Election 2020 was a bad night for Democrats—but not all Democrats—Centrist lost while progressives won

 

By SJ Otto

For most people, the real news on November 3^rd was that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. That is not that hard to believe since Trump is a thug, a right-wing troll, who had no manners, was mean and nasty and presented a lot of people with few reasons to vote for him. But besides the presidential election, there were other contested races. All in all, the Democrats lost seats in the House—not enough to lose their majority, but enough to let them know that they were not able to hold on the seats they had, or even to gain any seats. They had a chance of winning some seats in the senate and if they won enough they could win back control of the senate. But they didn’t win any seats. In fact many Republicans were celebrating that they won way more elections than they lost. They lost the presidency, but they did well everywhere else. According to AP:

 

“The election scrambled seats in the House and Senate but ultimately left Congress much like it began, deeply split as voters resisted big changes despite the heated race at the top of the ticket for the White House.

It’s an outcome that dampens Democratic demands for a bold new agenda, emboldens Republicans and almost ensures partisan gridlock regardless of who wins the presidency. Or perhaps, as some say, it provides a rare opening for modest across-the-aisle cooperation.”

 

When we overlook the presidency, the Democrats had a terrible night. But it wasn’t a bad night for all the Democrats. The so called “Squad” all won re-election and they won by a landslide. On top of that, some other Democrats, many who are members of the Democratic Socialist of America and a few Democrats considered progressives won seats. According to In These Times:

 

“But demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, pop­u­lar­ized by near-pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.), had a much bet­ter night. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca (DSA), an orga­ni­za­tion that boasts near­ly 80,000 mem­bers nation­wide, endorsed 29 candidates and 11 ballot initiatives, winning 20 and 8 respectively. There are now demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist cau­cus­es in 15 state­hous­es, includ­ing Mon­tana.”

 

So while the so called centrist Democrats lost in record numbers, progressive managed to move ahead. They didn’t win all their races, they did win some. So far the progressive wing of the Democrats and the DSA faction, it was a good night. They moved ahead, even if it was somewhat slow.

Here in Kansas we saw what the nation as a whole saw. The big race, outside of the president, was a race between a proclaimed “centrist Democrat,” Barbara Bollier and the usual far to the right-wing corruption- ladened candidate Roger Marshal. Marshal won, largely due to misleading ads where he took her quotes out of context. Bollier was talking about gun laws in Australia. The Marshal crew quoted her out of context to give voters the idea she wanted to confiscate people’s guns in Kansas. That was not true at all. The Marshal crew only used what she said about Australia, not what she said about guns in Kansas. In Kansas, for a politician to look in any way anti-gun is the kiss of death.

She made the mistake of trying to push the idea that a centrist Democrat needs to work with Republicans. As with the rest of the nation there is deep hostility in the Republican Party. In fact they have had their own factional disputes with far to the right politicians who have links to racist organizations and positions. They have moved as far to the right as DSA has moved the Democratic Party to the left. From Flipboard:

 

“One could argue that these two camps represent different factions of the Republican Party, motivated by different ideological visions for the party or representing different interest groups competing for influence. But that’s not exactly right. In some ways, it makes more sense to see these as almost completely different Republican parties. The Republican Party of 2012 — the one that nominated Mitt Romney for president and recommended moderation and embrace of immigrants after his loss— bears staggeringly little similarity to the Republican Party of 2020.

The GOP of the Reagan/Bush era, ranging from 1980 to 2008, broadly embraced economic conservatism (low taxes, reduced business regulation) and international engagement (robust trade, willingness to use force abroad) as governing philosophies. It also was generally a party that embraced democratic values —acknowledging the legitimacy of its opponents, demonstrating some forbearance in the use of its powers, supporting democratic elections, and so forth….

…..Economic conservatives preached fiscal responsibility under Democratic administrations while running up record deficits when they were in power. Party demagogues such as Newt Gingrich smeared opponents and employed extreme tactics in governing. The party often looked the other way at bigotry in its own ranks, and its candidates sometimes used dog whistles to procure the white racist vote. And the party tirelessly fought internally over immigration, individual liberties and other key issues. But for the most part, it was a party that adhered to democratic values. Its internal fights played out in nomination contests and its fights with others played out in free and fair elections. (And the party even deposed Gingrich as House speaker.)”

 

Instead of looking like she wanted to work so hard with Republicans, she should have hit hard back at them. We saw how angry Republicans were and they were against any kind of cooperation or compromise with the Presidency of Barack Obama.  It is clear that the Republican majority treat the Democratic Party as the enemy. Bollier should have pushed the idea that she was NOT in favour of confiscating people’s guns.

On the bright side of Kansas election night, was the winning of a progressive Hispanic woman, Sarah Lopez, who finally won her campaign against Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell, who has been forced to resign. If he had won the election, he would have had the right to help find replacements for his seat. Instead it will go to Lopez. There are now two Democrats, considered to be among the progressives, who have been working on their campaigns for years. All their work has paid off.       

What is good news for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is that progressives are winning, while centrist are not. The logical thinking has been that it will take a centrist, rather than a socialist, to beat Trump and other Republican legislatures and various politicians. It may have worked against Trump, but it has not been true in other elections. The centrist seem to believe they can win by not being a Republican. They raise no issues and make few promises. During the presidential primary the centrist talked more about what they CAN’T do rather than what CAN be done as the more progressives tried to do. The progressive wins, along with the wins of socialist, prove that many people will listen to a candidate who tries to make logical change.

Progressives Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a town hall meeting.