CPAC Tea Leaves and DNC Vote Phobia…How Will the Media Comfort Itself Now?
News that South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison was dropping out of the race for DNC chair just a couple days before the vote has to be seen as a blow to those pushing for new blood in Democratic Party leadership. Harrison threw his support behind former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a known Clinton loyalist who recently garnered the endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden. While reality was Harrison’s stated reason for leaving the race, it is likely that his choice to back Perez, the candidate most tied to the Clinton 2016 camp and fellow displaced Obama officials, was due to promises of future consideration for advancement, as is often the case in Democratic backroom deals. While Progressive favorite and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ backed Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota has a sizable vote tally himself going into Saturday, he is likely to be defeated now that Perez is only a couple of dozen votes short of the 224 total required for victory in the election.
This baked-in result will likely only further antagonize progressive Democrats who justifiably felt railroaded during the 2016 Democratic Primary. If progressive energy turns-away from protesting President Trump and towards a Tea Party-style primary war against incumbent Democrats, the mainstream media is going to find itself caught in the middle with little to no mutual trust across the American Left to report or misreport on. In fact, a true Democratic Party civil war going on 24/7 through the 2018 primaries will make covering the Trump Administration seem like a pleasant diversion.
Conversely, the American Conservative Union-sponsored CPAC did its best to remember the spirit of William F Buckley Jr., guarding the gates of conservatism from the likes of troll provocateur-extraordinaire Milo Yiannopoulos yesterday, and today expelling proud racist punching-bag Richard Spencer. While Milo will likely be able to make some spiked lemonade out of his bitter pills and lemons, back-to-back rejections by student libertarians and now the Conservative Political Action Conference may irrevocably diminish Spencer, who seems more like American Nazism’s modern version of Colonel Klink than Joseph Goebbels.
The expulsion of these two knuckleheads from CPAC and the professed mutual respect of President Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus for each other ought dismay Senate Democrats, who can only win when Republicans are divided on Capitol Hill. Events today indicate that some amount of harmony is possible on the American Right, whereas the Left may soon fly apart completely.
