We’ve had some big shocks lately, and people are spending a lot of time in a reactive mode – signing petitions, making phone calls, and attending rallies. As it should be. But the long game is to strengthen and democratize the Democratic Party and the progressive ecosystems in and around it.

But here in Massachusetts democracy is in big trouble. The state ranks last in competitiveness in political races, and in many districts Republicans and Democrats don’t even bother to field candidates. As an example, “Mexican Wall Slave Labor” sheriff Tom Hodgson ran unchallenged in Bristol County. In the 2016 Democratic Primary the party fielded uncontested candidates for U.S. Congress in all nine districts: there was not one challenger. Hand-picked candidates don’t give voters anything to really vote for.

And state government is almost as bad. Half the candidates for the Governor’s Council ran unchallenged. In County Sheriff Democratic primary elections, six out of fourteen ran unopposed and two slots were never filled. In almost half the state legislature primaries and in 29 out of 42 state senate races there was no challenger.

Democrats

The Democratic Party seems to run on auto-pilot in many towns, and very few people know who the pilot is.

Picking my own town as an example, the Dartmouth Democratic Town Committee is not listed with the state Democratic Party. It is not in their town and ward database, and the two massdems.org staffers I called and emailed were unable to tell me if such a committee even existed. Another Bernie guy, Warren Lynch, ready to jump into Democratic politics, couldn’t find his local committee on massdems.org either, so he put together his own directory. While anecdotal, this example illustrates a common complaint – that superdelegates and lack of competitiveness are the least of the Democratic Party’s problems. Participation in the party at a local level is hampered by disorganization and even secretiveness. By the way, I eventually found the Dartmouth Town Commitee in Lynch’s directory.

Independents and Third Parties

Those registered as Independents miss a chance to influence a political party – any party. No one knows what goes on in the sanctity of the voting booth, so you are free to vote for whomever you like on election day – even the other guys. But the other 364 days of the year – wield some influence! In Massachusetts you can re-register with one of several parties using a register-by-mail form. If you belong to a third party (Greens, Libertarians, United Independents, etc.) check the registration form. The state of Massachusetts seems to add and drop third parties. See this and this for illustrations. I assume there is some method to the madness, but it makes belonging to a third party even more difficult than it already is.

Progressives

Following Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Clinton, and Trump – and taking their cue from the Tea Party – progressive Democrats, Greens, and Independents are about to start challenging uncontested candidates, “primarying” those who behave like Republicans, and offering slates of progressive candidates. In California, progressives recently took control of the state Democratic Party.

Our Revolution was founded by Bernie Sanders and its members are largely Democrats, Greens, Democratic Socialists, and members of progressive alliances. One of Our Revolution’s projects is trying to transform the Democratic Party by compiling a database of party chairs, contacts, and bylaws from local party organizations and encouraging Democrats to re-democratize and re-energize the party. Go to the bottom of this page and join. When the research is complete in every state, you will be able to type in your address and get a listing that shows you the when, what, where, why, and whos of your local party organization.

If you are interested in helping Our Revolution with this research – or simply want to see what these young-ish progressives are up to, sign up to join Our Revolution’s orlocalorganizing team and then install Slack on your desktop and/or mobile devices. The discussions and resources will tell you a lot about the kind of activists signing up. Their #general and #random channels are for general discussion. The #research channel is for those contributing party documents and contacts. Each state and territory has its own channel. The #massachusetts channel was created by O.R. and the #se_massachusetts channel was created by a local organization in Fall River:

The fragmented state of the Left has become a bitter joke in American politics. Right off the top of my head – we have the True-Blue Democrats, the Blue-Dog Democrats, Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy for America, the Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Socialist Alternatives, Working Family, and even the Pirate Party. There are likewise a ton of PACs and think tanks devoted to the disparate threads of liberalism, centrism, neoliberalism, progressivism, and socialism. To Republicans, of course, we are all simply “The Left.”

Especially in light of recent events, we might be much more effective if we were a more cohesive “Left.” But we have one donkey-shaped hole into which everyone is supposed to jam all the odd shaped pegs. And we don’t have a parliamentary democracy to make coalitions like this work.

But progressives, at least, can forge cross-party alliances themselves.

In Richmond, California, a refinery town north of San Francisco, two progressive candidates for City Council went up against the Democratic Party establishment as well as a $3 million slush fund set up for Democrats by the Chevron Corporation. And the progressives won.

Both Melvin Willis and Ben Choi were fielded by an independent progressive political organization called the Richmond Progressive Alliance, originally founded by Greens. In addition, both received support from Our Revolution, a party-agnostic progressive organization Bernie Sanders created after the election.

In Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City, former labor organizer and author Steve Early writes about Richmond, its Green Party mayor, Gayle McLaughlin (still active today as a councilwoman), and the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), which unites progressive Democrats, Greens, and independents. Given RPA’s support from Our Revolution, it is not a surprise to find a forward by Bernie Sanders in Early’s book.

Next door, in Rhode Island, Democrat Marcia Ranglin-Vassell ran against RI House Majority Leader John DeSimone for State Representative in her party’s primaries – and she won by seventeen votes. Ranglin-Vassell snagged endorsements from both Rhode Island Progressive Democrats and Working Families, which also endorsed Bernie Sanders. Our Revolution supported Ranglin-Vassell against Roland Lavallee in the general election, which she won.

Although the Democratic Party often describes itself as a big tent, loyalty rules preclude endorsing progressive candidates outside the Big Blue tent. And it’s not yet clear the DNC will ever be a home for progressives. But in alliances – like Our Revolution, the Richmond Progressive Alliance and Working Families – progressives can join together to field candidates whose job #1 is to help everyday people.

It’s an idea progressives should be exploring right here in our little corner of Massachusetts.

Democrats need to get it together. There is a lot of unfocused anger at not only Donald Trump but the people who elected him, and it’s not going to win any elections.

Case in point – a bitter piece in the Daily Kos gloating that Kentuckians who voted for Trump will be the first he betrays. Or an I-told-you-so piece in politicsusa.com telling us what we already knew – that white working class voters shot themselves in the foot and will really miss their ACA benefits.

“I told you so” is not a political message, even if it’s true.

But Democrats just killed a bill that would have lowered drug prices, so we can’t blame all the misery on Republicans or the “lemmings” who voted for them. If it were not for Cory Booker and twelve other Democrats, for example, a bill sponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would have allowed pharmaceuticals to be imported from Canada. Even Ted Cruz voted for the bill, but Booker and several others in Big Pharma’s pocket shot it down. These thirteen Democrats are going to have to be “primaried.”

Besides challenging “bought and paid for” Democrats, a new DNC needs to develop a coherent plan to win back working class voters. And not just whites. Consider this discussion between Van Jones and Reverend Charles Williams which alludes to the Democratic Party’s taking black voters for granted. Democrats will also have to come up with an economic narrative more compelling than Republican trickle-down economics, says economist James Kwak. And it shouldn’t be all that difficult. Robert Greene, writing in Dissent, agrees that clarity is paramount, and so is a platform based on solid values:

We must also learn from history the importance of being able to tell a simple, clear story to American voters and potential allies about what matters to us and why. Nuance is important, but balancing that with a clear political agenda is equally crucial.

If all this sounds nice but not very specific, a clear story is one that – among other things – does not involve telling working class voters you’re on their side and then sabotaging lower drug prices.

* * *

A few other things of possible interest:

• a petition at moveon.org to tell the White House Press Corps that solidarity is an appropriate response to Trump’s blacklisting and threats against CNN.
• a boycott against Trump‘s businesses and those who trade with him.

Some people are going to wait until Inauguration Day or until all of Trump’s cabinet picks have been confirmed before rending their garments, moving to Nova Scotia, or getting politically engaged.

But if you’re ready to do something right now, you’ve got plenty of options, some close to home:

• Massachusetts Democratic Party – many towns do not yet have functioning town committees
• Coalition for Social Justice – issues-based advocacy, strategic political endorsements
• Progressive Massachusetts – born out of the Obama campaign
• Progressive Democrats of MA – born out of Duval Patrick’s campaign
• Progressive Democrats of America – born out of campaigns of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich
• Democracy for America – Howard Dean’s PAC, but also a hub for information and activism
• Our Revolution and Transform the Party – Bernie Sanders fights on
• Southeast MA Revolution Meetup – sign up for Our Revolution meetings in Fall River

Finally, some thought-provoking (and maybe just plain provoking) articles I ran into this week:

• The Sanctuary Solution (Jacobin) – cities consider opposing Trump’s immigration policies
• How the DNC chair election works (Vox) – it’s even worse than DNC superdelegates
• Anti-Trump War Room staffed by Clinton aides (New Republic) – another reason to fix the DNC
• NBC’s Trump Normalization Machine (Media Matters) – NBC staffs up with former FOX News flacks
• The Failure of Democratic Storytelling (Literary Hub) – Democrats need a coherent economic narrative
• The Brotherhood of Decents (Blog for Arizona) – our decents are better than their deplorables
• Russia, Trump, and Flawed Intelligence (NY Review of Books) – incompetence in American intelligence
• Senate Approves Propaganda Center (Progressive Army) – US journalists enlisted as propagandists
• The Republican Party isn’t Extremist (Federalist) – the author wrote a book arguing against democracy
• *@%#! You, Rural Elitists (The Rude Pundit) – a few decidedly un-PC thoughts

During the primary debates last year Bernie Sanders told Hillary Clinton, “The American public are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” He was referring to a private email server Clinton had used for conducting State Department business which proved to be insecure when it was hacked, and from which about 50,000 emails were published in March 2016.

Unfortunately the damn emails are still a problem – rather, Democrats’ somewhat McCarthyite insistence that Clinton’s loss was due to Russian hacking. Whether true or not, this is a distraction from reforming both the party and the process that anointed, ran interference for, and unsuccessfully fielded a candidate with too many political vulnerabilities.

Having thrashed Sanders in the primaries, the Democratic National Convention was supposed to be Clinton’s coronation. Yet this was marred by a second email scandal that showed the DNC undermining Sanders in behalf of Clinton, as well as revealing blurry lines connecting Clinton’s campaign with the Clinton Foundation and her super PACs.

So Clinton changed the subject from leaks to leaker. At the DNC convention her campaign accused “state actors” of being involved in the leak(s) which ultimately cost part-time DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz her job. Wikileaks suddenly became not merely a gluteal pain but an agent of Russia’s former KGB chief, Vladimir Putin. In October Wikileaks released John Podesta’s DNC emails, throwing even more light on Clinton’s campaign and even more gasoline on Cliinton’s anger at Julian Assange.

Wikileaks, which has been publishing whistleblower documents for a decade, has also released hundreds of thousands of Clinton State department cables, the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, Guantanamo Bay files, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, documents showing the NSA spying on its “friends,” CIA director Brennan’s emails, German BND emails, Saudi cables, Henry Kissinger’s cables, classified Congressional reports, TTP and TTIP drafts, IMF internal documents, Turkish AKP emails, IMF documents on the Greek economic crisis, UN confidential reports, and communications from private intelligence firms Statfor and HBGary.

Seen in one light, all this has a certain unity – democratizing American (and Western) foreign and economic policies by showing how the sausage really gets made. Seen in a dimmer light, all this must be the work of the Russian Bear.

Giving some credence to the argument that Democrats are ungracious losers, the Obama White House released an unclassified Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report (“Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”), accusing Russia of meddling in the last election. But the report is so heavily redacted and filled with qualifications and generalizations that it says little, proves nothing, and is pretty useless. The Intercept’s Sam Biddle suggests this calls for a Congressional investigation.

Several credible (and detailed) reports indeed point to the role of Russian military intelligence in sucking up troves of political, economic, and intelligence data from the US, Germany, and NATO allies (all of whom the NSA routinely spies on too). Cryptographer Bruce Schneier has a good overview, which references investigations by Crowdstrike and Threatconnect mentioned in the ODNI report.

Interestingly, much of the ODNI report is focused on “fake news” or the manipulation of Facebook “news” and “likes,” Twitter feeds, “trolling” by commenting on online articles, or published pieces in RT Online, Russia’s version of our Voice of America. RT’s coverage of the Panama Papers and the “Occupy Wall Street” and anti-fracking movements drew special ire for “meddling” although there was very little connection to the 2016 election. ODNI pointed to “Russian footprints” of hackers like Guccifer 2.0 (a Romanian hacker). Although the report characterized Russian involvement as “information warfare” it steps back from claiming it had any effect on the election:

“We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.”

If it wasn’t the Russians, it would have been somebody. Besides Russia, other nations had the means – including our own US intelligence agencies (one of which proved to have no qualms about intervening in a domestic election) – and some had motive: Israel, China, and North Korea, for example. Even Donald Trump – who, like a stopped clock, is still right twice a day – makes a valid point. Plenty of hackers could have penetrated a tantalizing target like the DNC in an election year. Wikileak’s Julian Assange claims even some 14 year-olds have the skills to do it. From the wide availability of hacking tools easily downloaded by relatively unskilled users, I suspect he’s right.

Wikileaks has repeatedly said that the Podesta documents did not come from Russia. Former British ambassador Craig Murray, a Wikileaks associate, claims he received the documents from a Democratic Party whistleblower. Who knows? And who knows if the Russians poked around, while the leak itself actually did come from a whistleblower? Maybe a Congressional investigation will tell us something. But to what end?

Every nation seems to trawl every other nation for intelligence, economic, and political advantage. And people generally use what they steal. Russia could very well have “outed” Clinton and the DNC by passing data through layers of intermediaries to Wikileaks. So what?

The provenance of the information should be less important than the information itself.

Russian bears, Red Scares, Congressional inquiries, and plots involving a guy holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. All this would make a great movie. But none of it changes the fact that the emails publicly revealed were real. Now we know. There was simply far too much coziness between Clinton, “her” DNC, the Clinton Foundation, “her” SuperPACs – and precious little transparency. Until the leaks.

Last October Brian Fallon, the Clinton campaign’s press secretary, tweeted Julian Assange: “You are a propaganda arm of the Russian government, running interference for their pet candidate.” Even if it’s true, and even if Assange is wittingly or unwittingly a Russian stooge, Democrats should thank him for publishing the DNC trove. The emails didn’t cost Clinton the election after publication. Long before that they cost the party a candidate who could have beaten Trump.

The DNC emails give us a good idea of how a campaign should never be run. They also remind us that a candidate’s vulnerabilities can’t be kept under wraps in a world without much privacy or by refusing to do interviews. And they show us that the DNC needs a complete renovation.

So let’s fix the damned DNC.

Only six weeks remain until the Democratic Party selects its party chairman – and yesterday Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, joined the race, making him the sixth candidate to run for the job.

Buttigieg is a former Naval officer and Rhodes Scholar who worked for Jill Long Thompson’s failed 2002 and 2008 Congressional campaigns. (Thompson was Bill Clinton’s nomination for Undersecretary of Agriculture). Buttigieg then worked for the Cohen Group (former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen’s strategic consulting outfit), followed by John Kerry’s failed campaign, followed by a job as consultant for McKinsey & Co., then himself was the losing candidate for State Treasurer of Indiana. Now he’s a mayor.

Buttigieg is liberal, gay, white, from the Rust Belt, and has good relations with his city’s unions – all of which would endear him to most Democratic voters – but he has also had a rocky relationship with the city’s Black community and not much experience either nationally or with successful political campaigns. Buttigieg participated in Obama’s Police Data Initiative and David Axelrod speaks highly of him, but few in Washington recognize his name. All in all, a nice enough guy, but not the strongest candidate for DNC chair.

Meanwhile, Tom Perez has been courting Centrist Democrats unhappy with Ellison’s progressive positions. Working with Clinton boutique strategist Bluelight Strategies, Florida Rep. Ted Deutsch, a point man and fundraiser for Hillary in Broward County, and political strategist Ann Lewis who served both Clintons, Perez has made some headway.

But this newest entry into the race reminds us of a couple of things. First, the Clintons may be back at home taking walks in the woods, but they clearly haven’t gone away. Second, the emergence of a progressive like Keith Ellison has Centrists scrambling to keep the party boat anchored in the mud – or at least themselves at the helm. Tom Perez may be their first choice, but Buttigieg seems to be the backup plan.

The election of the DNC chair should concern anyone who believes the Democratic Party needs to change in order to take back the country. It can finally live up to its name as the “party of the people” or it can make its official capital Chappaqua and remain what Robert Reich describes as a giant ingrown and entrenched fundraising machine.

I guess we’ll know in six weeks.

We’re not going to resist Trump without – well – resistance.

I’ve been reading the Indivisible Guide – which Carolee Matsumoto sent me recently. This is not 1,391 pages of “War and Peace.” It’s only 26 pages, is very readable, and is also available in Spanish. It’s a citizen’s guide to lobbying your Congressman en masse.

Contributors to the Guide include former congressional staffers who describe their work of love as “best practices for making Congress listen.” Many of them were around during the rise of the Tea Party and it dawned on them that some of the Tea Party’s tactics were damn clever and could easily be replicated by living human beings with souls.

For skeptics or the time-challenged, here are quick summaries of the chapters:

1. How grassroots advocacy worked against Obama – the “takeaway” from this chapter is to resist the urge to advance only positive goals. Instead, put your Congressman on the defensive and redirect her from her own priorities. Punish him for changes he does make. Remind her of the illegitimacy of the Trump administration. Keep him (if he’s centrist) from making accommodations with the Republican agenda.
2. How your Congressman’s brain works -Seen under a microscope your Congressman is a simple two-legged organism with one physiological function: to run for (re)election. This chapter tells you how all the rest of its anatomical structures (constituent services, meet & greets, etc.) serve the primary function. If your Congressman is a good person, don’t go on the attack: instead, reward (and train) him. Understand the rewards and punishments that drive the organism. Understand that you (singular) are unimportant to your Congressman, while you (plural) are feared. Understand that your Congressman employs “pliable” stances on positions to guarantee “desired” outcomes. Lots of good stuff in this short chapter.
3. How to identify or organize a local group – Join together within your Congressional district, keep efforts focused, use social networking, make your group diverse, have a kickoff meeting, make sure everyone is on-board with the same principles: this is not a social club; it’s a serious endeavor. Choose a name, assign roles, agree on how you are going to communicate, and expand. With a couple hundred members you (plural) will be too big for your Congressman to ignore.
4. Advocacy tactics that really work – This is a really long chapter, and by far the most important. Identify the (1) Congressman from your district and the (2) Senators from your state. Get on their mailing lists. Educate yourselves on their positions. Who donates to their campaigns? Follow local news reports to discover where they get public pats on the back (or smacks on the backside). Attend their public events. Mobilize your members to attend their public events. Always have questions prepared in advance. Focus on a theme. Coordinate. Make sure your members don’t go rogue or off-script. Arrive early, spread out in the audience, ask good questions. Share everything on social media. Attend their other events. Don’t be afraid to interrupt if you don’t get the microphone. Find out which reporters are covering these events and talk to them nicely and rationally (next time they might interview you). If these events are sponsored, hold the hosts accountable. Make sure you visit your Congressman’s office(s). Go in numbers. Don’t be idiots. Sit-ins and civil disobedience can backfire. Build a relationship with your Congressman’s staff. They can either be your friend or a pugnacious gatekeeper. Always have an “ask” – something you want. And let people know you are going to the office to ask for it. Don’t be afraid to call. Drown them in calls. There are so many delays built into mail (checking for anthrax, etc.) and filters for email (spam, content filtering), that phone calls are often best. Keep records of your conversations. Let other members know how the conversations went. Design scripts and practice them.

This also works at the state level. Check here for your Massachusetts legislators.

I cast my lot with the Berniecrats in the Democratic primaries. After Bernie lost I was naturally pretty disappointed in the DNC, especially the outgoing chair, but eagerly awaited Sanders’ next moves, which turned out to be both a well-regarded book and something a bit more than a PAC, an organization called Our Revolution.

After donating to Our Revolution, some of us have been impatiently waiting for the “bit more” part, which promised to build a network to get progressives involved in local Democratic Party organizations.

Recently a friend who’s been hounding Our Revolution even more than I finally heard something:

I know it doesn’t look like it, but we actually are working hard on several projects I am personally excited about. First, we’re researching and building a tool to allow folks to get involved in leadership in Dem and Working Families Party positions at their local level – you can check out our progress so far at transformtheparty.com. We’ve got teams of volunteers and staffers working hard on this. Right now the search tool only works for California addresses but we’re almost ready to launch the whole shebang. Second, we’re working on a sanctuary cities project that we plan to use to pressure additional cities to become havens for those who need protection – and third, we’re getting ready to roll out local organizing plans for all 50 states. This is going to be a big deal and has taken lots of time to try to get right – but we expect it to be out within the next few weeks at most.

Today my buddy sent me a “getting started” link to a signup page at the same website, where you can enter your name, address and state. The youthful techies who have created all this are using a discussion tool called #slack which you may want to invest some time learning to use, if you are so inclined.

So at least register. Even if you’re a mainstream Democrat it may be an eye-opener to discover how things actually get done. Which – now that I think about it – is true of just about any organization.

Meanwhile the contest between Democrats supporting Keith Ellison and those backing Tom Perez for DNC chair is heating up. Both are pretty good guys, but Perez has less political experience and is a tad more corporate-friendly while Ellison has a giant Republican “Black Muslim Jihadist Anti-Semite Communist wife-beater” target on his back, making some weak-bladdered Democrats pretty nervous. The person who ends up winning the DNC chair may be less important than how he wins it, and how the arm-wrestling match plays out between centrist and progressive Democrats.

So, as they say in arm-wrestling… Ready, Go!