Dartmouth voters live in a pretty blue corner of a pretty blue state. With the ICE crackdown Trump unleashed on immigrants, many of us appealed to our state representatives only to discover they were not as blue as we thought. In fact, some are a surprising shade of red. And nobody likes an unpleasant surprise.

Dear Dartmouth Voters,

Many of us have expressed concern about Rep. Chris Markey’s poor record of voting for progressive causes. He recently added his support to the Massachusetts Family Leave Act, which may have been in response to recent lobbying by constituents. And for that we thank you, Rep. Markey!

But this presents us with a great opportunity to keep the pressure on by calling (1) to thank him for his support of the Family Leave Act, (2) to urge him to support H.3033, Tony Cabral’s bill, which in effect prevents Sheriff Hodgson from using his staff to assist ICE, and (3) to ask Rep. Markey to support more than a dozen other pieces of progressive legislation which to date he has failed to co-sponsor and seems unlikely to vote for:

https://scorecard.progressivemass.com/my-legislators/02748

Rep. Markey’s State House phone number is 617-722-2020 and his email address is Christopher.Markey@mahouse.gov.

Let’s keep the pressure on! Dartmouth needs a stronger ally in the State House.

Regards,

Bettina Borders, Kate Fentress, David Ehrens, Sue Perry, Lisa Lemieux

Georgia Special Election

Last night Jon Ossoff lost the Georgia 6th Congressional District special election to Good ol’ Gal Karen Handel. There was, predictably, some crying and finger-pointing but it was generally acknowledged that Democrats need to find a winning strategy. A piece in Washington Monthly advised Dems to stop chasing Romney voters, pointing out just how wrong Chuck Schumer was when he said: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

A McClatchy piece and an article in TPM both reminded readers that Ossoff’s upscale district is nevertheless in the Heart of Dixie and Ossoff’s centrist Democratic “supporters, even when combined with politically moderate independents, couldn’t outnumber Republican partisans.” Demographics, not progressives, and not the DNC, are what defeated Ossoff. However, the loss does not signify the impotence or the end of the Democratic Party. But we seem to be missing opportunities to reach out with an honest economic message to people who might actually be receptive.

Make China Great Again

Donald Trump hasn’t said much about Ford’s plans to move its Ford Focus assembly to China although he will almost certainly blame the move on insufficient tax breaks for billionaires. But will the Billionaire-in-Chief slap huge tariffs on Ford when they begin re-importing the cars? …. Don’t hold your breath.

Make Saudi Arabia Great Again

Another American reversal-of-fortune has occurred on Donald Trump’s watch: Saudi Arabia just assumed total control of America’s largest refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. When asked how the purchase squared with Trump’s protectionist promises, Saudi ARAMCO CEO Amin Nasser smiled and sounded grateful for ARAMCO’s cozy relationship with the administration: “We don’t like to see any kind of protectionist measures…” It’s doubtful that the Saudi billionaires will ever see any.

The Family Business

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, this is a country with no Emoluments Clause. For that matter there aren’t many legal protections for anyone in what is essentially a family-owned business (slash nation) governed by a dictatorship and greased by nepotism. No wonder Trump loves the Saudis so much. Today the Saudi king announced a big shakeup, replacing most of what in a democracy would be cabinet or portfolio members with – what else – members of the Saudi royal family. The dictator also named his 31 year-old son to be the new heir. I thought this was the sort of thing that really disturbs us when Syria and North Korea do it… but guess not. We should probably count our blessings that Trump has run out of children and in-laws to stick in the White House.

U.S. War Crimes

You can’t wage war nonstop for three decades and not kill civilians. The U.S. has killed more than half a million since 9/11 but now it turns out that the US is also responsible for half of all civilian casualties since 2010.

Who are the real terrorists?

On June 13th I headed up to the Massachusetts State House with a group from the Coalition for Social Justice working with Raise Up Massachusetts.

We were there to show support for Paid Family and Medical Leave. Several women in our group offered personal stories explaining why the legislation is so important. Many families in this state are already only a single paycheck away from financial ruin. Family Leave holds out a lifeline to families in the impossible situation of having to choose between keeping their job (and their home) – or taking care of a sick parent, a new child, or even themselves. For most of us this is a matter of economic and social justice.

The Joint Committee conducting hearings was patient and thoughtful and often gave speakers a minute or two more than their allotted time to speak. The committee heard from mothers holding infants and restless toddlers. It listened to testimony from fathers, gay parents, economists, healthcare experts, people who had experienced catastrophic medical crises, or had retired early or sacrificed to care for a sick parent. Present also were members of the business community holding both supporting and opposing views.

One group of business people offering testimony in support of Family Leave made a special impression on the committee. They were there to lobby for the bill as a perk to offer their high-tech employees. The committee showered them with disproportionate interest, praise, and questions. It seemed a bit odd – even just plain wrong – that offering Family Leave as another fringe benefit for Route 128 employers might be what actually sells the bill to the Democratic legislature. Forget the cute babies.

Then testimony was heard from Massachusetts Teachers Association president Barbara Madeloni, who told the Committee how important Family Leave was for her union’s 100,000 members, many of them women. Madeloni expressed a little surprise at the inordinate interest in a benefit program for entrepreneurs, reminding the Committee Family Leave was really a matter of economic and social justice. And so it is.

This example illustrates that there are significant differences between progressive and mainstream Democrats. Often our goals align – but we view the world from very different perspectives.

* * *

Nathan J. Robinson, in Current Affairs, writes that these differences are often downplayed as misguided tactics, dogmatism, impatience, mendacity or immaturity – while, In fact, they are simply different ways of looking at the world:

“The core divergence in these worldviews is in their beliefs about the nature of contemporary political and economic institutions. The difference here is not “how quickly these institutions should change,” but whether changes to them should be fundamental structural changes or not. The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves. The liberal does not actually believe this. Rather, the liberal believes that while there are problems with capitalism, it can be salvaged if given a few tweaks here and there.”

But we are in the fight of our lives to protect a democracy and a functioning government. Progressives and liberals both recognize that, whatever the differences, we share more than enough common values to work together. And we can’t lose sight of that.

A recent piece in the New York Times by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin deceptively paints Jon Ossoff’s congressional bid in Georgia as a fight between the Liberal and progressive wings of the Democratic Party, one that “realist” Democrats are waging instead of progressives:

“Outside Atlanta on Friday, Jon Ossoff offered a decidedly un-Sanders-like vision of the future in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, a conservative-leaning patchwork of office plazas and upscale malls, where voters attended his campaign events wearing golf shirts and designer eyewear.”

Ossoff’s campaign style indeed reflects the blue-red sensibilities of his Congressional district. Drilling into Ossoff’s positions he looks like any other liberal Democrat – entrepreneur, Zionist, pro-choice, not explicitly in favor of single-payer healthcare, vague on foreign policy positions but eager to strengthen the military and support an undeclared war against ISIS. Ossoff is a baby Bill Keating.

Yet despite the New York Times’ mis-characterization of Ossoff as a DNC project, his campaign was in fact first supported by progressive organizations Democracy for America and Our Revolution. Only after the first round Georgia “jungle” primary did the Democratic National Committee offer Ossoff any help.

But let’s fast-forward past the finger-pointing right to the good news:

Far from adopting a dogmatic strategy, progressives embraced a guy who represented enough of their values that they could live with him, gave generously to his campaign, and stepped into a vacuum created by the DNC. And to the DNC’s credit they ultimately joined the fight and are now doing the same in other races.

In Washington Monthly David Atkins also took issue with the New York Times piece:

“As usual, the intramural battle on the left is being framed as one between intelligent pragmatists who want to win, and unrealistic ideologues who want to make themselves feel good.

Like me, Atkins sees hope. Progressives have a winning perspective and pragmatists have institutional memory and experience running campaigns. He writes that “the populist left’s premises have proven themselves over time. Clinton’s own SuperPAC did the research and discovered that the Obama-Trump switchers who made the difference in the election were driven by economic anxiety and a loss of faith in the Democratic Party…” Then Atkins argues:

“But establishment pragmatists also have points that cannot be ignored. First and foremost is the reality that the path to retaking the House lies less in rural economically ravaged districts full of angry voters, than in bourgeois suburban neighborhoods uncomfortable with Trump’s lack of seriousness and gentility.”

Keep in mind that this is not a progressive disagreeing with a liberal, but a liberal Democratic political consultant splitting hairs with fellow liberals. I don’t agree with Atkins that avoiding races in places like Montana and Idaho is wise. After all, the Democratic Party is barely hanging on in its urban archipelagos. Democrats need to return to a Fifty State strategy and only grassroots activism can make that a reality. Progressive Arizona Democrats point out that, in Tucson alone, 44,000 seniors live in trailer parks and only Republicans are talking to them. The future for these older Americans looks increasingly bleak as healthcare becomes unaffordable and the social safety net is deconstructed.

Failure to engage is insane and irresponsible.

Atkins himself demonstrates that there is a legion of Democratic political experts who can be repurposed for progressive campaigns. Bernie Sander’s media guy, Tad Devine, gave a talk in Westport, Massachusetts just last night delivering much the same message. And at the same talk former New Bedford mayor Scott Lang provided historical context for the party’s missteps and his own views for getting it back on track. Institutional memory and experience.

But whatever the outcome of this relationship, eventually the Democratic Party must unequivocally choose between a progressive and a centrist message. And this is already starting to happen. Young voters have not been well-served by crushing student debt, endless war, and dim prospects for good jobs and their own homes. Senior citizens also face an uncertain future. Call it neoliberalism, globalism, or any euphemism you like, but Capitalism’s warts are showing and progressivism is on the rise.

Global economic injustice and insecurity is as real and terrifying as global warning. Democrats should remember – and with considerable pride – how the New Deal met the challenges of a global economic crisis head-on 85 years ago, literally saving the lives of millions of Americans.

We can do it again but it’s going to requires a completely different perspective.

Dear Dartmouth Dems,

The convention is barely over and we’ll be meeting again on Monday, June 12th.

In February there were 7,609 registered Democrats in Dartmouth. The percentage of town Democrats (like the rest of the state) is roughly 33%, while for Republicans it is about 11%. Raw numbers of both Republicans and Democrats have been constant (and therefore stagnant) since about 2000, while the share of unenrolled voters has risen sharply to the 55% it is today. People are not happy with either party in this state.

And we Massachusetts Democrats need to do something about it.

It’s not just Trump. Here in Massachusetts democracy has been in trouble for some time. Our state ranks last in competitiveness in political races. In the 2016 Democratic Primary there was not one challenger in all nine U.S. Congressional districts. At the state level half the candidates for the Governor’s Council ran unchallenged. In County Sheriff Democratic primary elections, six out of fourteen ran unopposed and two slots were never filled, including Bristol County where Republican Tom Hodgson won by default because of Democratic complacency. In almost half the state legislature primaries and in 29 out of 42 state senate races there was no challenger.

We need to do something about this, and soon.

There are a number of elections coming up in 2018: U.S. Senator (Warren); U.S. Representative (Keating); Governor (Gonzalez, Massie, Warren); Secretary of the Commonwealth (Galvin); Attorney General (Healey); Treasurer (Goldberg); Auditor (Bump); Governor’s Council (Ferreira); State Senator (Montigny); State Representative (Markey); County Commissioners (Kitchen, Mitchell); District Attorney (Quinn); Register of Deeds (Treadup); and Clerk of Courts (Santos).

We’re going to have to have to debate the merits of some of these candidates. At least a couple of them need to find new jobs.

For campaigning and voter outreach, Dartmouth Democrats should look into using the VoteBuilder system that MassDems makes available to towns and wards. The DTC Chair will need to sign a VoteBuilder contract and several people must sign up for one of the weekly training classes that the party’s Operations Center offers or will be offering shortly.

According to the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s Field Manual for City, Ward, and Town Committee Chairs, a Local Committee:

“shall conduct, according to duly established and recorded local by-laws, such activities as are suitable for a political organization; among which (without limitation) are:

“Endorsement of enrolled Democratic candidates; Financial Support of the State Committee; Adoption of resolutions and platforms; Raising and disbursing of funds for political purposes; Voter registration campaigns, and Calling of caucuses for the purpose of endorsing candidates, adopting resolutions, or Conducting other Party business as provided for in the Call to Convention.”

Other ideas might include scholarships or essay contests to involve students and their families, voter registration, phone banking, a speakers series, or candidate nights.

According to the MassDems Town Committee Bylaws, there is a formal Affirmative Action and Outreach Advisor position. Dartmouth may be demographically 89 to 95 percent white but we still need to make sure the committee is more diverse.

According to Article V of the bylaws, the Town Chair presides over all meetings and supervises all subcomittees. In addition, the Chair sets meeting dates and frequency “subject only to the vote of the Committee in fixing the number of regular meetings to be held during the course of the year.”

With all we have to accomplish, I will make a formal motion at our first meeting on the 12th that we hold 12 monthly meetings thereafter. And I hope some of these ideas find their way onto the agenda for this meeting.

We have a lot to do.

David

Before I get to it, I want to thank Eli and Green Mass Group for the opportunity to contribute to this dialog on Which way Left? – something that should really be taking place face-to-face. After all, it’s not as if we are creatures from different planets. As my username suggests, I was once a member of the Green-Rainbow Party but am presently a Democrat. During the 2016 election I was impressed by Bernie Sanders and still am. But I also appreciate how carefully Greens think about issues and how often they are miles ahead of even progressive Democrats. But I’ve nevertheless decided to stick with this #DemEnter experiment – at least until the midterm elections.

There have been numerous, and well-documented, failures to reform the Democratic Party but in the 45 years I’ve been voting I can’t recall a moment in our history that has been so dangerous. Like it or not – and like them or not – Democrats are the only serious force standing between Republicans and their kleptocratic version of Gilead.

Eli’s comment on my previous post also deserves a reply. For many Greens Elizabeth Warren is the poster child for the failure of so-called progressive Democrats to be a real party of the people. To some extent I agree – though perhaps for different reasons. Eli’s example is the Dakota pipeline and Native American rights, which Warren has not particularly gone out of her way to defend. For the sake of argument I’ll concede his point immediately – although, to be fair, Warren had plenty of other things to do during post-election Senate confirmation hearings.

But then – to be absolutely fair – one also must ask why Green Party senators and congressmen from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois failed to intervene and defend environmental and indigenous interests. Not just craft progressive platform planks – but duke it out every day in Congress and face political realities. This is neither a rhetorical question nor an intended cheap shot. The question really boils down to this: how do progressives [of any sort] get elected, and what do they do in office once elected? A case in point is die Grünen, Germany’s Green Party. In coalitions with the SPD they have periodically represented austerity programs and militarism, and in recent years have been the eco-friendly European business party – but their platform is great.

Words are cheap and politics is complicated.

This was pretty clear at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention on June 3rd. Many of the progressive planks that Our Revolution Massachusetts (ORMA), PDA and Progressive Massachusetts called for were shockingly adopted with little objection and almost no discussion. There was an endless, and exhausting, four hour procession of machine Democrats proclaiming themselves the party of the resistance – Democrats who next week will be back to fundraising at $2500 a plate dinners. In fact, the speechifying went on so long that it was generally agreed that the purpose was to prevent discussion, promote an illusion of “unity” by masking disagreement, and to kill pesky, embarrassing non-platform resolutions. ORMA summarized their losses:

“Its push for new housing policies to end displacement was defeated by delegates who favor building more market-rate housing. ORMA’s proposals to make the party structure more democratic, by adding more state committee members who are elected by grassroots members and by reducing the number of signatures required to propose amendments to the charter, were also rejected. The convention chair ruled that ORMA-backed proposals on military and foreign policy, and on peace in the Middle East, were ruled out of order although they clearly had substantial support. The chair likewise ruled out of order a proposal that Democratic candidates must support the majority of the party platform or face loss of support by the party organization.”

This last one tells us something — that uplifting language in a platform is meaningless when there are no consequences for candidates who fail to uphold platform principles. Look at Ninth Congressional District Congressman Bill Keating – Iran hawk, cheerleader for Trump’s Tomahawk missile attack, and opponent of single-payer healthcare. Extreme disappointments like Keating were no-shows at the convention – my guess is because they would have reminded everyone of what the Massachusetts Democratic Party really is.

Likewise, the arbitrary elimination of foreign policy planks — even as the state party weighed in on Trump, climate change, veterans, and immigration — revealed once again the Democratic Party’s deathly fear of tackling militarism and the Israel-Palestine issue, and its fundamental lack of democracy. Only 80 of 413 party committee members are elected and the next charter convention is in 2019, after the midterms. These professional Democrats make the old Soviet Politburo look like a bunch of amateurs. In my heart of hearts I know that the party is more likely to be reformed by an earth-bound asteroid than entryism.

Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Massachusetts had a great piece in Commonwealth reminding readers that the Massachusetts Democratic Party has historically talked big and delivered little. And this was precisely the thesis that Thomas Frank elaborated in Listen, Liberal. But in “talking big” and delivering little, Democrats, Greens and Democratic Socialists are all tragically similar. The common thread is our self-delusion.

Democrats like to think they are more progressive than they really are. Progressive Democrats like to think they’re more influential than they are. Greens seem to think that correct positions alone can pave the road forward. Democratic Socialists think the conditions for socialism are ripe. Unfortunately, the only thing that’s ripe is our fevered imaginations. But, besides self-delusion, our biggest enemy is lack of democracy and the failure to build grass-roots parties. And I include my friends in the Green Party: you expend a lot of effort and money running presidential and gubernatorial candidates – but where is your congressman from North Dakota?

As for us – either the Democratic party will become little-d democratic or it will fail spectacularly. Reform is extremely unlikely – but wandering through this political desert is an attempt and a shared experience that Democrats will have to go through together. I think we’ll eventually see the formation of a third – or more accurately a replacement – for the Democratic party without so much of the baggage of its predecessor. But this is going to require progressives of every color – Green, Blue, and Red – to have been working together in coalitions and to have created a progressive ecosystem from which a new movement can emerge. And the moment that happens progressives are going to start learning the old lesson in a new context. Precisely how it’s going to happen none of us can imagine now.

Words are cheap and politics is complicated.

Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank has a lot to say to Massachusetts Democrats specifically. We — and I now reveal myself to be a #DemEnter Democrat — often regard ourselves as the most liberal of the liberal, the most progressive Democrats of all Democrats. An elite, if you will. This was certainly the self-congratulatory message we all heard last Saturday at the Massachusetts Democratic Party platform convention. Yet that’s not quite the reality, is it? In a post to follow I will write about the convention itself. But Frank’s book puts on paper many of the criticisms that progressives of every stripe — Greens, PDA, DSA, Working Families, Progressive Massachusetts, Our Revolution — have with the party. Some of us are now trying a little experiment — seeing for ourselves how far we can at least move it back to a democratic (small “d”) party of the people. But, like pharmaceutical research, these clinical trials may take some time.

Frank marks the moment that the Democratic Party decided to abandon organized labor, befriend Wall Street, and embrace a professional, instead of the working, class. It explains how Bill Clinton put a bullet in the head of an already-injured New Deal, ushered in a new era of “meritocracy” and its close friend, social and economic inequality. Frank explains how and why all of Obama’s “best and brightest” simply ended up doing what the Republicans had done before them. He explains why — even in bright Blue states like Rhode Island and Massachusetts — economic inequality has not been addressed or repaired by Democrats. Frank takes us from Boston to Fall River, one of the poorest cities just a short ride away. He looks at the record of Deval Patrick, once an “Obama Lite” governor, one who started his professional career at Ameriquest and ended up at Bain Capital. With Mitt Romney.

But Democrats just can’t help it. This is who they — we — are now. Clinton the First, Clinton the Second, Obama, and many other “meritocracy” Democrats deserve Frank’s tough love. Their friends — the Eric Schmidts, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerbergs — are their idols and rock stars. Their “shared values” are with pharmaceutical and software developers, hedge fund managers, and dot.com billionaires. Long gone are Democratic friendships with captains of organized labor such as the teamsters or teachers. Half the time Democrats are at war with Labor — think Rahm Emanuel’s and Arne Duncan’s attacks on teachers. These new Democrats are nothing like FDR’s friends of the common man. Instead, they are smug, well-fed, well-educated functionaries — “gatekeepers” who serve the ruling class yet still like to think of themselves as Democrats of their fathers’ generation, all while betraying their professed constituency.

Frank’s conclusions speak for themselves:

“It is time to face the obvious: that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health.”Failure” is admittedly a harsh word, but what else are we to call it when the left party in a system chooses to confront an epic economic breakdown by talking hopefully about entrepreneurship and innovation? When the party of professionals repeatedly falls for bad, self-serving ideas like bank deregulation, the “creative class,” and empowerment through bank loans? When the party of the common man basically allows aristocracy to return?

Now, all political parties are alliances of groups with disparate interests, but the contradictions in the Democratic Party coalition seem unusually sharp. The Democrats posture as the “party of the people” even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach-turning. And every two years, they simply assume that being non-Republicans is sufficient to rally the voters of the nation to their standard. This cannot go on.

Yet it will go on, because the most direct solutions to the problem are off the table for the moment. The Democrats have no interest in reforming themselves in a more egalitarian way. There is little the rest of us can do, given the current legal arrangements of this country, to build a vital third-party movement or to revive organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back against the inequality trend.

What we can do is strip away the Democrats’ precious sense of their own moral probity — to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge that righteousness is always on their side. It is that sensibility, after all, that prevents so many good-hearted rank-and-file Democrats from understanding how starkly and how deliberately their political leaders contradict their values. Once that contradiction has been made manifest — once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. The course of the party and the course of the country can both be changed, but only after we understand that the problem is us.”

The motto of the Massachusetts Democratic Party is, was – or should be – Ideas in Action. And if it is we should really mean it.

Replying to my first-timer’s impressions of the party’s convention in Worcester last Saturday, I heard from Jonathan Cohn, co-chair of the Issues Committee at Progressive Massachusetts, who asked the cheeky question:

If a platform is adopted and no legislators are there to enact it, did it make a sound?

– which was precisely my concern about a convention that put so many progressive ideas down on paper. But while Massachusetts Democrats have plenty of good ideas, and no doubt many have good intentions and good hearts, the follow-through is always lacking, and has been for some time.

Cohn recently devoted an entire piece in Commonwealth to the discussion of the 80% Democratic majority in the Massachusetts Legislature that is, somehow, and chronically, unable to enact progressive legislation. Thomas Frank made many of the same points in his book, Listen Liberal, and in a Nation article entitled “Why Have Democrats Failed in the State Where They’re Most Likely to Succeed?”

Cohn’s piece is worth your time and he has graciously given me permission to reprint it with attribution.

And while you’re online, check out Progressive Massachusetts’ Legislator Scorecard.

# # #

Democratic supermajority not so super

Jonathan Cohn, reprinted from Commonwealth Magazine, May 27th, 2017

IN THE YEAR FOLLOWING a presidential election, the Massachusetts Democratic Party updates its platform. A party platform can stand as a defiant statement of goals and ideals, and a roadmap for a legislative agenda and priorities. In today’s national political climate, such aspirational declarations are especially important as they offer voters something to fight for and something to vote for.

The platform released just last week contains new planks on paid family and medical leave, a $15 minimum wage, automatic voter registration, and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences, bolstering what was already, by and large, a progressive document.

On Saturday, June 3, delegates from across the state will convene in Worcester to approve the platform, perhaps with a few amendments to make it stronger.

On Monday, June 5, if the past is any guide, our overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature will proceed to completely ignore it.

But a supermajority has value only to the extent that it stands for something, and to the extent that it is put to work. When one looks back at the party’s 2013 platform, the contrast between the aspirational document and actual policymaking can be quite stark, perhaps most so in the realm of health care.

For years, the Massachusetts Democratic Party platform has called for a single-payer health care system, one that would truly enshrine health care as a right. The momentum that exists behind single payer in other parts of the country does not seem to have yet reached Beacon Hill. Single-payer legislation recently advanced out of committee in the California Senate and was passed by the New York Assembly. On the national level, the majority of the House Democratic Caucus in Congress now supports single-payer, an all-time high. But only about a third of Democrats in either branch of the Massachusetts Legislature have taken heed of their own party’s platform.

Or take another hot topic: immigration. The 2017 platform, like the 2013 one, calls for “the elimination of policies that make state and local police responsible for the enforcement of national immigration laws.” The Trust Act, which would have done just that, died in the Legislature without ever getting a vote in the past two sessions, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo seems inclined to let the Safe Communities Act, its new, expanded incarnation, see the same fate.

Or take a look at public transit. The MBTA has a $7.3 billion – and growing – repair backlog and is the victim of years of disinvestment. The 2013 platform recognized the importance of increased investment in public transportation to economic prosperity, to equity, and to climate mitigation. But the Democrats in the Legislature have preferred to side with Gov. Charlie Baker’s misguided mantra of “reform, not revenue,” authorizing the creation of a control board that has mainly sought to cut and privatize basic services. The Fair Share amendment, broadly supported by Democrats, will help bring in some more money for public transit, but it’s only a start, and a late one at that.

Sometimes it isn’t just inaction; at times, the Legislature has done the exact opposite of what the platform calls for. The Massachusetts Democratic Party platform advocates for allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, a move backed by sound public safety logic. However, the Legislature voted to ban them from doing so at the end of last session.

It would be unfair to blame both branches equally when it comes to the inertia characteristic of Beacon Hill. Several of the new planks of the 2017 platform, such as paid family and medical leave and more aggressive enforcement of wage theft laws, did make it through the Senate last session, only to languish in the House. Platform mainstays like Election Day registration have passed the Senate in the past as well.

The divide between the two branches is reflected in the scorecard that Progressive Massachusetts releases each session, in which one can see a Senate where members are more willing to vote – on record – for progressive policies and a House where voting in lockstep with the Speaker is the norm.

With full Republican control in Washington, we are already seeing attacks on workers’ rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, reproductive rights, and vital social and environmental protections. It is up to states to serve as laboratories of democracy, to use Louis Brandeis’s apt phrase.

Massachusetts Democrats could make our Commonwealth a beacon of progressive policymaking. If they aren’t interested, it’s up to activists and voters to make them.

# # #

Jonathan Cohn is an editor and activist in Boston and the co-chair of the issues committee at Progressive Massachusetts.

Yesterday I attended the Massachusetts Democratic Convention in Worcester with a busload of delegates from the SouthCoast. In Worcester there were over 4,500 of us, many alternates and guests, and it was quite likely the largest in the state party’s history. This was a platform convention, and the job was to vote on a new direction for the party.

My personal interest was to see if the #DemEnter strategy (joining the party to try to change it) was sensible. In all honesty it’s too early to tell, but the advantages of getting out on the field outweigh those of sitting on the sidelines and not having to make painful trade-offs. And – disappointments aside – this was democracy in action. You don’t always get what you want.

In Worcester there were 1,500 new delegates, of which I was one. And there were 800 Our Revolution delegates, of which I was one as well. There were many fresh young faces, including my niece’s. Many of the speakers were introduced by young people, including a ten year-old who had reverentially saved the candy bar he had collected one Halloween from Elizabeth Warren. Fast forward a few years – the same kid, now a teenager, was introducing the incredibly beloved Senator at the podium.

SouthCoast delegates piled onto our school bus at 6:30 in the morning. We arrived in Worcester early enough to join the breakfasts that various organizations had organized. I had a breakfast ticket from the Mass Teacher’s Association (to which I belonged about 10 years ago) but the room was mobbed. By luck I wandered into the ORMA (Our Revolution MA) breakfast next door and got a bagel. I signed amendment petitions from ORMA (Our Revolution MA), then it was time to return to the convention floor.

For almost six hours delegates sat listening to speaker after speaker. One U.S. Congressman, both U.S. Senators, the state Attorney General, each of the three gubernatorial wannabes – and at least one speaker to introduce each of them. By almost three o’clock the light at the end of the tunnel was getting dimmer and delegates began chanting “Vote! Vote!” Several more speakers tried to keep it short – but finally delegates had had enough of all the words, no matter how uplifting or strident.

Much has been made of the 2017 platform being the most progressive – ever. And this is not an exaggeration. But words are cheap so no expense was spared in adding progressive planks that – one hopes – a few Democratic legislators may actually create legislation to turn into reality.

Our Revolution Massachusetts, which had an incredibly well-organized contingent from Somerville and Cambridge, was able to successfully advance a number of amendments to an already much-improved platform:

“The party declared its support for a ranked choice voting system; making Election Day a state holiday; ensuring incarceration does not impact an individual’s right to vote; the abolition of Massachusetts super delegates; and a nonpartisan commission to draw voting district boundaries. On criminal justice, the party called for accountability and clear consequences for the use of excessive force and brutality by law enforcement officers; an end to for-profit prisons; and for shifting funds from policing and incarceration to long-term safety strategies such as education, restorative justice, and employment programs. Democrats declared that Democratic candidates and the party will no longer accept contributions from fossil fuel industry and infrastructure companies, for putting a price on carbon, and for more renewable energy and faster phaseout of carbon emissions. They also called for forgiveness of student loan debt.”

Nevertheless, the Democratic leadership firmly rejected several human rights amendments and efforts to democratize the party:

“Its push for new housing policies to end displacement was defeated by delegates who favor building more market-rate housing. ORMA’s proposals to make the party structure more democratic, by adding more state committee members who are elected by grassroots members and by reducing the number of signatures required to propose amendments to the charter, were also rejected. The convention chair ruled that ORMA-backed proposals on military and foreign policy, and on peace in the Middle East, were ruled out of order although they clearly had substantial support. The chair likewise ruled out of order a proposal that Democratic candidates must support the majority of the party platform or face loss of support by the party organization.”

This last rejected charter amendment should tell us something – that all the flowery language in a platform is meaningless unless there are consequences for candidates who fail to uphold platform principles.

And the arbitrary elimination of foreign policy planks – even as the state party weighed in on Trump, climate change, veterans, and immigration – seemed designed to avoid drying up the money tree which many state Democrats enjoy shaking. The Democratic Party is deathly afraid of tackling the Israel-Palestine issue – and this convention was no exception.

In reality there is no clear division between many Massachusetts state government and federal functions. As Safe Communities illustrates, states often need to take a keen interest in “federal” issues. Besides, the Massachusetts legislature Committee Book has standing committees on Climate Change, Intergovernmental Affairs, Redistricting, Election Laws, Healthcare Financing (which includes Medicare and Medicaid), Public Safety and Homeland Security, Telecommunications, and Veterans and FEDERAL AFFAIRS. Massachusetts officials regularly participate in trade delegations to nations where human rights abuses occur. Especially to Israel. The ban on certain topics is inconsistent, arbitrary, and manifestly hypocritical.

Censoring debate on foreign policy and Middle East issues is as arbitrary as if the party chose immigration issues to censor. One delegate challenged the party chair to cite the rule which specifically bans certain topics from being debated. Neither Gus Bickford nor the parliamentarian could cite any rule, only their “prerogative” to shut down the debate. But in a truly democratic organization no topic can be off-limits.

And I would still like to see the MassDems answer that delegate’s question? Where in the rules is such censorship permitted?

The press correctly observed that the focus of the convention was for the state party to portray themselves as the Resistance to Trump’s national (and nationalist) policies. But, again, this highlights the insanity of having a state convention with a national focus – and then shutting down debate of arbitrary national issues.

I was disappointed that a few passengers of our very own yellow schoolbus agreed with the Democratic leadership that both the party’s charter and platform should be almost impossible to change. If the party did not already have acute democracy problems this might be a different story. But only 80 out of 413 state committee members are democratically elected. The national party has credibility problems arising from the DNC leadership, including Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Donna Brazile, and John Podesta, and superdelegates are a sore point with at least half the party membership.

I was also disappointed that, even within ORMA, apparently two faction leaders voted against their own amendments. Mel Poindexter and Lesley Phillips opposed the ORMA-supported charter amendment, Toward a More Democratic State Committee.

* * *

Ultimately the platform added many great-sounding goodies. But the party is still littered with disappointments like my local state representative, Chris Markey, who didn’t even bother to attend, and my U.S. 9th Congressional District Congressman, Bill Keating, who also was a no-show. This is a party that just gave a thumbs-up to single-payer healthcare (which Keating doesn’t support), debt-free college education, defending immigrants (which Markey won’t), a $15/hour minimum wage, family leave (again, Markey won’t), and abandoning superdelegates.

But the exhausting pile of words we were subjected to yesterday means nothing if Democrats won’t clean house and replace the Markeys and Keatings with people who are truly on board with these newly-affirmed values. And these words will mean nothing if we don’t see progressive legislation and changes to party fund-raising practices.

Democratic midterms occur late next year. The Massachusetts Democratic Party will have a charter convention in 2019, during which the gears and levers of the party can be changed. Only after all this happens will any of us really know what kind of party it is, or if it can be reformed.

In the meantime, I would like to encourage progressive SouthCoast Democrats (and others) to join me in starting an ORMA local in the New Bedford area.

Change only happens if we make it happen.

The Massachusetts Democratic convention is two weeks away, and there is now a working version that will be discussed in Worcester on June 3rd. Some have applauded the new draft – including three progressive groups that contributed amendments – for being the “most progressive” Massachusetts Democratic platform in history.

Good Stuff

To its credit, the 2013 draft includes calls for

• single-payer healthcare – although it’s not clear why it also propose a hodgepodge of other healthcare programs
• making the Commonwealth a sanctuary state
• public funding of elections – but will the state’s Democrats really give up their PACs?
• paid family leave
• free college education – well, maybe, because it also calls for “exploring” debt-free models of higher education
• a “decent living wage” – though a specific amount is not given
• infrastructure development, including broadband – though no mention of regulating monopolies like Comcast or ensuring net neutrality within the state
• a “millionaire’s tax” – along with tax breaks for “job creators”
• universal background checks for guns –”balanced” by more money for law-enforcement
• more money for veterans – which irks me for the same reason as the Commonwealth subsidizing ICE

And, to be fair, there are many good things in the platform. But some caution.

Their hearts weren’t in it

Massachusetts Democrats have been pushed to embrace many progressive positions they would normally have rejected – and they have been translated into ambiguities and weasel-words. Some positions are just a road too far for Democrats in a state that thinks it’s much more liberal than it actually is. The hearts of those who had to draft this “progressive” platform just weren’t in it.

In a previous post I looked at what was missing in the 2013 MassDems platform – and some things have indeed been fixed in a 2017 draft. At the time I observed that “the 2013 platform isn’t bad as a statement of liberal values – and the 2017 Progressives’ changes aren’t so radical as to give Democrats much heartburn.”

I was wrong. Apparently there was heartburn.

For example, the platform committee deleted the following plank from the 2013 final version:

“We want strong diplomacy and support nonviolent conflict resolution as a first resort in our domestic and foreign relations and call for a reduced military budget that allows for investment in human needs”

Attempts by progressive delegates to insert anti-militarism and foreign policy language into the platform were flatly rejected. The word “military” only appears in the Veterans section. Thank you for your service. Here, have some state money.

What’s still missing

• Foreign Policy and Militarism – stop supporting autocratic and undemocratic regimes – no more weaponry for Saudi Arabia – slash the military budget – end undeclared wars – insist on Congress’ right to declare wars – no more aid to Israel until they end settlements – no more aid for Egypt’s dictatorship
• Democratization of the Democratic Party – will we ever be rid of superdelegates?
• End the Surveillance State – enhance citizen privacy (a word that doesn’t appear even once in the document) – get rid of the Patriot Act – eliminate FISA courts – get rid of or make No Fly lists transparent – breathe life back into the 4th Amendment
• End useless tax breaks – remove vague language guaranteeing favorable tax rates for “businesses that generate community growth and participation” – Wal*Mart? really?
• Environment – now that EPA and Superfund money has been slashed, Massachusetts should sue for remediation (for example, Aerovox dumped PCBs in New Bedford’s harbor and then moved to Mexico) – strengthen our own MA Dept of Environmental Protection
• Healthcare backup plan – create with other Blue States a Single-Payer Healthcare system
• Restore Net Neutrality to the FCC
• Create a Citizen’s Data Bill of Rights guaranteeing that your personal and online data belongs to you and not to Comcast (Europeans have had this for years)

The platform is really the side-show

While the platform appears to be the main attraction, anything ironed out like this amounts to so much word salad. Modifying the party’s charter may appear to be a side-show, but it is arguably the more important objective. It turns out the platform is really the side-show.

Though there will be thousands of delegates and guests at the convention, the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee is the body that actually makes the decisions – think of it as your friendly Politburo. It’s also a fund-raising machine, so whatever values the platform holds are completely separate from those of the candidates the Committee funds.

The MassDems State Committee is the nation’s largest, weighing in at 418 members. Of this number only 80 members are actually voted upon by town delegates. Over 120 have permanent status and cannot be unseated as long as their bodies continue to twitch. Every year the number of these functionaries grows larger.

So let there be no confusion: the platform we are voting upon in two weeks is theirs, not ours. And in the long term, it’s changing the party charter that will actually make the difference.

What’s the difference between a pragmatist and a sell-out? When do you defend your line in the sand and when do you move away from it in compromise or for pragmatic reasons? What happens when others don’t see things your way? Do you take your marbles and go home? Invoke the nuclear option?

These questions confront us all the time when we consider how parliamentary democracies, our own Congress, our own party, and factions within it struggle with issues. We need not return to the 2016 Primary to see a Democratic party still licking its wounds and hashing out differences. Many of those differences are significant and painful ones that will require balancing principles and pragmatism.

As the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention approaches, two issues in particular have generated some heat. The first is abortion rights as a litmus test for Democrats, and the second is condemnation of Israeli settlements as a taboo for Democrats.

Choice as a Litmus Test

The first controversy was triggered by the endorsement of Omaha mayoral candidate Heath Mello by Bernie Sanders. Mello was an opponent of abortion whose views on the subject, like both Hillary Clinton’s and Tim Kaine’s, have supposedly “evolved.” Sanders made the case for “pragmatism” in endorsing Mello but many, including Ilyse Hogue of NARAL, pushed back. In a party without much tolerance for disagreement the issue is seen as “divisive.”

But compromising reproductive rights should be controversial – and painful. After all, these rights are written into not only the national party platform but the state party platform. It’s no trifling matter.

In an online discussion among “Our Revolution Massachusetts” (ORMA) members, which was a miniature of the national debate, one man drew a line in the sand, writing that support for abortion should be a litmus test for any Democratic candidate. But Betsy Smith, who signs off as a revolutionary grandma, answered him by suggesting that a constellation of progressive views might be more appropriate:

You wrote: “Even though I am a diehard Sanders supporter I wouldn’t vote for an anti-abortion candidate regardless of his otherwise progressive views. It’s one issue and one compromise I’m not willing to make.” So are you saying that if a candidate supported funding for science and the arts, proposed or signed onto legislation for single payer health insurance, was in favor of free college for all and a living wage, rather than just $15/hour, which is not always a living wage – are you saying that if a candidate who supported all these and other progressive ideas but was not pro-choice, you wouldn’t vote for them? What would you do? I’m assuming that it wouldn’t be to vote for the Republican. Would you write in your own name (or mine) as a protest or just not vote? I cannot understand, even as a woman who has seen friends damaged and unable to have children subsequent to an illegal abortion, being willing to throw everything else positive in the trash because of this one issue.

Israeli Settlements

The second controversy concerns an amendment to the Massachusetts Democratic platform to condemn Israeli settlements. It’s an issue that pits peace and human rights advocates against a party with strong links to AIPAC, including former AIPAC lobbyist Steve Grossman. Once again the party hopes to censor the debate by sticking a “divisive” label on it, pronouncing it toxic.

But settlements and, more broadly, the Israeli occupation, are human rights issues every bit as important as a woman’s right to choose. In a video seen this week a group of armed settlers descends on a group of Palestinian shepherds accompanied by a rabbi. They club and wound the rabbi. An Israeli helicopter immediately appears after the attack, reminding viewers that Israel’s government is complicit in settler violence and uses American “defense” gear to perpetuate an occupation and secure settlements.

Despite the reality seen in the video, the Democratic national party platform is filled with references to defending Israeli “democracy,” protecting it from Iran, assuring its military superiority, even insisting it be called a “Jewish” and “democratic” state – quite a departure from the usual separation of church and state the party and the nation stand for. Surely with all this love a little constructive criticism might be in order. But apparently it’s a bridge too far for some Democrats, particularly those receiving lobbyist cash.

Principles and Pragmatism

These two issues illustrate two very different ways of balancing principles and pragmatism.

In the case of reproductive choice the Democratic Party has a progressive principle some are willing to bend (or even abandon under the right circumstances) to win an election. Those who cry “divisive” the loudest are not willing to abandon that principle – and they’re right to cling to it tightly. Moreover, every one of us knows a woman, has a daughter or a niece. The issue has a personal dimension.

In the case of Israel, the party hold a deficient, even reactionary, principle that promotes militarism, occupation, and betrays the principle of separation of church and state. Those who cry “divisive” the loudest are not willing to abandon that principle – but it’s one that needs fixing. What’s different about this issue is that many Americans – and this includes Democrats – have little idea or much interest in knowing what really goes on in the rest of the world. Only about five or six percent of Americans care about foreign policy, and most don’t see the connection between foreign policy and our domestic reality. But just this week Democrats signed off on a $1.1 trillion spending package that sacrifices many domestic programs, and more than 60% of that package is money for war. There’s a connection.

Bernie Sanders took considerable flak for endorsing Heath Mello, particularly by party centrists. But if Democrats want to take back the cities, states, governors’ offices, and Congress, many argue it requires a 50-state strategy. As long as the candidate does not actively oppose a central principle (and Mello is not), the party can endorse him or her. But what if the candidate strongly opposes reproductive rights? Or marriage equality? Or some other Democratic constituency. What then?

Such a “pragmatic” approach includes the issue of Israeli settlements as well. If, for example, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Bill Keating have deficient views on Israel – and they do – progressives might nevertheless support them because their good deeds outweigh their sins. Bernie Sanders’ positions on Israel anger some progressives, for example. Just last week Sanders voted with the entire US Senate to defend Israeli settlements from UN censure. Is it pragmatism or selling out? When it comes to resolutions and not legislation, can’t the party at least defend principles worth defending?

A party platform must be a document that serves not as a litmus test but as a set of principles representing our best values. A platform embraces principles that should never be compromised – or only compromised in the most extreme and critical of situations. Was the Omaha mayoral race critical? Doubtful. The Democratic Party must never espouse principles opposed to fundamental American values – and certainly none that violate human or civil rights. Which is why the party’s positions on Israel are so shameful. And if Mello had still been staunchly anti-abortion, Sanders’ endorsement would also have been shameful.

I hope we will have forthright and uncensored discussions about matters of principle at the MassDems convention on June 3rd. Those of you who are fellow delegates, please support the settlements amendment proposed by peace activist Carol Coakley. Alternatively I have proposed that the Massachusetts Democratic Party adopt the Washington State Democratic Party’s foreign policy planks. There are many more planks relating to economic and social justice issues worthy of support.

The Democratic party not only requires new and better management, it needs some new and better principles as well.

There are a number of things wrong with the Democratic Party. Lack of a 50-state strategy and undemocratic party rules come to mind. Big donors and selling out to Big Pharma say a lot too. Their embrace of neo-conservative foreign policy and neo-liberal globalism alienated both progressives and Candidate Trump’s supporters. But the thing that fries many of us most about the DNC is its habitual refusal to stand up to Big Business, to name the source of our pain.

Last week Chris Hayes interviewed Tom Perez and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are on a Unity Tour to shore up the shaky relationship between centrist Democrats and progressives inside and outside the Democratic Party. Perez wants Americans to know the DNC has a positive vision for America. Whatever that specific vision is, it’s not clear Perez himself has any notion.

Sanders, on the other hand, wants the nation to know that we have to fight back against Trump and an American kleptocracy, oligarchy, autocracy – choose your phrase. Sanders chose “billionaire class.”

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But, despite the many hits the American working class has taken, Perez just could not be pressed by Hayes to admit that we are in the middle of a class war. Hayes asked him point-blank, “Do you have to name the enemy?” Perez waffled. This revealing moment told me the DNC was not quite ready to abandon its funding from Big Donors, that the DNC was not quite ready to trust its grassroots. The interview continued in this vein when Hayes asked Perez if the DNC supported single payer healthcare and – once again – Perez waffled and mumbled. He’s a man with no answers.

In contrast – hate him or distrust him – there’s no question which side Trump is on. With Tom Perez, you’re never quite sure which side the Democratic Party is on.

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One of my favorite blogs is Robert Paul Wolff’s “Philosopher’s Stone.” The other day Wolff wrote about what he had learned from a lifetime of studying Marx – what Marx got right, and what he got wrong. It’s a worthwhile read. According to Wolff, the thing Marx got most wrong was his conviction that the working class would rise up and fight back. He ended his meditation with this:

“I know all about gerrymandering and voter suppression, but that is no explanation. Bernie Sanders, God bless him, was the only candidate in the last Presidential cycle talking about the fact that the rich are screwing the poor. Why didn’t he pull 80% of the total vote of both parties? I don’t get it.”

Tom Perez can answer that question without saying a word.

The two month experiment by centrist and progressive Democrats in resisting Trump while simultaneously trying to fix their troubled marriage is showing signs of strain.

The odd couple, who have been sleeping “indivisibly” in a narrow double bed since Trump’s inauguration, may be once again getting tired of each other’s morning breath – if not their mate’s true nature.

From the introduction of Democratic Party platform planks, to discussions of how much support the DNC is giving progressive candidates in special elections, differences are apparent and profound. Centrist Democrats are asking for money already, and Progressives are giving instead to progressive PACs. Progressive Democrats are challenging the GOP in special elections, while the DNC hasn’t figured out what its national strategy is.

Still the veneer of “indivisibility” must be preserved. And this is being done with a little sleight of hand – or, rather, some heavy-handed censorship.

To be sure, the Right Wing enjoys the friction in this stressed Democratic marriage. If nothing else it’s a nice distraction from the GOP’s own relationship problems. Jared Kushner’s New York Observer ran a piece recently telling progressives what they already know – that the DNC hasn’t been doing much to help progressives. The discussion over the Kansas election provoked a bit of heat on Facebook and on political discussion groups, though it was not unusually rancorous. But Indivisible’s response was to simply censor the whole discussion:

Elsewhere we’re seeing exhortations to avoid reading the right-wing press, to install content blockers in your browser, and to consult lists of “safe” vetted publications – all at a time it’s important to know what the bastards are up to.

Not only that. An old adage reminds us that even a stopped click is right twice a day. Why not, occasionally, the Right Wing? Must we ignore them, even if they occasionally make a good point? Or should heavy-handed “moderators” shape the discussion and, like the Great Chinese Firewall, protect us from opinions we shouldn’t be hearing?

Libertarians and Tea-totalitarians both claim that Democrats succumbed to political correctness in the 2016 elections. One aspect of this charge was that Democrats support “identity politics” – defending vulnerable constituencies. Well, good for Democrats! And – centrist or progressive – we all had better acknowledge that, right now, the Democratic Party is the only thing standing between GOP authoritarianism and a vulnerable public.

But another aspect of the Right’s criticism points at the Democratic reticence to get out in the alley and mix it up, to habitually smooth over differences until no one really knows what Liberals stand for, to avoid conflict like delicate little “snowflakes.” And they’re right, pardon my saying so.

So, people, the Democratic couple this essay started out with is going to have to figure out how to move forward. They’re going to have to have it out, scream out loud – maybe even in public or at a polite dinner – and resolve their differences once and for all.

I’m getting a bit tired of hearing that pushing for Democrats to try a new, progressive, strategy is tantamount to rehashing the Clinton-Sanders primary all over again. But we can’t have a discussion about strategies and directions if “moderators” decide it’s off-limits.

If you’ve ever seen Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?” you know that denying problems in a relationship never ends well. It’s time to let George and Martha have at it.

Democrats need to engage on their differences. They exist, and they are not trivial. Disputation and resolution is the only way forward. Censorship is not only counter-productive, it’s something we should simply not stand for – whatever the good but misguided intentions.

When they invaded Iraq Republicans turned the country into a failed state ISIS could move right into. But then Democrats repeated the same mistake in Libya and Syria.

Fast forward to 2017. Many Democrats now recognize the mistake. But not William R. Keating, a slow learner who in my humble opinion needs a new job.

After Trump sent 50 Tomahawk missles into Syria on April 6th, the top five American newspapers ran 18 editorials praising the attack. There was not a single criticism. Breitbart’s Charles Krauthammer rejoiced that there was a new sheriff in town. Defense hawk and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Trump’s attack and urged him to take out Assad’s airfields. By bombing Syria, Farid Zakaria said, Donald Trump had finally “become president.” MSNBC’s Brian Williams called the missiles flying off to do their lethal work “beautiful.”

For the most part Democrats didn’t even bother to question whether it had been the Syrian government that killed the civilians with sarin gas. The Liberal Atlantic Monthly ran a piece titled Why America Should have Hit Assad Four Years Ago. Meanwhile, CIA-sponsored rebels are fighting US Army-sponsored rebels along the Turkish border. What the hell is going on? US involvement in Syria is not merely a fiasco, but a giant bipartisan fiasco demonstrating – once again – that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can be trusted to execute a coherent American foreign or military policy.

Sending a barrage of missiles into another nation is well beyond dispatching a drone to kill a suspected terrorist (and everyone nearby). This kind of attack is without question an act of war. The War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress within 48 hours of initiating “hostilities” and forbids forces from remaining past 60 days. So far we have heard nothing from the President. Tellingly, three weeks before the sarin gas incident, the U.S. beefed up troops intended for Syria, and signalled its intent to stay in Syria, even after ISIS had been defeated.

Here in Massachusetts, where we are fortunate to have sensible Senators, voters still need to pay attention to Liberal hawks. Elizabeth Warren, to her credit, demanded to know what Trump’s strategy in Syria was. Ed Markey, to his credit, voiced concern that Syria could become another quagmire.

But our very own 9th Congressional district Representative, William R. Keating, stands with Trump. Keating is an Iran hawk and had to have his arm twisted to accept Obama’s Iran deal. Keating also voted with the GOP to limit Syrian refugees. No big surprise, then – Keating applauded the missle launch.

Keating, especially, needs to hear from voters. But call everyone. If you live near one of the local offices, drop in.

Representative William R. Keating

• Hyannis Office: 297 North St., Hyannis, MA 02601
• New Bedford Office: 558 Pleasant St., New Bedford, MA 02740
• Plymouth Office: 170 Court St., Plymouth, MA 02360
• Phone 202-225-3111

Senator Elizabeth Warren

• Boston Office: 2400 JFK Federal Building, 15 Sudbury St., Boston, MA 02203
• Springfield Office: 1550 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
• Phone 202-224-4543

Senator Edward J. Markey

• Boston Office: 975 JFK Federal Building, 15 Sudbury St., Boston, MA 02203
• Fall River Office: 222 Milliken Blvd., Fall River, MA 02721
• Springfield Office: 1550 Main St., Springfield, MA 01101
• Phone 202-224-2742

The 2013 Massachusetts Democratic Party Platform is not limited to concerns of the Commonwealth. The Preamble alone mentions immigration, infastructure, national defense, diplomacy, and multiculturalism. The “Ethics and Transparency” section calls for the overturn of Citizen’s United, for example.

Delegates to the June 3rd state Convention in Worcester have an opportunity to send a message to the national DNC by voting on amendments to the following platform sections: Business and Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Education; Energy and Environment; Climate Crisis; Ethics and Transparency; Healthcare and Human Services; Housing; Immigration; Justice, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; Labor; Public Safety and Crime Prevention; Revenue and Expenditures; Transportation and Infrastructure; Voting and Democracy; and Women.

The current platform needs updating as a matter of course. It also needs changes in light of what just happened to our country. Our Revolution Massachusetts, Progressive Massachusetts, and Progressive Democrats of America have collaborated on a number of amendments and additions to the platform (you can find another version here). Based on delegate and other input, the Massachusetts Democratic Platform Committee will then rewrite the state platform.

What’s missing

The 2013 platform isn’t bad as a statement of liberal values – and the 2017 Progressives’ changes aren’t so radical as to give Democrats much heartburn. The old platform mostly gets a day at the spa. But for a picky reader like me there are a number of things missing from both the current version and new proposals. Despite language on reducing “defense” spending (when we’ve had a quarter century of war), nowhere in the platform is there any mention of Foreign Policy. Plus, there are a number issues that Democrats have neglected that now demand clear statements of principle – especially since the Trump administration is attacking them so viciously.

Some of my suggestions below assume Democrats will eventually regain political advantage, but some of them assume we may not – and that it may now be up to state government to protect health, environment, civil liberties, and community policing.

• Foreign Policy and Militarism – stop supporting autocratic and undemocratic regimes – no more weaponry for Saudi Arabia – slash the military budget – end undeclared wars – insist on Congress’ right to declare wars – no more aid to Israel until they end settlements – no more aid for Egypt’s dictatorship
• Democratization of the Democratic Party – will we ever be rid of superdelegates?
• End the Surveillance State – enhance citizen privacy (a word that doesn’t appear even once in the document) – get rid of the Patriot Act – eliminate FISA courts – get rid of or make No Fly lists transparent – breathe life back into the 4th Amendment
• End useless tax breaks – remove vague language guaranteeing favorable tax rates for “businesses that generate community growth and participation” – Wal*Mart? really?
• Free college education – make it even clearer that free “higher education” means a four year college education
• Environment – now that EPA and Superfund money has been slashed, Massachusetts should sue for remediation (for example, Aerovox dumped PCBs in New Bedford’s harbor and then moved to Mexico) – strengthen our own MA Dept of Environmental Protection
• Healthcare backup plan – create with other Blue States a Single-Payer Healthcare system
• Improve the “Immigration” plank by calling for Massachusetts to follow California in prohibiting any local or state officials or agency from acting in a federal capacity or spending state money to do so (this would effectively endorse Eldridge and Cabral legislation at the convention)
• Put teeth in planks that call for gender parity – all publicly-traded corporations must have at least 40/45/50% women board members
• Put teeth in the Women’s Choice plank – no public funding for institutions that refuse to provide full counseling or direct services to women
• Restore Net Neutrality to the FCC
• Create a Citizen’s Data Bill of Rights guaranteeing that your personal and online data belongs to you and not to Comcast (Europeans have had this for years)

Bill Keating wants your money. In the last week alone I have received three or four appeals from the Democratic representative of the 9th Massachusetts Congressional District. In each is his “ask” – “support Bill.”

Well, I would send this right back at Rep. Keating:

Support Bill 676 – the Medicare for All Act.

Rep. Keating may be basically an honest and decent guy, but he is among the least progressive portion of Democratic congressmen who have not signed on to John Conyers’ proposed legislation to expand Medicare into a single-payer system.

This is hardly a surprise.

Keating may be a social liberal – and he has respectable legislative ratings from Planned Parenthood, AFSCME, and the Sierra Club, for example. But when it comes to foreign policy – and now healthcare – he is a disappointment.

The Congressman is not merely an unreliable voter on foreign policy, he is a member of both the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees and can do real damage on a national level. He has terrible grades from peace groups. Keating has a 47% rating from Massachusetts Peace Action, 50% from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and 50% from the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He has been an Iran hawk and only reluctantly supported Obama’s Iran deal. He has been a consistent defender of Israeli settlements and he received a 44% rating from the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Also somewhat of a “Defense” hawk, Bill Keating has been an inconsistent ally of civil liberties. In 2011, for example, he received a 50% rating from the American Civil Liberties Union.

My bottom line – I may not be inclined to shop around for another congressman quite yet, but William R. Keating isn’t going to get a dime from me until he starts acting like a progressive.

* * *

Those who have thrown themselves into political action recently are completely united in opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to deconstruct democratic America – “democratic” with a small “d.”

But the coming elections are going to expose divisions between Democrats blissfully content with representatives like Keating – and those who want the Democratic Party to really show some teeth and testicle. And principles.

Party machine Democrats are going to have to accept that the party is changing. Democrats wandered forty years in the wilderness of centrism. Well, it didn’t work – and voters didn’t want it. If the party has a future, it’s a progressive one.

But progressive Democrats (and progressive allies) are going to have to accept the fact that not every Democrat on a ballot will completely be to their political taste. We are going to have to hold our noses and vote for some of these guys.

On the other hand, until its direction is fully clear, the Democratic Party also needs to know why many of us are giving donations to Progressive political PACs, and not directly to lackluster candidates or the DNC.

If you want the voter’s money, come and earn it.

Democracy is in decline – and it’s partly because some of us are reclining in our La-Z Boy chairs too damn much.

If you’re a Dartmouth voter, press that lever on the side of the chair and it will propel you into an upright and standing position. From there walk or drive to your nearest polling station.

The 2017 Annual Town of Dartmouth Election is Tuesday, April 4, 2017. Polls will be open from 7:00am – 8:00pm.

• Click here for Precincts and Polling locations.
• Click here for further Election Information.
• Town Election Specimen Ballots.

In some past town elections, voter turnout has been less than 11 percent. Voter apathy is as deadly as lack of electoral choice. But electoral choice depends on you voting. In Massachusetts we are having somewhat of a crisis. Fewer and fewer elections are being contested:

In my precinct (see ballot below) this is certainly true.

There are really only two contested elections on the entire ballot:

• Select Board (two candidates)
• School Committee (three candidates for two slots)

In all the rest there is really nothing to vote for. It’s like a North Korean election – a single candidate or slate:

• Assessor (one candidate)
• Trustee (two candidates, two slots)
• Board of Health (one candidate)
• Planning Board (one candidate)
• Park Commission (one candidate)
• Town Meeting Members (twelve candidates, fourteen slots)

And it gets worse. There is even one contest that didn’t even have a candidate:

• Housing Authority – nobody running

For those taking the Select Board election seriously, here is a report from of a recent “Candidate night”: http://dartmouth.villagesoup.com/p/candidates-speak-at-public-forum-ahead-of-town-elections/1634169

And here is the real reason you should get out and vote – the ballot question:

“Shall the Town of Dartmouth be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and hone-half, so called, the amounts required to pay for the bond issued in order to design and construct a new police station to be located on town-owned property at 1390 Tucker Road, including originally equipping said building, paving, and all other costs incidental and related thereto?”

In other words – should the town pay for the new police station with a temporary tax rate increase?

Well, what voter knows how much money the bond actually represents? Or what the exemption means legally? Or who even knows what Proposition 2-1/2 is? Or what the current tax rate is?

I will wager that many voters will reject this question simply due to its opacity and ridiculous legalese. But here are a few details:

http://dartmouth.villagesoup.com/p/police-chief-advisors-approve-station-budget-for-election-ballot/1627544

The police station will cost $13.6 million. Cops can’t work out of trailers forever. Taxpayers have to pony up for roads and schools – and police stations. You get what you pay for.

If you’re too cheap to pay, you don’t get anything but bad roads, bad schools, and cops who can’t do their job.

Paying taxes – like voting – is just another cost of keeping society and government running.

Some of you have already received a similar invitation, so forgive me if it is a duplication.

Marching Forward, affiliated with Swing Left and one of two local Indivisible chapters, will be holding its next meeting in 8 days:

Thursday March 16, 6:30 – 8:00PM
Dartmouth Grange, 1133 Fisher Road, North Dartmouth MA. First floor hall
Organizational Meeting and discussion with MA Rep. Chris Markey

Space is limited, so please RSVP because a maximum number of people are allowed in the building. If the maximum number has been exceeded, we promise to send you minutes of the meeting.

Members of other Indivisible chapters are very welcome but please RSVP. We are expecting a big turnout.

Parking is limited at the Grange, and there will be an exercise class in the upstairs room that night. Please plan to park at Alderbrook Farm, 1213 Russells Mills Road, or along Fisher Road. At Alderbrook there’s plenty of parking. Most convenient to the Grange is the area between Fisher Road and the yellow farm stand building, and in front of the greenhouse. Fisher Road is narrow, pull well off the road if you park along it. We will be “passing the hat” to cover the cost of Grange use, and also a website start up.

One theory was that last week’s election of a new DNC chairman was really a proxy race between the Clinton wing of the party and the Berniecrats. A majority of the delegates who elected the new chair were superdelegates in the 2016 primaries so it was not difficult to predict who would vote for Tom Perez based on who voted for Hillary Clinton.

The results have been tabulated, and centrists remain in charge of the party’s direction. A 57-state strategy is good. But continuing to cash checks from big donors, abandoning “identity politics,” and mouthing the words to faux populism is bad. The DNC needs a truly progressive platform. Perez’s plan to court millenials without a progressive message is simply not a winning strategy.

Click here for DNC Ballot #1 results
Click here for DNC Ballot #2 results

With the exception of Susan Thomson’s, the Massachusetts delegate votes were no surprise either. As predicted, it was business as usual:

Virginia Barnes (Ellison)
Gus Bickford (Perez)
Kate Donaghue (Perez)
Deb Goldberg (Perez)
Elaine Kamarck (Perez)
Debra Kozikowski (Perez)
David O’Brien (Perez)
Melvin Poindexter (Ellison)
James Roosevelt (Perez)
Susan Thomson (Perez)

By now most of us have found plenty of organizations that need our help, our voices, and our money. We make our daily calls, our targeted calls, write our representatives, and even take to the streets on occasion. We help out candidates in swing states or those like Tom Brock, Jon Ossoff or Josh King in Red State districts that show promise.

Some of us belong to organizations like Our Revolution and Democracy for America, which raise money for, vet, and endorse candidates.

But most of these efforts take place hundreds of miles away from home.

If you are looking for activist groups you can jump into right here in SouthCoast MA, check out:

Indivisible Southeast Mass – a largely New Bedford based Indivisible affiliated group which meets at the NB Library on Pleasant Street

Marching Forward – a group of approximately 300 people in the Dartmouth area also affiliated with Indivisible who meet periodically at the Dartmouth Grange

If you are especially concerned about immigration issues:

Immigrants Assistance Center – New Bedford MA

And for a variety of economic and social justice issues my old friends:

Coalition for Social Justice – New Bedford & Fall River

You’ve got your choice. Now take the plunge.

Tom Perez’s election as DNC party chair yesterday was a big disappointment to Progressives who had hoped the Democratic Party would choose not only a new chairman but a new direction. Lost in yesterday’s party proceedings in Atlanta was another vote. This one concerned taking money from superPACs. The DNC voted to continue doing business as usual. Donald Trump tweeted that this was a good day for both Perez and the Republican Party, and he was right. The Democratic Party just seems incapable of helping itself.

After the vote, Perez and runner-up Keith Ellison, who will become vice-chair of the party, swapped campaign buttons. Both are decent men, and both represent a party that – like it or not – is the only serious entity standing between a vulnerable American public and the billionaires salivating over ending regulation and what’s left of the Social Contract and American democracy.

For Progressives now is not the time to succumb to temper-tantrums and despair. The DNC delegates who voted for Perez and for superPACs are the same ones, for the most part, who committed to Clinton and sandbagged Sanders. This election was not a surprise. The terms of these Clinton and Obama holdovers will eventually end but the Democratic Party will remain. Progressives are now beginning to make gains in the DNC in states like Oregon and California, and it is a matter of time before this happens in our own state.

The Democratic Town caucuses are coming. Show up. Run for a slot. You will be given a minute or two to tell your fellow Democrats who you are and what you stand for. Tell them you’re a Berniecrat. Tell them you want and end to Big Money and Superdelegates.

If the party does not reform itself long before the 2018 midterm elections, it will be replaced, and many of us will be changing party affiliation.

Patience only extends so far and the clock is ticking.

In three days we’re going to have a moment of truth.

With the election of the next national Democratic Party chair on February 25th, it’s going to be either Business as Usual for the Democratic Party or a confirmation that it needs to start moving in a different direction.

Whatever the result, it’s not looking too good for a new direction in the state of Massachusetts.

Most sentient creatures know that the Massachusetts Democratic Party has an honesty problem. The last three House Speakers all had felony convictions. National DNC bigwigs like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Brazile likewise have had serious honesty problems. It may not come anywhere close to the filth and kleptocracy of the GOP, but this is a party in need of a whole lot of soap.

I have written before about the DNC Chairman’s race, and as much as the debates have had a gentlemanly tone, let there be no doubt whatsoever that this most certainly is a proxy war between party centrists and progressives. The leading candidates are Keith Ellison, a Black Muslim Congressman endorsed by (among many) Bernie Sanders; and Tom Perez, a Hispanic Labor Secretary and civil rights attorney with Clinton and Obama connections. Both men are decent-enough guys, but Ellison has promised to make the most changes to the DNC and, without a progressive direction, I just don’t see voters having compelling reasons to trust the DNC again.

Those from the Green, independent, or Berniecrat worlds have some idea of the mendacity of a party that couldn’t even help Americans get lower cost drugs because so many Democrats were in Big Pharma’s pocket. The 2016 convention exposed the Democratic Party’s corruption and lack of democracy, and the Presidential election exposed a lack of strategy and the absence of a coherent message for working class voters.

Next week 447 Democratic delegates are going to choose between Ellison, Perez, and a few latecomers. Those casting their ballots from Massachusetts are a subset of the same DNC superdelegates who got us into this mess in the first place, so don’t look to them to vote for change.

It’s going to be more Business as Usual. At least in Massachusetts.

The nine Bay State delegates selecting the next DNC chair are: Virginia Barnes, at-large delegate from the Teamsters; Gus Bickford, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and principal at Factotum Productions which does political consulting; Kate Donaghue, publisher of the Democratic Dispatch; Deb Goldberg, Massachusetts treasurer; Debra Kozikowski, vice-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and publisher of ruralvotes.com; Thomas McGee, Massachusetts state senator and former party chairman; David O’Brien, political and communications consultant with Northwind Strategies who formerly headed up Duval Patrick’s PAC; James Roosevelt, Jr., co-chair of the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and FDR’s grandson; and Susan Thomson, anthropology professor, musician and somewhat of a Renaissance woman.

Of the nine, all but Barnes, Roosevelt, and Thomson were pledged Clinton superdelegates in the 2016 Presidential primary. After the primaries, Sanders-proposed reforms were rejected by most of these nine superdelegates.

So – after the vote, brace yourself and try not to scream too loud.

Going forward it is CRITICAL that Massachusetts Democrats begin organizing at the town and ward level to get rid of Business as Usual Democrats. It’s going to take some time before the terms of these superdelegates and their self-perpetuating jobs expire.

But when they do, a new base of new Democrats needs to be ready.

Once again, politics are local – and here are some political things of interest right in our own backyard.

* * *

If you are a Massachusetts Democrat, check out Kate Donoghue’s Democratic Dispatch. This has many items of interest, typically Boston-centric, but her recent letter contains much good advice for people interested in jumping into state politics.

Donoghue’s Democratic Dispatch

* * *

Now for the really good stuff – the upcoming town caucuses. The following comes from Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders’ progressive organization (I hope others of you will join).

Over the coming weeks, the Dartmouth Democratic Party will be convening to decide who shall represent the people of Massachusetts at the 2017 Massachusetts Democratic State Convention as Delegates and Alternates. These are positions which can help decide important decisions for the future of the party, such as platform and rules.

Click here to find your local town committee.

You have an opportunity to participate in this election (or even run for a Delegate or Alternate position yourself!) by turning up at your local caucus:

At the 2017 caucus, delegates and alternates will be elected to represent the people of Massachusetts at the Massachusetts State Convention.

In order to qualify to vote, you need to:

• Be registered to vote at your current address, and within the Democratic Party, by the time of your meeting. If you are unsure of your registration status, you can go here to check. If you need to register to vote, or update your current registration, you can do so here: if you register last-minute, be sure to bring proof that you have registered with you to the meeting.
• Be present at the caucus at the date and time listed (see caucus lists). There is no absentee or proxy voting.
• Be at least 18 years old by September of 2018.

No one shall be denied admittance (even people not registered to vote may observe), and no one shall be required to pay any fee to participate or vote.

If you would like to run as a Delegate or Alternate…

• Indicate your interest to run when you arrive, so your name can be included on the ballot.
• You will be allowed to make a two minute speech, and distribute materials to promote your candidacy, so come prepared!
• Though each candidate will be voted on individually, you can join with friends and fellow volunteers to create a slate of candidates with shared goals and platform policies, and campaign together.
• If you were not elected as a delegate by the caucus and are a person with disabilities, a minority or youth, you are eligible to apply to the Democratic State Committee for selection as an add-on delegate.
• If you are elected, you will either need to pay a $75 fee to the state party by April 7th to receive your credentials to the State Convention, or submit a low income fee waiver form. Waiver forms will be available after the caucus. If you run, but are not elected, no fee will be charged.

We no longer have a balance of power in our tripartite form of government, and you can count the number of congressmen who fight for working people tirelessly on your fingers and toes.

So in Congress every Democratic vote is precious. Progressives know how often a “for sale” sign pops up outside the offices of some Democrats. The Democratic Party passively betrays voters when it can’t even work up the enthusiasm to compete in some Congressional districts. In Florida, billionaire Stephen Bittel, a pal of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, literally purchased the Democratic state committee chair. And, for a price, liberals like Andrew Cuomo even become enemies of Constitutional protections.

There are too many back-stabbers in the party right now. We’re past due for some house-cleaning.

Within the Democratic Party there is a group called the Blue Dog Coalition. These are Democrats in name only, many from Red states, who vote Republican and from time to time become Republicans without anyone taking particular note. In the 115th Congress their coalition consists of Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Jim Cooper (TN-5), Jim Costa (CA-16), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Dan Lipinski (IL-3), Stephanie Murphy (FL-7), Collin Peterson (MN-7), Kurt Schrader (OR-5), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-9), Mike Thompson (CA-5), and Filemon Vela (TX-34).

Nancy Pelosi appointed this last Blue Dog – Vela – to the DNC Steering Committee, apparently concerned less with his politics than with some sort of regional formula.

Then there are the out-and-out traitors.

During last year’s DNC platform committee meetings, six members appointed by Clinton – Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, former EPA administrator Carol Browner, former Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, Ohio State Rep. Alicia Reece and Paul Booth – all voted with CEO Bonnie Schaefer and former California Rep. Howard Berman to oppose the $15 minimum wage amendment. Shaefer and Berman were appointed by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

The DNC platform, which has yet to be rewritten, still supports fracking, the TPP, and refuses to condemn Israeli settlements.

In Colorado, Hillary Clinton’s SuperPAC consultants torpedoed a “Romneycare” single-payer healthcare proposal.

On January 12th, thirteen Democratic Senators voted with Republicans and Big Pharma, and against reducing drug costs for working people: Michael Bennet D-CO), Cory Booker D-NJ), Maria Cantwell D-WA), Thomas Carper D-DE), Bob Casey D-PA), Chris Coons D-DE), Joe Donnelly D-IN), Martin Heinrich D-NM), Heidi Heitkamp D-ND), Bob Menendez D-NJ), Patty Murray D-WA), Jon Tester D-MT), and Mark Warner D-VA). Even Ted Cruz, a Republican, voted for the lower prices.

Corey Booker not only voted against lower-cost healthcare, he is also a supporter of Betsy DeVos’s school choice programs. Bankrolled by not only Big Pharma, Booker is beholden to hedge funds that champion “school choice.”

The all-Democrat Baltimore City Council blocked a $15 minimum wage increase when it allied with business. It was remniscent of big city party machine politics under Rahm Emanuel, in which Obama’s “Bannon” turned out to be a union-busting thug.

On February 8th West Virginia’s Joe Manchin (D) voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. As Sessions entered the chamber Manchin reportedly flashed him a thumbs-up.

With Democrats like this, who the hell needs Republicans?

You may not live in a state or congressional district with one of these back-stabbers, but you can certainly help “primary” them – see that they have progressive competition in the primaries, donate to their opponents, and help out in races in neighboring swing states. A few resources:

• Our Revolution (Bernie’s more-than-a-PAC)
• Democracy for America (progressive PAC)
• Progressive Democrats of America (progressive PAC)
• SwingLeft (help in neighboring swing states)

And where the Democratic Party can’t or won’t run a progressive, vote Green:

• Green Party US

I have done the unthinkable. I’ve joined the Democratic Party.

It was a painful decision because the party – long long ago a friend of working people – has abandoned its principles and, as Robert Reich writes, its only real friend right now is money.

Plus, I had to look in the mirror. We now live in a world in which no one can afford to remain a political independent or a purist. And as one Portland, Oregon, activist puts it – “you have to vote in the primary because that’s when you get to vote for who you want; in the general election in November you get to vote for who the party wants.” The parties have had their say far too long.

I’ve also joined Our Revolution, a group with a #DemEnter strategy – join the party and reform it. Or from Hillary and Bill’s perspective – we’re coming for your party.

And it is their party. At the moment.

But let’s be honest. The Democratic Party is hollowed-out roadkill, it’s vital juices seeping into the breakdown lane. It’s a tenement in foreclosure. It’s a patient on life-support. Not only the working class and rust belt states, but state parties have been victims of the DNC’s neglect. Below is a picture of the balance of political power in the United States. Red and blue trifectas indicate states where a single party has control of all three branches of government. Read Robert Reich again for the gruesome numbers. And note that Massachusetts does not number among the strongest of the Blue States.

I have an unsubstantiated theory – and I hope a political scientist will set me straight – that third parties live in political ecosystems and exist due to the stabiliity of their more mainstream cousins. Especially in nations where Duverger’s “Law” applies. There are both “left” and “right” ecosystems. Without the Republican Party Libertarians would have had nothing from which to steal six million votes. Without the Democratic Party, the Greens would be substantially weaker. Look at the blue on the map above and then do a bit of research – and you’ll find these are precisely the states where the Green Party is strongest.

So if we want stronger Green Parties – and Working Families and Socialist caucuses and progressive alliances – elsewhere in the nation, an argument can be made for attaching paddles to the flatlined Democratic Party and pumping a couple thousand volts into its chest. If the procedure succeeds we may discover the party actually has a heart. And not only the patient himself but his close relatives will be saved.

Is there anyone who would like to join me in creating a chapter of Our Revolution in New Bedford / Dartmouth / Fairhaven?

We’ve had a few weeks to mourn. It’s time to organize.

We’ve had some big shocks lately, and people are spending a lot of time in a reactive mode – signing petitions, making phone calls, and attending rallies. As it should be. But the long game is to strengthen and democratize the Democratic Party and the progressive ecosystems in and around it.

But here in Massachusetts democracy is in big trouble. The state ranks last in competitiveness in political races, and in many districts Republicans and Democrats don’t even bother to field candidates. As an example, “Mexican Wall Slave Labor” sheriff Tom Hodgson ran unchallenged in Bristol County. In the 2016 Democratic Primary the party fielded uncontested candidates for U.S. Congress in all nine districts: there was not one challenger. Hand-picked candidates don’t give voters anything to really vote for.

And state government is almost as bad. Half the candidates for the Governor’s Council ran unchallenged. In County Sheriff Democratic primary elections, six out of fourteen ran unopposed and two slots were never filled. In almost half the state legislature primaries and in 29 out of 42 state senate races there was no challenger.

Democrats

The Democratic Party seems to run on auto-pilot in many towns, and very few people know who the pilot is.

Picking my own town as an example, the Dartmouth Democratic Town Committee is not listed with the state Democratic Party. It is not in their town and ward database, and the two massdems.org staffers I called and emailed were unable to tell me if such a committee even existed. Another Bernie guy, Warren Lynch, ready to jump into Democratic politics, couldn’t find his local committee on massdems.org either, so he put together his own directory. While anecdotal, this example illustrates a common complaint – that superdelegates and lack of competitiveness are the least of the Democratic Party’s problems. Participation in the party at a local level is hampered by disorganization and even secretiveness. By the way, I eventually found the Dartmouth Town Commitee in Lynch’s directory.

Independents and Third Parties

Those registered as Independents miss a chance to influence a political party – any party. No one knows what goes on in the sanctity of the voting booth, so you are free to vote for whomever you like on election day – even the other guys. But the other 364 days of the year – wield some influence! In Massachusetts you can re-register with one of several parties using a register-by-mail form. If you belong to a third party (Greens, Libertarians, United Independents, etc.) check the registration form. The state of Massachusetts seems to add and drop third parties. See this and this for illustrations. I assume there is some method to the madness, but it makes belonging to a third party even more difficult than it already is.

Progressives

Following Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Clinton, and Trump – and taking their cue from the Tea Party – progressive Democrats, Greens, and Independents are about to start challenging uncontested candidates, “primarying” those who behave like Republicans, and offering slates of progressive candidates. In California, progressives recently took control of the state Democratic Party.

Our Revolution was founded by Bernie Sanders and its members are largely Democrats, Greens, Democratic Socialists, and members of progressive alliances. One of Our Revolution’s projects is trying to transform the Democratic Party by compiling a database of party chairs, contacts, and bylaws from local party organizations and encouraging Democrats to re-democratize and re-energize the party. Go to the bottom of this page and join. When the research is complete in every state, you will be able to type in your address and get a listing that shows you the when, what, where, why, and whos of your local party organization.

If you are interested in helping Our Revolution with this research – or simply want to see what these young-ish progressives are up to, sign up to join Our Revolution’s orlocalorganizing team and then install Slack on your desktop and/or mobile devices. The discussions and resources will tell you a lot about the kind of activists signing up. Their #general and #random channels are for general discussion. The #research channel is for those contributing party documents and contacts. Each state and territory has its own channel. The #massachusetts channel was created by O.R. and the #se_massachusetts channel was created by a local organization in Fall River: