When Losing Is Winning
Corporate Democrats Would Rather Lose to Republicans than Enact Progressive Reforms
Call me cynical, but the establishment Democratic Party would rather lose to Republicans, even those Maniacal Trumpers, than win with strong progressive candidates.
The reason is obvious: money. The Democratic Party is all about raising money. The best way to raise money is to do the bidding of the corporate overlords. That’s why you don’t see firm commitments to a $15 federal minimum wage, or single-payer health care, or reducing the Pentagon budget. The Democrats are a pro-business, pro-rich, pro-establishment party with a large hierarchy that thrives on corporate cash. Whether it wins at the polls or loses, it still wins at the one “poll” that matters, and that’s raising corporate cash.
Consider the “big names” in the Democratic Party. The Obamas, the Clintons, the Bidens, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and so on. They are all bought and paid for. They have all been corrupted by money, willingly so. They see it as their right to cash-in on their public “service.” They are the servants of Wall Street, Big Pharma, the military-industrial complex, and other power centers. That’s how they attained thier positions in the first place.
It’s something of a truism that Democrats would rather lose to Republicans than submit to a progressive agenda like the one espoused by Bernie Sanders. (Forget about Ralph Nader; to the Corporate Democrats, he may as well be the antichrist.)
Things are so bad that the Democratic establishment is actually funding Trumpian Republicans, thinking that the latter will be unelectable because they’re too far right, too batshit crazy. But, my fellow Americans, there’s plenty of room on the right, and plenty of support for batshit crazy positions in this land of ours.
America is a strange bird with two right wings. I guess that’s why we don’t soar as a country anymore. We just flap aimlessly in circles on the ground, our withered left wing incapable of providing balance and lift.
I agree with all you say here, Bill. And yet....the Rs have done a very effective job of convincing even many left-of-center people that progressive values are extreme left-wing, fringe, Commie ideas. I can't tell you how many comments I've seen in supposedly "liberal" forums decrying how far left the Dems have moved. Sanders keeps asking if affordable healthcare, a living wage, and a habitable planet are "fringe" values, but his voice is lost in the noise.
I admit I felt disappointment on learning that the DNC was funding the most out-there R candidates in the primaries so they could have a better chance at defeating them in November. I was surprised they could sink lower in my estimation. I wish I could remember where I read the comment, but it was something like, "America is so rich even their one party system has two parties." Like having two Cadillacs or two swimming pools. That said, my ballot is blue as the sky. Sigh.