The soul of the Democratic Party is a fungible thing. Before the Civil War, it was largely identifiable as the party of slavery. From 1865 to 1964, it was primarily the party of white supremacist interests, fueled by involvement of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1964 to the present, it has been the party of entitlements and big government, and in the past few years, it has morphed again into the party of identity politics.
The leading edge of the latest transfiguration is of course the "Squad," a group of first-term Congresswomen, all of them women of color, and one, a first-generation immigrant. Their group's moniker is borrowed from the phrase "squad goals," a marketing invention used by home exercise company Peloton, and broadly defined by Bustle as "an aspirational term for what you'd like your group of friends to be or accomplish."
On this flimsy foundation, AOC and company have built their church.
If you thought the American voter suddenly decided that the country needed a group of young, inexperienced, angry, anti-Semitic women with vastly differing levels of comprehension of the Constitution, history, and household appliances, think again. Though their collective rise to prominence certainly seemed like an organic occurrence, it was far from it.
As David Catron points out at The American Spectator, "Saikat Chakrabarti, the prime mover behind a Tennessee-based PAC called the 'Justice Democrats,' whose support was largely responsible for getting Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ro Khanna, and Pramila Jayapal elected last November. Chakrabarti has now set up shop in the House, ostensibly as AOC’s chief of staff."
Indeed, "Justice Democrats" was co-founded in early 2017 by Chakrabarti, Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, and the odious Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks. Uygur and Kulinski have since been ousted from the group for noxious old tweets, and creative differences, respectively. While Alexandra Rojas is the executive director, Chakrabarti is the de facto leader, calling shots from Ocasio-Cortez's Congressional office.
Chakrabarti is no tenderfoot. A Harvard computer science grad who spent time on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, he knows the corridors of real power in America. Before helping to found Justice Democrats, he learned to wield the sickle and hammer as part of the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign, hence the electioneering talent. He's using all the facets of his formidable bi-coastal education in Washington, where he's the Oz behind the insurgent Democrat curtain. It's his vision that his minions preach, not their own, as Catron observes (emphasis added):
"Chakrabarti doesn’t see himself as a mere staffer in some congresswoman’s office. He sees AOC as someone who provides him with a headquarters from which he can 'fundamentally change' the Democratic Party. As the magazine’s profile phrases it, 'Saikat Chakrabarti isn’t just running her office. He’s guiding a movement.' What does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez think about all this? It isn’t her job to think. That’s Chakrabarti’s function. Her job is to provide him with a platform to carry out his grandiose political schemes. Whenever you hear AOC say something outrageous, remember that Saikat Chakrabarti is behind the curtain, furiously pushing buttons, spinning dials, and pumping the smoke machine."
"Fundamentally changing" the Democratic Party is, of course, a tall task. 17-term congresswoman Nancy Pelosi didn't ascend to her perch as Speaker of the House gently or by accident, but as her fractured party struggles to find its footing in the face of Trump's clear populist message and solid economic results, opportunities have arisen to challenge Pelosi's leadership. Her early put-downs such as "All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world...They're four people and that's how many votes they got," aren't working anymore. Any time that Democrats get less than 100% of their intended legislative goals, Chakrabarti inserts a wedge.
Pelosi's trembling hands are full in confronting the Justice Democrats challenge. Any Republican--or Democrat--who challenges the ascendancy of the Squad becomes Twitter fodder.
The Justice Democrats model is to flood districts with historically low voter turnout and turn up the outrage machine, as David Marcus of The Federalist notes (emphasis added):
"The idea is to target deeply leftist areas and run far-left primary challenges there. The relatively low voter turnout in such primaries offers the PAC the best opportunity to use its resources to drum up just enough votes to get past the finish line. Once the primary is won, these deep blue districts have no chance of voting Republican...Only 80,000 of the borough’s 760,000 registered Democrats bothered to vote. Those kinds of numbers are at the core of Justice Democrats’ savvy approach to gain political power without attracting wide swaths of voters. In sleepy primaries they can activate their aggressive leftist base and eke out wins."
Who is giving money to these socialist candidates? It's a reasonable question, and the answers are shocking. Crain's recently researched the AOC phenomenon. (Emphasis added):
"A Crain's analysis of [AOC's} fundraising since the end of March shows almost all of her money originating from outside her district—and much of it from outside New York. Of the more than 4,200 contributions she received during the latest filing period, only a few dozen came from...the East Bronx and western Queens neighborhoods she represents, and fewer than 400 originated inside New York.
"By contrast, more than 570 came from persons with addresses in California. More than 100 came from individuals in Washington State. A sizable number of the donors reported working in the tech sector, for firms such as Google, SpaceX, NimbleBit, IBM and ABB. Many other contributors were lawyers or health care professionals, or were retired, unemployed or self-employed...many people donated multiple times, suggesting a monthly or even biweekly arrangement."
While virtually every Republican naturally opposes the Squad, who will rise up from the ranks of American citizenry to fight them where they live? Please watch this video and spread the word. Thoughtful candidates are the salve for the wound inflicted by Squad members like AOC, who did little more than tend bar in their home districts before becoming socialist puppets.
The soul of the Democratic Party has changed again. It is lost, inhabited by ghouls. The soul of the Republican Party is being born again, right in the backyard of the imposters:
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