Democratic Party Purges Progressives And Makes Lobbyists Superdelegates

The Democratic Party is further demonstrating that the do not represent the left, and have no serious interest in doing so. NBC News reported on the purge of progressives by the DNC:

A shake-up is underway at the Democratic National Committee as several key longtime officials have lost their posts, exposing a still-raw rift in the party and igniting anger among those in its progressive wing who see retaliation for their opposition to DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

The ousters come ahead of the DNC’s first meeting, in Las Vegas, Nevada, since Perez took over as chairman with a pledge this year to unite a party that had become badly divided during the brutal Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton 2016 primary race.

Complaints began immediately after party officials saw a list of Perez’s appointments to DNC committees and his roster of 75 “at-large” members, who are chosen by the chair.

The removal and demotion of a handful of veteran operatives stood out, as did what critics charge is the over-representation of Clinton-backed members on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which helps set the terms for the party’s presidential primary, though other Sanders and Ellison backers remain represented.

Those who have been pushed out include:

Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chairman and longtime DNC official who ran against Perez for chair before backing Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Buckley lost his spots on the Executive Committee and DNC Rules Committee.

James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute and prominent Sanders backer, is no longer co-chair of the Resolutions Committee and is off the Executive Committee, a spot he has held since 2001.

Alice Germond, the party’s longtime former secretary and a vocal Ellison backer, who was removed from her at-large appointment to the DNC.

Barbra Casbar Siperstein, who supported Ellison and Buckley, was tossed from the Executive Committee.

If the Democratic Party is to be taken seriously by the left it also must end the policies designed to determine their nominees, including superdelegates, front loading southern states, and making rules changes to benefit their preferred candidate–as they did in 2016 to essentially rig the nomination for Hillary Clinton.

The rigging of the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton was also exposed in the email released by Wikileaks, with Clinton recently launching an attack with bogus charges against Wikileaks which were debunked per a post yesterday.

Rather than eliminating superdelegates, as some Democrats have called for, they have made matters worse. Bloomberg reports that the Democrats plan to name lobbyists as superdelegates, confirming many of the charges against the party from the left:

The Democratic Party this week plans to name 75 people including lobbyists and political operatives to leadership posts that come with superdelegate votes at its next presidential convention, potentially aggravating old intraparty tensions as it struggles to confront President Donald Trump.

 The new members-at-large of the Democratic National Committee will vote on party rules and in 2020 will be convention delegates free to vote for a primary candidate of their choice. They include lobbyists for Venezuela’s national petroleum company and for the parent company of Fox News, according to a list obtained by Bloomberg News. At least three of the people worked for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in 2016 while also casting ballots as superdelegates.

This is exactly the wrong thing to do to give the left any confidence that the party will have a fair nominating process in the future. It also provides further evidence for the criticism that the Democratic Party is indebted to corporate money and is unlikely to behave all that differently from the Republicans.

Much of this is probably motivated by the desire of party insiders to maintain the status quo and their own power. This is also probably also partially motivated by misguided ideas as to how to compete with the Republicans, despite having repeatedly lost elections over the past decade by turning into a Republican-lite party and refusing to stand up for principle.

Of course the Republicans also remain open to charges of hypocrisy and political cowardice as many of them remain silent about the actions of Donald Trump. Matt Bai discussed how Republicans remain silent while “Donald Trump’s presidency imperils the future of his party” in a column today which is also critical of the Democrats.

Voters for neither party are really served by the leadership and insiders in their party who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than serving the voters.