Democrats Are So Cooked

Inside the latest DNC scandal, and why I was wrong about David Hogg.

The Democratic National Committee really wants to improve the Democratic Party. Ideally, they’d like it to be a party that voters react to with feelings other than disgust, shame, and blazing hatred. In the Second Trump Age, the name of the game is reform. That’s what the DNC wants because that’s what the Democratic Party, and the country, needs.

They want change, baby! They’d just prefer to have it without actually making anything different.

The party’s treatment of vice chair David Hogg - who I have criticized in the past - reminds me of a funny story involving my old boss.

“Larry”

The weirdest and most frustrating meeting I’ve ever attended in all my years teaching went off the rails because of a simple question asked by yours truly.

I was part of a teacher-administrator working group that had blocked off time to discuss an upcoming pay& benefits review. The school held one of these biannually and it always featured a pro forma solicitation of staff feedback in order to determine what teacher priorities were and how best to tweak the contracts for the benefit of all.

This was a private school, so no union involvement, and the changes resulting from this process were typically small. Still, the gesture was a nice one. “What would make you enjoy working here more?” is a nice question to be asked, so I was happy to be part of the team.

My boss - let’s call him Larry - had a grand plan: that year, instead of merely sending a survey to teachers, we would hold a massive, multi-hour meeting with the whole staff. There would be breakout groups, led by teacher representatives, who would studiously hear every concern, filter it up to the top brass, and ensure that what we came away with was a contract structure suitable for all.

I’d been a teacher rep for some time, and so I knew well what the first request was going to be. It wasn’t hard to predict: teachers were going to want more money and a newly revised pay scale for returning staff.

Typically, these reviews didn’t address salary. That was too thorny. We were allowed input on the contractual margins, but not on anything major, or majorly expensive. But since Larry was so hell-bent on staging this grand, feedback orgy, I thought I should at least ask. As a group leader, do I allow requests for better salary to be considered, or explain that they’re off the table?

Larry was a great boss in a lot of ways. He really only had one flaw: he was completely allergic to criticism. He personalized everything, and regularly wasted huge chunks of meeting time to spin his wheels and avoid accepting blame. For anything. Even for things for which nobody was blaming him.

When I asked the salary question, I watched in real-time as Larry short-circuited. Apparently, it had not occurred to him until now that a fully collaborative, all-access feedback bonanza would make it possible, at least in theory, for employees to register negative feedback. Larry really did want to be a collaborative boss. He liked the sound of that, and liked the self-image it gave him.

The reality of collaboration though, was too much for him. Even in theory. Even just to think about. I watched in horror as Larry backtracked on every idea he’d proposed. We didn’t really need the feedback groups to be led by teacher reps. In fact, we didn’t need the groups at all. Or the meeting. Or even the survey. Or even this meeting.

Things ended abruptly, with Larry and his assistant closing the door on the rest of us, hammering out the new contracts with no input from anyone, and announcing them as a fait accompli.

The school never held a benefits review again.

“Change” Is Just A Slogan

Apparently, the Democratic National Committee shares Larry’s sensibilities. They want change. Just not to be changed. They want new perspectives. Just not to listen to them. They want new leaders. Just not for them to lead.

Making actual, structural changes to how the party picks its leaders - something that really should have been on the agenda since the first time they cockblocked Bernie Sanders - is regarded as a third rail. They won’t touch it. The establishment will not cede power - which is, in fairness, a common feature of establishments. But they won’t even allow process alterations that could lead one day to their having to cede power. Not ideal for a supposedly *democratic* organization.

Republicans used to get dinged for giving important slots and nominations to whomever’s turn it was. To the next guy in line. That hasn’t really been true of the GOP since it became an offshoot of The Trump Organization, but it is very true of the Democrats. These people simply do not trust their voters to make the “right” choice.

Again, this is not a new phenomenon. The hysterically undemocratic superdelegate system exists for precisely this reason. Anti-democracy is pretty openly how Dems justify their existence. “Well, what if the voters got attached to some obviously unfit person just because, like, they were popular or whatever?” The party needs the superdelegates to ensure that decisions are made by the grown ups, and not the rabble.

Currently, the grown ups are in the process of attempting a pathetic, desperate maneuver to oust newly-elected vice chairs David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta for - it sure looks like, anyway - the crime of doing the exact thing those guys were elected to do: change how the Democratic Party operates.

They Don’t Want To Have To Listen To You

Hogg’s sin was his promise [threat] to raise $20 million to primary pointless Democrats in safe seats, thus clearing the party of dead wood, not risking the actual loss of any seats, but sending a clear message that elected Democrats are public servants and not members of a country club board tasked with keeping undesirables on the other side of the moat.

Obviously, this is not going over well with dead-wood dino-Dems whose primary concern is…keeping undesirables on the other side of the moat. So they, and the party apparatus that caters to their needs, are pushing back against this dangerous new idea, and in the dirtiest way imaginable.

Hogg’s and Kenyatta’s ascensions to vice chair spots are being voided on the grounds that improper parliamentary procedure was used to elect them. Ostensibly, this is totally unrelated to Hogg’s “get good or get gone” promise. Yes, the DNC wants Hogg to remain neutral in elections, and yes, they are rushing through a rules change that would forbid VCs from doing what Hogg wants to do.

But no, that has nothing to do with attempts to get rid of him! I mean, God, you guys, like how could you even think that? The Democratic Party does not stand for interference that obstructs the will of the people from being implemented and it does not bend over to serve the establishment.

Where the hell are people getting these ideas? Must be the Russians again..

The actual details of the anti-Hogg putsch are incredibly convoluted. You can read the complaint here, though I do not recommend actually doing so. Unless you are a voting member of the DNC, it is quite mind-numbing.

The broad strokes are: the DNC has rules requiring gender parity in its slate of vice chairs. A recent push to accommodate candidacies from individuals who identify as non-binary, landed the party with a men’s category, a women’s category, and an all-gender category. Some of the rules were new, so in the February elections, no one apparently understood how to correctly execute multiple rounds of balloting in three, overlapping categories, for four vice chair spots, and four other officer spots, with committee members sometimes being instructed to vote twice.

For what it’s worth, Hogg and Kenyatta do appear to have benefited from a disorganized process that let them compete one-on-one in the men’s category while three women (all ultimately defeated) vied to top the all-gender pool along with, again, Hogg and Kenyatta. Voters were told they had to pick a man, and that a final, all-gender vote would follow. Then, those rules were disregarded for some reason - possibly just to speed things along. Reading the instructions given by the presiding officer, one can pretty easily get a sense of how this fog of confusion derailed things:

“As we must elect a candidate of any gender as well as one male and one female vice chair, we will first ask members to elect a candidate of any gender on the first ballot. Any candidate, male, female, and nonbinary can be elected on that ballot. After a candidate is elected on the first ballot, we'll have one officer of the three. So we will know which position is filled of the one male, one female, and one vice chair of any gender. Our second ballot will also be for a candidate of any gender. Then our third ballot will be the third position that is remaining based on the two results, either a male candidate, if a candidate that is not male that has not been elected, or a female candidate, if a female has not been elected.”

It is actually fair enough to say that if the process broke down, it should be rectified, but…

• It’s impossible (for me, anyway) to regard Hogg’s treatment as truly separate from his having pissed off the bigwigs. The timing is too convenient.

• The end result of this shitshow was an appropriately gender balanced slate of officers per DNC rules, so the injury done here, it was done to a particular candidate, not so much to the process or the party itself.

• At best, this makes Democrats look like dim-witted buffoons who can’t read their own instruction manual.

• At worst, it makes them look like corrupt and dim-witted buffoons who can’t read their own instruction manual.

• The woman filing the complaint does not look likely to have won anyway, even if the rules had been correctly applied, making it hard for me to believe that she lodged this complaint for purely independent or personal reasons. Smart money says she was encouraged.

So yeah. Not off to a great start, guys.

Mea Culpa

Maybe the only glimmer of hope here is that David Hogg is shaping up to be a lot better than I expected.

Like I said, I’ve written critically about Hogg. Not about him personally, but about the decision to elevate him to Vice Chair, which I thought was a bad one. I hereby withdraw [some of] my complaints [though cautiously, and I reserve the right to reinstate them at any time, for any reason].

Not only do I strongly approve of Hogg’s efforts to primary pointless Democrats out of their jobs, and love the fact that he reportedly told Jim Clyburn, “get over yourself,” I’ve been impressed with him generally.

His recent appearance on Bill Maher was one of the only instances I’ve seen since November of a high-profile Democrat making sense about what went wrong and what needs to change. His observation that Dem-skeptical men mostly just want a party that doesn’t go out of its way to antagonize them, is spot on. I’ve written about it myself.

I offer my apologies to David Hogg, a man I was premature in doubting. When I’m wrong, I’m wrong. This kid might know what he’s doing.

So yeah, by all means, time to kick his ass to the curb!