Hey Democrats: Dont let the DNC Race Distract From the Real Fight

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/28/hey-democrats-don-t-let-the-dnc-race-distract-from-the-real-fight.html


Hey Democrats: Don’t let the DNC Race Distract From the Real Fight
With the Trump agenda rolling on, do we really want to waste time arguing about Tom Perez?
Michael Tomasky
02.28.17 1:00 AM ET

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So all that happened over the weekend. Here are a few other things that happened:

• The Wall Street Journal reported (it’s paywalled, so no link) that Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, terrified that they’re hemorrhaging support for repeal of Obamacare, are now thinking about rushing through repeal votes, hoping that they can pressure wobbly Republicans to hold the line before there’s time for another round of meetings with constituents furious that their health care is being taken away. So, with polls showing clearly that it’s now the will of the people that they keep Obamacare and make a good-faith effort to fix the high deductible-premium problems, they’re about to yank it away.

• Politico, meanwhile, reported on the bare bones of what the “replace” part would look like. It’s unworkable and unserious, but if somehow it were to get passed, millions would have to drop their coverage because their subsidies for it would be slashed. In other words, those people who’ve been standing up at town-hall meetings telling their senator or representative that they’ll die? They’ll die.

• In other news, the president said this morning he’s going to increase Pentagon spending by $54 billion and get the savings through domestic programs. As I understand things, there are questions as to whether he can even do this under existing sequestration caps (it’s all pretty technical and I’m still trying to understand it). But even if he can, $54 billion is a massive assault on the domestic discretionary budget, all kinds of programs that all kinds of people depend on.

• Meanwhile, the clampdown on the press continues. Historically, White Houses conduct loads of background briefings, done by conference call to journalists. Sometimes they’re done just to lists of reporters, sometimes they’re more selective than that, but they’ve never to my knowledge, in Democratic or Republican White Houses, excluded people who were accustomed to being part of them with no explanation. Until now. Tara McKelvey, the White House reporter for the BBC, tweeted Monday morning: “WH officials have restricted many of their background conference calls to a certain number of reporters—with no explanation.”

• Immigration raids are causing panic in some communities. Some people are afraid to go to church or school. The new travel ban, this time presumably vetted by a lawyer or two and thus maybe more challenge-proof, is on its way.

• Steve Bannon vowed “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” Exactly what he means by that remains opaque. He did elaborate by saying that said deconstruction is the reason people like new EPA head Scott Pruitt were put in their jobs—to destroy the agencies over which they preside. Ponder the consequences of that for millions of poor people who live near toxic waste sites or breathe dirty air or what have you.

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There’s a lot of work to do. Democrats have to fight the Obamacare repeal tooth and nail. They have to fight on the budget. They have to try to pressure more Republicans to come out in favor of an independent counsel on Russia. They have to try to win special elections. And they have to try to win them in purple and red areas. The first big test comes up later this spring in Georgia, where, The Daily Beast’s Patricia Murphy reports, a native-son Democrat who’s well-financed has a real shot.

There’s a certain percentage of people who just want to be on the outside criticizing. If that’s who you are, Godspeed, I guess. Any political party needs some of that. And I get that the Obama forces put Perez in late to block Ellison, and that that’s annoying.

But if you can look at what going’s on in this country right now and decide you need to spend time and energy naming Tom Perez and Barack Obama as the problems, you may spare a moment’s thought for the people who worry that they or their loved ones might be deported or thrown in jail, who need the political party that opposes that to be as powerful as possible and don’t even have the slightest idea that Tom Perez and Keith Ellison exist.