Have we learned our lesson yet? Professional Democrats and the Democratic Party will not save us. They are not up to the task, and never were. Professional Democrats are happy to be the party in opposition as long as they hold those well-paying positions “leading” the opposition.
This is something the Hillary loyalists still don’t get: We don’t think she’s evil, she’s merely the symbol of everything that’s wrong with the party. Even if she disappeared tomorrow, the centrist groveling would continue. It’s the centrist groveling that’s the problem; Hillary Clinton was merely the avatar for the entire party’s subservience to special, mostly corporate, interests.
The whole point of the Sanders campaign wasn’t to elect Sanders — it was to pressure Clinton into moving left. She refused. She tried to strong-arm support instead of winning it by giving liberals what they wanted, mainly because she doesn’t agree with it. And neither do Professional Democrats.
Which leads us to Texas, where the primaries for November are being held March 6. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacked a Democratic candidate it deemed too liberal by publishing opposition research on her. I get the DCCC’s point: She’s a phony and almost certainly doomed to defeat. But that’s not why they’re against her. They’re against her because they’re afraid of the negative ads Republicans will run.
That’s how Professional Democrats work — forever running scared of Republican attack ads because at bottom they think Republican voters are capable of being swayed if only Democrats give them someone who’s just like a Republican. It worked once, with Bill Clinton’s re-election (most people don’t remember it, but Clinton won election the first time by pretending to be liberal). The GOP caught on immediately and Democrats have been sucking hind teat ever since.
Professional Democrats still don’t get it — people are looking for fighters, not accommodationists. No change in the world has ever been brought about by reasonable people acting reasonably.