Why Establishment Democrats fight so hard against progressives and their ideas:

Why Establishment Democrats fight so hard against progressives and their ideas:

The ululating cries from progressive activists can be heard ringing out across the nation ever since the stunning victory of one Donald J. Trump in November of 2016. In a contest we were assured could only go one way, a guaranteed landslide which would bury the Republicans and finally end their vile, gross, toxic fervor to destroy the American Dream and sell the country to the highest bidder. In this we were told the Republicans had gone too far they had finally revealed themselves for the detestable hate mongering ocelots that they were. In that revelation, they would reap the whirlwind and Hillary Clinton would be lifted to the presidency almost without effort. Her coattails would ensure a massive wave of Democratic lawmakers made it there with her, securing Democratic control of the nation for a generation.

Well we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men. Donald Trump secured the electoral college by toppling the Democratic firewall in the Rustbelt states. Securing enough electoral votes to secure himself the presidency. To whit Donald Trump even himself seemed to have some impressive coat tails lifting multiple Republican lawmakers to the legislature and securing Republican control of both the legislature and the presidency. This was in tandem with the fact the one Antonin Scalia had perished from heart attack earlier that year and as such due to Republican malfeasance they had left the Supreme Court seat open by refusing to fill it. Now with Republican legislature and presidency they could also maintain control of the highest law body in the land. The Republicans had gained total dominance of the U.S. government at every level.

The progressive wing of the Democratic party cried out that it did not have to be this way. That things could have been different. If the Establishment had listened and backed their candidate one Bernie Sanders a “true” progressive he would have beaten Donald Trump. That is of course mere speculation we don’t know that he would have, any more than we know who would have won in a contest between any two characters on Death Battle, everything is purely hyper speculative and could be swung either way depending on what types of data you want to entertain. This is all to serve as context and background for the progressive issue dominance within the Democratic party. With the utter defeat of the Neo-liberal agenda represented by Hillary Clinton the progressive wing of the Democrats feels it is their turn at the plate. that they should be addressing policy and their priorities and candidates should be the ones moving forward in races across the country. However, the establishment wing will not let go. Both chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi refuse to endorse Medicare for all or any other form of single payer healthcare options but more importantly they refuse to relinquish their positions of power to those whom the Democratic base feel would more reasonably represent the new fervor within the party. As far as progressive activists are concerned someone like Sanders himself or Elizabeth Warren should be leading the senate Democrats whilst a younger more progressive candidate like Tulsi Gabbard should be taking Democratic leadership in the house.

The fact the Establishment democrats refuse to relinquish any authority and, to some, look to be trying to further tighten their grip on what little power remains in the Democratic party has angered progressives and caused a major rift within the party. This “Democratic civil war” has resulted in a host of primary challengers to sitting democrats across the nation most notably to Democratic senate challenges against Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) respectively by a group called Justice Democrats. Even Nancy Pelosi herself had drawn an unlikely challenger to her seat in the house one Stephen R. Jaffe has decided to attempt the impossible and unseat the house minority leader in a primary bid. The refusal of Establishment Democrats to either “step aside” or change their positions to suit the changing political winds is both baffling and infuriating to the progressive insurgents trying to make headway into the Democratic party. 

At the end of the day, however, none of this should be surprising not everyone can be Gorbachevian in their demeanor most people do not give up power willingly or well. It makes sense on an existential level that major figures in the Democratic party would not want to give up what power they had managed to accumulate over the years. It’s not like the Republicans just seeded their power to the Tea Party in 2010 they fought to keep their seats and their power. They were just very bad at it. Democrats have always been far better at machine politics than their Republican counterparts to that end they have many more bulwarks to prevent the “fringe” of leftist politics from entering their party. The current power holders will work tirelessly in order to not be removed from that access to power and to that end will fight against primaries in every way possible. No one ever “steps aside” and to that end it should be no surprise to the various left-wing insurgents throughout the country that they are facing the hardest resistance from entrenched power interests across the nation. Change is bloody, painful, and hard and the bigger changes you want the harder it gets, just ask any woman whose given birth, so you can expect to continue to fight against those entrenched interests.

Now the usual response to this from various idealistic left wingers is to basically to concede that, while that might explain why the Democratic leadership does not let go of there powerful positions it does not explain why they refuse to change their policy positions. You would think that when the American people support things like a higher minimum wage and Medicare for all the Democrats would see that popularity and begin to full-throatily defend those positions regardless of their feasibility. After all reality isn’t something Republicans concern themselves with so why should they? Most critics of the Democratic party see this as a mere matter of corruption that these lawmakers take money from industries and the super rich who would oppose these policies because they take money from these people and as such they will not craft policy that adversely affect them.

This is only partially correct, while this is a factor it is not the main or even principle one. Here we come to central idea and the central problem of Democratic centrists: faithlessness. To quote another so-called realist who sold out his own people “we cannot win!” This quote beautifully states the ideas of centrist Democrats in most of there ideology; it is mostly concession. They believe the left lost a long time ago, that hope will never win and that there is no point in opposition. They are incentivized in this view but the simple idea is that the left has no hope in actually winning and as such the only thing left is just to negotiate the terms of surrender. Speak at length with any centrist Democrat and that pervasive sense of utter hopelessness comes through, they are a people without faith because they don’t feel any assurance that such faith will ever be rewarded.

What you see when you look at centrist Democrats are many women and people of colour who have struggled there way into positions of some limited power over time. Due to patriarchy and white supremacy these are people in the system whose positions are the most precarious and their power the least secure in other words in the current system shake-up they will be the first to be affected and lose the most. This is because they always do, those who climb from the furthest down have the furthest to fall back and the ladder tends to snap beneath them. In the minds of these people you will never beat men like the Kochs, the Spencers, or even the Gates for the other side. These old men already have all the money, control, and power to quote George Carlin “They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations that've long since bought and paid for, the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and the information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.”

It is through this lens that other parts of this can be established. The centrists view radical change as fundamentally impossible and more to the point largely undesirable. It is this fundamental idea that alters their perceptions in such a way as to prevent them from really ever embracing the left-wing views of the other side of the base. Because they would compromise they’re on power and the power of those who are disadvantaged and have managed through years of hard work to move higher up in the food chain on a system which fundamentally disadvantages them from obtaining those positions in the first place. Any direct assault on the system will destroy their power bases first and will not touch the deeply entrenched power brokers who sit at the top. This is the fundamental reason for the Establishment Democrat’s resistance to the ideas present within the further left movements that comprise their base. This will always be a fight and it will not be won easily. If the leftist movements are serious about establishing their power base they will have to fight harder than they could ever imagine to establish footholds within a party and group which is committed to keeping everything the same because those in charge believe that they have already lost.