Democrats: The Establishment Party

Posted on | August 9, 2012 | 32 Comments

Liberals love to think of themselves as rebels, mavericks rising up against entrenched special interests. But despite the “Question Authority” bumper stickers on their Volvos, whenever it comes to a showdown — progressive principles vs. political power — the Left usually ends up rolling over for the Democrat Party’s leadership:

In Washington state, Democrats worried the wrong candidate might allow a Republican to steal an open House seat north of Seattle. The entire party establishment waded into the primary on behalf of the more centrist candidate, Suzan DelBene, even though a prominent liberal, Darcy Burner, was already in the race. On Tuesday, DelBene won the right to advance to the November ballot by a wide margin.

Are Washington State Democrats ashamed of liberals like Darcy Burner? Are progressives who backed Burner going to roll over while the Democrat Party establishment forces “the more centrist candidate” down their throats? Backstabbed! Sold out! Betrayed!

Remember the Wisconsin primary, when progressives were supporting Kathleen Falk and the Democrat Party establishment lined up behind corrupt Mayor Tom Barrett? Same deal: The establishment insiders protect their power, and progressives are expected to smile, roll over and take it.

When are liberal idealists going to wake up and realize that Democrats treat them like a bunch of chumps, suckers to be played? You’re no better than the Democrats in Montana who elected a governor who slurs them as racist rednecks. It’s as if liberals keep acting out some sort of psycho-drama as a way of dealing with their self-esteem issues: “I don’t deserve to be respected.”

Category: Democrats, Washington State

Comments

32 Responses to “Democrats: The Establishment Party”

Democrats: The Establishment Party « Jackie Wellfonder – Raging Against the Rhetoric
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:11 am

[…] at The Other McCain… Share this:EmailTwitterFacebookPrintTumblrMoreRedditLinkedInStumbleUponDiggPinterestLike […]
Evilbloggerlady
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:17 am

They just exercised their “right to choose” when it came to Burner.
Evilbloggerlady
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:20 am

As for Governor Schweitzer, it seems he likes to get his grove on while on trips to NYC!
Shocker: Gentry Dem Ruling Class Establishment Almost As Bad As Gentry GOP Ruling Class Establishment | Daily Pundit
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:26 am

[…] Bad As Gentry GOP Ruling Class Establishment Posted on August 9, 2012 7:26 am by Bill Quick Democrats: The Establishment Party : The Other McCain Are Washington State Democrats ashamed of liberals like Darcy Burner? Are progressives who […]
Mike G.
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:45 am

Darcy Burner…that name sounds familiar. Oh yeah…didn’t she hitch her wagon to the Neal Rauhauser Democratic strategist horse? How’d that work out for her?
Bill54
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:48 am

Grove? Is he a druid? 😉
PaulLemmen
August 9th, 2012 @ 10:58 am

Visualize the political spectrum as the face of a clock:
12 is a neutral government, neither liberal nor conservative, balanced. 3 is conservative government, minimal government, few services. 9 is liberal government, big government, highly regulated, nanny state in many respects. 6 is totalitarianism and can be reached from the left or the right, via socialism or fascism. The hand now stands between 9 and 6, we need to return it to 12 which may mean a swing of the pendulum to between 12 and 3.
Bob Belvedere
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:11 am

Why yes…yes she did:
http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/07/democrat-candidate-for-congress-worked-with-brett-kimberlin-associate-neal-rauhauser/
and
http://thecampofthesaints.org/2012/07/02/the-brettkimberlin-report-d38-the-madness-of-king-sockpuppet/
scarymatt
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:13 am

Liberals love to think of themselves as rebels, mavericks rising up against entrenched special interests.

The cognitive dissonance of this truth is amazing.

“They want to end Medicare as we know it!”

“Don’t touch Social Security!”

“Super duper precedent!”
Adobe_Walls
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:23 am

In your analogy we need to move both hands to 3 then nail them to the clock face.
richard mcenroe
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:24 am

There is an establishment party… and it crosses Dem/GOP party lines. This is why McConnell and Reid are more likely to take care of each other than us.

Beyond that, there is the Shadow Establishment of long entrenched “civil servants”, mostly Democrat, a mandarinate who act to implement the “progressive” agenda established at the turn of the 20th century but who will act most decisively to keep their grip on the single largest rice bowl in human history.
Evilbloggerlady
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:25 am

Isn’t she also a Microsoft Millionaire? Now imagine if some Republican had ties to a thug like Rauhauser?
rjacobse
August 9th, 2012 @ 11:42 am

I’m sorry, but what the hell does “a neutral government, neither liberal nor conservative” even mean? What would such a government look like? What are its governing principals?

It’s like what Rush says about “moderates:” what do they even stand for? What are “moderate” principals? I can tell you what conservative principals are, and what liberal principals are. But “moderate” principals, as far as I can tell, don’t exist.
JeffS
August 9th, 2012 @ 12:32 pm

The Democrats went for their “centrist” candidate because there’s a strong conservative backlash against elected officials, local, state, and Federal.

Note that I said “conservative”, not “Republican”. It’s lead primarily, but not exclusively, by the Tea Party. And does include some Democrats as well.

Old school Democrats, I hasten to add. A few of them crossed party lines in the State legislature to get a rational budget passed this year…..by voting with the Republican minority in the State Senate.

But there are RINOs who see that same conservative backlash, and fear for their cushy comfort zone, protected by their power base.

So the entrenched politicians are indeed running scared. It’s long past time to cut them off from the public teat.
PaulLemmen
August 9th, 2012 @ 1:21 pm

The mythical 12 would be an even balance between the liberal big government and the conservative minimalist government. I call it mythical because just like evoloution and much of the pseudo-science pushed as truth today, it cannot exist outside of a theory on paper. Reality intrudes and we see the ever present struggle between 3 and 9 with 6 as an ever present consequence of whack-jobs getting the power. (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Barry in his mythical 2nd term).
PaulLemmen
August 9th, 2012 @ 1:23 pm

Pretty much … 12 is mythical and exists only as an ideal …
Adjoran
August 9th, 2012 @ 2:20 pm

The principle is called “democratic centralism,” and it holds that once a decision is taken by the Party, all members must drop their objections and vigorously uphold and defend it. This is what eventually led to the demise of the “Blue Dogs” in the House, and why there is only one Democratic Senator who fails to toe the line – and him only in election years.

The principle of course originated in the CPSU under Lenin.
richard mcenroe
August 9th, 2012 @ 3:03 pm

Last numbers I saw, the Tea Party was about 25% Democrat. Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s gone up (Not counting those LaRouche assholes we keep kicking out of the rallies.)
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 9th, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

And Soopermexican notes: The Democrats do have signs of depression:
http://www.soopermexican.com/2012/08/07/gotye-parody-on-obama-obama-that-i-used-to-know/
Adobe_Walls
August 9th, 2012 @ 5:12 pm

That’s why the federal bureaucracies must be ruthlessly eviscerated, eliminating whole departments and repeatedly decimating those that remain.
JeffS
August 9th, 2012 @ 5:44 pm

Sounds about right, from what I’ve seen.

But there aren’t many professed Larouchies in my neck o’ the woods; we are less tolerant of those sort of asshats. If there are any, they label themselves as libertarians, and worship LaRouche in secret.
JeffS
August 9th, 2012 @ 5:47 pm

And why Lieberman had to run as an “independent democrat” after his own party booted him over the Iraq War. Even though he toed the party line virtually every other time.
Shawn Gillogly
August 9th, 2012 @ 5:51 pm

Of course, I might point out here that the GOP does the exact same thing. Witness the Establishment moving Heaven and Earth, and primary dates illegally, to nominate Romney, and the “Bush Dynasty,” and, well, every GOP nominee since Goldwater not named Ronald Wilson Reagan.

I might also point to NY23, where the GOP 1st nominated a prog-rat more leftist than the Democrat, and then when she lost to the Conservative Party candidate, jumped ship for the DEMOCRAT to protect the Duopoly, instead of letting their base have the win.

Or O’Donnell and Angle, who both lost in no small part because after having the Establishment get stuffed, they jumped ship to the Democrats–never mind they will chant to Conservatives the ‘party loyalty’ mantra whenever it’s a “Moderate” (aka Establishment pseudo-Prog) who gets nominated.

Both parties’ Establishments manipulate their base by legal and extra-legal means to ensure their power. That’s the Duopoly in action, and both Establishments would rather have one of their own than an ideologue from the base.
scarymatt
August 9th, 2012 @ 7:26 pm

Yeah, if only RSM would stand up to the Republican Establishment! Wait…
Shawn Gillogly
August 9th, 2012 @ 7:41 pm

I never said RSM doesn’t.
BLBeamer
August 10th, 2012 @ 8:09 am

I don’t know how “prominent” a liberal Darcy Burner is, except maybe in her own mind. She lost to Dave “It Only Took me 15 Years to Catch the Green River Killer” Reichert in 2008 when she lied about having a degree in economics from Harvard and incessantly talked on and on and on about a book report she had written that somebody no one has heard of claimed to be The Answer to The World’s Great Problems. Even the Dems were embarrassed by her. Del Bene, in contrast, while she also lost to Reichert in 2010, is not a loon and does not have the obvious delusional ego that Burner has. Del Bene comes across as a serious person as opposed to a clown.

Reichert is my Congressman, by the way, but don’t blame me. For the record, I voted against Burner in 2008 and I withheld my vote in 2010.
richard mcenroe
August 10th, 2012 @ 12:02 pm

So a neutral government is one in which we KNOW 50% of its policies won’t work?
richard mcenroe
August 10th, 2012 @ 12:03 pm

Which goes back to my point about a cross-Party DC establishment.
PaulLemmen
August 10th, 2012 @ 1:03 pm

Nope, the concept of a Neutral Government is where everything works as planned, all have an equal voice and there is perfection. Unachievable short of the Second Coming …
scarymatt
August 10th, 2012 @ 1:08 pm

I accept that this is another form of Utopianism, but ignoring that it would never happen, I don’t think you could even specify what it means.

And your six o’clock doesn’t really make sense, either. NB: there have been a lot of “conservatives” with plenty of the Progressive affliction. Or maybe it’s just the oversimplification that bugs me.
Mark Andrew Edwards
August 10th, 2012 @ 1:59 pm

Darcy also had a few campaign skeltons in her closet. Like misrepresenting her educational background to make her sound like an business/economics wiz. One of my former coworkers, Matthew Coyne, worked his heart out on her campaign a few years ago and just about died when she put her foot in it then.

Could be A reason the WA establishment didn’t want to get behind her.
PaulLemmen
August 10th, 2012 @ 3:00 pm

I guess it is the result of the decline of educational excellence and the dumbing down of America that I have had to resort, in the main, to such simple explanations. I am glad that most of the readers on TOM do not fall into that category. Alas, the space needed for a valid, in depth discussion of the clock concept for political beliefs is not in the comment column on this blog. For an example of the type of space necessary and the sheer word count needed to explain this, you may choose to look over my latest post in which I examine Truth, Lies and the Father of Lies as they relate to our current political dialog: http://wp.me/p27DAO-HO