[Peace-discuss] Jimmy Dore headed for an 'own goal' (self-induced embarrassment) soon?

[J.B. Nicholson]

Jimmy Dore's interview with Jordan Chariton is online 
(https://youtube.com/watch?v=PKB0H_SFoAg) and they cover Chariton's new Intercept 
article (https://theintercept.com/2020/12/23/dnc-iowa-caucus-app-shadow/) on how the 
DNC corporation rigged the 2020 Iowa DNC primary elections against Sen. Sanders and 
for Pete Buttigieg (soon to become Transportation Secretary under Pres. Joe Biden). 
But I suspect that Dore's support for "force the vote" and the People's Party will 
come to conflict with each other.

The article details are, frankly, not that interesting to me because of the 
structural elements that prevent me from seeing how that party's candidates were 
cheated of anything when they ran in that party's so-called primary. Cutting to the 
chase: corporate parties don't owe us small-d democracy, so elaborately complex 
vote-counting rules (delegates, super-delegates, etc.) and voting app rigging strike 
me as details that ignore the elephant in the room.

In that Jimmy Dore interview Chariton briefly mentions, but doesn't credit or quote, 
DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva in his response to the disaffected 2016 Sanders supporters 
(these Sanders supporters sued the DNC corporation after Sanders' campaign was 
allegedly cheated out of a fair shot at that party's primary in 2016). Here's what 
Spiva said to the court in that case:

 From http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf
> Bruce Spiva: [...] We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're 
> gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, 
> we could have — and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go 
> into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that 
> way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have
> also been their right [...]

This, as far as I can tell, is a right and proper read on the situation for all 
corporate-owned political parties which gets to the structural heart of the issue: 
corporations can choose their "standard bearer" (a.k.a., 'primary winner' or 
candidate) in any way they wish.

None of these parties owes us small-d democracy. That any of these parties bother to 
put on the democracy theater of primary contests is a paean to democracy. To do what 
is within their power and their right to do in the most efficient way -- simply 
selecting and announcing their candidate -- those parties would be objected to, 
particularly a party that calls themselves the "Democrats". So corporate-owned 
parties don't do that. We end up with results that pit two neocons and neolibs 
against each other and a Green Party that missed their moment to offer a compelling 
alternative.

But in the end the same goal is reached. The rules are rigged to always favor 
whomever the party bosses want and everyone knows this (there's even questions about 
how the Greens ran their primary including serious allegations of rigging). This is 
part of the reason why I say that Sanders was "allegedly cheated"; he knew what he 
was doing all along and he knew the structural power the DNC possesses. Sanders, for 
all I know, chose to work for the Democratic Party in 2020 like he did in 2016 in 
order to lower the odds that that party would run a competitor against him in his 
district. Sanders could serve that party's interests by being the "sheepdog 
candidate" as the late Bruce Dixon rightly called him back in May 2015 (see 
https://blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary for that article).

Therefore I disagree with Jimmy Dore on two points related to this:

- Dore has previously advanced the argument that it's 'right-wing propaganda' to say 
that Sanders wasn't cheated in his DNC primary runs. Sanders himself doesn't behave 
as one who was cheated. In 2020 Sanders gave up his hallmark issue -- Medicare for 
All -- and Sanders continues his M4A silence today as Dore pushes for forcing a 
Medicare for All bill House floor vote (Dore has noticed this and pointed it out). 
Dore calls Sanders names for being so docile and compliant to the Dems but Dore 
doesn't clearly state the structural elements that are in place nor does Dore 
acknowledge that Sanders just another Democrat in all but name.

- Dore is currently a firm backer of the People's Party (https://peoplesparty.org/) 
but it's not clear to me that this new party will offer us any processes for deciding 
on candidates that is any more small-d democratic than the Democrats. Nor is it clear 
to me that the People's Party will be owned in such a way that makes the People's 
Party structurally different than the Democrats. If there are no structural 
differences, why should I believe that People's Party candidates will behave 
differently than the Democrats whom they hope to supplant?

On a related note: I'm also not too keen on a party that invites self-described 
Democratic Party loyalists (such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Nina Turner, the 
former was shown on a banner image with a lot of headshots, the latter opened their 
2020 convention in https://youtube.com/watch?v=O5bRItA2ziI and recently announced a 
Congressional run to replace Marcia Fudge who will become Secretary of Housing and 
Urban Development in the Biden/Harris administration; she also declined Jill Stein's 
offer to be her 2016 running mate in the Green Party telling Stein "I think the party 
is worth fighting for. I believe that the Democratic Party is worth fighting 
for."[1]). It seems to me that now more than ever we're seeing that (as Jimmy Dore 
says) "the Democratic Party changes you, you don't change the Democratic Party" and 
Dore offers compelling evidence to drive this point home by showing that no so-called 
Democratic Party "progressives" in the House will take up the call to pressure 
Speaker Pelosi to bring a floor vote for Medicare for All in exchange for their vote 
to keep her as House Speaker.

I support the single-issue pressure to get Pelosi to bring Rep. Jayapal's Medicare 
for All bill to the floor; I think that's a practical and easily-understood plan to 
increase the odds that we get Medicare for All. But that support compels me to ask 
what's the point in electing self-styled progressives if they won't use their 
Congressional power when we most need them to, even if those progressives come from 
some other party?

-J



[1] 
https://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/ 
and archived at 
https://web.archive.org/web/20170327115314/http://www.salon.com/2016/09/08/nina-turner-reflections-on-the-political-revolutions-past-and-future/