Just a week ahead of the first real test of the Democratic Party primary season, the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez has named his nominees for the 2020 DNC committees.
Tensions run high leading up to the convention, with many fearing a repeat of the hotly contested 2016 Democratic National Convention, when leaked emails revealed DNC leadership’s bias against Bernie Sanders. Critics of the convention’s actions have reason to fear anew, following Chairman Perez’s appointments, largely comprised of corporate lobbyists, Clinton aids and staunch opponents of progressive policy. Why is a party that is ostensibly opposed to right-wing bigotry and disenfranchisement so dedicated to snuffing out the passion of its progressive grassroots?
The answer, as it always seems to be, is capital. We live in a country without a viable electoral left wing. Establishment democrats, just as much as any republican, serve the interests of corporations, lobbyists and capital. By many countries’ metrics, America’s two largest parties are center right and far right. Through propaganda, red-baiting, surveillance, censure, workplace discrimination and even state violence, America has largely been successful in subverting leftist political organizing. The emergence of Third Way neoliberal economic policy has been detrimental to working and middle class individuals and drawn many in to populist right-wing rhetoric. If the Democratic Party intends to win back working class voters, it must fundamentally rethink its power structure.
The Democratic Party need not be the vehicle through which genuine change for working people of all races, nationalities, genders and religions is affected. There are other, far less corrupt means to achieve these goals. However, if the party wants to truly defeat Trump and change the cultural and material conditions that allowed his nationalist message to flourish, they must abandon their corporate backing in favor of the grassroots activists.
Unless voters come out resolutely against the corporate establishment, the supposed “left wing” of the American two-party system will remain under the control of America’s top financial firms, insurance companies and banks. The influence of these interests at the DNC should not depress the vote, but serve as a galvanizing force to working class voters. What we lack in entrenched political power, we make up for in sheer volume. In spite of the DNC leadership’s foul play, it is time to take the party back.
