February 24th 2010

An Open Letter To Jim Dean, Democracy For America

Dear Jim:

Your most recent e-mail solicitation (see below) on behalf of my opponent in the U.S. Senate New York Democratic primary prompted me to write this more detailed open letter as a follow-up to my original email. I look forward to your response.

DFA’s website states, “Democracy for America is our nation’s largest progressive political action community. With over one million members nationwide, DFA is a grassroots powerhouse working to change our country and the Democratic Party from the bottom-up.” I have great respect for the work DFA does and for you personally. I know you log many hours on the road trying to promote DFA’s mission.

So, to engage you in a discussion, my question is this: what is progressive? What is grassroots? And how do we work to change the country?

Candidly speaking, I think progressives are in danger of fumbling the greatest opportunity before us in a generation and ceding the representation of the rightful anger in the country to the movement loosely known as The Tea Party. We face this danger not because of a failure of the basic ideas the progressive movement represents—ideas that I believe to be patriotic and uplifting solutions to our crisis. Rather, it is because we are replicating the very structures and behavior that many voters have rejected.

Your solicitation for my opponent is emblematic. I am going to mostly put aside for this discussion my opponent’s past passionate support for the National Rifle Association (which led her to sign on to the NRA’s successful Supreme Court challenge to the D.C. handgun ban—a decision by the conservative Justices that will lead to the death and injury of many men, women and children who live in one of the most violent cities in America), her immigrant bashing, her aggressive defense of Big Tobacco, not to mention her entire silence during her short career in the House on marriage equality (an issue on which she has now apparently found a voice and a position).

Only in the dysfunctional Orwellian political world in America could an individual pronounce herself, without a tinge of irony or self-doubt, as having “evolved” from past abhorrent positions to a new “progressive” set of principles—and have the political world nod in acceptance, as if this was normal behavior and not something that would immediately disqualify a person because they would be perceived as having no principles at all. When political leaders and opinion makers accept such an “evolution”, they are further showing how disconnected they are from the voters, who are disgusted with politics and the political leaders of both parties. Voters perceive—correctly—that politicians will do or say anything just to get elected. My opponent is a shining example of that impulse.

The main issue in this election will be economic power and who will fight to change a system that has robbed millions of Americans of their economic security. Health care is obviously a component of asking the basic question: who will truly fight to change a corrupt economic system?

Your pitch urges support for leaders who “show backbone” and for “sticking their necks out”. Throughout this debate, my opponent has shown virtually no leadership on the health care fight. In fact, there is a legitimate argument to be made that my opponent (and other electorally-vulnerable Democratic Senators) decided to sign the letter urging the reconciliation strategy—again, not taking leadership but jumping on board someone else’s initiative—precisely because of the calculation that the public option is dead and there is no risk to supporting something that will never come to pass. (In similar fashion, my opponent voted FOR the deficit-reduction commission, which would cut Medicare and Medicaid; thankfully, that proposal died in the Senate—a proposal which I would have vehemently opposed because the debt obsession is a distraction and a backdoor way to attack Medicare and Medicaid—but which apparently my opponent thought was either a good idea or was worth voting for simply to show “deficit reduction courage”.)
Second, DFA proudly calls itself an organization dedicated to changing the country from the grassroots. I think you would agree that one of the greatest threats to grassroots democracy is the corruption of the political system by special interest money—a corruption enhanced and endorsed by the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to buy political allegiance.

The appointed Senator did not need to wait for the Supreme Court decision to assist her campaign treasury. She is awash in the Wall Street/insurance money that actually created our economic and health care crisis, and, overall in the nation, is one of the most heavily financed candidates by Wall Street, banks, insurers, and corporate-backed interests. So, effectively, DFA is rewarding my opponent for being funded by the powerful economic interests against whom the people—the very people DFA is, in theory, supposed to represent—are ready to revolt. Rather than hear the voice of the voters, the appeal to DFA members, instead, reinforces the very system and gives aid and comfort to the “insiders” who got us into this mess.
This is not change. This is reinforcing a corrupt system.

As for the “bottom-up” strategy of DFA, as far as I know, the grassroots base of DFA in New York State has not been asked whether it supports the appointed Senator. Nor whether DFA’s resources should be put to use to raise money for the appointed Senator.

In addition, your pitch urges people to step up and be involved in a “competitive primary” between two people, one of whom who isn’t even a candidate. While progressives are used to the irresponsible behavior of the traditional media and the “talking heads”, why is DFA simply replicating conventional wisdom about a race that does not even exist? Rather than changing the country, such an acceptance of conventional wisdom simply reinforces the perversion of democracy.

If DFA, at the end of the day, wants to endorse my opponent for one of many reasons—for example, the concern that the Democratic Party machine might exact some price on DFA for failing to endorse the machine candidate (as the party machine has tried to do with any person who has had the temerity to consider, in a democracy, a primary challenge to the appointed Senator)—I can understand that.

But, I would hope that such an endorsement would be truthful about its origins. It would be a disservice to the progressive movement, and to DFA, to cast such an endorsement as supporting a “progressive”. That is not supported by the facts.

Perhaps, most important, we should consider the choices made in this Senate race, and all other contests around the country, through the prism of DFA’s mission “to change our country and the Democratic Party…”. It is my belief, and the principle reason I decided to enter this race, that we are living through the most extreme crisis in probably the last half- century—a crisis that threatens to tear an economic and psychological hole in our societal fabric that will last for decades to come. To make sure that current and future generations achieve their dreams, we have to challenge the economic rules that we have lived with that got us into this mess.

Every day brings new evidence of the power struggle underway. As I write to you, the president is preparing a health care proposal that would only cover 15 million people. From the starting point where the Administration never included single-payer, Medicare for All as an option (because of politics, not economics) to a place where a weaker public option was being advanced, to the next stage where the public option was removed entirely from consideration, to the possibility that the president’s “line in the sand” principle that any health care proposal must cover all Americans is now also quickly becoming a distant memory in favor of covering only 15 million people.

In addition, Wall Street’s fierce lobbying to defeat any reform is paying dividends: the Administration is now backing off the proposal to create an independent financial protection agency to defends consumers’ rights, vesting that power in the Treasury Department. Putting the protection of consumers in the hands of the Treasury Department is a cruel hoax because that department has always been, and will be, attuned to the bond markets and Wall Street, not the public.

The question, then, is where will DFA stand in the effort to defend the people. To do so, in my opinion, requires us, as progressives, to take back power from the “insiders”, cast them out of power and rebuild a political system that is answerable to the people. The best you can say about the appointed Senator is that she is an “insider”—based on the facts of her history, background, actions and who has bought her allegiance with hard cash—who is incapable of bringing about real change.

Please let me know your thoughts about this important issue. I will be circulating this letter and posting it on our website. I will be happy to post any response from you in the interest of an open and respectful debate.

Sincerely and with great respect,

Jonathan Tasini