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Generation when? by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 27, 2019

Generation when?
by Tom Sullivan


Photo by Nguyen Hung Vu via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Generational tensions within any political party ideally should be less tense but rarely are. Ben Judah, author of This Is London, examines for The Atlantic the tug-of-war for the baton within the Democratic Party. Succession planning has been one of Democrats’ greatest weaknesses. Unless an Obama-level star comes along to jump the line, leadership too often passes via seniority rather than talent, as I explained in December 2016:

There is a lot of “old-boyism” in party politics. Mostly because people who have the time and/or resources to pursue party work are older. But older doesn’t always mean more skilled; experienced doesn’t always mean the right kind. When reviewing resumes, it is wise to know the difference between an applicant who has 20 years’ worth of experience and one who has 1 year’s worth of experience 20 years in a row. Many experienced party hands are not versed in modern campaign-craft. They assign more weight to who might make a strong public servant than to whether they might make a strong candidate. (We need candidates who are both.) Nevertheless, they like to be the deciders of whose turn it is. There is a tendency to hang onto power and not to cultivate new leadership possessing skills they don’t understand. Old boys would rather turn over the reins to old chums — regardless of their skills — when they can’t chew the leather anymore.

Judah considers the “Millennial perspective” he and a new crop of progressives bring to party politics:

… the great events that shape your worldview are not a series of Western triumphs, but a succession of spectacular failures. Our formative experiences were the Iraq War, the 2008 financial crisis, and the election of Donald Trump. That makes it hard to defer to a veteran like Pelosi on strategy, when her generation has racked up so many failures.

The Democrats are experiencing a clash of generations. As in all such clashes, each side thinks the other is delusional. When the Millennial left looks at the establishment, it sees leaders senescent with decades in the House, blindly clinging to bipartisan civility that no longer exists, unable to view men like Mitch McConnell as their opponents and not their colleagues, and believing that white voters are the only path to victory in 2020. The Millennials see themselves as the realists here.

That analysis of 2020 may be overstated but does reflect a familiar perspective. That includes the belief that taking corporate money that makes leading Democrats track more moderate. The money chase may sustain leadership’s moderation but is not the source of it. “Seasoned” party leaders from across this region who have never run for office or sought corporate funds exhibit the same defensive crouch Millennials perceive in Congress. They are still stroking scars from the electoral bloodbath of 1994 and Ronald Reagan’s domination of the 1980s battlespace. Caution is their watchword. It was not purchased with corporate donations. It did not filter down from Washington. It percolated up. Joe Biden is their preferred candidate.

Harvard-educated tech millionaire, founder of Justice Democrats and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti has become “chief strategist of a generational insurgency” challenging party elders’ sinecures, Judah writes:

In place of Brand New Congress’s failed model of bipartisan change, the Justice Democrats declared that they were “working to change the Democratic Party from the inside out.” And that meant an aggressive approach. “Challenging incumbents in primaries is the best way to make them start to listen to people over corporate donors,” the group declared. And, like the successful insurgent groups that transformed the Republican Party, it branded itself as openly radical.

Naturally, the powers are pushing back against the dirty hippies. Rahm Emanuel maligned Chakrabarti as “a snot-nosed punk.” There have been tense exchanges with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Veterans steeped in the seniority system believe new members should wait their turns and learn from their elders. Insurgency is not how things work on The Hill.

This Congress being “among the oldest in history,” Judah observes. My post from June 2018 explains where that seniority model fails:

The Democratic Party in many ways has all the institutional vigor of a men’s fraternal organization. It is wedded to a culture of incumbency that rewards those — with or without talent — willing to toil in the trenches until it is finally their turn to take the reins. It elevates chummy political careerists, perhaps idealists to start, but ambitious enough to linger long enough to become institutionalized and thus everything voters hate, especially younger voters and non-voters.

That system is overdue for overhaul. Gov. Howard Dean told CNN in April, “Best thing that can happen is to have the party being taken over by 35 year-olds.”

But typical of many older and younger progressives, Justice Democrats’ idea of changing the Democratic Party from the “grassroots” is targeting Congress. In fact, much more happens at the local level. Party infrastructure needed for electing candidates and building the party’s bench for higher office is in disrepair. In about a quarter of counties across the country (mostly rural ones), Democrats are either unorganized or have no online presence. Perhaps, Justice Democrats can give the party a facelift with a new congressperson here and there. But building capacity for retaking state legislatures and electing a Democratic majority to the U.S. Senate will take efforts outside Washington, D.C. in states Hillary Clinton could not win in 2016.

It will take not simply rebranding but execution. Devising basketball strategy over game videos in the coach’s office gets one only so far. At some point, players have to practice sinking free throws and three-pointers.

Building those skills will require remaking the Democratic Party at the real grassroots. I was one of “those progressives” who’d ruin everything local Democrats built. Too far left, we didn’t understand how the world worked. We weren’t raising money. Then we took control, started winning races, and raised more than ever. And when it was time to make way for younger, fresher talent, we passed the baton willingly. (That story appears here and here.) It didn’t take long for our successors to surpass what we had done. That’s how you grow any healthy organization.

That transformation is only now making its way, slowly, to Congress.

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