Yes, Donald Trump is very important. But for this, the Democrats must turn into a fighting force for economic justice.
DNC Chairman Candidates are found in Detroit on January 16, 2025.
(Politico / YouTube)
The Democrats affect the defeat they suffered in the November elections. On Saturday, they have the first great chance to determine how to return themselves from the political desert – choosing a new slate of leaders for the Democratic National Committee.
In the party there is Reliable candidates For the DNC Chair Message and for Different vice -charters and executive positions This will be filled with 448 party insiders, labor leaders and elected officials.
Most of the media focused on the competition for the chairman from the perspective that the winner could become the leading face of the confrontation between Donald Trump’s dangerous presidency. This is especially true, according to activists with groups such as Moveon and the progressive change committee, if it is a dynamic figure, such as the Democratic Party of the chairman of Wisconsin I am viclerOne of the two main run in the race for the main work, the second-chairman of the Minnesota Ken Martin, a veteran Paul Welstone.
Of course, repulsion from Trump will be a vital task for the new main team. But this is not enough. Democrats need leaders who will manage the radical transformation of the party and vision of the party. In the end, it is a political organization that, despite significant resources and hard -working years ago, were on far -off American politics.
The overhaul must be both internal and external.
It is necessary – the Democratic Party, where the organizations of mass and their allies in the field of labor, environmental and civil human rights organizations sweep the condescension For.
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This means that the next DNC chairman may not just be a competent album manager, even worse, a simple supplement to the funding for the Congress party leadership. The chairman, together with the Vice -Slavs, should lead in such a way that Trump and his minions are not the only ones that determine our political moment.
The story tells us what is required. In the past party had transformation chairs: Paul Butlerwhich was known for his “His acidic speeches against the democratic leaders of the Congress, Southern Segregation” in the 1950s; Ron Brownwhich took over the true commitment to the diversity and mobilization of new cars (with the help of Rev. Jessan) in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and Howard Dean who submitted 50-state strategy with considerable success in the 2000s. But what the party needs now is a new Fred Harris version of the 21st century the tough populist of Oklahoma which shaved DNA during his short stay in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
They no longer make politicians like Harris. But today’s DNC members should look for a leader who can bring his combination of internal and external populism.
Harris, Senator from Oklahoma, which is known 1976 With the slogan “Tax is saturated!” – And the promise of the company “no more bullshit!” .died last fall at the age of 94. Most of the obituary remembered him as a devoted anti -Russianist (he was the last survivor Kerner’s Commissionwhich determined “broad discrimination and segregation” as an explanation of the riots that rolled US cities in the 1960s), the only senator who meant everything to vote against the Supreme Court Lewis (“Memorandum Powell”) PowellAnd the champion of the progressive populism, which foresaw the anti-corporate, player, the reception of the policy of Rev. Jesson Jr., Senator Vermont Bernie Sanders and New York representative Alexandria Okasi-Cartes.
But Harris also had a short place, which stands as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Its responsible time was too short – less than one and a half years in 1969 and 1970. While Harris put works on the spot to expand the grassroots Democrats, he was not given time to complete the work of the Democrats in such multi-ethnic, 50-state movement for economic justice that he provided.
Now, over 50 years after the DNA chairman, the Democrats must finish work if it should be hope for the party’s future.
When in January 1969, Harris was named DNC chairman and Term The report on the choice was the title “No place to go but up“After the 1968 elections, the party was in heavy straits. Four years after Lyndon Baines Johnson won the 1964 presidential election with an epic victory in the popular vote 61-39 won just 42.7 percent of the vote In the race he lost to the Republican Richard Nixon.
After the Democratic National Convention, which saw violence on Chicago and Chaos streets, the Democratic Coalition collapsed when the northern liberals supported the Humphrey as southern segregatists and numerous northern voters supported the third application. It was so bad that Term He wrote that the Democrats “a comforting advantage of falling is as low as drunk and defeated politicians know that they will fall, that there is nowhere to fall.”
Harris, the then 38-year-old head, whom Humphrey considered for the vice president, was responsible for cleaning the mess. But the vision of the senator was more ambitious.
He wanted to remake the democratic party as an organization movement with the fight against poverty in America. Harris promised: “We will make the party so vigorous on the issues that the people we need will want to get involved.”
To achieve his goals, Harris fought to make sure the party welcomed the aliens. Remembering the 1968 Convention, he said“The Democratic Party was not democratic, and many delegations were heavily controlled by the boss or the -dominit. And in the south there was a terrible discrimination against African Americans.”
Harris worked to knock down the barriers to participate women, colored people and young war activists against Vietnam who supported the campaign of 1968 Eugene Makarti and Bobby Kennedy. He created a commission that successfully reformed the process of selecting delegates for future national conventions – seeking to replace bosses and deals with something similar to democracy.
In the time of Harris, there was a rollback, as it was today. But Oklahman knew that the Democratic Party needed to change.
Harris wanted to identify the Democrats as a means of educating people of all races coming out of poverty and made the party’s political wing. While he held the post of chairman DNC, Harris was still a senator. When Nixon suggested the welfare reforms that would guarantee the minimum annual profit of $ 1,600 for a family of four, Harris pushed back, saying“The floor is at such a low level. Instead of raising families out of poverty, it would be sad for many to sink into the lesser depth of increasing poverty.”
An alternative to Oklahoman was a bold plan to ensure economic security for all Americans. He advocated stronger unions, higher salaries and government interventions, which assure that no family would fall below the poverty line in 1970 at about $ 3900.
It was a radical vision of fundamental changes – not only the Democratic Party but also the country. Pushing Harris and his allies at different stages in the early 1970s, many in the party entertained a step towards such progressive populism, which will later be demonstrated by Harris Jim Haithuer’s assistant. Unfortunately, the work on making the party a clear, unambiguous supporter of the working class, which was needed to overcome the units of this era, has never been completed.
In decades, Haithuer and many others claim that this approach is still viral to overcome the divisions of the current era. From the 2024 elections, their argument became a craving and became the center for the party chairman.
When he was the chairman of the DNC and then the presidential candidate, Fred Harris sought to create a democratic party that was recognized as a confrontation with the privilege.
“The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everyone else has too little” He was arguing. “The broad diffusion of economic and political power should be a clear purpose – the stated goal – the government.”
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And the Democratic Party, which, along with the new leadership, needs a new commitment to the fight as a multi -plane, long -term, multi -generation, multi -regional alternative to the policy of privileges, which gave Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
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