Truth Beyond The Narrative

On August 24, 2016, Our Revolution a 501(c)(4) political organization which came to formation after Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. However, despite a 44.2% victory rate (38 out of 86 candidates) thus far in 2018, Politico has published articles featuring extreme mischaracterizations about the group.

Edward-Isaac Dovere has numerous bylines to his name which critique Sanders, going back to his presidential run. Political commentator and host of TYT Nation, Jeff Waldorf discusses the problematic Dovere piece in length.

During the same week, Dovere authored another piece which characterized Our Revolution as having ‘widespread problems’ after an internal shakeup within the organization. However, as Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks explains, Politico and Dovere ignored several key victories by candidates endorsed by the group they claimed to be in disarray. During the video Uygur details the seven wins and five losses from elections on Tuesday (two days prior of the publishing of Dovere’s piece) of that week from Our Revolution candidates, which included Stacey Abrams [D-GA] who became the first black woman to win the gubernatorial nomination for a viable party in the history of the United States.

Ironically, Politico Campaigns Editor, Steven Shepard did not mention the Our Revolution endorsement of Abrams after her successful primary campaign. However, Politico Reporter, Daniel Strauss did mention her Sanders endorsement earlier on May 22nd, yet also failed to mention the Our Revolution endorsement in his piece.

Politico’s decision to exclude positive Our Revolution election results from May 22nd in a May 24th piece became further curious when a June 6th article included results which favored Third Way Democratic candidates who support neoliberal economic policies, from the prior days’ elections. ‘Bernie Sanders-endorsed candidates continued to flail,’ is found near the beginning of the piece, followed by a section entitled ‘Bernie’s sputtering revolution.’

Despite framing the progressive grassroots organization as failing, the article conveniently fails to mention several key progressive victories by Our Revolution candidates from the June 5th results. Ammar Campa-Najjar [D-CA] was able to win his primary, despite a gross smear campaign launched against him by the Democratic party establishment.

That night Audrey Denny [D-CA] and J.D. Scholten [D-IA] also won United States House of Representatives primary elections. Deidre DeJear [D-IA] was also victorious in the Iowa Secretary of State primary.

While being harsh critics concerning progressive efforts, Politico has failed recently to detail the shortcomings of the Democratic Party and the candidates’ party officials often favor over grassroots populists.

The Recent Failures Of The Democratic Party

A January 2017 article by Vox details electoral issues the Democratic Party has faced despite maintaining a demographics edge and favor among younger voters:

Over the past eight years, the Democratic Party has lost a mind-bogglingly large number of races across the country. Their share of seats in the United States Senate has fallen from 59 to 48. They’ve lost 62 House seats, 12 governorships, and 958 seats in state legislatures. Paired with Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory, that means that the party whose champion won the popular vote — and whose outgoing president delivers his farewell address Tuesday — lies right now as a smoking pile of rubble.

Head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Tom Perez recently upset the progressive base of the Democratic Party after his endorsing of current Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo who is in a contested primary against Cynthia Nixon, earlier in the year Perez pledged the DNC would remain neutral in primary races. Kyle Kulinski of The Kyle Kulinski Show breaks down the hypocrisy of the endorsement from what can be described as a Democratic Socialist perspective.

Despite the popularity of Universal Healthcare, establishment Democratic candidates and think tanks are hesitant to support the system whether it be Medicare-for-all, Single Payer, Multi-Payer, or a National Health System. Kaiser details their findings from polling data released in March:

This month’s Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds six in ten (59 percent) favor a national health plan, or Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan – including a majority of both Democrats and independents and about one-third of Republicans. Support for such a proposal increases among the overall public (75 percent) and among partisans (87 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans) when framed as an option for anyone who wants it, but people who currently have other forms of coverage can keep the coverage they already have. It is unclear how support would fare if these proposals became part of the larger public debate as previous KFF polling has found the public’s attitudes can be quite malleable.

If groups such as Our Revolution, Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), Working Families Party, and Justice Democrats continue to have electoral success, the Democratic Party will have no choice but to adopt a populist message going into 2020 if they want a realistic opportunity to end the Republican control of Congress and the White House.

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