For Democrat Party Leadership, Cash Is Still King
And that’s the problem.
Democratic Party leadership continues to show little regard for the biggest lesson taught by its humiliating defeat at the hands of President Donald Trump.
In an election as close as the 2016 presidential race, observers can point to many factors that contributed to the result. However, the most obvious explanation for the victory authored by a historically unpopular, temperamentally unqualified, monosyllabic goon is that the country is in the midst of a pseudo-populist uprising and Trump could more credibly claim an intent to upset the status quo via a sincere regard for the working class. Considering Donnie’s history as a predatory businessman and (possible) billionaire, the credibility of his claim rested more on Hillary Clinton’s profound deficiencies than on Trump’s bona fides.
Her acolytes may have been able to ignore all the other negatives dogging Clinton throughout her time in politics while staying within earshot of logic and reason. But it was simply impossible to keep one foot anchored in reality while insisting she was not the poster child for Washington DC business as usual—surrounded by and awash in money from the donor class while trying to balance its often-conflicting interests with those of the party’s left-leaning electorate.
In light of this, the wise choice would be to confront reality and change accordingly. Instead, the Democratic establishment and its media enablers seem to be saying: “Everything is fine, everything is cool, all we need to do is tweak the messaging and good times will be here again!”
Or maybe a pizza. Maybe both?
The first indicator that Dems would resist fundamental change came when the party re-entrenched behind party stalwarts like Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives.
Schumer never really faced much backlash over the Democratic bloodletting at all levels of government over the last 7–8 years. There’s sound justification for the relatively free pass, though. He’s been a high-ranking member of the party’s Senate leadership for about a decade, but he hasn’t been the high-ranking member. He only assumed the mantle of Minority Leader in 2017 after Harry Reid’s retirement. Additionally, Chuck, ever the pragmatist, came out of the post-election gates voicing strong support for many of Bernie Sanders’ policy positions, thus defusing some of the intra-party discontent.
Of course, being one of the more accomplished fundraisers on Capitol Hill didn’t hurt Schumer’s survival.
As for Pelosi, she did face significant backlash and, again, there’s sound justification for the rough treatment.
Nancy has been the highest-ranking Democrat in the House for the entirety of the window that’s seen the party blasted out of governor mansions, state legislatures, Congress and the White House. Despite patting herself on the back for being a “master legislator,” the only evidence of such mastery during that same window is Obamacare, which was a significant accomplishment, but was also rammed through the House with no support from Republicans. Otherwise, her tenure has been marked by partisan gridlock, bipartisan dreck, minor bills, plummeting approval ratings and significant loss of influence.
So how is Pelosi able to keep a vice-like grip on her leadership position?
As Mike DeBonis informed readers of the Washington Post, she’s already raised almost $26 million in 2017 and her money machine “counts $593.8 million in fundraising attributable to Pelosi since she entered the House leadership in 2002.” Just to make sure everyone got the memo, Real Journalist Chris Cillizza at CNN echoed the point in a piece with an impressively tone-deaf title: “There are nearly 26 million reasons Nancy Pelosi isn’t going anywhere.”
The emphasis on big money doesn’t stop there.
Kamala Harris has been in the news recently for meeting with top Clinton donors. In a totally coincidental development, Harris is frequently referred to as a “rising star” and early favorite for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination. Meanwhile, Clintonites like Neera Tanden have rushed to shield California’s junior Senator from criticism, using the tried-and-true method of insinuating anti-Harris broadsides are motivated by racism.
Meanwhile, non-profit, non-partisan government watchdogs like the Center for Public Integrity are documenting how little difference there is between Democratic and Republican efforts to exploit recent Supreme Court decisions and skirt existing campaign finance laws. According to Michael Malbin of the Campaign Finance Institute: “There’s a bipartisan agreement among…party leaders that they would like more money. That’s not surprising. And it’s certainly easier to get that money quickly by going to large donors.”
Such courageous bipartisanship has already borne lucrative fruit.
In 2012, the Democratic Party collected 43 percent of its money in donations of $20,00o or more while the Republican Party collected 42 percent of its money from the same. And that was before McCutcheon vs. FEC further blew the doors off campaign finance reform in 2014.
During the 2016 presidential elect, so-called “soft money” contributions—donations not counted as going directly to a specific candidate—sky-rocketed to the point that a “small universe of megadonors injected more than $500 million into federal-level elections.” The GOP certainly reaped its share of the lucre, but Democrats weren’t exactly shut out. Per the CPI’s analysis, Hillary Clinton’s “joint fundraising committee took in over $300 million more than Barack Obama’s did during the 2008 election cycle.”
Establishment apologists will say this is as it should be. They will say Democrats can’t unilaterally disarm in the money race, that they need to keep pace with Republicans in order to remain competitive and that requires huge injections from the donor class.
With apologies to the apologists, that defense fails on almost all fronts.
For one thing, Democrats have been raising huge sums of money and they’ve still suffered the aforementioned massive losses at state and federal levels. Hillary dominated Donald Trump in fundraising and expenditures. Furthermore, HRC got far more support from the biggest donors. She still lost the election. Additionally, Clintonites’ favorite bête noire, Bernie Sanders, was able to go fundraising tit-for-tat with the Clinton machine—perhaps the most dominant fundraising apparatus in history—despite mainly relying on small donors.
More importantly, the money race has no negative impact on Republicans, but comes at a significant cost to Democrats.
The GOP openly advocates for catering to corporate interests and that’s exactly what it does. They’ve tried to make a saint out of a man whose name is stamped on the theory that a focus on the interests of those at the top of the economy will create benefits that trickle down to the hoi polloi. The electorate either doesn’t believe Republicans give a shit about the working class or it believes, against all available evidence, that Reaganomics serves the working class’s best interests.
Either way, expecting right-wing politicians to save the United States from becoming more of a klepto-plutocracy is like expecting a Kardashian to discover shame.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have relied on the exact opposite principle in recent history. They claim to champion the forgotten and underprivileged, to stand up for rank-and-file workers and minorities who have been largely frozen out of the DC money game. It’s no coincidence the dissents in both McCutcheon and Citizens United vs. FEC were blistering and joined by all four liberal justices of the Supreme Court.
Consequently, the Democratic Party risks alienating more voters when it lavishes attention on the donor class. As Clinton demonstrated versus a singularly incompetent opponent, even when Democrats win the money game, they still lose.
All of which makes the Democratic Party’s ongoing obsession with chasing donor-class dollars a big part of what’s holding it back.
