized single-issue voters, fringe groups, hate groups, and the disaffected rural poor. All of these groups have otherwise unpopular goals, which the traditional party elites exploit by pushing a radical Republican agenda that is harmful to a majority of Americans, but not to their own bottom line.

On the left, we have a modulated Democratic Party unwilling to challenge the influence and power of the ultra-wealthy, left-leaning elites whose economic interests are best served by maintaining the status quo. The Party is no longer the champion of the poor and marginalized citizens that it once was. The party fauns over the “middle-class” (the upper 40% on the economic scale) in order to hang on to them while strategically ignoring the poor and working-class that once formed its base. Instead, it panders to its former base voters without actually pushing an agenda that would improve their lives.

It is for these reasons that Picketty draws the conclusion that a centrist Democratic candidate for President may be a losing strategy. A centrist who tries to thread the needle between ultra-wealthy elites on the left, and the poor and working classes at the base, will neither energize progressives at the bottom of the income scale nor win over the disaffected voters who have turned to the Republican Party to make themselves heard. It is against these new political realities that Democratic progressives must come to terms before it is too late.

Coup d'état – The Revolution Has Been Televised for Years

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

[AUTHORS NOTE: Since I first published this article in May of 2019, we had a Presidential election in which the losing President has yet to concede and a violent attempt to disrupt the election process to overthrow our democratic rule and reinstall Donald Trump into power. The long-planned coup is now in high gear and moving quickly, out in the open, to complete the violent coup attempt of January 6, 2020. Our republic is facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War. Now, this piece serves as a prologue to however this turns out. 11/23/2021]

The Party of Lincoln is gone. Forever gone. All that remains of it are a nostalgic band of loyal followers around the country who don’t accept its passing and don't see clearly what has taken its place.

Systematically, over time, and with stealth, the Republican Party officeholders have been replaced by a subversive cohort of politicians hostile to a pluralistic, democratic Republic in which they must share power with others who don’t look, think, or worship like them. Demographic changes over the years have expanded majority opinions to include more ethnic and racial minorities while shrinking the proportion of Eurocentric white voters. Additionally, income inequality has massively increased the power and influence of a tiny number of ultra-wealthy citizens who want a greater say in government. Consider that the top 0.1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans yet represents just 238,000 voters compared to 214 million people of voting age in the bottom 90% group. These uber-wealthy citizens occupy a world of business in which they get one vote for each share of ownership, a style of corporate governance that they would happily apply to national governance. (see World Democracy and the Invisible Hand Opposing It)

Under these conditions, the industrialist elites have created a Republican Party that is a tightly wrapped coalition of wealthy special interest groups and a disparate collection of disaffected social interest groups with otherwise unpopular goals. Collectively, they are working towards a more autocratic system of government wherein their unpopular ideas can be imposed on the rest of us. (see The Rise of a Disloyal Opposition)

The bedrock of any democracy is the consent of minority interests to accept majority rule in exchange for personal liberty and protection under the law. It is this consent, to abide by the will of the people, that is breaking down in America.

The goal of these democracy thieves is to take down our Republic and replace it with what could be called a Neo-Republican authoritarian state, or permanent neo-republican control over the government. We have already seen how this works in several Republican-controlled states. An authoritarian, single-party federal government is the only way this coalition of the wealthy elite coupled up with disaffected white nationalists, Christian right fundamentalists, homophobes, and others can impose their will on Americans. Their long-range plans for this takeover have been fomenting for years in places such as the Federalist Society and other ultra-conservative think tanks. The broad outlines of their schemes can be seen in their recent attacks on popular democratic ideas.

When these Neo-Republicans recently controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the Executive Branch, they grossly abused their Congressional oversite authority to disrupt the regular order of government. They blocked or attempted to block all legislative initiatives, even ones they had proposed themselves. They blocked all judicial nominations, especially, and most dramatically, to the Supreme Court. They filibustered every Democratic initiative so that we no longer had majority rule in Congress. When their own will was challenged by filibusters after they regained the majority in the Senate, they ended the filibuster for judicial nominations so they could have their way in making key appointments. They shut down the federal government on several occasions mostly to alienate the affections of the people towards this republic. They loudly pointed to this as proof our system of democratic government wasn't working.  They harassed the popularly elected President, Barak Obama, with endless investigations and obstreperous oversite, which they ruthlessly oppose when oversight is appropriately directed at the most lawless Chief Executive in modern times. 

State governments controlled by the Neo-Republicans have found ways to suppress the vote and game the election systems to keep themselves in power. They have drawn up unconstitutional Congressional districts that create safely Republican Congressional Districts for years to come. They passed unconstitutional anti-abortion laws and odorous social conservative legislation to prove their intentions to serve the wishes of the evangelical right and nationalist fringe groups whom they court and pander to for support. In some states, they have subverted democratic rule altogether and appointed emergency managers to take control of distressed cities and towns, usurping duly elected local governments. And in every GOP-controlled state, they have given tax dollars and tax breaks to every corporate interest.

After the Executive Branch came under the control of the Republican Party, with an assist from Russia, the Neo-Republicans ended all Congressional over-site while President Donald Trump has been taking a wrecking ball to our Republic and democratic institutions we so admired. He began installing himself as the first Supreme Executive while breaking every norm of the high office he holds.

Now with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives [May 2019], regular oversite is being restored. But Donald Trump, backed up by Congressional Neo-Republicans, is resisting any oversite activity whatsoever. He is challenging the House’s authority to hold him accountable in any way. He has refused to allow any of his Senior Executive Staff to respond to requests or Congressional subpoenas in his impeachment inquiry. He has refused to turn over any documents or cooperate in any way with Congressional oversight. Then on September 19th, in a federal court filing, Donald Trump, in effect, declared that he is above the law and untouchable by anyone.  When you step back to look at the big picture it becomes clear that we are experiencing a slow-motion coup d'état.

This takeover of our democratic government has been going on for some time. Consider how the Republicans have been blocking all Democratic Party candidates for federal judgeships while packing the Judiciary with their ideological judges when Republicans are in control. Consider how brazenly Mitch McConnell stonewalled President Obama’s pick to replace Justice Scalia for over a year in order to fill the vacancy with a Republican ideologue. He brags about how many young, highly partisan federal judges he has installed in the federal courts.

We have three separate co-equal branches of government. To take control you must control all three branches. At this moment in history, only the House of Representatives is beyond their control.

But there is also the question of the fourth estate, the news media. You can’t get away with taking over control of a government without also taking control of the messaging and public perceptions. Here is where the Republican coup actually got started, after Nixon's impeachment. For a whole generation now, the Neo-Republicans have been building a massive network of alt-right media with a high online presence and lots of toxic, anti-government content.

This alt-right network, the Republican "echo chamber" as Hillary Clinton first perceived it, is now working in parallel with Russian cyber-disinformation activities to continually misinform and arouse the alt-right political base that Neo-Republicans have been carefully cultivating over the years.

So, put it all together and what immerges is a new Republican Party grasping to control all of the levers of power in order to have their way. This new governing party doesn't want majority rule when that includes the votes and opinion of people they don't like; People who don't share their distorted Christian values. Our most trusted democratic institutions, such as the FBI, NSA, and the Justice Department, are under siege. They are beginning to crack. The status of the Judicial branch, and especially the Supreme Court to save our democracy is about to be severely tested, and the prospects of salvation from the Court seem murky at best.

Here is how the revolution stands. We have embattled civil servants trying courageously and disparately to hold on to our great democratic institutions and the rule of law. We have one-half of the legislative branch clinging on to our democracy. They are just beginning to understand the fight they are in. They are trying to right the ship of state without the support they were expecting from the Neo-Republicans in Congress. We have the fourth estate locked in a massive counter-informational battle with alt-right media and foreign powers. 

Faced with multiple Constitutional challenges we pin our hopes on a deeply divided judicial system and Supreme Court, hoping that just one conservative Justice will rise above politics to save our Republic. But more importantly, we must rely on ourselves to see more clearly the threats we are under and rise up in mass to preserve majority rule. We must identify and defeat the enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic.  As Benjamin Franklin once warned us, we have a republic, "... if we can keep it."


Further reading: Rise of a Disloyal Opposition.
https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-rise-of-disloyal-opposition_29.html?m=1

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POSTSCRIPT: The slow-motion coup d'état described above turned quick and hot on January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump sent both his well-organized hate-group supporters and disorganized rally supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building to disrupt the certification of the votes that elected Joseph Biden President. Democracy is held by a thread but the war has shifted from an outright insurrection to a covert insurgency being fought under the radar at the local district level. B.T.L. 3/7/21

Restoring Democracy in the Democratic Party is Necessary to Save Our Republic

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Not long ago, Deborah Wassermann Shultz and the DNC boasted that Democratic super delegates buffer the Democratic Party leadership from capricious grassroots influence. Make no mistake, this was a boast, not an admission. Behind it is a fear that popular movement activists might upset the balance between wealthy donors who fund the Party and the needs of middle-class Americans, which is the largest voting bloc. But representing the middle-class leaves a lot of worthy American's without political representation.

Consider this, the U.N. is investigating poverty and civil right violations in areas of the United States that are on par with what can be found seen in 3rd world nations. Extremely insensitive GOP policies and attitudes are among the root causes of extreme systemic poverty. No where are the consequences more dire than in some red states in the South dominated by extreme conservative politics. In one poor neighborhood in Alabama under investigation by the United Nations, for example, ringworm is epidemic from contaminated drinking water. The reason is that waste water is being carried away in above ground PVC pipes that empty into open sewerage pits and even fields where children play. The Republican leaders don't seem to care about sanitation for these folks. In the eyes of many conservative politicians the poor have only themselves to blame. Leaders there allocate no money to help those who have no money to fix their septic tanks. These are the unworthy poor.

It is the GOP that does most of the dirty work of stripping the social safety nets and public services of government funding. The money saved pays for tax cuts and sweetheart deals to wealthy corporations and their owners. These perks for business are rewarded with campaign donations and sometimes other, more corrupt, remunerations.

Democratic leaders are mostly silent about the poverty conditions in red states, and have been for years. These poor people aren't registered Democrats. They can't help Democrats get elected and can't donate to the Party. This is how Democratic leaders feel about the poor in general. Party leaders have become ever more focused on races where the Party has the best chances of winning, and corporate donations are all that is needed to secure a victory. But these corporate donations also come with strings attached. Business interests must be served. Regulations and consumer protections must be rescinded to boost corporate profits. Tax breaks for the wealthy must be provided in exchange for their support, and government services must be cut to make up for lost revenue.

This is an aspect of party over people. It is neoloberalism in action. Neoliberalism is devoid of any compassion or social justice for those who cannot compete in the market place. Neoliberals ascribe human rights to business entities and work to free corporations from restrictive government rules designed to protect and empower actual human beings. Neoliberal Democrats have given lip service to the needs of the middle-class for decades without ever mentioning the deteriorating conditions of the poor and the working class over the past 30 years. They run on prosperity platforms that emphasize job creation rather than wealth creation for middle-class families. They stress ways to boost business profits to create good paying jobs, but then don't hold businesses accountable when those jobs never materialize. They turn a blind eye when the wealthy hide their profits in off shore tax havens, and the list goes on. Neoliberals in both parties continue to promote failed policy ideas because they can't offend their business donors. So for all of us, silence is consent! Our hands are just as dirty if we aren't willing to speak out and advocate for ourselves and for those who have no voice in government.

Right now, the Republican Party is a lost cause while the Democratic Party is too focused on the tic tock of strategic planning to hear the cries of the needy. Both parties are badly in need of reform. The over representation of business interests (ownership class) over civil interests is at the core of the destructive neoliberal philosophy shared by leadership in both parties. I am a life-long Democrat. It is clear that the DNC and the State Democratic Parties must come to accept that populism IS what democracy looks like. If you do right by all the people you have nothing to fear from populist activism. Don't just cut the number of super-delegates, eliminate them and restore democracy.