More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party struggling to decide what it believes in, what issues to prioritize and how to confront an aggressive right-wing administration.
  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    335·
    18 hours ago

    And in a first step toward elevating new leaders, an election this weekend for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the party chose a candidate, Ken Martin of Minnesota, who said he planned to conduct a post-election review largely focused on tactics and messaging. Mr. Martin said he had not determined the parameters of the review, other than that he was not interested in discussing whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have sought re-election.

    More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party that is struggling to define what it stands for, what issues to prioritize and how to confront a Trump administration that is carrying out a right-wing agenda with head-spinning speed. Governors, members of the Senate and the House, state attorneys general, grass-roots leaders and D.N.C. members offered a wide range of views about the direction of their party.

    Their concerns are spilling out into public, as the country’s most powerful and prominent Democratic politicians air sharp disagreements over how aggressively they should oppose Mr. Trump.

    “We’re not going to go after every single issue,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in an interview. “We are picking the most important fights and lying down on the train tracks on those fights.”

    “How can we protect our offshore accounts and look like we care about the plebs?”

    • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
      75·
      18 hours ago

      It’s more that they weren’t prepared for this kind of intensity, and don’t have a great pre-planned message for coup against congress and the constitution by the executive.

      The typical DNC member is a union official or party activist, and comes into this with limited savings.

      • kreskin@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 hours ago

        What excuse would they have for not being prepared? This is their whole damned job. If they werent prepared and dont know what their constituents want, they need to be fired.

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
          6·
          6 hours ago

          The only ones who even appear as leftists are the progressives, which the Democratic party keeps in a tight little cage to never escape.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
            52·
            4 hours ago

            The progressives haven’t appeared leftist in a very long time, excepting Omar and Talib, tbh.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
        171·
        17 hours ago

        The typical DNC member is a union official or party activist, and comes into this with limited savings.

        Sure, but they don’t have any real power, as evidence by DNC policy favoring the capitalist class over the workers literally every single time.

        Note that they’re not asking what we could have done differently over the last 4 years, they’re asking how they should have messaged differently.

        Schumer accusing Trump of defunding the police should tell you all you need to know about what anyone capable of influencing the party wants the party to be.

        • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
          41·
          17 hours ago

          The DNC has very limited power compared with elected officials; they fundraise, support campaigns, set rules for primaries, and set rules for the convention delegates to agree on a party platform. They have no votes in Congress.

          What can pass in Congress is determined by the last marginal vote needed to hit either a 50-vote or 60-vote threshold, so it tends to be determined by what’s ok with the most right-wing Democrat. Which is why you see the kind of policies we’ve seen.

          In the current situation, the main power of the DNC is the ability to make noise. And they need to be doing that as much as possible.