What Is a Democrat?

Image: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call file photo

By Thomas Neuburger

Why do national Democrats seem so feckless when it comes to elections? Look no further than the consultant-ridden DNC, the Democratic National Committee, nominally the governing institution of the Democratic Party.

James Zogby is a long-time member of the DNC, and has long railed against its practices. Consider what he has to say in the following interview with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti on a recent Breaking Points show.

The whole interview is good, but here are a few juicy quotes for those with less than a little listening time.

On Democratic Party “membership” (lightly edited; all emphasis mine):

I grew up, my mom was a precinct captain and I used to go door to door with her, and go to Ward meetings, and on Election Day we'd get poll cards and we'd go to the polls and pass them out. You belonged to something, and you felt like this was part of who you were.

That's no longer the case. Being a member of the Democratic Party means nothing more than: I'm on a email list, I'm on a text message list, I'm on a hard mail list, I'm on a phone list, and I get asked for money. Nobody asks my opinion. There is no way to record your feeling about an issue.

On whether the DNC controls the Party:

In all the years I've been on the DNC, first time we had an actual election was when Keith Ellison and Tom Perez faced off after the Bernie-Hillary race.

First time we had a floor vote and a debate on an issue was at that same meeting when we debated whether we should accept money from PACs that emanated from businesses that violated the DNC positions on oil, fracking, whatever.

The fact is that DNC members even were like props who go to meetings and fill chairs and, I can say it because I'm a Catholic, you know we know when to stand up, when to sit down, when to clap, when to leave. Votes are a done deal. Staff decide what we vote on.

On who controls the money:

[E]very year, every cycle, the DNC spends hundreds of millions of dollars — this year well over a billion — and guess what? I have no idea where it's going to go.

The Harris campaign raised a billion dollars. It's in the red. We will never know where that money got spent. We will never evaluate was it effective or not.

People give $3 donations monthly [and] we have no idea where that money goes. And as opposed to being a governing body, like I said, we [the DNC] are props at meetings.

The fact is, Democratic voters aren’t members of the Party in any sense of membership. You can’t be a card-carrying Democrat. There are no cards, and the national party itself is just a tiny group of people with enormous power. Democratic voters are just supporters, sideline cheering fans at a game they can only watch. Or more accurately, Democratic voters are the Party’s target market, one source of its funds.

Is the same true on the Republican side? Of course it is. But unlike Democrats, Republican fear their base…

…while Democrats ridicule theirs...

By “socialist” Biden means people like these, marginal, easily ignored:

Bernie Sanders, New York City, 2019 (Getty Images)

Victories are nice when they come, but it's really all about the Benjamins. The Party raises money from everywhere it can and gives it to their consultants, many of whom sit on the DNC itself and have ties to the campaigns they advise. And while the candidate may win or lose, no consultant comes out of a contest unenriched. The Harris campaign is currently in the red, but I don’t think consultants are sitting on IOUs. The game's as corrupt as it looks.

We all want the U.S. to march into a better future. The Democratic Party is having trouble convincing voters it should lead that mission. This is why.