COMMENTARY:
The Democratic Party is old, weak and broke. The Democratic National Committee is $2.2 million in debt heading into the midterm elections.
At a time when the sitting president has monetized the Oval Office to rake in some $2.4 billion during his first year in office and is praised by other Republican leaders for the transparency of his corruption; at a time when masked federal law enforcement agents in unmarked vehicles are killing people on the streets; and, at a time when we just started another foolish Mideast war without an exit strategy; a vigorous and energized opposition is essential.
If the Democratic Party can’t provide that opposition, something else will come along to fill that void. Enter the Democratic Socialists of America.
The name alone is enough to scare off some folks my age and older who lump socialism and communism together and see it all as a combination of Soviet gulags and Chinese re-education camps. Those not educated in the 1960s probably won’t have the same reaction.
Beyond the name, some of the proposals that the nascent group has offered are idealistic to the point of stupidity. We need to have police and jails. The Supreme Court should be reformed, but eliminating that branch of government and allowing Congress to decide matters of law would simply make the process more political. They also want to eliminate the Senate and the presidency.
All of those proposals invite mockery from both the right and the establishment left. It's fine to advocate for radically crazy solutions when nobody is taking you seriously. But once you start winning elections, it becomes important to better define your priorities.
That is why Democratic Socialists of America leaders met recently to refine their platform. And, there is a lot that I do support … universal health care and child care; a higher minimum wage; greater protections for labor unions; closing tax loopholes for billionaires; restoring the Green New Deal; and ending weapons shipments to Israel.
Other than Israel, those are policies that the Democratic Party used to fight for, back when they still had some fight in them.
Despite all that has gone wrong in the Trump presidency, the Republican Party still has a higher favorability rating than the Democratic Party. That doesn’t represent an ideological swing to the right so much as it does a lack of confidence in Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the other aging leaders who have been unable to mount a meaningful opposition to the daily chaos and corruption.
The freakout by some in the Democratic establishment, I’m looking at you James Carville, has been both comical and pathetic. Do they not understand it was their impotence that gave rise to this movement?
The two-party system, something else the DSA would get rid of if it could, requires big tents. And, the hard truth of politics is, there will be some seats that Democrats will lose because a DSA candidate won in the primary election but couldn't win in the general election. And, that will be frustrating when it happens.
But the Democratic Party needs a shakeup. It has been slogging along with the same old leaders pushing the same old policies to no avail for long enough. Change can sometimes be a little bit messy, but stagnation is worse.
Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com.
Walt Rubel’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.