All this hinges on the implicit even handedness of the playing field. When it comes to racial outcomes there's a basic assumption that people of all races are more or less equal so there shouldn't be much variation between the races and the immense variation we see is "unnatural"

When it comes to races the Democratic Party banks on the explicit saying that the primaries are even handed. That if you run then the endorsements, money, etc are products of your work independent of the DCCC. They need that because they need the buy in from the voters from the defeated candidate. If the assumption becomes that the DCCC picks the winners and then trying to throw the race by giving money and endorsements behind the scenes, why would people who would vote for the defeated candidate believe that the best person won and vote for the winner of the primary? They wouldn't. Which is why there's the constant shift between "we welcome everyone" and "this is the way it goes, you don't have a choice" instead of just picking one or the other and being honest about it.

Obama wasn’t my preferred candidate before votes were cast. He was competent and earned my support and a ton of other votes.

The funny thing about this stuff is - whatever the problems with the superdelegate process, it was very important for the national Democratic Party to at least give the appearance of a fair and unbiased primary in 2016, and to not give the appearance of favoring one candidate over another. They failed miserably, but they at least tried, and still got lots of criticism.

The stuff the DCCC pulls in local congressional primaries is way worse than superdelegates. They outright pick candidates to support and endorse and try to slime other primary candidates as if they were Republicans in a general election. Picture the 2016 election if the DNC just flat-out said before the first primary that they were choosing to endorse Hillary and give her all the monies.

Heh, this is perfectly in line with the post I just made. Want to guess what the difference was between the DNC's behavior in the 2008 primary and the DCCC's involvement in any of these congressional elections we're talking about? You're refuting your own argument!

The Progressive Candidates Rights vs. Civil Rights tangent is kinda hard to unpack here but

Of course minorities should not have had to fight for their rights; that is a Bad Thing.

However the minorities who actually fought for their rights were smart enough to operate in the world as it existed and it was this acceptance that allowed them to make the great gains that they did.

This Democratic Party thing seems.. not really the same. I mean, the entrenched power structure in the Civil Rights was like entire state governments and huge swaths of the white population; you can't really change that by asking nicely and it takes radical direct action to do so. It seems a lot more plausible (although maybe still difficult!) for the power structure of a political party to be changed without needing to fight for it and "earn it" in the same way.

At the same time, progressive candidates are not fundamentally entitled to have "equal rights" in the democratic party; the party should help candidates that give it some combination of ability to win and policy platform that it finds agreeable. I don't really see why they are obligated to give progressive candidates a fair shot if those aren't the candidates they really want.

Like, you just pulled out a race (the 2008 primary) that was run on the conditions we are arguing for (party did not pick and choose a preferred candidate) thinking it supports your argument. Wow.

Like if Steven Miller decided to run for Congress as a democrat on the platform of "I'm a nazi" does the DCCC have to give him a fair shot?

I submit that the real problem you have with the DCCC is not that they are "unfair" but simply that they aren't progressive enough and don't favor the candidates you want them to favor.

This isn't an unfair complaint and it's certainly something you can try to change.

The DCCC isn't a ref, it's an interest group. The interest is making Pelosi, who is basically Team Leftist, the Speaker. That means winning elections. I don't have the the foggiest idea who the stronger of the two candidates in this race is, but both Team Leftist and Team Centrist have fielded winning candidates in the past.

I agree, and like I said I was never talking about the Civil Rights era until Max brought up a rather bizarre analogy. I think the last paragraph of my quote you posted illustrates clearly what I was talking about re: white supremacy.

The bolded is what our discussion is kind of hinging on at the moment. Max is laughably arguing that they are getting a fair shot, seems like you disagree with him on that point just like I do. Whether progressives should get "equal rights" within the Democratic party is an interesting discussion, but it's one we can't really have until you (general "you", mostly just Max and maybe Loki) concede that they don't already. It's like talking about racism with someone who thinks everything became equal when the CRA was passed.

If the Democratic Party is not a party for progressives then they shouldn't expect progressives' votes or money.

Right, it's an issue of hypocrisy more so than rights. They want progressive votes while hobbling progressives while pretending to be an honest broker.

Very well said. This circles back nicely to Loki's original post, and also addresses TD's point of "what if Stephen Miller runs for a Democratic seat, should the party speak up against him?"

You can't simultaneously say "**** off with your candidates, progressives" and say "but wow I can't believe you didn't show up and vote for us, such betrayal". Pick one.

If the progressives cannot go out and earn contributions from Goldman Sachs then they don't deserve to win.

Okay, yeah I may have misread a little bit what was going on. I agree that no one is really getting a "fair shot" and that the closer you are to some party calculated (agreement with policy X chance to win the specific election) the more support you get. So I guess there are kind of three questions:

1) Is there anything wrong with the party supporting some candidates over others?
I submit the answer is no; the party should support candidates it likes.

2) Is the party calculating correctly the "chance to win the specific election" component or are they wrongly dinging progressives on that point?
I think they are underestimating progressives' chances to win (currently, I don't know about in the past), probably because they are biased because they are more centrists personally.

3) Is the party progressive enough?
This is mostly a personal question.

Yes and no, I guess. The progressives themselves are in kind of a bad situation in the current environment where they either (a) vote for the democrats while weakly complaining about real progressives not getting a fair shot or (b) stay home / protest vote Jill Stein.

(a) gives you okay outcomes but not what you really want, and also basically guarantees you don't get what you want forever.

(b) gives you a somewhat better shot at getting what you want but also greatly ups the odds of getting RWNJ


It's a tough choice and I don't really know what the right answer is; I'd like to say it's something along the lines of continuing to support the democrats while also organizing on the left - biding time for the hopeful time the GOP just blows itself up out of sheer insanity.

Then maybe a party could appear to the left of the democrats, the democrats can shift a bit further right, and we can have a sane two party dichotomy again

I thought you meant civil rights a when you said white supremacy Still not sure what you were trying to say but I’m lucky enough now not to care.

Cool, bye now

It’s just a political party. It’s not going to make anybody 100% happy Or always do what some subgroup wants on contentious issues. Progressives can support democrats if they think it’s in their interest and it usually is.

The DCCC is openly corrupt and those who support this **** are cowards, full stop. Burn it all down and start over.

Well the thing about your analogy where the progressives are the civil rights activists is that it means the DCCC are... the White Supremacists.

So it’s not a great defense of the DCCC

Again, why did republicans go from middle of the road to extreme partisan once they started reliably winning elections? Why did dems get to push stuff like social security when they were winning elections?

The reality of an election is that one candidate is more progressive than the other. If you don’t support the more progressive candidate, their party loses power and you don’t get to whine about it later when they start compromising in the direction of the party that’s winning. I said this before the 2016 election. Look what happened. Are the people running for and winning special elections extreme liberals or moderate, right-leaning types? You tell me how Doug Jones voted in the Pompeo confirmation.

I know it really hurts your feelings that reality doesn’t work the way you want it to, but the other side gets it and progressives need to understand at some point as well.

It wasn’t a defense of the DCCC, it was a criticism of people who think they can’t get what they want because the system is rigged and 0% because of their own shortcomings.

Just lol @ these establishment cheerleaders trying to talk down to anyone. Your candidate lost to Donald ****ing Trump; go sip your juice while the grownups try to figure out how to fix this mess.

Because you didn't really address it and I know you hate "so you're saying..." posts despite the fact that you often employ them yourself, I will simply ask you:

Are you saying that it's cool to both say "**** off with your candidates progressives, we here at the DCCC want the centrist to win" while also saying "wow can't believe you progressives stayed home angrily after we ****ed over your candidates, such betrayal"?

And in this snippet btw:

What the ****? Like, Democrats are moving to the right because of progressives?
1. lol
2. Dems moving to the right and betting on country club Republicans cost them the 2016 election, so maybe they should...not do that? What the **** is this "progressives left them no choice" BS?

Turns out everyone bitching about the DCCC rigging the primaries has a point, but have the candidates looked inside themselves to see where they're truly at fault for not winning?