In the past month alone, we've had Nancy Antoinette Pelosi means-testing programs in a pandemic and eating $12 ice cream on national TV; Chuck Schumer showering Wall Street with cash; Steny Hoyer saying Congress will take a month-long break "absent an emergency"; and Brenda Jones

Pelosi appointed Donna Shalala to a bailout oversight job and snubbed Katie Porter, who everyone knows is supremely qualified for that role; Pelosi prevented the House from using remote voting to quash dissent and reduce transparency... again, all in the last month alone.

The leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress have shown, very plainly, how little they care -- in a global pandemic -- about any notions of competence, justice, fairness, and responsiveness to vulnerable people.

Any competent Dem with a brain and a heart would revolt vs this.

Yet, where is the rebellion inside the Democratic Party rank-and-file in Congress?

Where is the rebellion from Dem Party voters across the country?
So much brainwashing, so much mass hypnosis, so much yas-kweening due to relentless media manipulation pumped into homebound brains

It is so easy to always place blame on the other side, because the other side in politics always has huge flaws. It's not as tho blaming the other side lacks truth or legitimacy... but if self-criticism & self-improvement are prohibited in a party, that party won't be accountable

Right now, in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic+economic meltdown, self-criticism in the pursuit of self-improvement is plainly prohibited by the Democratic Party -- by Obama (who hand-picked Joe at the last minute) and by Pelosi, who won't tolerate dissent.

It's obvious.

Americans are watching a slow-motion disaster:

Massive entities are getting easy, quick access to $ through the Fed, while working folks wait weeks/months for one f---ing $1,200 check without having universal health care AND mandatory paid sick leave AND canceled debts & rent.

Monthly UBI still hasn't been passed to get Americans thru this pandemic.

Guaranteed free health care at the point of service 4 any reason (not just coronavirus) hasn't been passed in a pandemic.

Cancellation of debt and long-term suspension of rent payments haven't been passed

Any civilized, humane country would have passed these basic provisions in a pandemic and economic meltdown.

The Democratic Party, esp. its leadership, has not broadly or consistently fought in pursuit of these goals.

In a normal, rational world, this would mean a rebellion.

Democratic Party politicians are timid, obedient sheep--even Bernie Sanders, despite his anti-establishment bluster. He fell in line behind Schumer for Phase 3 Senate legislation which helped Wall St.

Voters see this.

They don't trust progressives to fight, so they vote Biden.

Older black voters in South Carolina have seen--over half a century--how government has failed them.
Bernie failed in S Carolina not because those voters didn't like his ideas on paper, but because of an ingrained (merited) long-term skepticism that govt could deliver those goals

As @AOC or @katieporteroc consider a run for president in 2024, the first thing they need to do is change the Democratic Party's culture of meek obedience to bad leaders. They can't play the "go along to get along" game. They have to clearly show they're better than that.

On a larger level, anyone running for office in a Democratic Party primary (Senate, House, local level) has to *prove* s/he will go to the wall for working people. It can't just be bluster or speechifying. It has to be a manifest, evident commitment voters cannot deny or ignore.

Many on the left have asked, "Why do Democratic Party voters not see that Bernie or the left are the answers to their problems?"

It's a fair Q.

The answer: While Bernie told them some core truths, he wasn't willing to tell them the full truth, and the most inconvenient truths.

When Democratic Party politicians are willing to tell *the whole truth* -- every inconvenient truth, not just some truths -- and when that full truth saturates the airwaves and the public discourse, the temperature in the room will finally change.

Democratic Party voters merely take their cues from their leaders.
They see Pelosi-Schumer-Hoyer-Obama make sweet love to bankers & triangulate, so they accept that as the (cynical) framework for how the game is supposed to be played.

The 2020 primary didn't challenge this frame

. @ewarren would probably be the Democratic Party nominee if she had campaigned as the scorched-earth left populist she was in 2012.

Instead, she hired an Obama guy, @rospars, and a Clintonite, @rogerlau, to run her Big Structural Bailey selfie-line campaign into the ground.

Bernie didn't run a bad campaign -- he finished 2nd out of roughly 2 dozen candidates & won the popular vote in Iowa, NH and Nevada, a first in American politics -- but he just as clearly wasn't willing to do *everything* it took to win: He viewed Biden as a friend, not a problem

We can talk about messaging, or tactics, or TV ads, but it ultimately comes down to behavior.

Voters see how politicians act.
If no one in the room is willing to go *all the way* and tell the *full truth*, not just most truths or some truths, they'll remain skeptical of populism

A pandemic and an economic meltdown require telling voters the full truth, and the full truth is that Democratic Party leaders are utterly incapable of helping vulnerable people, at least if we judge those leaders by their actions since the pandemic began.

In a rational world, progressive politicians in Congress would demand Pelosi's and Schumer's heads on a platter, or require them to deliver certain outcomes to save their leadership positions.

That such a stance is--at least right now--absent from congressional Dems is telling.

I don't blame Democratic Party voters for choosing cynical, mediocre leaders.

The leaders set the example.

Dem Party rank-and-file members in Congress fail to challenge them. Progressives in Congress tell some truths, but not the whole truth, and refuse to rebel when it counts

If no one in Congress is willing to say the empress (Pelosi) has no clothes, why should voters be criticized for failing to do the same?

Democrats need to be willing to fight within their party and offend people within their party.
Bernie was unwilling to offend Schumer or Biden

No, I don't expect this to happen, because there's no evidence to support the claim, but if anything is going to change for the better in the Democratic Party, it starts with one thing and one thing only:

Dem electeds finding a spine and ceasing to be meek, obedient sheep.

Fin.