by
Norman Solomon
Conventional
wisdom said that powerful Congressman Joseph Crowley couldn’t be
beat. But his 20-year career in the House of Representatives will end
in early January, with the socialist organizer who beat him in the
Democratic primary in the deep-blue district poised to become
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The
defeat of Crowley shows how grass-roots movements can prevail against
the corporate establishment and its vast quantities of cash. The
Crowley campaign spent upward of $3 million in the Democratic Party
primary. The Ocasio-Cortez campaign spent one-tenth as much. He
wielded money power. She inspired people power.
As the
28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez was quick to say after her victory Tuesday
night, the triumph belongs to everyone who wants social, economic and
racial justice. She ran on a platform in harmony with her activism as
a member of Democratic Socialists of America and an organizer for the
Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
In a
simple and symbolic twist of fate, the stunning defeat of Crowley
came a day before the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic
Party voted on what to do about superdelegates.
Conventional
wisdom said superdelegates—who exerted undemocratic power over the
selection of the party’s presidential nominee in 2016—couldn’t
be stopped from putting the establishment’s thumbs on the scale
again.
But on
Wednesday afternoon, the party committee approved a proposal to
prevent superdelegates from voting on the presidential nominee during
the first ballot at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. (The
last time the party’s convention went to a second ballot was back
in 1952.)
As NPR
reported, “A Democratic National Committee panel has voted to
drastically curtail the role ‘superdelegates’ play in the party’s
presidential nominating process. The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws
Committee voted 27 to 1 to block officeholders, DNC members and other
party dignitaries from casting decisive votes on the first ballot of
presidential nominating conventions.”
Make no
mistake: Those in the top echelons of the Democratic Party aren’t
moving in this direction out of the goodness of their hearts.
Grass-roots pressure to democratize the party—mounting since
2016—is starting to pay off.
But that
pressure needs to increase. Corporate power brokers of the national
party are in the midst of a tactical retreat, which should not be
confused with surrender.
During
the latest Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, former DNC Chairs
Donald Fowler and Donna Brazile voiced strong—and in Fowler’s
case, bitter—opposition to changing the superdelegates status quo.
They may have been foreshadowing an escalation of insider pushback
before the full DNC decides on rules in late August.
In
recent weeks, some of Crowley’s kindred corporate Democratic
colleagues in the House—angry at the prospect of losing their
privilege to vote on the nominee at the next national convention—have
been railing against the superdelegates reform proposal. Rep. Gerry
Connolly of Virginia said that “it disenfranchises the elected
leadership of the party” and, if adopted, “is going to do
terrible damage to party harmony.”
A New
Jersey congressman, Bill Pascrell, said: “I think this is
absolutely an insult to us. We’re no better than anybody else, but
we stand for election. That has to mean something, that has to stand
for something. That’s a lot of baloney.”
DNC
Chairman Tom Perez has become an advocate for blocking superdelegate
votes on the first ballot. That has put him in the line of fire from
Capitol Hill, as Politico reported in early June: “Rep. David
Price (D-N.C.), executive director of the early-1980s Hunt
Commission, which created superdelegates, said lawmakers were
‘infuriated’ by Perez’s stance, although he’s not sure
there’s anything that can be done. ‘I think there was a good deal
of incredulity and some pretty severe criticism,’ Price said.”
Very few
entrenched Democratic officials were willing to criticize the setup
when most of the 712 superdelegates made Hillary Clinton the
far-ahead “front-runner” by announcing their support for her
before a single ballot was cast in a primary or caucus to choose the
2016 nominee.
Now, the
huge defeat of quintessential hack Crowley by Ocasio-Cortez
underscores the importance and the possibilities of what Bernie
Sanders urged during a recent video interview: “Open the doors
of the Democratic Party. Welcome working people. Welcome young people
in. Welcome idealism in.”
Of
course, “idealism” is hardly a word that comes to mind when
listening to Democratic congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi,
Chuck Schumer and Crowley. No wonder young people’s support for the
party has been eroding.
“It
may take liberals by surprise to hear that a recent Reuters/Ipsos
mega poll of 16,000 respondents found that the Democrats are losing
ground with millennials” even while “their support for
Republicans has remained roughly stable,” Guardian columnist
Cas Mudde wrote days ago. “While millennials still prefer the
Democratic Party over the Republicans, that support is tanking. In
just two years, it dropped sharply from 55 percent to 46 percent.”
Reviving
the Democratic Party will require making the party democratic in the
process of winning genuine progressive victories. Ocasio-Cortez is
helping to show the way.
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