The Democratic Party Always Runs Away
By William D. Mitchell
Below are the brief stories of three recent times in history when the Democratic Party stood on the verge of upholding a progressive and positive vision for the country, and instead, deliberately chose the more fearful and reactionary path. These instances are admittedly painted in broad strokes, but books have already been written about the times and personalities for those wishing to know more. It is my intention, in this election year, where some people think the choice is so obvious, to point out that the Democratic Party has never been a reliable advocate for progressive policies. Indeed, they tend to be ethically-challenged cowards, running away at the critical juncture, and at this point in history need to be held critically accountable, more than ever, if they are going to actually earn people’s votes.
From 1941 – 1945, Henry A. Wallace was president Roosevelt’s vice-president. Prior to that he was Secretary of Agriculture and was a reliable and popular ally in New Deal and progressive causes. But in the 1944 presidential campaign, after conservative Democrats rallied against him, he was replaced by the racist, conservative, pro-business Democrat, Harry S. Truman. As a result, Wallace formed the Progressive Party as an alternative to conservative Democratic policies and ran for president in 1948, with world peace as part of his platform. He lost to Truman, who went on to nuke tens of thousands of yellow-skinned people, as America could not wait to test its new weapon of doomsday terror on someone while the chance remained as World War II was winding down. Rather than moving forward with their successful, progressive New Deal policies, Truman marked the shift the Democratic Party deliberately made toward neo-liberal austerity policies, joining the Republicans in attacking and removing much of the social safety net in favor of business.
Next, In 1964 the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed and open to all people to oppose the regular, openly-racist, and exclusively-white Mississippi Democratic Party. The regular MDP even referred to themselves as ‘Dixiecrats’ and were early proponents of the states’-rights ideology that is being used to this day to add an air of constitutional legitimacy to racist conservative policies. When the Freedom Party tried to be seated at the 1964 convention in Atlantic City they were blocked, even though the Regular MDP was elected by racist voter suppression in violation of the national Democratic Party’s own bylaws. In addition, President Johnson, along with Democratic leadership, including Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, were afraid of losing Mississippi in the upcoming election. Indeed, Johnson was so afraid of the oratorical skills of Fanny Lou Hamer, one of the Freedom Party’s leaders, that he held an impromptu press conference so that live coverage of the convention was pulled away, and the nation never got to hear Hamer’s compelling and harrowing testimony of her experiences in the heartland of racist America. The Freedom Party failed to win the support of their own party, and the Democratic National party seated their regular, racist, state party, refusing to give any meaningful voice to the Freedom Party. Johnson lost Mississippi anyway due to the suppression of black voters by the regular Democratic Party (?!). This was in the same year that Democrats were publicly seen as civil rights champions due to passage of the historic Civil Rights Act; however, this episode exposes the superficial nature of the Democrats’ actual commitment to civil rights for all to see.
Which brings us to Bernie Sanders and the present current Democratic presidential primaries. While Sanders seems to be an honestly progressive candidate, one can only wonder why he remains a Democratic Party loyalist and whipping boy, when for the second presidential campaign in a row, the more craven and reactionary, majority-wing of the Democratic national party has deliberately conspired against and sabotaged the only person upholding the party’s platform and ideals. This would include candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, whom a plethora of Democratic fundraising emails kept informing me were ‘true, progressive fighters, battling for the 99%.’ So, apparently throwing the most progressive candidate in the race under the bus, so as not to offend your corporate masters, in aid of the most aggressively conservative, pro-business, anti-environment, pro-war candidate the Democrats had to offer at the time, is what now passes for being a ‘true progressive warrior’ in the Democratic Party.
In these insane, surreal, and at the same time, truly frightening and dangerous, times, it is a no-brainer that the incompetent, moronic, murderous, inhuman brute in the White House needs to go; but not to be replaced by a different-in-name-only look-alike. For example, people like Howie Hawkins and the Green Party – who are offering opportunities for progressives to unite in real solutions to move the country forward – are clearly worth voting for over the true ‘Mr. Yesterday,’ Joe Biden. Hawkins authored and will actually implement the (real) Green New Deal that Democrats are only offering a small taste of. And that is the problem: at the end of the day that is all you will get with Democrats: a small taste – a watered-down, completely feckless version of what is really needed, with no real follow-through intended, and in serious times like today it seems trivial to say that we need to do better.
William D Mitchell
