[ Democrats have reneged on their longtime promise to codify Roe
v. Wade every time they’ve held power. Party leaders will not
fulfill that promise until and unless they fear their own voters.]
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DEMOCRATIC LEADERS DON’T FEAR THEIR OWN BASE. THEY SHOULD.  
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David Sirota
June 25, 2022
Jacobin
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_ Democrats have reneged on their longtime promise to codify Roe v.
Wade every time they’ve held power. Party leaders will not fulfill
that promise until and unless they fear their own voters. _

US president Joe Biden enters to deliver remarks regarding the
Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade at the White House, June 24,
2022., Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post via Getty Images

 

After the overturning of _Roe v. Wade_, there is bad news and there
is good news. But first, an admission.

For most of my adult life, I’ve clung to a grand unifying theory:
the only way to fight off right-wing fascism is not just to build a
well-organized progressive movement but to also mobilize rank-and-file
apolitical Democratic voters to press their own party to deliver.

If Democratic base constituencies — college-educated white collars,
communities of color, young people, etc. — went beyond merely voting
in November and actually made demands of their Democratic lawmakers
(and held them accountable in primaries), then maybe the party would
pursue its purported agenda with the same urgency as the Republican
Party does for its conservative base. And if that happened, maybe more
voters would flock to Democrats who were materially improving their
lives.

Over the last twenty-five years, the opposite has happened.

While Republican normie voters were being radicalized by Fox News and
talk radio, Democratic normie voters were being anesthetized by
NPR, the_ New York Times_, the_ Atlantic,_ and MSNBC, which taught
[[link removed]?] them
to believe that an extremist like John Roberts is a lovable moderate
[[link removed]], Mike
Pence is an American hero
[[link removed]], George
Bush is a decent guy
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and an operative who installed Sam Alito on the court
[[link removed]] is
a warrior for democracy.

That media machine convinced Democratic normies to believe the highest
calling of citizenship was to simply line up behind party-approved
candidates, crush progressive challengers in primaries, and “vote
blue no matter who” in general elections — and then do nothing
more, even when “electable” conservative Democrats lost and the
few winners produced no change. The worst thing anyone could do, they
taught viewers, was criticize, pressure, or protest Democratic leaders
to try to get them to do _anything_.

At the same time, Barack Obama and his administration persuaded normie
Democrats that the celebrity candidate would save the day, that
progressive pressure campaigns are “fucking retarded
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that Obama’s handpicked candidate, Hillary Clinton, was the most
viable successor. Meanwhile, the labor movement was crushed by
Democrats’ trade deals and corporate union busting, disempowering
what had been a radicalizing force inside the Democratic coalition.
And yet, here’s the admission: It wasn’t just external factors
that undermined this effort to mobilize normies. It was a failure of
an entire generation of operatives, activists, advocacy journalists,
policy wonks, philanthropists, filmmakers, pundits, labor leaders,
think tankers, Capitol Hill staff, and politicians in left-of-center
politics — and I include myself in that group of failures.

“We’ve Been Trying to Warn You”

We could console ourselves by feeling like _Don’t Look Up_’s Dr
Mindy when he points up at the comet and says, “We’ve been trying
to warn you!”

But let’s admit it: The campaigns, advocacy, and pressure of my
generation and the Boomers did not radicalize the normies quickly
enough. We were not just outgunned by conservatives, outspent by
corporatists, and undermined by liberal
[[link removed]] careerists
[[link removed]] selling
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souls
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the next hot take — we were also outmaneuvered, outsmarted, and
outperformed.

We failed, and that failure allowed Democratic leaders to never fear
their own base — to the point where Democratic voters gave their
presidential nomination to the candidate who authored
[[link removed]] the
crime bill, allied
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segregationists, championed
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Iraq War, touted
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Security cuts, voted
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let states restrict abortion, and sharpened
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laws.

So here’s the bad news: because this dynamic allowed Democratic
leaders to never feel the heat of accountability, they never wielded
their power to make a serious effort to avert the current nightmare.
In many cases, they did the opposite.

The Obama presidency was defined by initiatives to prop up health
insurance predators
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Wall Street criminals
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and abandon
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Democratic voters, which created the backlash conditions
and depressed turnout
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helped lead to Donald Trump’s ascent. The Joe Biden presidency has
been similarly defined by the party living up to the president’s
promise that “nothing would fundamentally change”
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and its attendant unwillingness to materially improve the lives of
anyone other than billionaires and corporate executives, all while the
administration boosts various
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The crescendo of this phantasmagoria has led to this grim reality: as
conservative justices now turn on a spigot of extremist rulings, the
Democratic president is giving half-hearted speeches
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he has no power, and issuing reports
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even support expanding the Supreme Court — due to concerns about
protecting “its independence and legitimacy.”

For their part, Democratic congressional leaders are singing
patriotic ballads
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out fundraising emails
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They expect yet another positive response from a base that up until
now has politely asked for — but never really _demanded_ —
anything from them in return.

“Politicians Respond to Only One Thing — Power”

If you’ve somehow read this far, you are probably gut punched. But
here’s the good-news payoff for still being here: yes, there are
signs that, at this dangerously late hour, normie Democratic voters
may finally have had enough of this shit.

Last month, a stat buried in an NBC News poll
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that nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters said they now want a
candidate “who proposes larger-scale policies that cost more and
might be harder to pass into law, but could bring major change.”
Just a third said they prefer a candidate “who proposes
smaller-scale policies that cost less and might be easier to pass into
law, but will bring less change on these issues.”

Put another way: 63 percent of the party is finally radicalized, and
just 33 percent are still clinging to the normie view. This might
explain why a group of progressive congressional challengers recently
overcame the odds and won their primaries
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even against party leaders’ endorsements.

At the same time, a Fairleigh Dickinson University survey
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a plurality of Americans no longer buy Democrats’ argument that they
have no power to do anything — and that includes a quarter of
Democrats and nearly half of independents. A full 50 percent of
Democrats say President Biden has power to reduce inflation and health
care costs.

Quinnipiac’s new poll
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shows just a quarter of young voters approve of the way Biden is
handling his job, and his numbers are similarly low among black and
Latino voters.

Taken together, this is empirical proof that core Democratic
constituencies may finally be evaluating their party’s president on
his actual record, rather than just mindlessly cheering him on because
he’s wearing the blue home-team jersey.

This healthy attitude is starting to seep into popular culture. As one
example: _The Daily Show_ — historically the normiest of normie
Democratic television programs — is now openly mocking
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leaders’ refusal to do anything to stop the Republican onslaught. As
Democratic policy wonk Will Stancil
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that’s a sign that “anger at do-nothing Dems really has gone
completely mainstream in a way that seemed impossible three or four
years ago.”

If history is any indication, that’s good. Democratic leaders only
did things like enact Social Security, create Medicare, pass the
Voting Rights Act, and end the Vietnam War once they feared the
electoral consequences of inaction. The same dynamic holds today: you
can bet Democratic leaders will not fulfill their longtime promise to
statutorily codify reproductive rights until and unless they feel the
same kind of anger and pressure as their predecessors felt in their
day.
That’s how democracy is supposed to work: we’re supposed to
evaluate representatives not on their personalities or party
affiliations, but on their records, and when they fail to deliver on
their promises, those representatives are supposed to fear being
denied their party’s nomination and thrown out of office by their
own voters.

“Politicians respond to only one thing — power,” wrote
[[link removed]] Ta-Nehisi
Coates back in 2011. “This is not the flaw of democracy, it’s the
entire point. It’s the job of activists to generate, and apply,
enough pressure on the system to affect change.”

That’s how the American right ultimately brought us to this horrible
moment: they conditioned Republican voters to actually expect and
demand things, and punish those who wouldn’t deliver.

That same attitude is what’s needed from Democratic voters now —
not just rage aimed at the conservative ideologues turning back the
clock, but also rage at the Democrats who control the government
today. Those elected officials must be forced kicking and screaming
— against their own desires — to actually produce. Not tomorrow.
Now.

Of course, many of us have been saying this for decades — and have
been berated and belittled for doing so. But at least for a moment, it
finally feels like we’re no longer alone.

If that’s fleeting, we’re screwed. If it’s enduring, then
there’s still a tiny glimmer of hope.

You can subscribe to David Sirota’s investigative journalism
project, the_ Lever_, here [[link removed]].

* Democratic Party
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* Roe v. Wade
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