Democratic Party Seemingly Oblivious To It’s Supporters Needs

There is a strange dichoto­my hap­pen­ing in the Democratic Party about the course the par­ty should take in it’s response to Donald Trump’s pres­i­den­cy and the shock­ing intran­si­gence of Republicans in the face of the assault on the nation’s Institutions and norms. On the one hand, there is the tried and failed strat­e­gy which says: do not say or do any­thing which will gar­ner any back­lash, regard­less of what Republicans do we should main­tain the great­est degree of deco­rum and nor­mal­cy.
That strat­e­gy has not worked, yet the estab­lish­ment wing of the par­ty is hell-bent on con­tin­u­ing on that path from which the major­i­ty of it’s younger vot­ers have long veered.

The strat­e­gy which I have per­son­al­ly labeled the Republican-lite strat­e­gy has been dis­as­trous for the par­ty on sev­er­al fronts.
The par­ty has absorbed mon­u­men­tal loss­es in Governor’s races over the life of this approach, even in deep blue states like New York, New Jersy, Connecticut, Massachutes and oth­ers. (It is impor­tant to con­sid­er that there are hard­ly ever any statewide office­hold­ers in Red states)
Additionally, Senate and House seats, as well as offices all the way to dog-catch­er have been swal­lowed up in Republican Tsunami-like avalanche of wins.….…and gerrymandering.

Equally as con­se­quen­tial is the alacrity with which the Democratic par­ty has cho­sen to jet­ti­son it’s most artic­u­late lead­ers at the slight­est oppor­tu­ni­ty. Just ask Former Senator Al Franken how that feels.
The Republican par­ty has in the high­est office the most despi­ca­ble per­son prob­a­bly ever to hold that office and yet the Democratic par­ty seem­ing­ly is mind­less­ly focused on being nice.

Noted Presidential Historian and Author, Jon Meecham not­ed that the aber­ra­tion which is the Trump Presidency is a back­lash to the Obama pres­i­den­cy. Yet Meecham argues that twen­ty years from today Americans will live in Barack Obama’s America rather than in Donald Trump’s America.
Meecham believes that what is hap­pen­ing is the last gasp of the Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon, Pat Buchanan vision of America.

I hope Meecham is right, yet I hard­ly believe that.….that can ever become a real­i­ty if the Democratic Party con­tin­ue to fail so mis­er­ably even at the most basic of its respon­si­bil­i­ties.
It is an open secret that mil­lions of Bernie Sanders sup­port­ers did not turn up to vote for Secretary Hillary Clinton. As con­se­quen­tial as that has been and will con­tin­ue to be for America it is impor­tant to under­stand the cir­cum­stances which allowed for a 74-year-old pre­vi­ous­ly unknown Socialist Vermont US Senator to split the Democratic vote.

As I tried to artic­u­late on pre­vi­ous occa­sions, rather than see the answers in the prob­lem the Democratic par­ty con­tin­ues to dou­ble down on the very same Republican-lite approach­es.
Party elites brushed aside the earth­shat­ter­ing win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14^th District over Joseph Crowley the estab­lish­ment long­time can­di­date, label­ing it as a sign of not here the par­ty is going but a sign of where the Bronx is going.

The sev­er­al oth­er wins in which the Democrat who pre­vailed in their respec­tive pri­maries did not fit the tra­di­tion­al clean-cut white guy mold has done lit­tle to awak­en the Democratic par­ty to the real­i­ty that maybe.….. just maybe, grass­roots Democratic vot­ers want clear lines of demar­ca­tion between the two polit­i­cal parties.

The rise of Stacy Abrams in Georgia, Ben Jealous in Maryland and Andrew Gillium in Florida and final­ly yes­ter­day, the win by African-American City Council mem­ber Ayanna Pressley In Boston Massachutes, are also clear signs that Democratic vot­ers are not con­tent with the sta­tus quo.

Pressly’s defeat of ten term Democratic US rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michael Capuano all but guar­an­teed her­self a seat in the US House of Representatives, there is no Republican vying for that seat.
This is momen­tous on sev­er­al lev­els not the least of which is that Ayanna Pressley will become the very first African-American woman to rep­re­sent her state in the US Congress.

I hope for the sake of the United States and indeed the World that there will be a blue wave come November 6^th. There are lit­er­al­ly tens of mil­lions of peo­ple feel­ing the same way, wait­ing for that day to exhale.
But what if when the votes are count­ed Republicans still con­trol the House and Senate, still con­trol the Governor’s man­sions they did and even picked up a few?
And oh, please don’t for­get that Donald Trump will still be President.
Then what?

Does any­one believe that a Democratic Party led by Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi is going to save the Republic? Charles Schumer’s only inter­est is that Donald Trump is stick­ing it to the Palestinians and being the water boy of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Look, it comes as no sur­prise to me that Schumer the leader in the Senate, is mere­ly a pat­sy, a shad­ow of for­mer Democratic lead­ers like Harry Reid or even Tom Daschle.

Schumer is no more ide­o­log­i­cal­ly bound to the prin­ci­ples of Democratic ortho­doxy that Joeseph Leiberman was. Leiberman the Democratic Senator from Conneciticut was the Vice Presidential run­ning mate of Former Clinton Vice President Al Gore who was seek­ing his first term as pres­i­dent in 2,000.
No soon­er had Gore lost the electionLeibermen began to hedge his bets and sided with the George Bush White House.
By the time Barack Obama emerged as the Presidential can­di­date for the Democratic par­ty against the now deceased Senator John McCain of Arizona in 2008, Joe Leiberman had all but left the Democratic Party and had changed his par­ty affil­i­a­tion to Independent. A total betray­al to the Democratic vot­ers of the state of Connecticut who had elect­ed him more than once.

It came as no sur­prise that Leiberman who had been a life­long Democrat pri­or, would not sup­port the first African-American to have a real shot at the pres­i­den­cy, a mere eight years after he him­self was on a Democratic tick­et for vice pres­i­dent of the United States.
The fact of the mat­ter is that for the likes of Leiberman and Schumer total feal­ty to the state of Israel in a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date and ulti­mate­ly a President of the United States trumps every­thing else, includ­ing giv­ing the lead­er­ship required to Democratic vot­ers they posi­tioned them­selves to lead.

In an age when Republicans have turned into Right-wing fas­cists, Democrats con­tin­ue to act Republican-lite, Progressives are cry­ing out for lead­er­ship. There is present­ly no leader in the Democratic par­ty with clout except Barack Obama. He will not be run­ning for any elect­ed office ever again.
If estab­lish­ment Democrats con­tin­ue to make the same mis­takes of tip­py-toe­ing around what’s hap­pen­ing, unable to har­ness the pow­er of the resis­tance, Donald Trump and his far-right par­ty led by the rene­gades in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate will con­tin­ue to pack the courts and change the face of America into the white eth­nos­tate they so des­per­ate­ly dream of.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police cor­po­ral, busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. He is also a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge.