Decrepit Democratic Party Is Nearing Its Final Collapse
By Cliston Brown • 11/07/17 5:00am

It is a rare event in American politics when a major political party dies.

Such an occurrence has not happened in more than 160 years, when the Whig Party split due to a division between its pro-slavery and anti-slavery wings. The Republican Party formed in 1854 and quickly supplanted the Whigs, who had elected two presidents in the 1840s but had all but gone out of business by 1856.

In most nations with democratic systems, political parties don’t survive nearly as long as America’s Republicans and Democrats. And lately, the Democratic Party has been showing its age. The party founded by Andrew Jackson in 1828 is in such a decrepit condition that it might be nearing its final collapse.

Team Blue’s feeble condition goes beyond the festering wound left from the 2016 nominating contest that once again reared its ugly head last week. The ongoing civil war between the “Hillary wing” and the “Bernie wing” may be the death rattle for a party that has been slowly, painfully dying for the last 50 years.

The party’s descent began in 1968 when Republicans won their first of five presidential victories over the next six elections, enabling them to wrest control of the nation’s courts away from liberals, who had dominated American jurisprudence for a generation. The Democrats’ only victory over the next 24 years was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter barely squeaked out a win over unpopular incumbent Gerald Ford.

Even as Democrats broke their presidential hex in the 1990s, they lost their grip on Congress and the state governments, which they had dominated since FDR was in office. Starting with their midterm wipeout in 1994, Democrats have steadily fallen to their lowest point since the Great Depression. With the exceptions of the presidential victories of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and a brief resurgence into the congressional majority at the tail end of George W. Bush’s presidency, the party has consistently gotten mauled at the polls for a generation at both the federal and the state levels.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Democrats have taken electoral drubbing after electoral drubbing despite the fact that the Republican Party is less favorably viewed than the Democrats on almost every imaginable issue. Democrats currently control only 15 out of 50 governorships, 31 out of 99 state legislative chambers, and none of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. When the public prefers your party on almost every issue but you’re still getting crushed across the country, it speaks volumes about the party’s health and vitality. How can such an inept organization survive?

The Democratic Party’s death blow may be the ongoing feud between Bernie Sanders supporters and “regular Democrats,” which has kept the party divided for nearly two years. Only Republicans’ ineptitude has provided relief for Democrats.

The battle between these two wings has no end in sight, and allegations by former DNC Chair Donna Brazile of improprieties in the 2016 nominating process tore those wounds wide open again—as the party was attempting to win important elections in Virginia and New Jersey.

At a time when the astounding unpopularity of both the Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress should give Democrats ample opportunities for electoral successes, the gang that can’t shoot straight is shooting itself squarely in the foot. Beyond the ongoing intramural squabble, it is clear the party simply doesn’t know how to win elections. The Democrats’ rare electoral victories over the past couple of decades have been personal triumphs by charismatic candidates—such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—who built their own electoral organizations rather than relying on the sclerotic, brain-dead party establishment that has otherwise failed consistently at the ballot box for the last five decades.

And the party’s leadership and consultant classes, neither of which has demonstrated any aptitude for winning elections, cling stubbornly to their perches, crushing the party’s chances of developing younger, more innovative leaders. Democrats’ seed corn is wasting away in the root cellar while the party’s tired, washed-up leaders hang on to power like Politburo potentates.

But let’s not pin all the blame on the party establishment. The Democrats’ rank and file members largely don’t know what they’re doing, either. Too many liberals are still utilizing 1960s-era tactics, such as rallies and marches, that no longer move the political needle. And many progressives fail to understand the supreme importance of voting, particularly in non-presidential elections. This has enabled Republicans to build their bench while local and state-level Democratic parties have floundered. For example, in the nation’s key swing region, the Midwest, Republicans have full control of every state but two (Illinois and Minnesota), and partial control in both of those; heading into 2018 they hold the Illinois governorship and both chambers of the Minnesota legislature. It is a chicken-and-egg problem. Democrats’ failures to win at the local level prevent them from developing the political talent that would be needed to gain those victories.

So now, Democrats are paralyzed, clueless and possibly on the verge of fumbling a historic opportunity to get back on top presented by an unpopular president and an even more unpopular Congress. With full control of only six out of 50 state governments, the party is arguably in as dire of a condition as the Whigs were when they went out of business in the 1850s. The Whigs held nine of 30 governorships four years before they collapsed, which at 30 percent of the total was exactly on par with the Democrats’ 30 percent share of governorships today.

It’s possible that Donald Trump and congressional Republicans—who flounder at governing as badly as Democrats do at campaigning—may do for Democrats what they are incapable of doing for themselves. The GOP, battling its own problems, could keep the Democrats on life support for the next few years. But right now, Democrats are pulling the plug on themselves, and even the ineptitude of their opponents might not save Team Blue from a sorry fate.

Cliston Brown is a communications executive and political analyst in the San Francisco Bay Area who previously served as director of communications to a longtime Democratic Representative in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter (@ClistonBrown) and visit his website at ClistonBrown.com.

Same thing was said about the Republican party in 2009.

Good, fuck the Democrats, all they care about is giving each other jobs.

Do you like anything?

He has to, no?

I'll guess M&Ms ... who the hell doesn't like M&Ms?

The GOP is likely an even bigger mess and closer to splitting.

Good to see. All we need are Libertarians and Republicans and everyone will be doing well.

Where do the Blacks go?

Where do the Blacks go?

Same thing was said about the Republican party in 2009.

Old school moderates who once used facts somewhere along the line now have to pander to leftists to survive, who use emotion first, and actually argue against facts.

retard alert retard alert whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop

They won't be allowed to vote anymore. Look at Wisconsin.

Blaming black voters for not finding Hillary an acceptable candidate worth voting for.

Pretty bad, even by your standards.

Stop giving your kid your passwords.

Blaming black voters for not finding Hillary an acceptable candidate worth voting for.

Pretty bad, even by your standards.

Blaming black voters for not finding Hillary an acceptable candidate worth voting for.

Pretty bad, even by your standards.

Yeah the choice for black voters is traditionally to vote Democratic or not to vote at all. That doesn't mean there hasn't been rampant suppression of the black vote in Wisconsin. Go pray at a piss stain.

Banish these people and their burrito ideology from the face of the Earth then we can talk about what shit the Republicans are up to.

Yeah the choice for black voters is traditionally to vote Democratic or not to vote at all. That doesn't mean there hasn't been rampant suppression of the black vote in Wisconsin. Go pray at a piss stain.

Politics is not a baseball game, and it is not a soap opera.

People are hurting in this country, and our job is not to be distracted by political gossip and Donald Trump's tweets. Our job is to revitalize American democracy and bring millions of people into the political process who today do not vote and who do not believe that government is relevant to their lives. Our job is to create an economy and government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors.

Here's the problem: the strategy the Democratic Party has been pursuing in recent years has failed. Since 2009, Democrats have lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country. Republicans now control the White House, 34 out of 50 governorships as well as the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. In dozens of states, the Democratic Party is virtually non-existent. Too much is at stake for our country and our people for us not to learn from our past failures and move forward in a way that makes the Democratic Party stronger so we can take on and beat Trump and the right-wing Republican agenda.

What the recently released book excerpt from former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile made clear is that unless we get our act together, we are not going to be effective in either taking on Donald Trump or in stopping the extremist right-wing Republican agenda. We have to re-establish faith with the American people that in fact we can make positive changes in this country through a fair and transparent political process that reflects the will of voters across this country.

In order to do that, we need to rethink and rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that opens its doors to new people, new energy and new ideas. We need a Democratic Party that is truly a grassroots party, where decisions are made from the bottom up, not from the top down. We need a Democratic Party which becomes the political home of the working people and young people of this country, black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American ... all Americans.

And we need to make it abundantly clear that the Democratic Party is prepared to take on the ideology of the Koch brothers and the billionaire class – a small group of people who are undermining American democracy and moving this country into an oligarchic form of society. YES. We will take on the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, corporate America, the insurance industry, the drug companies, and the fossil fuel industry.

Now, what the Establishment (political, economic and media) wants us to believe is that real and fundamental changes in our society are impossible.

No. We cannot guarantee health care to all as a right. No. We cannot revitalize the trade union movement, raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour and provide pay equity for women. No. We cannot effectively compete in the global economy by making public colleges and universities tuition-free. No. We cannot lead the world in combatting climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels. No. We cannot reform our broken criminal justice system or finally achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

They want us to think that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, a nation which has more income and wealth inequality than almost any nation on earth, the best that we can do is to accept tiny, incremental change.

I could not disagree more.

Right now, a Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission, comprised of people who supported our campaign, people who supported Secretary Clinton's campaign, and people appointed by DNC Chair Tom Perez are working on a set of policies that will determine the future direction of the Democratic Party. In many ways, this Unity Commission will determine whether the Party goes forward in a dynamic and inclusive way, or whether it retains the failed status quo approach of recent years. It will determine whether the Party will have the grassroots energy to effectively take on Donald Trump, the Republican Party and their reactionary agenda or whether we remain in the minority.

In my view, this Commission must:

- Make the Democratic Party more democratic and the presidential contests more fair by dramatically reducing the number of superdelegates who participate in the nominating process. It is absurd that in the last presidential primary over 700 superdelegates (almost one-third of the delegates a candidate needed to win the nomination) had the power to ignore the will of the people who voted in the state primaries and caucuses.
- Make primaries more open by ending the absurdity of closed primary systems with antiquated, arbitrary and discriminatory voter registration laws. Republicans are the ones who make it harder for people to vote, not Democrats. At a time when more and more people consider themselves to be Independents our job is to bring people into the Democratic Party process, not exclude them. It is incredibly undemocratic that in some states voters must declare their party affiliation up to six months before the primary election.
- Make it easier for working people and students to participate in state caucuses. While there is much to be said for bringing people together face-to-face in a caucus to discuss why they support the candidate of their choice, not everybody is able to attend those caucuses at the time they are held. A process must be developed that gives everyone the right to cast a vote even if they are not physically able to attend a state caucus.
- Make the DNC's budget and decision-making processes more open and transparent. If we are going to build a Party that relies on working people who are willing to give $5, $10 and $27 donations, they deserve to know where that money is going and how those decisions are made.

I look forward to following the progress of the Unity Reform Commission, and I urge Chairman Tom Perez and the entire Democratic National Committee to develop policies which move the Democratic Party forward in a very different direction – a direction that will lead us to national and statewide victories. It's important that you do the same:

Please sign the petition calling on the Democratic National Committee and Chairman Tom Perez to accept, support and implement policies which make the Democratic Party more inclusive, more democratic and more transparent.

Right now, our job is to come together, and not be distracted by the political gossip and drama of the moment. We must fight President Trump's destructive efforts to divide us up by the color of our skin, our gender, our religion, our sexual orientation or our country of origin. We must rally the American people to oppose Trump's proposal to provide massive tax giveaways to billionaires while taking away the health care that millions now have.
But we must also make it clear – if we are going to elect Democrats who will move us forward as a country – that we must institute long-needed reforms in the Democratic Party. When we do that, we will not only create a dynamic and progressive party, we will be able to transform our nation and create a government that represents all of us, not just the people on top.

In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders