Political analyst Cliston Brown joins me for a follow-up discussion on my piece about why Democrats need primary challenges now more than ever. Download the podcast above and share with our friends.
Edited excerpts from our conversation:
CLISTON: There’s an old saying, which is that everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. And that’s kind of the Democratic Party in that the party is so out of touch with the public in general, and particularly with groups that are electorally important. And they think they're just going to keep doing the same thing that they've always been doing and that suddenly their fortunes are going to change. I think Einstein said something about the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same things over and over again and expect different results.
The truth is that the Democratic Party is kind of rotten, and I don't mean that rotten in a moral sense, but I mean that there’s a lot of rot within the Democratic Party. We have this entrenched, often elderly, group of people who run the party and who haven’t had an original thought since about 1986, and they have not adapted to current modern situations. They have absolutely no rapport with young people. You looked at the polling out recently about the 18 to 21 age group identifying with the Republican Party by a plus 12 margin.
What’s this I hear about young people are supposed to be the permanent property of the Democrats? The Democrats are not connecting with them. And in our discussion prior to taping, we talked about how I’ve often poo-pooed young voters or young people who don’t always vote. But it’s important because even if young people don't always vote at higher rates, they do vote at higher rates when they get older. And one thing that I've been telling people for a very, very long time — just wait until Gen X hits its 40s and 50s. They’re going to make the boomers look like the hippies they were by comparison.
Because my generation, Gen X, we were the Ronald Reagan generation. We were the “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” generation. And now Gen X is the Trumpiest generation there is. I mean, the boomers were roughly 50-50 in the last election. Gen X made Donald Trump president for the second time. So when you have these patterns that are set in youth, they tend to bear fruits, whether sweet or rotten, when people get into their 40s and 50s. So we have this Democratic Party, right, which simply has not adapted because it’s too old and out of touch. That’s the bottom line.
SER: I think there's this perception — I’ve seen the term circular firing squad or whatever, that there’s no way that you could have an actual primary election that isn't essentially because everything since 2016 has been the same Sanders/Clinton proxy fight, which is exhausting. We desperately need to have these debates within the party within the party. You and I don’t agree on everything. A primary allows Democratic candidates who are more inclined to be like me or more inclined to be like you to actually debate policy, because with Republicans, there is no policy debate. It’s a 90-year-old Democrat against a burning cross so I’m thinking, “Well, that guy's almost dead, but this, this is a literal burning cross.”
I'm someone who votes in every election, but for a lot of other people, they just tune out. And that’s just not good. So what do you say to that idea that the best way the party can defeat Donald Trump, defeat Republicans, is to sit down, shut up, don’t touch any of the people in these plus 20 Democratic seats.
CLISTON: Let’s say that you've got a basketball team and your team is losing the game by 20 points, playing terribly. What do you do? Do you keep your five starters in the game? Or do you sit their ass on the bench and put somebody else in and see what they can do? That's what we are looking at right now. The Democratic Party has kept its bad players out on the floor and won't even consider sitting them down on the bench and bring somebody else in and giving them a shot to see if they can do any better. There’s only one word for it. It’s dumb. It’s absolutely stupid. It’s inane. This idea that so many Democrats seem to have, that once you are elected to office, you have the right to that office for the rest of your life or as long as you want it, that is complete idiocy.
Nobody is entitled to hold office for the rest of their life and nobody is irreplaceable. And if you do not inject new energy into your party, you’re going to get a brain-dead party full of old people, which is what the Democratic Party is today.
SER: It’s interesting because when the party doesn’t support primary challenges in general, if you are a center-left normie lib for example and want longterm success in the party you’re gonna behave correctly, you’re not gonna challenge anyone so the real challenges are usually coming from the people outside, usually the progressive wing but it doesn’t have to be so. Instead, the perception is that only “the troublemakers” would dare challenge anyone
CLISTON: When you talk about centrist Democrats not liking the fact that the only opposition to the current high-bound elderly Democratic leadership is coming from the progressive side, it’s because for the last 30 years, those people have been clinging to their seats and pushing down anybody else who wanted to come up.
As a result, the only people you have now that are going against these entrenched leaders are from the left wing or the progressive side because in the centrist lane, they’ve been shut down for a generation. They haven't been given an opportunity to rise. The Democratic Party has completely been eating its seed corn for the last 30 years. So, this is the result that we have now, where you either have this 90-year-old that can barely get out of bed and recite his or her own name versus this far-left progressive. The middle within the Democratic Party has not been allowed to rise.
This is the situation that has inevitably resulted, and the Democratic Party has only itself to blame for it.
SER: I know that there are liberal publications and liberal pundits who think pointing at fire and saying it’s bad all day is illustrative and useful. No, the reason I focus on Democrats is because I’m thinking, “Hey guys, maybe you should use water and not gasoline on the fire. That's going to be bad.”
The fire is bad. We know that.
CLISTON: How are you going to put it out?
The Democratic Party’s take is, well, that’s fire, and we’re not that. And they expect people connect those dots and figure out: “Well, if they’re not that, maybe we should vote for them because of the opposite of that.” No, they want to hear, what are you going to do about the fire? That’s what people are asking, and that’s what the Democrats seem like they have this congenital pompousness about it. Well, we don't have to answer that. Just do what you’re supposed to do.
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