Instead Of Whining Over 2016 Again Make Some Real Reforms To Fix The Democratic Party

The "left" or the impotent play-group that passes as a left in the United States these days seems to be trying to refight the last presidential election.  The rage of the Bernie dead enders is on display, the efforts of the Green Party fraud to exploit that is as predicable as mold,  there is a study by some group called  Action For A Progressive Future which seems to be unusually uninterested in disclosing who runs it and who produced their study is being peddled by the Putin collaborationist magazine, The Nation*, and there is an excerpt from a book by Donna Brazile that has a title accusing Hillary Clinton "taking over" the Democratic National Committee but which I'd interpret as her stepping in to the wreckage that Barack Obama and his political operation left it in.

To start with, I think there is some valuable information in both the study and in Brazile's article but the Bernie Sanders' fantasists and other conspiracy nuts relitigating the Democratic nomination process 2016 will make the worst possible use of them.  But I don't think other than Democrats avoiding a highly charismatic figure such as Obama who, from the start of his political career, proved over and over again that he was far more about him and his legend than he was about the Democratic Party, will be anything but counter-productive.  He and his campaign staff did little to nothing to take advantage of what was given to them in 2008, he squandered his commanding majorities in both houses of Congress, tried to substitute a cult of personality for fighting for the strongest economic recovery and reform he could and the best health care bill he could.   I had heard complaints from state and local Democratic activists that Obama and his people were arrogant and dismissive if not totally indifferent to the need to build the party from the bottom, some of them said they thought members of Obama's team sought to do to the successful efforts of Howard Dean in that regard what we now see Trump doing to Obama's legacy. 

But I'm not really interested in going over all of those old resentments and wrongs except as a means of going ahead by getting rid of at least the worst of it.  And if that's not how that recent history is going to be used, instead using it to further damage the Democratic Party, then those are better forgotten.

At this point I think the Democratic Party should declare itself both post-Clinton and post-Obama but, most of all, post Bernie.  If, as some complain, the current leadership of the Party is too beholden to either one, it should be removed.  I'm not especially against of for Tom Perez** and like just about everyone else am not even all that aware of what he's doing - though if he's not working hard on rebuilding the finances of the party that Donna Brazile says were left in a shambles by both Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, he should resign.  I would say that what was needed is a leader who is not seen as beholden to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders.  I will point out though, that whatever criticisms you can make of Clinton and Obama, at least they, UNLIKE BERNIE SANDERS are members of the party.

I think one of the big lessons of the last election is one the Nation crowd won't like, it is that the party needs to protect itself from being coopted by someone like Sanders who has no fundamental commitment or loyalty to the Democratic Party - I think that is exactly what the problem with Barack Obama re the Democratic Party was, why he squandered what he was given and why he left the Democratic Party in a shambles.  The basic requirement of a Democratic nominee for president should be that they have been a member of the party for at least a decade or two.  There should be a disqualification of anyone who, like Sanders, has not made that basic commitment to the party.

The hue and cry of the Sanders dead-enders is that the nomination process was rigged.  But it is a fact that Sanders is the one who benefitted from the rigged part of the nomination, THE CAUCUSES.  I don't dislike Bernie Sanders and agree with him on much more than I do Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama but he would never have won the general election.   His performance in which he won caucuses and lost primaries shows that he could never have won in any totally unrigged contest, his main strength was in those states that hold caucuses, which are a travesty, a disgusting holdover  of  an anti-democratic past. 

The most important reform that the Democratic Party could make is to get rid of caucuses - making it a rule that the results of caucuses will not count for the nomination and forcing a primary vote.   They should also make it a rule that nominations of the Democratic Party candidate will not count the results of open primary states. 

The Democratic Party should conduct its own primaries, by mail in ballots exclusively from registered Democrats who have been registered as such from January 1st of the year of the nomination.   That would remove state legislatures and their attempts to sand-bag the Democratic Party and possible manipulation by any candidate or campaign apparatus of the nomination process.  The National Conference of State Legislatures list of advantages and disadvantages are worth considering in this regard.  The experience of Washington State should be considered.  All in all, the experience of states which have tried it show that it can increase turnout which should be considered a sacred goal of the Democratic Party.   And, in light of the criticism of the NCSL about how the election material is written, THE KIND OF RULES THAT JIMMY CARTER PUT INTO PLACE FOR USING PLAIN LANGUAGE SHOULD GOVERN ALL OF HOW THAT IS WRITTEN.  It isn't any mistake that Reagan's anti-democratic administration rescinded those, obscurity is an enemy of democracy.

I think if the Democratic National Committee made those two reforms and raised the money to conduct its own nomination process it would insulate it from the kinds of problems which the past several elections cycles and their efforts have produced.  I will say that I don't fault Hillary Clinton for stepping in and taking command of the DNC, someone had to do it, though I also have to say that one of the things that I've learned in the past year is that some of her people should probably never have a major role in another Democratic campaign,  John Podesta***, brother of Tony, foremost. 

We need a clean start and a more broadly based leadership.  We also have to finally get the dead hand of the 19th century and the living manipulation of non-Democrats out of our party.  If we got rid of those, there might not be any question of a need for super-delegates to avoid disaster.

*  I'm sorry but I really can't find myself trusting anything they say in the magazine under its present ownership or leadership.  I won't as long as Vanden Heuvel or someone else so compromised as she is runs it.

As to this Action For A Progressive Future, I don't really trust a group that doesn't list who they are, who is funding it or who produces its publications.  For all I know they're a bunch of Putin or domestic billionaire oligarch whores who are just trying to screw us by exploiting the cry-baby lefties.

** I am certainly in favor of Keith Ellison holding his congressional seat, which was my main reservation about him running for the position.  The reaction of the Bernie Sanders dead-enders to that contest shows the need for leadership that isn't tied to either Sanders or Clinton and unless Perez shows himself to be excellent at the job such should be found.

*** If they can't figure out some way to make their communications hack proof, online, there has to be another means of communications found other than e-mails.  Probably the biggest lesson of this campaign was that the idea that there is private online communication is about as stupid an ideas as exists among the college educated elite.