Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 And if the freedom democratic, I am confident that the democratic party will reunite on the basis of democratic principles and that together we will March towards a democratic victory in 1980.
Speaker 1 00:00:22 I think the democratic leadership understands that we need to bring those people into the party. We need to transform the party. We need to make the democratic party, the democratic party with a small gate.
Speaker 0 00:00:35 I think the future of the party is working class. And I think that what I represent and, and perhaps, you know, Senator Sanders also Senator Warren, there's a lot of working class champions in the democratic party. And I do think that that's the future.
Speaker 2 00:00:50 Welcome to talking strategy, making history I'm Dick flux activist, retired professor of sociology and a really old guy.
Speaker 3 00:01:03 And I'm <inaudible> hall, a slightly less old guy and also an activist and political strategist. And this season on talking strategy, making history, we're going to be talking about one of the big questions for progressive strategy here in the United States, in what we're calling a Hitchhiker's guide to the democratic party. So we've
Speaker 2 00:01:25 Been talking a lot about what's wrong with the democratic party, and what's one how the left thinks about the democratic party today. We thought we should talk about what we want the democratic party to be, or at least kick off that kind of discussion point. So some possibilities, what do we want the party to be, to look like, to act like? And part of that obviously has to do with the ideas that constitute. I don't like the word ideology, but the policy, the values that the party represents while we've been doing this podcast series, I've come to think about one way to shorthand the whole thing for me. I don't know if this works for everybody is to think of the idea that the democratic party should be the people's party and not only in what it claims to be, but much more importantly, what it represents in terms of ideas and how it functions as an organization.
Speaker 2 00:02:25 And that concept has been lurking there in the democratic party. I think ever since the Roosevelt days, since the new deal, I noticed the speech by Harry Truman, where he talked about, he actually used that phrase when he was opposing Henry Wallace back in 1948, he said, we are the people's party contrasting with the party of corporations of the big business of the wealthy. And, um, you know, to me that it's not that hard to figure out some key policy ideas that I think Progressive's universally want and ideas that we on the left side think could be unifying for the party as a whole. Some of them however, are more controversial than others. So the green new deal, the very term green new deal was intended to embrace the history of the party. I think around a strong environmental program to save the planet. It's gotten labeled as a left wing idea, which I think that's something we should talk about.
Speaker 2 00:03:27 And there were more controversial ideas around the black lives matter movement and its demands, criminal justice, police reform, reparations, those kinds of issues. And then there's things that are very popular as ideas, tuition free college jobs guarantees universal basic income infrastructure investments that relates to the new deal. So it's part of the effort to conceive of the party we want is to say, what can the party represent in the way of campaigns and around needs around values and specifically around policy ideas that can make a real difference in people's lives and in saving the country. If you will, what
Speaker 3 00:04:14 Occurs to me while you're reading off this really exciting list of new policy frameworks, demands, big ideas, which have been really lacking in the party. It's so remarkable and it's, it's the good news of all of this apocalyptic horror that we've been facing in American politics. That for the first time in decades, all of the big ideas being debated in the democratic party are ideas coming from the left and are really rooted in demands coming from grassroots movements and from wide swats of the population. And that hasn't been true for, for so long, you know, from, from Clinton. And then before, before Clinton, you had folks like Gary Hart who seem to argue that the future of the Denmark did argue that the future of the democratic party and the only way to be a modern, uh, and successful electoral force in the United States was to adopt tons of ideas from the right, but, uh, from social justice questions and, you know, so-called cultural or social issues all the way through the core questions about the role of the, of the government and in the economy and the role of unions and the role of the democratic sector in setting economic policy, all of that to be a Democrat for the last 30 years has been to say to stand on some really conservative ideas across the board.
Speaker 3 00:05:45 And that's, that's changed
Speaker 2 00:05:47 Very much. Yeah. I mean, we remember Clinton saying and boasting about saying the era of big government is over, uh, is one very startling moment when that was true and all the emphasis on we Democrats, you know, we're going to balance the budget and we're going to do those kinds of policies and embrace corporate priorities. Right. That was more I think about it. And doing this podcast with you is really stimulate me to realize that the Clinton era was something we were really trying to get over now. And that's what I think you're saying that the nature of the crisis we're in as a society is, is given such reinforcement to the case of, of the democratic left. And the policy ideas have been there for years in some ways, or at least the direction of policy. So, uh, you know, I even think that some of the, um, corporate elite wants structural change in a way that they or will accept it because of the nature of the economic crisis that we're going through
Speaker 3 00:06:52 Of the corporate elite, except some of this. And, you know, that's where it becomes an art and not a science and trying to split them up, um, and, uh, leverage discourse and discussion and disagreement among economic elites to try to move this agenda. That's
Speaker 2 00:07:10 Exactly part of the strategic stuff we're trying to encourage, I would say, right. But having said all that, which sounds very optimistic, the fact is that every measure that we are saying is so popular and the time is now to do them is going to be resisted powerfully within Congress, of course, by the Republican caucuses, but also by large segments of the population and the elite outside of that. There's no easy path for any of them. Maybe I should add within the democratic party either. I mean, what has to happen within the party to facilitate and enable these ideas to really be the dominant and prevailing ideas that the party represents?
Speaker 3 00:07:56 Well, I think first and foremost, we need to accept that the party needs a left within it to drive these issues, to drive these policy priorities. Um, one of the things I think we've been talking about a lot interpersonally and also in this podcast is that there's this strange thing that happens on the left, where people become kind of passive observers and look at what happens in Congress or, or within the democratic party in Sacramento or the, you know, the various state houses from a spectator standpoint, like, oh, the bad Dems are going sink this, or the good Dems can't win this one or whatever. I mean, the fact is that it's just never a good model of left politics, progressive politics, to think that we put a party in power, we elect politicians and then they just give us good stuff and that's, and that's it.
Speaker 3 00:08:51 And you hear in the anger and resentment at the democratic, like this undercurrent, that what the expectation is, is, you know, that we would win power in Sacramento or we'd win power in, in Washington. And then just good policy would be bestowed on the people. And people are, are mad at the moral failing of the Democrats in power for not doing that. But I think our experience and our what we're, we've, we've been trying to message here is that power concedes nothing without a demand and without a struggle that there has to be an organized strategic, loud, vibrant, left set of institutions and networks to drive a green, new deal agenda to drive certainly a reparations, a racial justice agenda, none of that stuff's going to just like happen automatically. And what that leads me to think about in terms of rethinking or re-imagining the party and what we do need to either convince or just beat some of our more centrist and institutionalist colleagues in the party on is that the democratic party has to be more than just a franchise that politicians wheeled around election time.
Speaker 3 00:10:04 And I, and by franchise, I mean, something like McDonald's or burger king, too many politicians, and frankly, democratic donors from the labor movement to wealthy liberal individuals, they tend to think of the party organization as this add on that happens. It's a source of, of cheap labor and free volunteers. Um, certainly donations from grassroots activists and, and, and definitely not a place where ideas come from or policy comes from. And they're actually quite resistant whenever the party activist base tries to assert itself that way. Right? And I think that's a mistake, even from the interests of democratic politicians, they actually do better when they support the party grassroots organizing itself, contesting, local elections, developing new leaders, identifying candidates and so forth. And this is like both a cultural and, you know, bylaws structure in the weeds issue, uh, that we have to get a lot smarter and more sophisticated about.
Speaker 3 00:11:14 But the bottom line is that the left within the party left Democrats need to be building institutions that fill in the gaps of our very decentralized undisciplined party to try to force that discipline. You know, so when we elect a majority in a state house or in Congress, that can mean that we have a majority for green new deal policies for, you know, experiments around job creation and universal basic income. And if you look at the right or the corporate centrist democratic scene, they do that, they have cap, they have the heritage foundation, they have Alec, they have all of these institutions that are very clever about feeling in what is missing from the party with an apparatus. And the progressive left is really behind the curve on building that up.
Speaker 2 00:12:16 Well, that, can we look a little bit closer at that? So when I see from my distance and it's much more remote distance than you are from the day to day, and the party though, is that the progressive side is, it's not that it doesn't have some of those structures, but they're not unified and more segmented around issues around constituents. I mean, I'm amazed and learning about what's, we're talking you and I right now in the midst of the Georgia campaign. And if you look at the scene, there's like multiple organizations on the ground in Georgia, that's serving some of the function. I think you're talking about especially vote mobilization efforts right now, but you've got Hispanic, or you've got African-American organization, you've got labor, you've got environmental groups. And some of them like sunrise that we talked about on this podcast, pretty active in the party, but as an environmental oriented group. So you're not satisfied with the fact that these multiple entities are happening. You're really talking about more focused coming together and centralization of effort,
Speaker 3 00:13:27 Maybe it's centralization, but it's certainly coordination is maybe a word I would think coordination
Speaker 2 00:13:33 Is a better word. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:13:35 The party is decentralized. American politics is decentralized. So, so I'm actually quite skeptical when anybody in, in this happens every few years, somebody, you know, throws up a flag and says, we're the new United left American national thing. I mean, right. And then invariably it's eclipsed in a few months or years. I think whatever national strategy is built has to be built, you know, in a very federalized way around local struggles, um, and then coordinated nationally. But, but to really put a fine point on what I'm talking about, uh, and you raised this issue of Georgia, it's a great example. We have a lot of organizations, uh, in, in the left and central left in the United States that are increasingly powerful and sophisticated in terms of voter mobilization. And we even have on the left, a kind of growing network of political operatives, political professionals, campaign professionals who have learned a really great skill set on how to beat crappy democratic incumbents.
Speaker 3 00:14:38 Um, and this is happening at the state level in places like New York and Massachusetts, but also, uh, with Congress and the tremendous work that justice Democrats has been doing in the last couple of election cycles to grow squad in the house of representatives. So here's a really great operation. That's doing one part of what parties do or, or a full part is party operation organization would do going out challenging, uh, Democrats elected Democrats that are more conservative and trying to replace them with more progressive ones. And that's great sunshine movement is doing a similar thing now out talking to candidates, recruiting candidates, young candidates in particular, to try to train them, to run for office and be climate champions. But oh, the sunrise movement, sorry. The sunshine movement, uh, is, uh, is a splinter from the sunrise movement. No, but the point being of all this rambling is to say, so what happens when the candidates that are recruited through the sunrise movement, then they get into office and they're in office in the, in a city hall or in the state house.
Speaker 3 00:15:47 And they have to vote on things that are not strictly about climate. Like where, where does the influence, uh, come in the, the, the conversation or the accountability from say, communities of color or the LGBTQ movement or, or the labor for that politician that was elected on a climate platform. The point being that we don't do a good job of thinking about what happens after the elections. We build these very muscular operations to win elections. And then it's like, well, we, we hope that the politicians in office will do good rather than bad. And what we don't have that the right has, and that, you know, the corporate Democrats have is that kind of infrastructure that is supporting those politicians in office, holding them accountable, growing their factions within the democratic caucuses, in their legislatures, all of that kind of stuff that really is inevitably party work per se. And we're out there creating organizations that are like legally non-partisan or culturally non-partisan, we're creating organizations that are <inaudible>. And so therefore have limits in what kinds of coordination they can do directly with, uh, politicians we're under utilizing the kinds of institutions and networks that we have the bottom line being that we're putting folks in office, but not building the infrastructure to turn that into policy victories. And that's gotta be the next.
Speaker 2 00:17:20 Okay. So let's dive into that a bit more because it may sound like a almost wonky thing, but I think there's some real drama that lies behind this maybe and real meat of intellectually. There are two parts to what I wanted to raise in that connection. One is a bit of history, the theory of socialist movements around Europe and the United States a hundred or more years ago, was that the labor movement would be allied with socialism and create a party around that idea. And in Europe, that's what happened in this country. There was a socialist party with roots in the labor movement back at the beginning in about 1905, but, uh, it never reached capacity to become a national force, uh, that could contest for government power on the national level, when a lot of local elections in different parts of the country famously Milwaukee remained in the socialist party, uh, governance for years.
Speaker 2 00:18:26 So there was always a debate in the labor movement, uh, in this country about how much, how much, what kind of electoral process labor should be involved with. I don't want to review the whole history be too too complicated, but basically the socialist idea of an independent party with a socialist agenda pretty much died out certainly by the 1930s, but the democratic party at that point in the new deal, what that represented was a kind of fulfillment of that, but not in name, at least that's what the, um, some of the new deal leadership and activists were really about. So the thought then is what I'm getting at is that the union movement, the labor movement would be the unifying coordinating idea for us, as well as mobilizing force around a very, you know, social democratic type agenda. That was the idea I think up till, uh, after world war two on the left in this country, and much energy was put into trying to fulfill that at the time the labor movements split during the red scare, really weakening its capacity to serve this unifying function.
Speaker 2 00:19:44 The Vietnam war also really split the labor movement and split a lot of progressives from the democratic party. So the seventies was a time of rebuilding some kind of progressive forces democratic party, but as you never in a coordinated way, the way you're talking about it. But one thing I know I thought back in the seventies was that the labor movement would be parallel by the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the environmental movement, the gay movement, as inside outside forces, each of which would have a party building or party changing agenda as part of what they were doing in the wider society. And when Mickey, my wife was a delegate in 1982, the democratic convention, I felt this surge of inspiration because that's what it seemed like on the floor of the convention. All these movements were very well represented, visible as caucuses with, you know, an that created me a lot of, uh, ideas about what might happen in the future.
Speaker 2 00:20:52 And to some extent that's how things have worked out. But now what you're saying is absolutely right, even though the progressive perspective or the left perspective in, in the country, there's much more coherence about a lot of policy ideas that that represents beyond the individual movements. There's no much coordination within the party around any of any of that. So that's one point the second point has to do with ideas and this. So you think that the right wing has built up all these Alec and a heritage foundation, very powerful, very well-funded idea, generating if those are ideas or pseudo idea generating, um, mechanisms for their agenda. And on the liberal side, if you will, or the center left side is the CAAP center for American progress, which was deliberately created some years ago with, to parallel the right wing efforts. But we do have more leftward think tanks like economic policy Institute, which is funded by the AFL CIO, which is filled with data and ideas that are having some impact. And there are probably a number of other important thing tanks, but so what's the difference.
Speaker 3 00:22:13 The difference between Alec and our think tanks is that we, we, we generate ideas and good policy and good analysis and good science, good social science that's generated either out of explicitly progressive think tanks and institutes, or, you know, because the left is generally more scientific than the right, right. Now you look at what comes out of sociology departments and institutes and the labor labor centers at UCLA and, and elsewhere. Like this is all great information about why and how we can change policy in the United States in a more progressive direction. Meanwhile, what Alec does is they write bills, they write bills and they send out staff to all the legislatures in the United States that are part-time legislatures, where the legislators don't have a lot of staff resources and so forth. And they, you know, they only meet a few months a year or whatever it is. And they send trained legislative staff out to go and staff Republicans and give them bills. We don't have anything close to that. And
Speaker 2 00:23:22 They also, they have conferences where they bring together certain leaders, you know, leaders in legislatures and give them the talking points, the marching orders and the spree decor, if you will.
Speaker 3 00:23:35 And one thing you won't find in those discussions is like a huge debate about whether or not the Republican party is a good vehicle for what they want. Right. They're done with that. They're already on to the, how do we move our agenda through the Republican party that actually exists. And they're very good at that. And that's what I'd like to see the left be. Not that we need to absolutely ape their structure, that the left is different than the right culturally and organizationally. So are our institutions should look different, but they should have this full court press strategy and tactics, um, and not feel satisfied with just sort of like throwing good ideas out into the ether.
Speaker 2 00:24:19 Well, let me even deeper than that, because this is how I've been hearing you, not only on our podcast, but all the time, I've known you. You want the party itself to be a place where ideas are formulated. Policy ideas are formulated and debated. The party is, I mean, there'll be think tanks, but the party should have a space within it where that really can happen. That's right. Isn't that more likely European parties that you're from you've been connected to
Speaker 3 00:24:49 It is. And if you could describe my, my political project in general, it's sort of to make American politics a little more European, um, and, and to make European politics a little bit more American in the sense of, and we can do a whole nother series on what's wrong with European political parties. But, um, in a sense, they have the mirror image, uh, problem of sort of too much structure and discipline and not enough, uh, energy and chaos and activism. But anyway, that's another, another discussion, but I mean,
Speaker 2 00:25:24 To just focus on European America, the point is from my understanding of what you may mean by this about be more, a little more European is, is what I said before that, within the party we have these separate, we have a congressional party. We have that you described that on our early podcasts, these separate frameworks and policy is not something, I mean, party conventions on a state level may adopt platforms, but those are, there's nothing, you know, I always found them very superficial rituals, right? Those kinds of usually those kinds of convention policy debates.
Speaker 3 00:26:01 That's a great frame. Let's talk about the relationship between the platform and policy outcomes in the party, right? So if in, in a classical ideal type European social democratic party, you know, the reality is always messier, but delegates come to a convention, they pass a platform, a program we're going to lower tuition. We're going to raise wages. We're going to raise taxes on corporations, whatever this is our platform. And then, then the party selects candidates, voters give the party some degree of mandate or support. And if the party is in power, then they go about trying to put that platform, decided by its members, into law, negotiating trading, doing all of the political art that comes and trying to do that. But that's the basic idea in the United States, right? We have a convention for a county party or a state level party, or the national party.
Speaker 3 00:27:04 We pass this platform. I actually think as an exercise, it's, it's not superficial. It's actually like often a very serious debate, but we pass this document and not a single elected official from the democratic party like elected Democrat has to follow anything in it, just that, but the mechanisms in the legislatures that do enforce discipline <inaudible>, which is built around the, the leader, right? The, the speaker, if you're in a majority or the minority leader, you know, there are mechanisms amongst the legislative caucus that to try to get everyone to vote together, but what they vote on and how they vote, if there's a relationship between that and the party platform, it's, it's not direct. Right. And so what I've spent a lot of my adult life thinking about is given that in the U S there's no automatic bureaucratic tie between the parties public platform and what the party's representatives vote for.
Speaker 3 00:28:09 There's no way to, uh, and I sometimes disagree with, with folks in the party about this. There's no way to just make that a bureaucratic thing and say, if you don't sign on to agreeing with the platform we want to endorse you or something like that, I just don't think that works in our electoral system. So how do we discipline the politicians? How do we, we get them to follow the platform that has to be done out in the field, as well as inside the party and tweaking the platform. And what I've seen a lot of is leftists get very, very tied into making sure that every comma in the platform or resolution is the most possible left and not building the actual electoral mechanisms out there that can actually hold the politicians accountable. And what we need is doing both. And let me end that thought with a, with a quick anecdote.
Speaker 3 00:29:03 I mean, this is where this light bulb really just went off for me back in the United States. So I'd spent a bunch of time in Scandinavia organizing with social Democrats there and moved back to California. I started grad school with you Dick, and got like heavily involved in the democratic party. And I remember after this is after several years of struggle to take over the loan well, democratic party for progressives to get it, to actually work, to hold local politicians to a county platform that was very progressive and just make the party more. So this took a lot of it still takes work, right? But we were all invited after the 2008 election by the Obama campaign, all these hundreds and hundreds of people locally, who got involved in the campaign as volunteers, all the party activist party leaders, we were all invited to come to this town hall meeting.
Speaker 3 00:29:59 And we had a high ranking Obama staffer from, you know, OFA organizing for America. Obama for America had had different names and they were talking to us and saying, okay, we're going to stay organized. Like we've built this giant organized army around Obama. We're going to keep it because it's just like a weapon to make social change. We're like, awesome. That's great people finally thinking about organizing between elections rad. Then, then we were told that the president's priority, these will be what we will organize around. We're like, okay, what are the president's priorities? And the president's priorities were immigration reform and healthcare reform. And so right away, there were a bunch of people in the room that were like, uh, climate. And they were like, eh, we're not doing climate right now. And, you know, people had other, all kinds of ideas and things they wanted out of this administration.
Speaker 3 00:30:52 And, and we were just told point blank by the staffer. Like not the president's priorities. Then people raised their hands who had been, you know, this wonderful couple of local activists here, Dick who've been just in the trenches for single payer healthcare for Medicare, for all, for, for decades. And they were like, okay, we're what about what? Like, what's going to be the healthcare proposal that we're going to fight for. And the staff told us that the president hadn't decided on that, but as soon as he decided what it was, that's what we were going to campaign for. And we were all just like, what the hell are we doing here? This is like, Amway, this isn't politics. We, we don't get to influence the president's agenda. We don't even get to have that conversation here and look what happened. Right? What happened was Obama decided to take drug reform, prescription drug reform off the table right away, single payer was off the table right away.
Speaker 3 00:31:49 They put forward a public option, traded that away. And we ended up with the most stripped down pro corporate weird homonculus of, uh, of a plan. Now imagine a counter story, a counter narrative here, a different history where instead, what Obama had said is, wow, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there that did tremendous work to elect me. And there they have ideas. Why don't we let them decide what their priorities are to push the administration on? And what if there were thousands of activists out there in the con, you know, throughout the country, which pit with, you know, their pitchforks at congressional offices demanding singles, correct. Then what, what, what would the, in Congress have been where Democrats are then able to say, look, my constituents are clear. We were gonna, we need a single payer healthcare system, and that's what passes the house and then gets watered down and, and, and screwed up in the Senate.
Speaker 3 00:32:53 But that's a completely different framework for negotiation. And, and this is what frustrates me about Obama ism. And you can see this in his lecturing tone now to black lives matter activists, that they shouldn't talk about. Defunding the police is this complete misunderstanding of the difference between grassroots activism and deal cutting in, uh, in, in, in government. And my message to activists is if you want to have the democratic party be more like what I described OFA could have been a force that's out advocating for progressive change and big ideas that has a relationship with politicians that is, you know, cordial and friendly and comradely, of course, but also one where the party articulates the policy goals, not the other way around. And the good news is in California because the democratic party is structured in a sort of unique set of ways. Um, I actually think activists have the ability to build those institutions within the party and use the party as a force to hold politicians accountable in a way that's not true in other states,
Speaker 2 00:34:05 What I'm hearing. Um, sometimes you're talking about the party having this grassroots responsiveness and, and, and its ideas coming from grassroots activists. And sometimes I'm hearing that there should at least be a force within the party that has that capability, whether the party as a whole looks that way. And maybe it's a two-step, I don't
Speaker 3 00:34:29 Think it's two step. I'm really glad you pulled that out. I think an important conceptual framework and shift here has to be that we don't see those as one step and then the next or contradictory in any way they both have to be going on simultaneously. In other words, what we need is a force in the democratic party that pushes the democratic party to be better on all of those fronts, better on policy, more disciplined in support of our policy goals, better on being a space for activists to have meaningful participation. And so that means we have to both be self-organized as the left, as a reform force, as a progressive force, and also be able to, you know, run and govern party institutions to move them down that road too, to make them better. And thinking about that as, just as like a permanent revolution, rather than step one, we build this thing in the party. Step two, we make the party a perfect workers' party. Step three, we go home and celebrate. We just, we have to drop that. This is what the future holds. And, and it's like actually really exciting if we, if we can clear the cobwebs from our, from our eyes,
Speaker 2 00:35:52 One point you, you mentioned, but I don't want to pass it over completely. Cause it's me maybe very important. So here's the president Obama, the best scenario painted as a good one is where there's this grassroots process in which certain key priorities policy-wise are really central to what the grassroots activist communities want. The president hears that and response and members of Congress hear it. And there's a response to that. But lurking in your scenario was that eventually some other negotiation will be necessary to pass something. That's a crucial point because the grassroots people have to be able to figure out what they tolerate in the way of compromise of what they've been advocating, because the tendency, at least in social media discourse, these days on the, on the left is often, oh, X betrayed us by not doing this when sometimes that can be true, but sometimes it's.
Speaker 2 00:36:59 Yeah. Well, what did you expect given the nature of forces in the political system, uh, that had to be a compromise and so on. And one way I would answer that as a professor, uh, perhaps is that give people a chance to really discuss and debate policy in a way that could be effective. They get educated on the process by which implementation of what they want can happen rather than simply making every move, uh, uh, simply moral question of loyalty or betrayal. You know what I'm trying to say there. Absolutely. And I think that leads me to one other point that I really wanted to get mentioned on this particular episode, relating to what we're talking about, which is if the danger of the period that we're advocating of a period of struggle in the party for change is to just unify the party to a degree that it can't win elections, which is very dangerous given the let's call it the fascist threat.
Speaker 2 00:38:00 Um, and so, and I may be naive about this, but tell me what you think, but th the policy debate, if it's consequential at the grassroots is a alternative to bitter all or nothing fighting within the party. In other words, if you could create a genuine debate where people can see the range of views among themselves, not just then the painting of every issue as a life or death, moral struggle, which is dangerous internally in the party. I think, I mean, let me add it. What's, it's not only that, it's the feeling that only if we get our way, we, this, it faction a only if it can get its way, will it have one? And if it doesn't get it way it's defeated, that kind of thinking is, is part of what's. I think dangerous, what motivates me to want to have this conversation is to get people to think differently about these kinds of, you know, what kind of attitudes to take in these kinds of circumstances. Anyway, I don't know if I'm making sense, but, but what, what
Speaker 3 00:39:04 Are you doing? I think you're making a lot of sense. And I was wondering, you know, if it's naive, it's very, shrewdly naive because on the one hand what's behind what you're saying is very wonderful Dewey, EIT, uh, American small deed democracy,
Speaker 2 00:39:22 Ideal, which is, you know, it's never a bad
Speaker 3 00:39:25 Thing to include more people in discussion and participation. And that actually human beings, you know, in addition to all of their pores and foibles and sadism, um, are capable of tremendous insight. And this is something, you know, we talk, we're criticized the left on this a lot on this podcast, because that's who we are, audience that's, who we care about, that's who we're with. And we, you know, it comes from a place of love, but there's no doubt. I mean, the people in power in the party and in politics are screwing this up with their own fear of that kind of discussion. And the politicians and political operatives in this country are terrified about the idea of being beholden in any way to these crazy grassroots activists. Meanwhile, as you know, the political science that goes back then, as long as people have been talking to party activists and talking to like delegates to state conventions and so forth in this country, they've been remarking on how incredibly pragmatic people are that they are both very ideological and interested and, and, and engaged on issues and also quite pragmatic and, uh, operational and how they think about, uh, political activity.
Speaker 3 00:40:43 So we, you know, we need to stop like vilifying and exoticising the democratic grassroots base as if they're a bunch of lunatics who can't be given any political authority. It's a big part of,
Speaker 2 00:40:57 That's a great point. And that is my experience too. And I could tell anecdotes that we don't have to talk for about my observation, that people quite radical people who are insisting on one, you know, the right path, but when push comes to shove become bait, they, we are right. That there's a pragmatism. That is a presence. If you're an organizer at all, if you're an activist at all, you get educated about the pragmatic as well as the, the morally fundamental. Um, and I, I just think we need, w it's good for us to bring this out into the open, uh, and challenge the assumption that there's a single left identity that has to be adhered to, which is which no one really thinks most people don't really think. And I
Speaker 3 00:41:42 Think, I think one of the, the point that you raised about this zero sum view, you know, that people are morally good or bad in the party. A politician is either a hero or a trash, and there's nothing in between. I really, I can't help feeling that that is a function of our, of the primary system and the fact that the factional battles inside the democratic party take place in zero sum single candidate races. Like that's how they actually operationalize and express in the world. So there's a left and a center in a right, in the Democrat party, let's say amongst politicians, amongst the voters, amongst the institutional players. And they fight it out, they fight it out in various arenas. But the one that the public pays attention to and gets to participate in is primaries. And then usually just the presidential primary. And in that case, only one person can win.
Speaker 3 00:42:45 And that I think creates in genders, this culture of good and evil and zero sum. If you look at, at what, you know, Jacobin and part, you know, some folks around DSA and others did like how they went after Elizabeth Warren in this last primary, I think is a good example because it couldn't be that there's a little, uh, uh, left in the democratic party. That is a range of folks and includes, uh, uh, kind of more institutional liberal, like new deal liberal like Elizabeth Warren, and a more European inspired social Democrat, like Bernie Sanders and whatever this great genius homespun, urban radicalism that's coming from AOC is like, it's, it's not a thinking that there's like this whole side of the party and a range of folks. It was it's Bernie, Bernie has to win the primary. If Bernie doesn't win the primary, the party is a failure and we should leave it.
Speaker 3 00:43:46 And, and that, that, you know, you can see that in this absurd thing, that DSA said that they would only support the democratic candidate if it was Bernie Sanders. And it led people to, in order to justify that kind of myopia, they had to like tear down another progressive obliterate them. And that, again, what's ironic is although it's always in the language of this like great, sexy Marxism and classes, centralism, and so forth, it's like the most dumb, liberal American nonsense to think that like, all hope for change in America is like rests in a politician. It's so unravel,
Speaker 2 00:44:31 But maybe the good news is that Bernie himself has been a model of pragmatic, thoughtful way of bringing the necessary degree of unity to bear on the campaign, you know, the presidential campaign, supporting Biden and trying to connect with him. All true, all true. And that's, you know, one thing we could say is Bernie Sanders be like him, uh, and that, and that connection
Speaker 3 00:44:58 In everything, except for not joining the party. I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 00:45:02 Why does that, why that would be an interesting, if we could interview him, we could ask him that. I don't know if he's ever completely
Speaker 3 00:45:09 He's been interviewed about it, and he's very, he's always been upfront about it. And all of his reasons are the most UN pragmatic on operational sentimental things. It's just about independence and the cult of independence. I say, this is a big fan of Bernie Sanders. And I agree with you that his actual behavior was fairly exemplary and good and all of that. And I also used him in arguments with, you know, self-identified, Berniecrats like, you should be more like Bernie, but there's still this weird thing of just, he it and still signals. It still signals to his, his fans, his, his admirers, like, yes, the democratic party should change. The democratic party needs to do X, Y, and Z, but you don't have to actually be in it to demand that. And that's, I just think just such a disservice.
Speaker 2 00:46:01 All right. Well, so I mean, I'm, and you are, I mean, you, you, in our conversation, you represent an idea that that I'll embrace, but without the same degree of, uh, passion, maybe, which is if people want to change the party, they have to be of it. And in it, not just for the, for the change and, uh, the reason I'm not totally, I'm not against that. I just don't think that's necessarily that important is because the inside, outside dynamic on the left has been going on for a century, uh, in, in the way that I was sort of hinting at earlier in this conversation, you can be more identified with a movement that's not really just a party movement and still feel that your place is in the democratic party. That's
Speaker 3 00:46:51 Right. But for the first 60 years of that century, the parties were that weird. A non-ideological amalgam of, you know, being a social democratic white supremacist party on, on our side. So,
Speaker 2 00:47:06 And L and totally on Democrat.
Speaker 3 00:47:07 Yeah, totally undemocratic and all of that and ruled by bosses. Okay. So, so that's 60 years, that's not really relevant. And then once the parties started to realign and were realigned by the action of organized movements in the party, then we had the, the catastrophe of the Vietnam war and the breakup of, of that coalition. And I think from that point on the left did not ever again, systematically engage in the democratic party. I think we've been like wandering in the wilderness. I mean, the, the self identified left while plenty of social movements and, um, and labor and so forth have continued that, that activity. And, and it just, my experience is that like, again, sort of self identified, um, strategic thinking left folks, they have not shown the, the patients, the stick to it-ness to like, you know, uh, push for a party reform program beyond one election cycle, for example. And the result of that is that, yeah, I do think things like on Bernie Sanders, I think the democratic party should do X, Y, and Z, but I'm not a Democrat actually has material impact on the efficacy of, of the left,
Speaker 2 00:48:27 I think. Okay. And
Speaker 3 00:48:29 Also it's like, it's just, so it's such a small thing to do for such a big set of opportunities and impact. And if, if, again, we're not seeing this as a zero sum that someday the democratic party will have a socialist leader and be socialist and give a socialism. If that's not what we think is going to happen in an election cycle, then it's all the more reason why we should be winning victories that are, you know, not, not total victories, but progress. And that means you've got to be, you have to speak as a Democrat to make that happen when AOC speaks about what the party should do. She says we that's just so, so yeah.
Speaker 2 00:49:14 Okay. Well, that's great. Great way to put it, you know, one, one little footnote I'd make to that. Maybe not so little is, is again, a John Dewey type a foot, uh, comment would be the more you give people the opportunity to have a voice and in a sense, uh, then they will have a sense of ownership and, and not feel, uh, that the party is a structure they have to fight against rather than, uh, uh, a space within which they have a legitimate and recognized voice. So here's my last question to you is, and you you're in the party structure in California. What could the party do in the coming period in California to make it more of a place for voice and a serious consequential place for debating ideas and policy? What, what, what could it, do you have any concrete idea of what that could, how that could work?
Speaker 3 00:50:15 You know, it's a great question. And it's one that it's hard for me not to wax philosophical on because as a progressive leftist, who has been elected to officer positions in the democratic party, often this question comes up or set of demands about what the parties should do for people or do to be better, more and more welcoming or more inclusive. And, and it's a hard question for me to answer, because there's so much about the democratic party is totally voluntary, totally built by volunteers that most of the answer to that question is really about what leftists and activists can do themselves through the party, not what the party could do for them. So, and, and by that, I mean that it's possible for progressives to have tremendous influence over who the party endorses, who, who is the officially supported candidate of the party. That's not something that the party does for activists, something that part, the activists have influence over.
Speaker 3 00:51:28 And then if the party is going to have like a permanent activist operation to go out and fight for the, the candidates that progressives have won the endorsement for that's all voluntary work that has to be done. So that's all work that progresses have to go and follow up their victory of supporting, getting the right candidates supported. They have to then go out and build the, the, the, the, the campaign operation to, to put them in office and to keep them in office or to take them out if they sell out. So it's, it's really so much of it is about extorting IX. Is that the word extorting, leftists, Progressive's exciting them about coming in and doing the work as Democrats, and just basically in a sense, being the party they want to see in the world to use, uh, a cliched phrase. But then there are things that the party has to change about its structure in order to not frustrate that work from volunteers, not circumvent it.
Speaker 3 00:52:31 And that has to do, I think with the fact that in county parties, across the state, as well as the state party, the power over where resources get expended, what resources get expended, what money gets raised, what money gets spent the power over, what kinds of relationship the party has to candidate campaigns, either federal or state. So many of the, where the rubber meets the road decisions are made solely by party chairs. And it kind of doesn't matter what the activists say about those strategic questions. And one of my big priorities as an activist in the last few months, year or so has been about trying to push for reform of that, so that the deliberations of activists in the active and the work that activists do can actually have an impact on, um, where the party spends money, how the party operates, where it puts strategic investments and so forth.
Speaker 3 00:53:36 Right now, those decisions are made by, you know, very tight knit between, you know, just one elected party chair and then, um, you know, operatives of various kinds. And then that's a problem, right? That's a problem I would just wrap up. Um, it has been a great discussion and wrap up by saying that we, we have, um, two interviews that we're about to do, um, with two folks who are in the thick of it, uh, where so much of these, this, uh, sausage gets made, uh, Monique Lee Mon, who is our, uh, has been our assembly woman. Um, and it was just recently elected to the state Senate. Um, and she'll be talking with us about the challenges of passing progressive legislation at the state level, even through a democratic controlled legislature.
Speaker 2 00:54:24 I mean, that, and that, let me just reinforce that here we have super majorities right now in California legislature, but a lot of what is needed to be done has been diluted once it gets to the legislative process. So, but, and I think she feels some frustration and is able to talk about that. I'm not sure how, what she'll say, but, uh, then
Speaker 3 00:54:45 We'll be talking with Jane <inaudible>, who is the, uh, state party chair, uh, state democratic party chair in Nebraska, who is a progressive, a Bernie Sanders supporter, uh, and a reformist. And we're talking, I want to talk to her about what does, what happens when leftists quote, unquote, takeover the party, or have power in the party? What are the challenges and opportunities there? And so we'll be hopefully getting into the weeds about a state party politics in a different state, a very different state of Nebraska
Speaker 0 00:55:12 Don't, you know, talking about <inaudible>,
Speaker 3 00:55:22 Hey, everyone, thanks so much for tuning into our little podcast here. And if you want to hear more and support us, as well as get access to full length interviews and other goodies, you can support us at patrion.com/t S M H patrion.com/t S M H
