I think you've got the right suspects but the wrong motives. It's not mainly about selfishness or elections, but imperialism and empire. Through the whole election and all the cultural war fronts, there was no disagreement between the parties about funding the genocide. They all voted tio supply every bomb. The US empire has been slipping away and Israel has been their most reliable cop on the beat in the Middle East. And Biden is no different that all the other dems, going back to LBJ and JFK, war mongers all. The Dems have never offered us a home, more like a homeless shelter. No need to go back and rebuild it. Good riddance. Here's what Engles said on the subject in 1891: "Nowhere do ‘politicians’ form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics . . . We find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends."
I can’t think of a better description of the Democratic Party over the past 50 years, or maybe the past 80: “The Dems have never offered us a home, more like a homeless shelter. “. God, that’s exactly right.
yes, you outline exactly why our two-party system will not allow "us" in! I believe Bernie in 2020 was the last real opportunity we (the working class) had to do that. From here on out, the contours of the democratic party will increasingly blur as it drifts away from amy former policies and programs that benefitted workers and the environment, toward a full-time job as co-empire managers. The US began as an extension of British Empire and became an Empire unto itself that will need more and more fossil fuels, propaganda and violence to prolong its fading hegemony.
And once again HamNo takes whatever confusion or angst or trepidation I had about a topic and completely disintegrates it in a force of amazing writing. God damn what a blog.
The big problem is, there isn't a power vacuum. Any attempts to reclaim or reform the party are vigorously blocked by the apparatchiks who lined up to facilitate this slaughter. Showing up to party meetings alone or with a few friends does not work, you will be crushed.
To get serious, people who want change need to build labor unions, tenant unions, and collectives that can meaningfully sway these creeps.
We saw in 2020 that these creeps will fight us until the last cops bullet is spent.
Minneapolis and Jacob Frey, Pittsburgh and that dickless rascal Peduto, Buffalo breaking open an unarmed old mans head like an egg, San Diego and nonumiformed men claiming to be cops kidnapping citizens off the street at gunpoint, Portland and the weekslong open siege,
Fucking America's Dad Tim Waltz dispatching cops on a terror atrack, riding down city streets "non-lethally" shooting anyone they can see including citizens in their own yards/porches, in order to * literally prevent us from peacefully petitioning our government.*
Good luck getting one of these chickenshits to stand up now that Trump has been allowed to assassinate political opponents. They care about their phoney baloney jobs enough to not rock the boat, you think you can ask them hard enough when its their lives on the line?
These people are cowards but thats not inconsistent with being bullies. You have to fight a bully. And thats what were gonna get. Blue state or red. We all went back to brunch in november 2020 and the check is due.
I share your moral outrage over Gaza and much more. But you need to bracket your frame of the Democratic party as a single entity and set it aside to consider it differently. It's better seen as a coalition of three parties under one tent. The Third Way party is the hegemonic top dog, best defined by Clintons and Wall St. It's assisted by a small Blue dog party center in W VA and the rust belt, often siding with Trump. Then there is the Justice Democrats, led by AOC and the Squad, plus Bernie and half or more of the Progressive Caucus he founded. It shares your views of Gaza and much more. We need to grow its size. In my area near Pittsburgh, we added Summer Lee, a militant firebrand. We need many more like her until the entire tent faces a transformational crisis, much like the old Whigs. What will be the result? The future is open, and we have to work on shaping it.
Do I not recall AOC filming ads with Biden wearing aviator sunglasses and basically advertising the genocide? The small segment of the Dem party that is supposedly still standing on some morality only seems to do so when they find it convenient. I'm sure they're telling themselves all sorts of stories about choosing their battles blah blah, but the fact is, the number of people in that party who have CONSISTENTLY spoken out against its general moral decline and its insane warmongering (which, by the way is NOT a new thing, let's remember Obama's kill count, Clinton's kill count, we just like to pretend they're not murderers because they send the drones more quietly) is painfully small.
The "Squad" are paid performance artists. Bernie was aging out, so they invented some new Pretendocrats to keep the base hopeful. Scam.
When their votes are not required, they are permitted to vote as if liberal values meant something to those shriveled sacks of venality, their hearts. When their votes are needed, they follow mama to the pond like a line of little ducklings.
I supported Bernie Sanders twice, and I wouldn't give that cowardly SOB the time of day now. The same goes for AOC and the Squad. All are sellouts, hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
The Democrats will ALWAYS sell out, and they have proven themselves utterly incapable of reform. They are not worth your support, and they'll never get mine again.
I don’t know if I am totally over Bernie, but he has definitely taken the too little too late approach to this. It reminds me of all the liberal/ intellectual people who keep publicly quiet or in line with party policy, but then walk up to the people who have spoken out in secret going ‘psst hey, I just want you to know I agree with you, but now is not the time to say it’. And the time to say it, of course, will be once everyone is dead and nothing can be done anymore. Then suddenly we will have massive outpouring of realisation, remorse, sympathy, empathy, and other poser shit from libs and dems who decide it’s time to role play as a good person again, now that all risk of personal harm has passed.
Thanks Lidija, Alan, and Barbarian for the astute comments. Easy to imagine the intensity of re-education these non-conforming elected undergo at the college of lobbyists and corporate operatives.
I'm not able to take a measure of my prolonged affliction about the...what?..I no longer know what to call it, where one can take some relief from the deaths having ended unfathomable suffering. Those of us who, by some miracle, have preserved in ourselves the innate sense of justice provided by nature, I believe, have to contend with a profound alienation from a growing population of those whose justice faculty they've allowed to be banished from their consciousness ("I've got mine, so it's fair!"). Another moment when saying NO to authority is morally required. My nightmares depict a world overrun by armored and armed mindless goons driven by the sadistic pleasure of inflicting violence.
We're trying to use measured language to address the immeasurable. And yet feel useless repeating so much of what we already know; and complaining about what we are helpless against. We propose reformulating electoral politics assuming we'll ever get to vote again. We know we are days from a profound crossing in our history. The Gaza experiment is a success. Genocide will be renamed Excess Population Management by a yet to be formalized institution replacing the post WWII humanist accords, presently proven as obsolete.
How vast an insult to our sensibility was the broadcasted condemnation of the killing of one vile insurance industry CEO by the same voices that abet mass murder of innocents.
I have had that dream of visiting a prosperous nation on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean where Jews and Palestinians co-inhabit and enjoy the mutual enrichment of each culture. Could it have happened? Absolutely, but that other NO prevailed.
I imagined Jimmy Carter's last thoughts as he died. He gave thanks for being spared the witness of what likely is coming. The Enlightenment, with it's Age of Reason, has brought us to an Age of Nightmare. The great trust in Science has brought us nuclear weapons, mass surveillance, remotely guided warfare, environmental devastation, while we set our priority on buying the next smart appliance.
The most prophetic utterance of modern times was made by Yeats in his The Second Coming: "...the worst are full of passionate intensity..." The citizens of the western empire understand in some guilty black nugget in their souls that the thing that makes their lives, that vaunted deception, the American Standard of Living, is accomplished by extractive extirpation from the rest of the world under our oppression. I believe in Confucious' dictum: Fist rectify the language. A tear soaked confession is overdue. Our culture has deprived us of the meaning of "compassion", except in an academic way.
'Always!' and 'Never!' are good for expressing outrage. But fairly useless when assessing terrain and deciding on allies. If we can't see AOC and those with her in Congress as friends and not enemies, we are in a bad way indeed. All you have left is PSL, stuck in a far left swamp, with less than one percent of the vote, and forever reduced to 'street syndicalism' as the only tactic. I spent many years in that cul de sac. It's a dead end, incapable of uniting the many to defeat the few. If you can make a united front with those who disagree with you, you're not doing it right. Abe Lincoln had to build an army made up of largely workers and farmers who held racist views to wage what became after Jan 1 1863, a bloody war against slavery and the slave power, not an easy task. Many were transformed in that battle, especially after the Black troop joined, singing 'John Brown's Body' together at the end. They won militarily, but still, the abolition of democracy in the South faced counter-revolution in 1876. That fight is still with us, a third reconstruction. And a militant minority can't win it alone.
You nail it. The irony is that Joe Biden came into the presidency saying he wanted to "restore the soul" of America. Those words sounded hollow then, but I had no idea how hollow they would turn out to be.
The well expressed views of the Democrats could be equally applied to our UK's Labour party which is as equally incompetent and wickedly evil as the Tories were.
So beautifully written. All my thoughts. Also with the recent pardons of bankers who created a $180 million ponzi scheme I just read about, man, it’s the last straw for me.
Truly brilliant post that crystallizes my anger toward the party. It was not until the assault on Gaza, and the gaslighting State Dept. press conferences, and the indefensible UN votes, and repeated, overwhelming congressional approval of weapons-based "aid," that my eyes were opened to how pervasive the lack of moral character in the party truly is. It's most disheartening because there is no option but to work within this broken party to find progress. But acknowledging that is an important step. Thanks for this post.
It won't rebuild the Democratic party but it's essential to fully support the BDS movement against Israel at every level, from the personal to advocating for it in every forum, even if it means rocking the boat. Among the corporate crowd, I've seen discussions on the Fishbowl app where, because of anonymity, people are very willing to say that they'll attempt to influence procurement and possible M&A activity to marginalize the genocidal regime. Seek out comrades everywhere.
HamNo, I think this is one of the best blogs I've ever read from you, and one of the most helpful. Thank you for using your great skill to give us all the words to describe the utter collapse of the Dems. Appreciate you and your writing, and can't wait to see more next year.
I love everything about this piece — the content, the passion, and beautiful writing. I want to send it to my useless (Colorado) Democratic Senators, who would never read it.
My problem is a refusal to succumb to the nihilism you mention. I’m willing to focus smaller — on the small joys in life, family, mutual aid, etc., but I can’t see myself stopping advocacy, organizing, and speaking out. There’s got to be a place between being a resistance fighter and giving up entirely. That’s where I want to be.
I’m a lifelong Democrat, although a chronically unhappy one, and I remain because I want to have a say in choosing the nominees and because we have an entrenched two-party system. I don’t give money to the party, and I figure I might as well stay in here and raise a little hell.
I’ve had your book for a while. I pre-ordered it, and I’m embarrassed that I haven’t read it yet. Thanks for the reminder. I want to see what you recommend. Thank you for this terrific column. ♥️
The Democratic Party is not an empty vessel. It is a purchased vessel, is filled with the cash of its oligarchical, aristocratic owners, that is, its donors. It is hopelessly corrupt and incapable of being reformed from the inside. Bernie Sanders' two primary runs proved that beyond any reasonable doubt.
,
The Democratic Party must be destroyed, not reformed, and it is up to all of us who used to be Democrats back in the day to make sure that happens. We need something far better.
So does the rest of the world. I doubt you'll find many Palestinians who will disagree.
"Morally, if our nation is going to cling to a two-party system that forces most citizens to pick one side or the other, we all have the right to insist that the side we pick not act in abominable ways." Very true, and I would go further: clinging to a two-party system isn't going to bring about the changes needed. Quoting a historian from Kern Burns' documentary on the Roosevelts, speaking about TR and the Bull Moose Party, "The two main parties were husks. Neither was addressing the needs of modern life. Both parties were stalling, and were stuck with bosses and the issues of a past generation." Time to pick a new side.
Devastating takedown of the Democratic Party followed by yet another “and thus we must remake THIS party.” It is time to work towards multiparty democracy by working to strengthen third parties and the structural reforms needed to make them viable over time on local and state levels. The Democrats have over and over proven that they will not change in this status quo—working outside AND inside to push them is the only hope, if there is any. And if not we will have strengthened institutions in ways that get us out of this binary.
somehow I posted this separately so will put it here where it belongs!
Ugh I just lost a whole comment I typed. Let me be briefer. I read that when it came out and you make so many good points. (1) It's just, when? I'm a Green in conversation with progressive Democrats here in Baltimore Maryland. They make this point. But they've been making it for many years. When do we say that there are forces around and in this party that make this turn impossible? That it's not actually an empty vessel - it is certainly empty of morality but it's not empty of the people, values, and structures that cement a "pragmatic" moderation in place. This became clearly true even of people like Bernie Sanders and AOC in this national election. (2) I'm persuaded by Jack Santucci and Lee Drutman that the binary nature of this system is part of the problem and that multiparty democracy is something we have to work for. Here in Maryland, multi-member state legislative districts make proportional representation something to work towards. (3) Relatedly, even if you disagree with those two points, building power outside and to the left of the Democratic Party (labor unions, as you point out) can only help. There seems to be NOTHING strong enough to stop the rightward march withIN the party - why NOT build power outside?
People in Maryland may want to check out Andy Ellis's seeking of the Maryland Green Party nomination for Governor in 2026. Still in early stages but we're continuing to develop a theory of action around such a third-party campaign in which success is not measured by a win but by development of a movement toward multi-party democracy, among other things. gogreen2026.com is the website. (And full disclosure I'm married to him and am part of the planning team.)
And finally, I thoroughly appreciate the moral clarity of this post. Thank you.
Brilliant analysis of the Democratic Party. After Biden’s unequivocal support of Israel’s genocide and starvation of the Palestinians, I am done with the Party as it is today. I’m beyond disgusted and outraged at Biden to the point that I want him held accountable for crimes against humanity.
But I also remember what the Party did to Sanders for Hilary Clinton and her fast talking sexual predator husband.
So the demise started awhile ago. Biden just did everything he could to put the lid on.
If the Party doesn’t remove the geriatric set from power, who are controlled by corporate interests and AIPAC, and let the progressives take control, it will not recover.
I think you've got the right suspects but the wrong motives. It's not mainly about selfishness or elections, but imperialism and empire. Through the whole election and all the cultural war fronts, there was no disagreement between the parties about funding the genocide. They all voted tio supply every bomb. The US empire has been slipping away and Israel has been their most reliable cop on the beat in the Middle East. And Biden is no different that all the other dems, going back to LBJ and JFK, war mongers all. The Dems have never offered us a home, more like a homeless shelter. No need to go back and rebuild it. Good riddance. Here's what Engles said on the subject in 1891: "Nowhere do ‘politicians’ form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics . . . We find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends."
I can’t think of a better description of the Democratic Party over the past 50 years, or maybe the past 80: “The Dems have never offered us a home, more like a homeless shelter. “. God, that’s exactly right.
That's an *incredible* line. Very painful to recognize that it is 100% accurate.
yes, you outline exactly why our two-party system will not allow "us" in! I believe Bernie in 2020 was the last real opportunity we (the working class) had to do that. From here on out, the contours of the democratic party will increasingly blur as it drifts away from amy former policies and programs that benefitted workers and the environment, toward a full-time job as co-empire managers. The US began as an extension of British Empire and became an Empire unto itself that will need more and more fossil fuels, propaganda and violence to prolong its fading hegemony.
Lol. Nothing has fundamentally changed since Engels' day. Well, capitalism is capitalism.
And once again HamNo takes whatever confusion or angst or trepidation I had about a topic and completely disintegrates it in a force of amazing writing. God damn what a blog.
Right?!
The big problem is, there isn't a power vacuum. Any attempts to reclaim or reform the party are vigorously blocked by the apparatchiks who lined up to facilitate this slaughter. Showing up to party meetings alone or with a few friends does not work, you will be crushed.
To get serious, people who want change need to build labor unions, tenant unions, and collectives that can meaningfully sway these creeps.
We saw in 2020 that these creeps will fight us until the last cops bullet is spent.
Minneapolis and Jacob Frey, Pittsburgh and that dickless rascal Peduto, Buffalo breaking open an unarmed old mans head like an egg, San Diego and nonumiformed men claiming to be cops kidnapping citizens off the street at gunpoint, Portland and the weekslong open siege,
Fucking America's Dad Tim Waltz dispatching cops on a terror atrack, riding down city streets "non-lethally" shooting anyone they can see including citizens in their own yards/porches, in order to * literally prevent us from peacefully petitioning our government.*
Good luck getting one of these chickenshits to stand up now that Trump has been allowed to assassinate political opponents. They care about their phoney baloney jobs enough to not rock the boat, you think you can ask them hard enough when its their lives on the line?
These people are cowards but thats not inconsistent with being bullies. You have to fight a bully. And thats what were gonna get. Blue state or red. We all went back to brunch in november 2020 and the check is due.
I share your moral outrage over Gaza and much more. But you need to bracket your frame of the Democratic party as a single entity and set it aside to consider it differently. It's better seen as a coalition of three parties under one tent. The Third Way party is the hegemonic top dog, best defined by Clintons and Wall St. It's assisted by a small Blue dog party center in W VA and the rust belt, often siding with Trump. Then there is the Justice Democrats, led by AOC and the Squad, plus Bernie and half or more of the Progressive Caucus he founded. It shares your views of Gaza and much more. We need to grow its size. In my area near Pittsburgh, we added Summer Lee, a militant firebrand. We need many more like her until the entire tent faces a transformational crisis, much like the old Whigs. What will be the result? The future is open, and we have to work on shaping it.
Do I not recall AOC filming ads with Biden wearing aviator sunglasses and basically advertising the genocide? The small segment of the Dem party that is supposedly still standing on some morality only seems to do so when they find it convenient. I'm sure they're telling themselves all sorts of stories about choosing their battles blah blah, but the fact is, the number of people in that party who have CONSISTENTLY spoken out against its general moral decline and its insane warmongering (which, by the way is NOT a new thing, let's remember Obama's kill count, Clinton's kill count, we just like to pretend they're not murderers because they send the drones more quietly) is painfully small.
Here' AOC on Gaza and genocide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szU9lofyoS4
Then add Bernie's resolution to cut off funds to Israel, which the Squad and a few other Dems backed.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that they know how to sound like decent people on that subject when it suits them.
My question is more what do we do with the other clips out there that kind of go against these.
The "Squad" are paid performance artists. Bernie was aging out, so they invented some new Pretendocrats to keep the base hopeful. Scam.
When their votes are not required, they are permitted to vote as if liberal values meant something to those shriveled sacks of venality, their hearts. When their votes are needed, they follow mama to the pond like a line of little ducklings.
This is definitely how it’s looking from where I’m sitting.
I supported Bernie Sanders twice, and I wouldn't give that cowardly SOB the time of day now. The same goes for AOC and the Squad. All are sellouts, hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
The Democrats will ALWAYS sell out, and they have proven themselves utterly incapable of reform. They are not worth your support, and they'll never get mine again.
I don’t know if I am totally over Bernie, but he has definitely taken the too little too late approach to this. It reminds me of all the liberal/ intellectual people who keep publicly quiet or in line with party policy, but then walk up to the people who have spoken out in secret going ‘psst hey, I just want you to know I agree with you, but now is not the time to say it’. And the time to say it, of course, will be once everyone is dead and nothing can be done anymore. Then suddenly we will have massive outpouring of realisation, remorse, sympathy, empathy, and other poser shit from libs and dems who decide it’s time to role play as a good person again, now that all risk of personal harm has passed.
Thanks Lidija, Alan, and Barbarian for the astute comments. Easy to imagine the intensity of re-education these non-conforming elected undergo at the college of lobbyists and corporate operatives.
I'm not able to take a measure of my prolonged affliction about the...what?..I no longer know what to call it, where one can take some relief from the deaths having ended unfathomable suffering. Those of us who, by some miracle, have preserved in ourselves the innate sense of justice provided by nature, I believe, have to contend with a profound alienation from a growing population of those whose justice faculty they've allowed to be banished from their consciousness ("I've got mine, so it's fair!"). Another moment when saying NO to authority is morally required. My nightmares depict a world overrun by armored and armed mindless goons driven by the sadistic pleasure of inflicting violence.
We're trying to use measured language to address the immeasurable. And yet feel useless repeating so much of what we already know; and complaining about what we are helpless against. We propose reformulating electoral politics assuming we'll ever get to vote again. We know we are days from a profound crossing in our history. The Gaza experiment is a success. Genocide will be renamed Excess Population Management by a yet to be formalized institution replacing the post WWII humanist accords, presently proven as obsolete.
How vast an insult to our sensibility was the broadcasted condemnation of the killing of one vile insurance industry CEO by the same voices that abet mass murder of innocents.
I have had that dream of visiting a prosperous nation on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean where Jews and Palestinians co-inhabit and enjoy the mutual enrichment of each culture. Could it have happened? Absolutely, but that other NO prevailed.
I imagined Jimmy Carter's last thoughts as he died. He gave thanks for being spared the witness of what likely is coming. The Enlightenment, with it's Age of Reason, has brought us to an Age of Nightmare. The great trust in Science has brought us nuclear weapons, mass surveillance, remotely guided warfare, environmental devastation, while we set our priority on buying the next smart appliance.
The most prophetic utterance of modern times was made by Yeats in his The Second Coming: "...the worst are full of passionate intensity..." The citizens of the western empire understand in some guilty black nugget in their souls that the thing that makes their lives, that vaunted deception, the American Standard of Living, is accomplished by extractive extirpation from the rest of the world under our oppression. I believe in Confucious' dictum: Fist rectify the language. A tear soaked confession is overdue. Our culture has deprived us of the meaning of "compassion", except in an academic way.
'Always!' and 'Never!' are good for expressing outrage. But fairly useless when assessing terrain and deciding on allies. If we can't see AOC and those with her in Congress as friends and not enemies, we are in a bad way indeed. All you have left is PSL, stuck in a far left swamp, with less than one percent of the vote, and forever reduced to 'street syndicalism' as the only tactic. I spent many years in that cul de sac. It's a dead end, incapable of uniting the many to defeat the few. If you can make a united front with those who disagree with you, you're not doing it right. Abe Lincoln had to build an army made up of largely workers and farmers who held racist views to wage what became after Jan 1 1863, a bloody war against slavery and the slave power, not an easy task. Many were transformed in that battle, especially after the Black troop joined, singing 'John Brown's Body' together at the end. They won militarily, but still, the abolition of democracy in the South faced counter-revolution in 1876. That fight is still with us, a third reconstruction. And a militant minority can't win it alone.
You nail it. The irony is that Joe Biden came into the presidency saying he wanted to "restore the soul" of America. Those words sounded hollow then, but I had no idea how hollow they would turn out to be.
The well expressed views of the Democrats could be equally applied to our UK's Labour party which is as equally incompetent and wickedly evil as the Tories were.
It really has been something to behold, the sight of Labour deciding to emulate the failures of the Democrats.
So beautifully written. All my thoughts. Also with the recent pardons of bankers who created a $180 million ponzi scheme I just read about, man, it’s the last straw for me.
And pardoning that corrupt judge who sold kids down the river for profit. If it was possible for me to get any angrier, that would have done it.
Truly brilliant post that crystallizes my anger toward the party. It was not until the assault on Gaza, and the gaslighting State Dept. press conferences, and the indefensible UN votes, and repeated, overwhelming congressional approval of weapons-based "aid," that my eyes were opened to how pervasive the lack of moral character in the party truly is. It's most disheartening because there is no option but to work within this broken party to find progress. But acknowledging that is an important step. Thanks for this post.
It won't rebuild the Democratic party but it's essential to fully support the BDS movement against Israel at every level, from the personal to advocating for it in every forum, even if it means rocking the boat. Among the corporate crowd, I've seen discussions on the Fishbowl app where, because of anonymity, people are very willing to say that they'll attempt to influence procurement and possible M&A activity to marginalize the genocidal regime. Seek out comrades everywhere.
HamNo, I think this is one of the best blogs I've ever read from you, and one of the most helpful. Thank you for using your great skill to give us all the words to describe the utter collapse of the Dems. Appreciate you and your writing, and can't wait to see more next year.
100%, no notes.
I love everything about this piece — the content, the passion, and beautiful writing. I want to send it to my useless (Colorado) Democratic Senators, who would never read it.
My problem is a refusal to succumb to the nihilism you mention. I’m willing to focus smaller — on the small joys in life, family, mutual aid, etc., but I can’t see myself stopping advocacy, organizing, and speaking out. There’s got to be a place between being a resistance fighter and giving up entirely. That’s where I want to be.
I’m a lifelong Democrat, although a chronically unhappy one, and I remain because I want to have a say in choosing the nominees and because we have an entrenched two-party system. I don’t give money to the party, and I figure I might as well stay in here and raise a little hell.
I’ve had your book for a while. I pre-ordered it, and I’m embarrassed that I haven’t read it yet. Thanks for the reminder. I want to see what you recommend. Thank you for this terrific column. ♥️
The Democratic Party is not an empty vessel. It is a purchased vessel, is filled with the cash of its oligarchical, aristocratic owners, that is, its donors. It is hopelessly corrupt and incapable of being reformed from the inside. Bernie Sanders' two primary runs proved that beyond any reasonable doubt.
,
The Democratic Party must be destroyed, not reformed, and it is up to all of us who used to be Democrats back in the day to make sure that happens. We need something far better.
So does the rest of the world. I doubt you'll find many Palestinians who will disagree.
"Morally, if our nation is going to cling to a two-party system that forces most citizens to pick one side or the other, we all have the right to insist that the side we pick not act in abominable ways." Very true, and I would go further: clinging to a two-party system isn't going to bring about the changes needed. Quoting a historian from Kern Burns' documentary on the Roosevelts, speaking about TR and the Bull Moose Party, "The two main parties were husks. Neither was addressing the needs of modern life. Both parties were stalling, and were stuck with bosses and the issues of a past generation." Time to pick a new side.
Devastating takedown of the Democratic Party followed by yet another “and thus we must remake THIS party.” It is time to work towards multiparty democracy by working to strengthen third parties and the structural reforms needed to make them viable over time on local and state levels. The Democrats have over and over proven that they will not change in this status quo—working outside AND inside to push them is the only hope, if there is any. And if not we will have strengthened institutions in ways that get us out of this binary.
See here: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/do-we-need-a-labor-party
somehow I posted this separately so will put it here where it belongs!
Ugh I just lost a whole comment I typed. Let me be briefer. I read that when it came out and you make so many good points. (1) It's just, when? I'm a Green in conversation with progressive Democrats here in Baltimore Maryland. They make this point. But they've been making it for many years. When do we say that there are forces around and in this party that make this turn impossible? That it's not actually an empty vessel - it is certainly empty of morality but it's not empty of the people, values, and structures that cement a "pragmatic" moderation in place. This became clearly true even of people like Bernie Sanders and AOC in this national election. (2) I'm persuaded by Jack Santucci and Lee Drutman that the binary nature of this system is part of the problem and that multiparty democracy is something we have to work for. Here in Maryland, multi-member state legislative districts make proportional representation something to work towards. (3) Relatedly, even if you disagree with those two points, building power outside and to the left of the Democratic Party (labor unions, as you point out) can only help. There seems to be NOTHING strong enough to stop the rightward march withIN the party - why NOT build power outside?
People in Maryland may want to check out Andy Ellis's seeking of the Maryland Green Party nomination for Governor in 2026. Still in early stages but we're continuing to develop a theory of action around such a third-party campaign in which success is not measured by a win but by development of a movement toward multi-party democracy, among other things. gogreen2026.com is the website. (And full disclosure I'm married to him and am part of the planning team.)
And finally, I thoroughly appreciate the moral clarity of this post. Thank you.
Brilliant analysis of the Democratic Party. After Biden’s unequivocal support of Israel’s genocide and starvation of the Palestinians, I am done with the Party as it is today. I’m beyond disgusted and outraged at Biden to the point that I want him held accountable for crimes against humanity.
But I also remember what the Party did to Sanders for Hilary Clinton and her fast talking sexual predator husband.
So the demise started awhile ago. Biden just did everything he could to put the lid on.
If the Party doesn’t remove the geriatric set from power, who are controlled by corporate interests and AIPAC, and let the progressives take control, it will not recover.