Democrats listen up: that sound you heard wasn’t the sky falling. It was the Freedom Caucus of House Republicans winning policy concessions from Kevin McCarthy, whose mission in life has been to wield the Speaker’s gavel and become second in the line of succession to the presidency. What stood in his way was that pesky cadre of Republicans who thought they should get something for their vote, who were determined to use their leverage over his aspiration to achieve long-sought aspirations of their own. Like restoring a house rule, Nancy Pelosi threw out to allow any member to call for a vote on retaining the sitting Speaker. Along with the entrenched Republican leadership, one other group was vehement in its denunciation of this “outrageous” tactic. And that was, you guessed it, the Democrats rehearsing for their role as the cowardly lion. Blackmail they cried in unison…A sad day for the world’s most perfect democracy.
Wait a minute. Isn’t this history repeating itself? Not quite. That time it was the House Democrats after the election in 2020 when they emerged with a slim House majority requiring only five votes to fire Speaker Pelosi. That was their moment to use their leverage to spotlight an issue which the majority (63%) of American adults, Republicans and Democrats, support —that the U.S. government has a responsibility to provide a national health care system for all its citizens. It would have taken only five house democrats to withhold their votes for Pelosi to force her to bring a Medicare-for-all bill to the floor for a vote [force-the-vote]. The democratic progressive caucus has one hundred members. A splendid opportunity to play hardball politics. It was not to be. All one hundred progressives folded. A lost opportunity to triumph over a corrupt, rapacious healthcare Mafia.
As has become their trademark, bold talk was followed by abject surrender. Here’s Ilhan Omar in 2017 promising a progressive revolution.: Yes we can [Force the Vote] with a slim democratic majority in the next Congress, anything can be possible. It will literally take five courageous progressive members to get concessions on progressive policies.” In 2023, her personal ambition overtook her progressive vision. Aspiring to become an insider meant a little backtracking but she had become adept at talking out of both sides of her mouth and hoping no one would notice (they didn’t). Here’s how she described the Republican uprising— “McCarthy just agreed to a deal with far-right insurrectionists that would hold the entire US and global economy hostage to extreme cuts to everything …Hard to overstate how dangerous this is…” [Ilhan Omar 1/7/2023]
Needless to say, finding five progressives willing to stand up for their constituents was like looking for Big Foot. Why didn’t the progressives hold out for measurable progress on what they claimed they stood for? Timidity perhaps or fear that they would not get the sexy committee posts they coveted. Undoubtedly House leaders had ratcheted up the pressure threatening to leave disobedient progressives without the campaign funds leadership controls, almost guaranteeing their defeat in succeeding elections. Even that great pretender Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez who had previously declared— “If you’re a one term congress member, so what. You can make ten years’ worth of change in one term if you’re not afraid.” She provided the blueprint for what would have held Nancy Pelosi’s feet to the fire”— The democratic party does not do more unless it is pushed. So we need to push them…that is our job… Start bringing the ruckus to the democratic party.” That was then, this is now, time to make nice to “Mama Bear.”— “We are just“an extremely slim amount of votes away from risking the speakership to the Republican Party. It’s bigger than any one of us.” (For the record it’s next to impossible for the minority party to take away the speakership from the majority party. In fifteen rounds of voting, the Republicans were never in danger of losing the speakership to the Democrats.)
When all is said and done, Democratic progressives betrayed their voters by failing to use their leverage to bring Medicare-for-all to the floor for a vote. What would it have accomplished? Forced legislators to go on record as supporters or dissenters, created political pressure to respect the will of the people; given progressives more power in setting the Democratic agenda in the house, and cleared the way for the minority party to make their voices heard.
Saving the most reprehensible for last here’s Nancy Pelosi trying to make a “silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” [Stephen Gosson, The Ephermides of Phialo,1579] “We must retake the House, protect our progress and restore good governance to the halls of Congress… Democrats have unequivocally delivered For the People — Republicans can’t even elect a Speaker… Rush in a contribution.”
Ah, yes, rush in a contribution so the democratic party can continue serving the needs of the only constituency they care to nurture: the criminal class of oligarchs who keep them in office. Nancy Pelosi may be gone but her clone, Hakeem Jeffries, whose claim to fame includes raising millions in dark money pacts to oppose progressive nominees for house seats nationwide, has ascended to the throne. How did Progressives respond? Occasio-Cortez weigs a new primary target: Hakeem Jeffries.” [2020] Two years later, another 180° from the redoubtable AOC: “we are united behind Hakeem Jeffries…There will be no defections…”
What you are witnessing is a gradual erosion of what was once the party of the people, now the party of the elites. In the eighties the presidency of Bill Clinton heralded in the “new” democrats styling themselves the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), a corporate controlled center right fundraising machine. By the time of the presidency of Barack Obama in 2008-2016, the Democrats were raising more corporate and Wall Street money than Mitt Romney and the Republicans.
But in 2020 all hope was not extinguished. Bernie Sanders was fighting hard to become the democratic presidential nominee. He was living large promising Medicare for all, student debt relief, $15 minimum wage, affordable childcare. But in the power center of the democratic party the lights were flashing red. Bernie lost out to the ubiquitous party insider, Joe Biden. Remarkably what happened next goes to show that Sanders is as much a captive of the louts who control the democratic party as Biden. As the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, Bernie has been handed an unprecedented opportunity to push for a national health care system. Will he? Here’s how he answered a question about pushing for Medicare for all —What I ultimately would like to accomplish is not going to happen right now. We have Republicans controlling the House. And many of the views that I hold, including Medicare for All… would not win in the House.” Bernie, Bernie what happened to your fighting spirit? Sacrificed to keep your position in the democratic party hierarchy, perchance? As AOC said before she recanted —”The democratic party does not do more unless it is pushed. Start bringing the ruckus to the democratic party.”
If they won’t make a ruckus, maybe it’s time we did.
