The Smearing of Ilhan Omar: An Op-Ed

Freshman progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is critical of the present Israeli government and the U.S. relationship with it, something the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. finds absolutely intolerable, particularly when coming from a Muslim woman, and Omar has been subjected to relentless accusations of "anti-Semitism," despite having never once expressed anti-Semitic sentiment in the course of any of the series of ginned-up controversies surrounding her commentary on the matter. One of the latter played out only a few weeks ago, when Omar questioned the influence of that powerful pro-Israel lobby. Leaders of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the focus of Omar's comments, had publicly bragged for decades about their power over legislators but for questioning same, Omar found herself loudly tarred as a bigot and condemned by the House leadership for use of "anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations." The scurrilous, ton-of-bricks attack on Omar was actually a perfect example of exactly the sort of undue influence she was questioning; her critics proceeded without a hint of self-awareness.

In that case, Omar apologized for language that was perceived as insensitive--or, much more often, that people with entirely different motives pretended to perceive as insensitive--but at the same time, she reiterated her initial criticism:

"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize.

"At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."

The affair ended with a "To Be Continued..."

Now, only days later, it's back. The background on this one: At the behest of the pro-Israel lobby, 26 states have passed laws aimed at preventing citizens from participating in the peaceful boycott of Israel over that government's appalling human rights practices by requiring residents to swear what amounts to a loyalty oath to the Israeli government in order to receive contracts, services, jobs, etc. from their own state. The U.S. Congress spent much of the last session toying with legislation that could have sent American citizens to prison for 20 years for participating in such a boycott. After furious objections by civil liberties groups, the prison-time was stripped from the bill but the latest variant still made participation in a boycott a federal crime punishable by a fine of up to $1 million. In a personal appearance at a Washington bookstore last week, Ilhan Omar questioned why she could criticize the influence of various powerful lobbies but not the pro-Israel lobby. "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country."[see below] The pro-Israel lobby, which has spent a couple years pushing for laws requiring that very thing, pounced, asserting that rather than commenting on the obvious, Omar was instead dealing in an anti-Semitic trope of "dual loyalty," and we were off to the races again. House Foreign Affairs committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) outlandishly accused Omar of having emitted "a vile, anti-Semitic slur." Various Democrats, eager to let the world know just how virtuous and opposed to anti-Semitism they were, joined what quickly became a chorus. Republicans piled on, echoing the demands of the pro-Israel lobby that Omar be censured and stripped from her position on the Foreign Affairs Committee. California congressman Juan Vargas inadvertently let the real cat out of the bag when he raved, "Questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable." Oops.[1] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top House Democrats, displaying again their utter unfitness as leaders, have decided to move forward with a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, one that doesn't mention Omar by name but targets her by inference.

Though she's certainly playing to the pro-Israel lobby and trying to keep it happy, Pelosi's big interest here--mirroring that of the Republicans and of the rest of the Dem Establishment playing this game--is in kneecapping and neutralizing one of the new progressive legislators, who represent a challenge to everything she is. Pelosi isn't going to strip Omar of committee assignments--she knows that would, at present, be an overreach that would probably backfire--but she's still trying to triangulate on the issue by pushing that resolution.

Politically speaking though, there's no way to straddle this fence. Republicans are presently engaged in an intentional strategy of portraying Democrats as anti-Semites. It's a daily theme of Fox News and other rightist outlets, where Omar is savagely attacked and compared to the likes of Louis Farrakhan. Pelosi is playing right into this, going along with the false anti-Semitism charge, thus giving it weight, while simultaneously advancing what amounts to a toothless resolution to address it, making it look as if Dems acquiesce to bigotry. Omar isn't going to stop criticizing either the Israeli government or the corrupt influence of pro-Israeli groups in the U.S.. She is, in fact, serving on a committee wherein the matter will probably come up on a pretty regular basis. Is Pelosi going to put us through this same sort of farce every 2 or 3 weeks? Is the point just to continually smear Omar with these bad-faith attacks until, it's hoped, she's such damaged goods that she can be ejected from her committee assignments and turned into a pariah without there being much of a fuss? Even that wouldn't be an end to it. Omar is currently the tip of the spear because she's a Muslim but she's representative of a new breed of progressives who are pro-civil liberties, pro-human rights and are going to force a reexamination of U.S. relations with Israel, just as they're going to force a reexamination of policy toward a great many other things. As they see it, the present Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobby, which is aligned with the increasingly extreme Israeli right, often pushes for policy that is antithetical to the best interests of the U.S. (the Iraq war, opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, etc.) and, in the case of anti-BDS laws, blatantly unconstitutional.[2] They're the rising tide, the future. Scurrilous accusations of "anti-Semitism" isn't going to stop them, particularly the many who are, themselves, Jewish. The game Pelosi is playing has no end. One way or another, that debate is going to happen. Fighting it in this way will only yield a record of smears and tears.

Meanwhile, what appears to be a good legislator--one of the rarest species in all of politics--is being dragged through the mud by this. The attacks on Ilhan Omar are happening against the backdrop of the corrupt, gore-spattered Israeli Prime Minister openly aligning himself with fascist terrorists and beginning to echo the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler while his regime systematically commits what the UN has called crimes against humanity.[3] For standing up against corruption and for basic human rights in the face of this murderous right-wing apartheid state and its apologists, Ilhan Omar, who, throughout all of these fabricated controversies, has never said anything negative about Jews, is being systematically destroyed as an "anti-Semite."

That's a disgrace, and people of good conscience shouldn't stand for it.



Activist Phyllis Bennis, who is herself Jewish, was present with Ilhan Omar at that bookstore and, writing in the Nation, refutes the charges of anti-Semitism. She was also good enough to transcribe some of Omar's remarks. The disconnect between Omar's words and the ugly attacks on her speak for themselves, and it's only fitting that she have the last word here:

"I know what intolerance looks like and I'm sensitive when someone says, 'the words you use Ilhan, are resemblance of intolerance.' And I am cautious of that and I feel pained by that. But it’s almost as if every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, that it’s supposed to be about foreign policy or engagement, our advocacy about ending oppression, or the freeing of every human life and wanting dignity, we get to be labeled in something, and that ends the discussion, because we end up defending that, and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of 'what is happening with Palestine?' So for me, I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. I want to ask, why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil-fuel industries, or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobby that is influencing policy.…

"I mean, most of us are new, but many members of Congress have been there forever. Some of them have been there before we were born. So I know many of them, many of them, were fighting for people to be free, for people to live in dignity in South Africa. I know many of them fight for people around the world to have dignity, to have self-determination. So I know, I know that they care about these things. But now that you have two Muslims who are saying, 'here is a group of people that we want to make sure they have the dignity that you want everyone else to have!'…we get to be called names, we get to be labeled as hateful.

"No, we know what hate looks like. We experience it every single day. We have to deal with death threats. I have colleagues who talk about death threats. And sometimes…there are cities in my state where the gas stations have written on their bathrooms 'assassinate Ilhan Omar.' I have people driving around my district looking for my home, for my office, causing me harm. I have people every single day on Fox News and everywhere, posting that I am a threat to this country. So I know what fear looks like. The masjid I pray in in Minnesota got bombed by two domestic white terrorists. So I know what it feels to be someone who is of faith that is vilified. I know what it means to be someone whose ethnicity is vilified. I know what it feels to be of a race--like I am an immigrant, so I don’t have the historical drama that some of my black sisters and brothers have in this country, but I know what it means for people to just see me as a black person, and to treat me as less than a human. And so, when people say, 'you are bringing hate,' I know what their intention is. Their intention is to make sure that our lights are dimmed. That we walk around with our heads bowed. That we lower our face and our voice.

"But we have news for people... what people are afraid of is not that there are two Muslims in Congress. What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress that have their eyes wide open, that have their feet to the ground, that know what they’re talking about, that are fearless, and that understand that they have the same election certificate as everyone else in Congress."

---

--j.

---

[1] Vargas, like the vast majority of federal and state legislators indicted by the Omar comments dubbed "anti-Semitic," is not Jewish.

[2] Two courts have already voided two of these laws on constitutional grounds; more will follow.

[3] One hopes Israelis will soon cast off this squalid regime and, with a reinvigorated commitment to human rights and respect for basic human dignity, partner with that rising tide of progressives in the U.S. and around the world to build a better future for themselves, leaving their state's current animalistic course on the ash-heap of history where it belongs.

A Candidacy Warrented? (Updated Below)

In the wake of her announcement that she's forming an exploratory committee to examine the idea, it looks like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going to be running for president in 2020. Here are the Cliff's Notes version of my ringside report on her:

Elizabeth Warren would have probably been happy to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for as long a run as she could manage; she only went into electoral politics because Republicans wouldn't let her.

Warren is basically a wonk with a great deal of expertise in specific areas, not so much outside them. She's often great on the stump--brings the populist fire--but often shows quite poor political judgment, and does herself a lot of needless harm. She's not a politician and, looking for guidance, has shown herself susceptible to the "conventional wisdom" and often-horrible advice of party insiders, a problem that could be amplified by a high-stakes presidential campaign. Perhaps more significantly, she hasn't held up very well in the face of conflict on the campaign trail, a potentially serious shortcoming for one who wants to take on a Trump. Trump in 2020 will be All Hate, All the Time. That's the only card he'll have to play. Dems need a real scrapper to tackle him. She may not be it.

Warren is a grassroots fundraising powerhouse. She's made a lot of the right enemies. Wall Street and corporate America--and the Republicans--outright despise her (which has resulted in some loud public feuds over the last few years). She has a good record of proposed progressive reforms. In general, progressives will find little substantively with which to quibble with her but in areas like foreign policy, defense, etc.--outside her range of specialization--she's been far too deferential to the party Establishment and the Clintonite right, which has hurt her reputation in some progressive circles.

Some have never forgiven her for failing to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016 but Warren didn't endorse anyone in that race until it was over, at which time she endorsed Clinton, just as did Sanders.[1] Agree or disagree with this, it was a superdelegate taking a principled stand in favor off non-interference while there was still an active contest. If the other supers had followed her example, that race may have gone very differently.

For some of the reasons listed here and because they see her as a serious rival, some supporters of progressive fave Bernie Sanders have greeted Warren's entry into the race with skepticism and even hostility. It's worth pointing out that Warren and Sanders are friends and colleagues. If Sanders were to win the nomination, she would certainly be near the top his list of vice-presidential picks, just as he'd probably be at the top of hers. Still, with Sanders set to run again, I don't know what she expects to bring to the dance and can't help but wonder what she's thinking. A comparative contest between she and Sanders can only serve to highlight the areas wherein she falls short of Sanders. If she's expecting to present herself as a sort of compromise candidate--someone who can get the progressive vote but who isn't Bernie Sanders--I just don't see how it can work. If she foregoes big-money contributions from the oligarchy,[*] there's simply no way the Clintonite right that runs the party Establishment will back her unless absolutely forced to do so, and the likelihood of that will only diminish if Warren makes overtures to get its backing, as such overtures will alienate the progressives. It's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario wherein Wall Street, which views Warren as a mortal enemy and is one of the major financiers of the Clintonite right, would go for her.

--j.

---

[1] For some reason--and this probably accounts for some of the bile directed at Warren--a lot of people remember this wrong and think Warren endorsed Clinton during the primaries. In reality, she stayed out of it until 2 days after the final round of contests.

[*] UPDATE (26 Feb., 2019) - Appearing on MSNBC, Warren has stated that, while foregoing the big-money fundraisers during the primaries, she would, if she became the candidate, begin holding them to pay for the general. Worse, she endorsed the false argument of the Clintonite right that continuing to rely only on grassroots fundraising amounts to "unilateral disarmament"--a favorite phrase of those who pretend to support reform of money in politics while engaging in an orgy of corruption and prostitution of their potential future offices to the highest bidders. If this isn't a bid to grab the support of the Clintonite right, I don't know how else to explain it. It's practical effect may just be to alienate Warren's natural base.

As I wrote in the earlier article, Warren's political judgment is often wretched.

The Premature Death of Declarations of the Death of Our Revolution

Habitues of Medium may, in recent months, have encountered an infrequent writer fashioning himself "Investigator." The non de plume is promising--the corner of Medium focused on public affairs could certainly use a healthy dose of serious investigators--but closer inspection quickly reveals that this "Investigator" is just another apologist for the Democratic party Establishment, dishing out a string of badly argued attacks against progressives. His standard technique to date has been to shotgun his readers with a string of false, fallacious or grossly misleading assertions presented in a matter-of-fact manner, the volume of them alone meant to make them look impressive, and backed up by a wall of links he hopes his readers will never check, as examining them usually deflates whatever claim he's sourced to them. In his latest, he aims his guns at Our Revolution, the non-profit founded by veterans of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and declares "The Premature death of Our Revolution."

Founded in August 2016, Our Revolution is a relatively new org. Its mission, as described by Newsweek at its launch, is "to revitalize American democracy by bringing millions of both working and young individuals into the political system; empower the next generation of progressive leaders; and elevate political consciousness by educating the public about issues confronting the country." The "Investigator"--let's call him Tig, for short--writes that the org's "goal was to get progressive candidates elected to Congress and also to push for certain ballot initiatives," a far more narrow representation of OR's mission than OR itself has ever offered. That very misleading framing is intentional. Tig's premise is that...

"Almost two years later now, I think it’s a fair assessment that Our Revolution has completely failed to get any important candidate or ballot initiative elected/approved."

...and it's much harder to make that claim if one examines the full scope of OR's activities, instead of just a narrow sliver specifically chosen to support that preordained conclusion. As it turns out, even the sliver doesn't support Tig.

Tig's assessment:

"The list of candidates endorsed by our Revolution and often by Bernie Sanders in person, who have lost their primaries/ elections is ever growing... Important Our Revolution endorsed candidates one by one lose their elections/ primaries.... The list of Our Revolution endorsed candidates who all lost their elections is huge by now. So far, not a single important race has been won by OR... So far, the electoral power of Our Revolution seems to amount to 0,0%."

Of the OR-endorsed ballot initiatives, Tig is equally as dismissive:

"All the important ballot initiatives Bernie fought for in 2016 were rejected by the voters: from California’s proposition 61, to Colorado’s Amendment 69, which would have introduced single payer healthcare in Colorado (defeated by 79 to 21%)."

OR keeps track of its endorsements and its wins/losses. The information is arranged by year on OR's site--2016, 2017 and 2018, where the contests have only just started.[1] Tig somehow declined to provide those links, and when one looks at OR's overall record, it's hardly this relentless failure Tig portrays. So far, slightly more OR-endorsed candidates have lost than won but that has as much to do with the campaigns it chooses as anything; OR backs grassroots progressives in many tough races, often in overwhelmingly Republican districts. OR-supported ballot initiatives have won more often than they've lost. From its launch, OR has endorsed 223 candidates in races that have, as of this writing, already played out. Of those, 101 won and 122 have lost. Of the 37 ballot initiatives backed by OR, 26 have won.

Tig offers some slick talk to justify his own conclusions. The slickest--and most jaw-dropping--is his declaration that he hasn't included in his assessment state and local races. "[T]his list does not include state senate or city council seats." OR backs grassroots candidates; its endorsements are primarily--and overwhelmingly--in state and local races. Tig is pretending to offer an appraisal of OR's record regarding candidates while ruling out from consideration nearly every candidate OR has endorsed. Tig contends that state and local races are entirely unimportant. "So far," he writes, "not a single important race has been won by OR," sentiment he restates throughout his article. Hilariously, he asserts that OR's endorsements in local races are just done by OR to game its success-rate. "OR tries to up its success number," he writes, "by listing city council and state senate candidates who would have won anyway, with or without OR’s help," the latter being an utterly empty claim that, like its direct opposite ("those candidates wouldn't have won without OR's endorsement"), could be made about every race (and, like Tig's version, wouldn't be entirely true in any race).

Ruling out these local races leaves Tig with a problem: a serious lack of material. When he wants to create an impressive-looking list of all those, as he defines it, "important" OR-backed candidates who failed to win in 2016 and 2017, there isn't much with which to work. His solution is to rattle off OR-backed U.S. House and Senate candidates who lost. He prefaces this with "to name just a few," but he manages to name nearly all of them. My quick scan found only one failed candidate in these categories that he missed. Even at this, he's forced to pad his list. Two of the candidates he includes--Arturo Carmona and Wendy Carrillo--both participated in the same very crowded race in California last year and OR didn't endorse either of them. Though Tig doesn't tell his readers this, at least three on his list were candidates in those local races Tig dismisses and says he isn't including; Dwight Bullard ran for state senate in Florida, Gabriel Costilla ran for state senate in Kansas and Vincent Fort ran for mayor of Atlanta. Then there's the other stuff Tig conceals from his readers. Nanette Barragan, Raul Grijalva, Rick Nolan, Marcy Kaptur, Pramilia Jayapal and  Tulsi Gabbard all won U.S. House races with OR endorsements in 2016. Jimmy Gomez won one in a 2017 special election in California. Though these fall into his "important" category as he, himself, has defined it, Tig entirely fails to mention any of them, while insisting OR hasn't won "a single important race."

When Tig turns to 2018, he lists three unsuccessful U.S. House candidates (Tig misspells Marie Newman of Illinois as "Mary Newman"), plus a mayoral candidate in Burlington, Vermont, a judicial candidate in Wisconsin and a gubernatorial candidate in Illinois. He describes all of these as "important," which is refreshing, if utterly random. He then spotlights two races as "typical" of those in which Sanders and OR involve themselves, and his examples are... that same Burlington mayoral race and Wisconsin state supreme court race he'd already covered. While he mentions Newman, he declines to mention Chuy Garcia, the OR-backed U.S. House candidate in Illinois' 4th District, who won his primary and advanced to the general election in November. He also declines to mention Laura Moser, who advanced to the runoff for the Democratic nomination in Texas' 7th District. Texas and Illinois are the only two states that have so far held their primaries this year, which also informs Tig's effort to portray OR as a failure in 2018, so he doesn't tell his readers that either.

Tig insists voters have rejected every important ballot initiative endorsed by OR. OR-backed initiatives that have passed include marijuana legalization initiatives in Maine, Nevada and California, medical marijuana in Montana, Arkansas and Florida, minimum wage increasess in Washington, Maine and Kansas City, a proposition to defeat a roll-back of the minimum wage in South Dakota, ranked-choice voting in Maine, anti-Citizens United amendments in Washington and California, an expansion of voter registration in Alaska, campaign finance reform in South Dakota and so on. Readers can decide for themselves whether these are, as Tig would have it, entirely unimportant.

Tig freely assigns to OR ridiculous motives pulled straight from his own orifices. "[T]o hide their complete lack of electoral successes, Our Revolution now proceeds to support moderate Clinton/Obama Democrats and claims their victory as their own." What he calls "a Perfect example," capitalizing the word, is Randall Woodfin, who ran for mayor of Birmingham. Tig describes Woodfin as "the Alabama State Director of Hillary Clinton’s campaign." What Tig doesn't describe is Woodfin's populist "Putting People First" campaign, which was pretty must straight Bernie Sanders--fighting for infrastructure investment, tuition-free community college for the city's high-school graduates and a $15 minimum wage (Woodfin's director of field operations was a 2016 Sanders campaign veteran). OR endorsed Woodfin in May 2017 and, alongside the progressive Working Families Party, worked on his behalf for five months, providing, among other things, 70 volunteers and making thousands of phone calls--Bernie Sanders recorded robocalls for the campaign--and text messages. OR chief Nina Turner went to Birmingham twice to campaign on his behalf. Woodfin won. To Tig, all of this was merely "to hide [OR's] complete lack of electoral successes."

Tig insists that "even conservative politicians are endorsed" by OR "based upon personal relations with Nina Turner, OR’s president":

"Dennis Cucinich who is running for governor in Ohio. There is literally nothing progressive about this candidate, who regularly goes on Fox News to defend Trump, who visited Assad in Syria and defended this mass murderer, and so on. Yet he won the endorsement of OR, most likely because his running mate (Tara Samples) is a close friend of Nina Turner."

Tig is maybe a young fellow and doesn't know it but before his perhaps questionable turn as a Fox News guest, Dennis Kucinich--Tig misspells the name--held several elective offices, most notably 16 years spent in the U.S. Congress, where he racked up one of the most progressive records in the body. Absolutely nothing about his platform--which includes a $15 minimum wage, public financing of state elections, ending fracking, marijuana legalization, etc.--would ever be mistaken for "conservative" or, indeed, anything other than uncompromisingly progressive. While Tig may believe his mindreading capabilities are top-notch, one suspects these facts, not Samples' friendship with Nina Turner, are actually behind OR's endorsement of Kucinich.

"Another way to judge how OR is doing," writes, Tig, "would be to look at its fundraising. Unfortunately it is impossible to get any info on this due to the form OR has chosen: it is a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning there is no need to disclose any numbers/ facts regarding its fundraising." Setting up OR in this way did indeed prove controversial among Berniecrats but OR does voluntarily disclose any donor who gives more than $250 in a year.[2]

Tig spends some time weaving a Clintonite persecution narrative wherein the news media uncritically treat OR as a threat to Establishment candidates. The corporate press has proven a virtual monolith of virulently anti-Sanders sentiment but in Tig's fantasy, "it seems the MSM blindly copies any pro Bernie stuff without even asking one critical question."

Yeah, I got a good chuckle out of that one too.

Tig's project is a familiar one from Clintonites, declaring the death of all things Bernie Sanders:

"Bernie’s electoral appeal never existed. Not in 2016 during the primaries, and not in 2016–2018 during down ballot races.

"In fact it’s a myth solely based upon C- rated, sleazy pollsters (Harvard-Harris) and bad unprofessional journalism."

Tig's bolding. The Harvard/Harris poll Tig mentions there has, of late, become a regular target of Clinton cultists, as it has shown, month after month, that Sanders is the most popular active politician in the U.S.. Tig, following the established talking-points, references 538's pollster ratings, which do indeed give Harris Interactive a C- but that's based on a relatively small average error of 5.5%--not enough to matter in this particular business--and those 538 ratings are, in any case, long out of date--the site to which Tig links makes clear they haven't been updated since August 2016, nearly 2 years. The Harvard/Harris collaboration began in 2017. The "sleazy" Harris is one of the longest-established pollsters in the U.S.--55 years and counting--and the "sleazy" Harvard is, well, you get the picture. Other pollsters rarely poll on Sanders' popularity now--fill in one's favorite speculation as motive for this--but when they still still did, their findings matched the then-contemporary Harvard/Harris numbers within a few points.[3] In January, when both H/H and Quinnipiac polled on Sanders; there was only a 5% difference in their results (with Quinnipiac showing a larger number of "don't know" answers than should have been the case). In February, even H/H mysteriously stopped including Sanders in its polls.

Tig despises Sanders so badly, he rhetorically links him to Trump more than once. He begins a sentence "Since November 2016, when Bernie was all too ready to start cooperating with Trump..." He rails against "bad unprofessional journalism... that, as was the case with the constant coverage of Donald Trump, wins by the suggestion Bernie is still a viable candidate." Tig can't stand the thought. He keeps insisting Sanders and OR are dead letters. "[T]he whole Bernie myth is basically history," as if the passion with which he clearly wishes to believe that could, itself, make it true.

Alas for Tig, nothing about his examination of an org that has yet to function through even one entire election cycle is going to convince anyone.

--j.

---

[1] In the 2018 cycle to date, only two states (Texas and Illinois) have held their primaries but Tig writes, "While the 2018 midterms are slowly approaching and while not every primary has been held, I think it's time to conclude that Our Revolution never accomplished much. Its candidates don't win, Bernie’s endorsement seems more like a kiss of death for candidates than anything else..."

[2] Tig suggests OR's "fundraising cannot be very impressive when we learn that OR could only contribute a measly 900 dollars to James Thompson's [2017 congressional] campaign [in Kansas], while for example Daily Kos contributed millions of grassroots dollars to Thompson." Tig's alleged source for the latter claim is a Huffington Post article that--what a surprise--doesn't say that. The actual amount Kos raised for Thompson was $143,000, most of it at the last minute. Progressive groups across the board underestimated Thompson.

[3] At the same time, many polling outlets poll on Donald Trump's popularity, and in evaluating H/H, one can match its findings against its contemporaries. The most recent H/H poll, conducted from 27-29 March, puts Trump's approval at 39%. At that time, YouGov had Trump at 39%, Morning Consult had him at 42%, Gallup at 39%, Ipsos at 40% and so on.

Mindlessly Promoting the Democratic Establishment Is Reactionary

Back in January, I critically examined a very poorly-argued article by Rantt's Kylie Cheung that alleged progressives have a problem with female candidates. Today, I came across her latest, "Blindly Smearing 'Establishment' Democrats Is Counterproductive," and featuring most of the defects of the earlier one--it's ill-informed, full of misdirection and glaring omissions and heavily dependent upon false Clinton-cult talking-points in place of any sort of sound premise--it's arguably as bad as that earlier one.

A false premise that pervades the entire piece is worked into the title. Progressives have, for years now, offered a critique of the Democratic Establishment that is both specific--meaning in no way "blind"--and based on specific actions of that Establishment--meaning in no way a "smear"--and Cheung, while attempting to dismiss it, never touches it, opting, instead, to set up and knock down a series of strawmen as stand-in.

In her subhead, she wheels out the tired Clinton cult line about progressives being "far-left purists." Talk of "purism" is the cult's stock dismissive description of anyone with any basic standards beyond party affiliation in what policies they want from a political candidate vying to represent them, and Cheung offers it here even as she, herself, clings to the sort of "purism" she makes a show of condemning. I'll get back to that in a moment. The "far left" talk is empty Clintonian triangulation--rhetorically marginalizing progressives in order to present "both sides" as extreme and artificially situate oneself as the sensible center (Cheung refers to this "far-left" as advocates of "utopic ideas and dogged, ideological purity"). The policies tagged by the cult as "far left" are, in fact, supported by huge majorities of Democrats and usually significant majorities of the general public; if they can be dubbed "far left," the designation has no meaning.

Progressives are all about policy--they have, in recent years, organized around a bold and ambitious slate of issues--but large swathes of their agenda, such as single-payer healthcare, a $15/hour minimum wage, conversion to renewable energy, etc., are absolutely anathema to entrenched Big Money interests and, by extension, to the politicians, pundits and political operatives in the pay of those interests. The latter would include the Democratic Establishment. This is an irreconcilable conflict; if progressives want those policies, it means going over, around or through the pols who are paid to oppose them. Moreover, the core conviction of the progressive critique of both the Democratic Establishment and government in general is that the bribery-and-donor-service system itself, the system that dominates American politics at every level, is fundamentally corrupt and must go. This view is an existential threat to pols like the Clintons who have thrived off prostituting their offices via that system and have used it as their power-base. This is the primary, nearly sole, root of the conflict between the progressives and the Establishment but Cheung refuses to even mention it by its name.

She tries, instead, to steer around it with oblique allusions about progressives demonizing "experience and Washington political networking." Her article--a love-letter to career politicians--is filled with paragraph after paragraph in praise of these things, framing the conflict as if they were the source of it. Assiduously avoiding that matter of money, she enters the mind of the political insiders on which she's crushing, assigning them entirely altruistic motives and, in turn, using this self-generated phantom to dismiss the progressive critique without addressing it:

"The idea that those who care enough to forge connections, educate themselves and develop literacy in policymaking and dealmaking, rack up years of experience, and align themselves with party leadership, are somehow unable to understand and work on behalf of 'real Americans' because of this proven dedication is baseless and damaging."

Most of these are just basic skills; a legislator will either learn them or he won't, and contra Cheung, progressives have certainly never taken issue with someone being good at what they do if what they do is, itself, good, but therein lies the rub, the one Cheung is trying not to rub. To note the obvious, it isn't the job of legislators to "align themselves with party leadership"; they're elected to represent their constituents. If a legislator isn't dong so, or, as is usually the case, he considers his Big Money donors to be his real constituents and serves them at everyone else's expense, that's a problem. As for "experience," Bernie Sanders, the pol who helped bring the progressive/Establishment dispute to a head, entered his first political race in the early 1970s and has held elective office since 1981--by any estimation, a very experienced pol. Sanders, who has significant political gifts, gained the support of progressives because he advocated the progressive policy agenda.

On this matter, all roads lead back to that. Policy. The rest is just squid's ink.

Cheung writes that Sanders "brought dangerous levels of divisiveness into the fold with his 'us vs. them,' 'anti-establishment vs. establishment' rhetoric," as if that rhetoric appeared in a vacuum as a pernicious alien import into the political discourse and had no basis in fact. The efforts by the party Establishment to tilt the 2016 primary/caucus process in Clinton's favor--everything from manipulating the debate schedule to establishing a major money-laundering scheme using the state parties as fronts for Clinton fundraising to the party Good Ol' Boys Club, with their superdelegate superpowers, lining up behind Clinton--are a matter of public record. The Sanders presidential campaign was a grassroots, issues-driven affair fueled by small-dollar contributions from Sanders' supporters, while Hillary Clinton was paying her bills with massive contributions solicited from entrenched Big Money interests while denigrating and dismissing progressive issues (or offering watered-down-to-nothing versions of them in an effort to undercut them).

That same situation is presently repeating itself all over the U.S. in the 2018 cycle. Sanders-inspired crowdfunded progressives have jumped into political races at all levels of government and the reaction of the Democratic Establishment has been to interfere in local primaries in an effort to defeat the grassroots candidates or bully them out of the various races in favor of corporate-backed rightist "Democrats" centrally chosen by the Establishment clique in the Capitol. In a political environment in which all the enthusiasm and activist energy in the party is with the progressives, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced in the Summer it was officially entering into what had, up to then, been a silent and unofficial alliance with the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of right-wing "Democrats" who are barely distinguishable from Republicans.[1] These are the kinds of anti-inspiring candidates the DCCC recruits, the ones behind which it throws nearly all of its support and resources. If one accepts the premise that it should be Democratic voters, not the D.C. Establishment, that choose their own Democratic candidates, the interference in these primaries by orgs like the DCCC is entirely inappropriate.

Cheung even mentions one of the races in which this has been an issue, Berniecrat Marie Newman's recent effort to unseat long-running Democratic incumbent Dan Lipinski in Illinois' 3rd District, though she declines to provide the context I just have. That's not all she leaves out either. The full extent of her take on that race:

"...none of this is to say that Democrats should never embrace change of any sort. In cases like the race of incumbent, notably anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski against progressive, liberal and notably female challenger Marie Newman, there are times when Democrats with dated, damaging values threatening to democracy and human rights simply have to go.

"But there is a significant difference between upholding basic standards of decency for our lawmakers and ruling out and smearing Democrats solely for their experience and connections."

The bolding on that dishonest strawman is Cheung's own, and at least shows that she's aware of her own hypocrisy in repeatedly damning "purists" while arguing against Lipinski from a purely "purist" perspective. Dan Lipinski, it's also worth noting, is an example of a pol with plenty of experience and Washington connections. He is, for example, one of the chairmen of the Blue Dog Coalition. And how did the Democratic Establishment handle this race? The DCCC endorsed Lipinski, throwing its money behind his ultimately successful effort to defeat his progressive rival. Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic Whip, and Joe Crowley, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, "contributed thousands of dollars to Lipinski’s campaign." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was there for Lipinski too,[2] which is hardly surprising given that the DCCC is Pelosi's creature, but the actions of the party leaders here speak directly to both Cheung's reflexive defense of pols who line up behind the party leadership and her rather ludicrous citation of Pelosi, elsewhere in the piece, as an example of "strong, highly capable female leadership." Though everything I've just outlined directly impacts on everything else Cheung writes, Cheung declines to share any of it with her readers.

Cheung's piece wouldn't be a Clinton cult screed without the boilerplate appeal to weaponized faux-identity politics and the ugly implication that progressives are sexists.[3] "I would be remiss," she writes, "to conclude without acknowledging how this phenomenon"--progressive opposition to misdeeds by the party Establishment--"disproportionately affects women in positions of power." She frets that "generations could be deprived of strong, highly capable female leadership because of the lasting attitudes of the Sanders insurgency," a complaint instantly undercut by the fact that her examples of that great "leadership" include wretched political refuse like Clinton, Pelosi and California Sen. Dinosaur Feinstein (rather than keepers like, say, Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal or Nina Turner). I'd be remiss if, in the face of that identity rubbish, I failed to point out that the army of Sanders-inspired crowdfunded progressives currently running for office, the candidates Cheung relentlessly disparages and tries to render marginal and radioactive, is disproportionately made up of women and people of color (another subset of the populace Cheung makes a rhetorical show of defending), and that the Democratic Establishment Cheung is rhapsodizing is, in race after race, trying to defeat them. Marie Newman is only one example. In Texas' 7th District, Pelosi's DCCC conducted a very public smear-campaign against progressive Laura Moser, trying to push her out of the race. In Washington's 9th District, Sarah Smith is challenging incumbent "Democrat" Adam Smith and the party is trying to monkeywrench her campaign. Tanzie Youngblood, a black former teacher, jumped into the race for New Jersey's 2nd District seat only to have the DCCC endorse, instead, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-death penalty state senator Jeff Van Drew, one of the most conservative Democratic elected officials in the state. The DCCC "Red To Blue" program hasn't endorsed a single black candidate in the 2018 cycle. And so on.

That's Cheung's Democratic Establishment. And in evaluating same, none of this merits so much as a mention from her.

Cheung does, however, spend a lot of time on Sen. Feinstein, calling her "moderate and pragmatic" and "the very image of a Clinton-esque, 'establishment' Democrat." That last one, at least, is about right. Cheung crows about the Dinosaur's "credentials" and "skill set," and for her, the bottom line is that Feinstein "has a long record of bipartisan dealmaking, upholding key relationships and experience in public service in a politically diverse landscape like Capitol Hill that these times require." For progressives, the bottom line on Feinstein is that she prostitutes her office to Big Money, opposes single-payer healthcare, is wrong on "free trade," supports the death penalty, is a war-hawk who, among other things, supported Bush's Iraq misadveture, supports the USA PATRIOT Act, has an absolutely horrendous record on civil liberties, is a fierce and long-time defender of warrantless surveillance and has repeatedly voted to expand it, voted to gut Glass Steagall, voted for the Bush tax-cuts (from which she--one of the wealthiest members of the Senate--derived a huge windfall), is wrong on the drug war and on into infinity--a great example, actually, of a Democrat "with dated, damaging values threatening to democracy and human rights." California is one of the most liberal states in the Union; it can do much better than this.

Cheung doesn't tell her readers about any of that either. While she complains that progressives aren't supporting Dinosaur and seeks to make a case for the long-running senator, her analysis of Feinstein is, like the rest of her article, almost entirely content-free insofar as policy substance is concerned, as if she believes one can do politics without the politics. Her talk of policy is almost entirely limited to the need to defend past accomplishments.

It's a particularly tired cliche of this dismal literature to melodramatically fear-monger about how past accomplishments could be rolled back if Republicans are given power.[4] From the worst of it, one would conclude that women, poor folks, people of color, those who are LGBTQ, etc. could be shipped to death camps at any moment. Clintonite pols use this in place of any positive platform as an argument for their own election. It's not only preposterously hyperbolic and utterly reactionary but a profoundly offensive inversion of reality in another way; it is and always has been progressives, not mushy "moderate" rightists, who fight for vulnerable communities. Cheung dives into the swamp anyway. "In the current national political landscape," she writes, "what we’re witnessing is an existential battle for the bare necessities" (bolding mine). But Cheung departs from the standard script and manages to offer an even more appalling--and even more reactionary--variant:

"President Donald Trump and his increasingly extremist party are not the only threats to marginalized peoples' rights in this country. Regardless of their well-meaning ideas and colorful visions for the future, electing people who lack the fundamental experiences and skill sets to fight for the basics place already vulnerable Americans further at risk."

This notion--that both votes for progressives and progressives themselves are a threat to "marginalized peoples" and that only the Democratic Establishment and those who cling to it are suited to saving the day[5]--is the central theme of Cheung's article. She restates it over and over again, doling out irrational fear in order to dismiss those progressives candidates[6] struggling to build movements to finally give their long-neglected communities a voice in government. Keeping them out of government denies them experience; their alleged lack of experience is then advanced as a rationale for keeping them out of government--a perfect exercise in reactionary circular "reasoning":

"If we fail to fight for the basics, today, by electing people who lack the requisite experiences and skills to fight for them, we could not only forfeit these basics but also lose even more ground."

Cheung even advances this ending of democracy in the name of democracy:

"When there is as much to lose--particularly for people of color, immigrants, women, low-income people, disabled people and LGBTQ people--as there is, taking chances on people with new ideas and little else backing them up is a risk our democracy may not be able to afford."

For a political party, what Cheung is peddling is the ultimate recipe for stagnation and death, and in an environment where people are so desperately clamoring for change that they turn to the likes of Donald Trump because they have some little hope he will provide it when the other side isn't offering any, it's a quick death too.

Cheung concludes by writing, "with basic decency, competency, progress and foundational Democratic values at stake, the onus is on us to make both the right choice, and the smart choice." Both the right choice and the smart choice--and the wise one--is to chuck in the nearest waste-basket everything Cheung has written here, and never think on it again.

--j.

---

[1] It's impossible to regard this move as anything other than breathtakingly tone-deaf and out of touch but it reflects the priorities and proclivities of the larger Democratic Establishment (and its financiers).

[2] In a man-bites-dog move, some elements of the larger Democratic Establishment lined up behind Newman but the elected leadership--Cheung's focus--was a monolith in supporting Lipinski.

[3] Among Rantt writers, the full litany of tired, mostly fictional Clinton cult talking-points seem to be treated as revealed gospel. Some of the others Cheung uncritically repeats include the idea that Hillary Clinton was "the most qualified candidate in U.S. history," that "we should recognize the role of [Sanders'] rhetorical talking points in helping to doom Clinton in the general election," that Sanders was "sidelining identity-based issues as purported distractions from 'real,' hard economic issues." I suppose Cheung deserves at least some credit for sparing us another rendition of "Bernie Sanders isn't even a Democrat."

[4] And given Cheung's steadfast defense of the party Establishment and her assertion in her subhead that "far-left purists will only keep Republicans in power," it's worth noting that Establishment has a terrible record when it comes to picking winners. In a progressive party, the rightists it recruits in nearly every race in which it involves itself brutally slay voter enthusiasm; in the 2016 cycle, the DCCC and the House Majority PAC spent over a million dollars in each of 30 races and lost all but 7 of them to the Republicans.

[5] This is like a steroid-infused variant on one of Hillary Clinton's 2016 smears of Bernie Sanders. Sanders advocated a single-payer healthcare system; Clinton insisted this meant Sanders wanted to repeal Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid--everything--leaving people with nothing while he tried to pass an all-new system.

[6] Again, since Cheung played the identity card, mostly women and minority candidates.

Some Thoughts On the Thoughts of That Liberal Who Couldn't Support Sanders or Corbyn

Tara Ella has written a piece, "Why This Liberal Couldn't Support Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn." It isn't very much about either Sanders or Corbyn; it's mostly a philosophical treatise from a self-described liberal who offers a preference for "smaller government." Some of my thoughts:

A lot of readers are going to look on your talk of preferring "smaller government" on rather vague "moral libertarian" grounds as allowing ideology to overrule reason. And they'd be right to do so. You don't actually engage with the arguments for the policies you're dismissing here, arguments that are much more practical than, as you seem to suggest, ideological.

The growing opposition to private health insurance, for example, doesn't flow from some ideological commitment to abstract socialism; it comes from entirely pragmatic considerations. Insurers don't add anything to patient care. They're just a middleman, and their rapacious pursuit of profit leaves huge numbers of people without any coverage, even larger numbers of people who theoretically have coverage without care or with constant bureaucratic intrusions into their care and it jacks into the stratosphere the price of care for everyone. One could perhaps do better with some theoretical public-private hybrid--it would be almost impossible to do worse--but any private involvement has to feature that profit motive, and it's just not a necessary expense.

You don't engage with any of this, and all you place against it is that ideological preference for "the smallest government method to achieve the aim…"

As another example, you write that "heavily restricting free trade is a retrograde policy that was discredited back in the 1970s," but this not only fails to engage with the objections to what is misleadingly called "free trade," it actively distorts them. The multilateral "free trade" deals to which progressives object have very little to do with trade. They're about granting legal superpowers to multinationals, establishing institutions that, among other things, allow them to collectively challenge democratically-enacted regulatory regimes and mete out economic punishment to nation-states that fail to fall in line. And falling in line means a race to the bottom for peoples everywhere in the name of profit by the few. Opposition to this is not, as you suggest, just long-out-of-date reactionary protectionism. Since you've expressed your preference for lesser government, it's also worth noting that these "free trade" agreements are, themselves, a major government intervention into economic activity, and are also protectionist (all of them extend new monopoly protections, for example, to "intellectual property"). It's just that it's carried out on behalf of these multinationals.

Now obviously, your article isn't about healthcare or this sort of "free trade" and it would be unreasonable to expect some sort of detailed discussion of every general issue you raise. What I'm describing is the impression you're giving by how you do deal with them.

When you discuss moral agency, you write that you believe "all individuals should have maximum liberty over their own lives" and that "a government that is too big is incompatible with this aim." But here, again, the issues you've raised beg questions regarding the application of this notion, questions you fail to address. Our experience with for-profit healthcare is that it utterly decimates large swathes of the population; all it takes is one injury or illness and that for-profit system can swoop in and take away everything one has, everything for which one has ever worked, completely destroying one's independence and one's opportunities in life. There's not much "liberty" left for someone in that fix. When the government facilitates the mass-export of jobs, that not only harms individuals, it devastates entire communities. This "maximum liberty" thing is a lot more complicated than you've treated it here; there's certainly much more to it than just some abstraction about the size of a government.

You ask a few questions that effectively critique elements of liberal democracy and, of course, that could be developed even further. Entrenched interests do exert undue influence over it, political representation usually isn't so great and politicians' actions frequently don't conform to public opinion--it's an extremely flawed system, arguably critically flawed. Still, the basic principle at the heart of democracy is self-determination, which is, of course, one of the most basic and indispensable principles of liberty. The liberal democracies are imperfect but they're an effort to apply this principle to a state system. Returning, in light of this, to one of those particular issues you raise, the push for single-payer healthcare is a democratic one. Advocates of the policy have been organizing, making their case for their preferred policy, supporting politicians who promise to enact it and so on. You write that the only way to preserve liberty is by limiting the size of government but that presents an obvious problem if the democratic consensus is opposed to that sort of limitation on government. That's a limitation on one principle of liberty. It may further others but again, that's an argument that must be made. You haven't made it, and your flat declaration that limiting government is the only path fails to acknowledge that the conflict exists.

Just some thoughts I had while reading your piece.

--j.

An Effort At A Contribution Toward Healthy Public Discourse On Progressives

Anthony Rogers-Wright has written a piece that asks, "Are 'Progressives' Becoming the Debasers of National Conversations?" It aims some criticism at Wisconsin congressional candidate Randy Bryce and Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who are presently attempting to unseat, respectively, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Some of this criticism is appropriate, some not so much. My effort to unpack it:

It's an unfortunate habit of the left to consume itself and let the perfect be the mortal enemy of even the very, very good. In your piece, you get some important things wrong, and while these are probably honest mistakes, they do make portions of your article an example of this. You write:

"Bryce and O'Rourke have both been bankrolled by corporate donations from 1% corporations including Amazon, Apple, Time Warner, Google and Raymond James. Accepting corporate cash is profoundly antithetical to the platform of the Justice Democrats PAC, who endorsed Bryce while appealing for, 'a strong Democratic Party that doesn't cater to corporate donors.'"

But you don't establish that either Bryce or O'Rourke have gotten "corporate donations." Direct corporate donations to a candidate are, in fact, illegal. Such donations are still made, of course, but it's done through various backdoor means. Mostly, it comes in through PACs, super PACs and various dark-money groups but while you suggest--and at times even say--Bryce and O'Rourke are accepting money from such sources, you fail to establish this. And, in fact, both have forsworn corporate money from such sources.

You compare Bryce and O'Rourke unfavorably to Bernie Sanders "because as we see in the graphic above, some of their donations lack transparency and, therefore, could be characterized as 'Dark Money'--with warrant." But the only graphic above those words shows contributors to Bryce's campaign from ActBlue and various individuals. ActBlue is not a dark-money org; it's a conduit PAC. It merely provides, for a small percentage fee, fundraising infrastructure for campaigns engaged in grassroots fundraising. Donors earmark their contributions; the donors are disclosed.

Campaign finance law doesn't require disclosure of the names of small donors--those who give less than $200 to a candidate--but anyone who donates has to list his employer. Your chart regarding O'Rourke's fundraising lists various business interests as having made donations but your source, OpenSecrets, includes in those calculations anyone who works for a given company. If, say, 10 employees of Time-Warner donate $250 each to O'Rourke, that will be listed on OpenSecrets as $2,500 from "Time-Warner," even though it may just be from janitors, drivers, comic book colorists who work for parts of this huge corporation and don't even know one another.[1] The larger chart from which you drew the data you've used does make it clear that all of the money from these sources comes from individuals. This doesn't, of course, mean there's no possible corrupt influence here--that's a much more complicated matter[2]--but contributions from working people are just that: from working people. All of them work for someone. All who contribute have to list that someone. The big employers with the most employees have the most people who may decide to contribute to a political campaign. You can immediately see the problem your framing has created; presenting their contributions as "corporate contributions" is a profound mischaracterization.

You've accused Randy Bryce of accepting such "corporate contributions"--a toxic charge when it comes to progressives--but Bryce is, in reality, mostly funded by small contributions:

That's a larger percentage than Cathy Myers, his primary opponent whom you've spotlighted, though her cut from small donations--64.24%--is also impressive.[3] And compare either to Paul Ryan, who has a massive super PAC and has only raised 5.62% of his campaign war-chest from small contributions.

Among progressives, this kind of crowdfunding is a thing that should be encouraged, not met with ill-founded attacks.

The matter of Beto O'Rourke is a bit more complicated. He's been an advocate for campaign finance reform for as long as he's been in congress and has sponsored and co-sponsored a string of bills on the subject, but in his first two campaigns, he took the corporate cash like most other pols.[4] In the last cycle, he apparently had a come-to-Jesus moment or at least recognized the irreconcilability of this and dumped the corporate PAC money. Still, he's always had a disproportionate number of large contributors; they supplied over 86% of his funds in that 2016 run. The zeroes begin to increase in a Senate race but so far, he's at least improved on that--at present, 60.28% of his funds come from the larger $200+ individual donations. It will be curious to see if that percentage goes up or down as this year proceeds.[5] He's bragged about raising most of his money from Texans.

You write:

"Additionally, both Bryce and O'Rourke's campaigns have been bolstered by a who's who list of Hollywood celebrities from Gwyneth Paltrow, to Charlize Theron, to Rosie O'Donnell who all live thousands of miles away from Wisconsin and Texas, and likely not fully informed of the specific challenges faced by the people who live in both states."

Hollywood celebrities are ideological givers. They give to causes in which they believe, not in an effort to purchase congressmen and receive favorable treatment for some business interest to the detriment of everyone else. Bernie Sanders received donations from a large number of celebrities. None of this is to say such contributions aren't potentially problematic but as corruption problems go, they're pretty far down the scale.

Down there with them at the moment is any serious fear of a "progressive Establishment," at least in the way you describe it. The last two years have seen the rise of a number of new orgs and a rejuvination of some older ones, all devoted to electing progressive candidates around the U.S.. This development is in its infancy--it hasn't even been through a single major campaign cycle yet--and as far as it has gotten, it's still a very tiny--cellular, even--David compared to the Goliathean forces arrayed against it. It's years--maybe decades--away from devolving into the kind of rich, fat, intellectually bankrupt and exclusive country club that perpetually rests on its flabby laurels, revels in old campaign war stories from the Glory Days and smothers innovation while complaining about those darn kids and their lack of respect for its Great Accomplishments. It may never make it that far; that remains to be seen. For now, it's an embryonic, neophyte, outgunned underdog, nowhere near the Man.

These criticisms aside, your larger point, that candidates should debate their primary opponents, is dead on target. It's a regular practice for frontrunners to refuse to debate their opponents. Some, like Nancy Pelosi, make it a regular practice to refuse to even acknowledge the existence of their primary challengers. One either believes in liberal democracy or one doesn't, and if one does, playing those sorts of games simply isn't defensible. For the new wave of crowdfunded progressive candidates that has arisen, carrying on in this way doesn't really debase the national conversation--that's pretty much where things have been for years--but it doesn't elevate it either, which is something such progressives should be in the business of doing. Any respect for a healthy public discourse demands no less. Something else it imposes is an obligation to try to get things right, and it's in this spirit that I offer my remarks here.

--j.

---

[1] OpenSecrets is, in general, an invaluable resource but its data when it comes to this sort of thing must be used carefully.

[2] Bundled contributions, for example, can be used by various interests to get around campaign finance law; on paper, they're just a bunch of contributions from individuals. When it comes to trying to track campaign finance, such bundling can cause some real headaches.

[3] The items listed on Bryce's ledger as "PAC Contributions" aren't the big business corporations either:

[4] Thought it was never a big part of his overall take.

[5] Back in the Summer, Politifact did a piece on his fundraising that turned into a great little primer on the difficulties of tracking some areas of campaign finance via the publicly available resources.

Texas Democratic Primary Wrap-Up

[I started this as a Facebook post, it ran a bit long, so I just decided to put it here--easier for those interested to share.]

Yesterday's Texas primaries were pretty good to the progressive House and Senate candidates spotlighted by this blog, most of whom either won or made it to runoffs to be held later this year (the Texas runoff system is triggered when no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote).

--Born-again progressive Beto O'Rourke handily won the Democratic Senate primary, beating progressie Sema Hernandez and capturing over 61% of the vote. He will face Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz in the general.

--In the much-contested 7th District, progressive Laura Moser will take on EMILYs List-backed corporate "Democrat" Lizzie Fletcher in a runoff. Progressive Justin Westin finished in 3rd place. This race drew a lot of attention because the DCCC savagely attacked Moser only days before the vote but corporate "Democrat" Alex Triantaphyllis, who was recruited by the DCCC, finished in 4th, drawing only 15.7% of the vote.

--In the 12th District, progressive Vanessa Adia's opponent withdrew from the race at the last moment. Adia will go on to face Republican incumbent Kay Granger in the general.

--In the 14th, progressive Adrienne Bell dominated Levi Barnes, raking in nearly 80% of the vote. She'll go on to face Republican incumbent Randy Weber in the general.

--In the 16th, progressive Veronica Escobar dominated a crowded field, capturing over 61% of the vote. She'll face off against Republican Rick Seeberger in the general but this is a very strong Democratic district, the seat Beto O'Rourke gave up to run for Senate, and her win in the primary virtually guarantees she's going to Washington.

--In the 21st, Progressive Mary Wilson and the DCCC's pick, self-financing "ex"-Republican Joseph Kopser, will face off in a runoff. Progressive Derrick Crowe fared relatively poorly, finishing in 3rd place with only 23.1% of the vote. Today, he endorsed Wilson.

--In the 22nd, progressive Letitia Plummer will face off against Sri Kulkarni (who seems relatively progressive) in a runoff. Progressive Steve Brown finished in third place.

--In the 23rd, progressive Rick Treviño will square off against Gina Jones in a runoff. Jay Hulings, the DCCC's conservative pick, finished in 4th place.

--In the 26th, progressive Linsey Fagan defeated Will Fisher--she will advance to the general, where she will face Republican incumbent Michael Burgess.

--In the 29th, Sylvia Garcia, who, when I was researching her, seemed a pretty standard-issue Democrat, crushed self-funder Tahir Javed in a one-sided massacre. This is a heavily Democratic district; Garcia is virtually guaranteed to win the general. Hector Morales suffered perhaps the worst progressive defeat of the evening, finishing in 4th place with only 3% of the vote.

--In the 32nd, Colin Allred and Lilian Salerno--the two progressives in the crowded primary--will now compete in a runoff. Ed Meier, Hillary Clinton hecubi and backed by the Clinton machine, finished in 4th place with only 13.7% of the vote.

--In the 26th, progressive Dayna Steele crushed Jon Powell; she will go on to face Republican incumbent Brian Babin in the Fall.

Other notes, both good and bad: The Associated Press reports today that turnout in the Democratic primaries was the highest it had been in 16 years. Believe it or not, Texas has apparently never sent a Latina to congress; wins in two heavily Democratic districts mean it will probably be sending two this year (Escobar and Garcia). The 28th District is heavily Democratic and could elect a good candidate but instead, Henry Cuellar, a "Democrat" who votes with Trump over 60% of the time, ran unopposed there and will be going back to congress next year. Trumpanzee Kathaleen Wall spent $6 million trying to get the Repub nomination in the 2nd District and ended up in 3rd place--didn't even make the runoff.

--j.