Democrats Will Be Outside Playing Victim In Short Order, If They Do Not Use The Power They Are Given .…

If estab­lish­ment Democrats in the Senate and House think that the Republican Party has a prob­lem with its right flank, they should fool around with this slim major­i­ty the American peo­ple gave them; their left flank will poten­tial­ly be worse.
Newly mint­ed Senate Majority leader Charles Schumer the New York Democrat, has been talk­ing tough, even though he has the slimmest of majori­ties imag­in­able and must bring his entire cau­cus along to get any­thing done, even with the bud­get maneu­ver known as reconciliation.
Democrats are not known for push­ing through the agen­da they are elect­ed to pass. They waste valu­able time nego­ti­at­ing with Republicans to pur­sue bipar­ti­san­ship, some­thing Republicans do not seek when they hold pow­er. Republicans do not nego­ti­ate in good faith, and on that basis, Democrats ought not to waste time chas­ing bi-par­ti­san­ship sole­ly for the sake of optics. They gen­er­al­ly pre­tend to nego­ti­ate, then walk away with­out sup­port­ing the very ideas they once advanced.
MSNC’s Rachael Maddow spent a great deal of her Programs on Monday evening, February 2^nd, ded­i­cat­ed to mak­ing this very point.

I have no idea whether or not Schumer is spooked at the prospect of an AOC run to his left; there have been rum­blings to that effect. I doubt that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is inter­est­ed in risk­ing her seat after just one full term to chal­lenge Schumer. Still, it does not hurt to have Schumer get­ting up off his back­side because of the heat on his left flank.
Across the State of New York, pro­gres­sives have won seats in the House, no estab­lish­ment, go along to get along Democrat should feel safe in just occu­py­ing space in the House or Senate.
Progressives have won in oth­er states, in Georgia. Republican Senator David Perdue, labeled Jon Ossoff, a com­mu­nist. In Missouri, Cori Bush,  a Black Lives Matter activist, won a seat in Missouri’s first dis­trict. Bush beat long­time Democrat Lacy Clay, in the pri­maries and was suc­cess­ful in the gen­er­al as well.

Establishment Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus are not sup­port­ive of the younger upstarts who lurk on their left heels. The CBC has thrown its sup­port behind estab­lish­ment can­di­dates to ward of chal­lenges to them. Cori Bush’s sec­ond chal­lenge to Clay, who lit­er­al­ly hand­ed the Missouri first dis­trict seat by his father, has been par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant and anoth­er eye-open­er for the estab­lish­ment, some of who posit­ed that Congresswoman Alexandria Cortez’s win was a fluke.
The con­gress­woman who just won re-elec­tion, unseat­ed long­time estab­lish­ment, Congressman Joseph Crowley. Another New York pro­gres­sive, Jamaal Bowman, also won a seat in the Congress after defeat­ing long­time Democratic Representative Elliot Engel in the Democratic primaries.
But it’s not just in New York that young upstarts have been win­ning, Cori Bush was the first Black woman to rep­re­sent her state in the Congress.
In Colorado, Joe Neguse, anoth­er African-American, won Colorado’s 2^nd Congressional District, encom­pass­ing Boulder, Fort Collins, Summit, and Eagle Counties.
Joe Neguse is the first African-American to rep­re­sent his state.
The issue for estab­lish­ment Democrats, is that while they con­tin­ue to chase con­sen­sus with a Republican Party that is not inter­est­ed in Democracy, much less gov­ern­ing for all of the American peo­ple, their base has no inter­est in doing so.
The frac­ture that con­tin­ues to sep­a­rate sane fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tives like Republican Adam Kinzinger of Illinois 16^th Congressional District and the rest of the par­ty rep­re­sent­ed by the likes of Ohio’s Jim Jordon, will even­tu­al­ly come to the doors of estab­lish­ment Democrats.

At the moment, it seems to the estab­lish­ment in the Democratic par­ty that they are insu­lat­ed from an insur­gency by the young upstarts. They should think long and hard whether they rep­re­sent their con­stituents’ wish­es who want rapid solu­tions to America’s polic­ing prob­lem, Criminal Justice, min­i­mum wage, health care, and wealth disparities.
If they fail to do what they are sent to do, they will find them­selves back in the posi­tion they seem to rel­ish, on the out­side of pow­er, play­ing victims.
Republicans not only use the pow­er they steal through ger­ry­man­der­ing, vot­er sup­pres­sion, purg­ing vot­ers lists, and oth­er tac­tics, they abuse their powers.
Democrats must learn to use pow­er wise­ly and decisively.
Only when Democrats use the pow­ers they have to ram through their agen­da will Republicans come to the table to nego­ti­ate in good faith. Republicans have mas­tered the art of stalling when they are not in con­trol. They pre­tend to want con­sen­sus, and Democrats have fall­en for it time and again.
It is for the rea­sons that Bernie Sanders received such over­whelm­ing sup­port in two gen­er­al elec­tion cycles. It is what result­ed in the elec­tion of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the oth­er mem­bers of the squad.
It will con­tin­ue to esca­late, as younger more pro­gres­sives move to pri­ma­ry entrenched estab­lish­ment fig­ures dis­con­nect­ed from their sup­port­ers’ core.

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Mike writes for thinkers.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.