I wish there was a bold opposition party to stand against the Trump administration.

The Democratic Party is not that party.

I have a large number of Republican family members, who consume a large amount of conservative media.

It has struck me as funny for a couple of years now whenever one of them or the talking heads they listen to talk about the Democratic party as a vast, subversive, left-wing, radical conspiracy with an untold amount of hidden power and influence in society.

If you or someone you know supports the Democratic Party or considers themselves left-wing in any way, then you know that NO supporter of the Democratic party sees them as bastion of power, influence, or competence. Mark Lilla has described Democrats since Reagan as “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”[1]

This was made manifestly clear in a recent episode of Jon Stewart’s podcast, “The Weekly Show,” when he interviewed Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which you can watch here.

Jon and AOC both highlight the incompetence of the Democratic Party, which is devoid of leadership and unable to adapt to the challenges of a second Trump administration (which if you follow this blog, you know I am not a fan of. See my post here for why).

One problem they point out is the corruption from insider trading by people in Congress. Democratic leadership (Republican, too, I’m sure) seems to think we, the American people, are stupid and don’t notice the hypocrisy. As Jon points out, they’ve lost any touch with the “cradle to grave” journey of people’s lives and “the squeeze” they feel. Of course, this hypocrisy seems to exclusively favor the Republican party and Trump himself, who acknowledges that “the system is rigged.” This acknowledgment means that the cynicism that develops from Democratic hypocrisy favors Trump, who honestly acknowledges that the system is rigged, although per Jon, Trump doesn’t seem to be draining the swamp so much as “co-opting the swamp” for his own benefit.

But aside from corruption (as if that weren’t enough), Democrats have another problem that AOC discusses. The Democratic Party is unable to define itself well and promote a strong and coherent agenda because “one of the problems is that the internal incentives within the Democratic Party are quite contrary to a clear, full-throated agenda.” According to AOC, that would require “rule-breakers in this moment.” After all, Trump is a rule-breaker. He has broken decades of rules, formal or informal, about  things like decorum, divestment of personal interests, etc.

But the Democratic Party is a party of “rules and structures and orders.” Things like seniority take precedence, even though Chuck Schumer can’t inspire people to save his life (which Jon comments on elsewhere here). And this is the problem with the Democratic Party. It’s a party of “order,” and a very specific kind of order, one that doesn’t allow for any deviation from the rules. And the results are half-hearted opposition, milquetoast and watered down pushback against Trump, and no risks. As AOC observes, any break from this mentality seems to represent an “existential” crisis for the Democratic Party: “If we don’t operate like this, then what other way is there?!”

And in the era of Donald Trump, Jon states that the Democrats approach doesn’t look like “a holding to protocol. It looks like submission.” It’s obeying in advance. Their rhetoric says, “Trump’s a fascist,” but there actions say, “Who wants to play a round of golf in Florida?”

This problem with the Democratic Party is an old one. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say that, in the fight for civil rights and other progressive causes, the ineptitude of the Democratic Party may be more damaging than Trump’s own overtly kleptocratic, sexist, and racist rhetoric.

King writes that many Black citizens in this country “have felt that their most troublesome adversary was not the obvious bigot of the Ku Klux Klan or the John Birch Society, but the white liberal who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice, who prefers tranquillity to equality.”[2] (To the point out the John Birch Society, it is worth reading this book to see the continuation of the Society’s influence in Trump’s GOP).

The party of “order and protocol” stands no chance against the injustice of greed, kleptocracy, and oligarchy. As King further writes, “ This is the most pressing challenge confronting the white liberal. When evil men plot, good men must plan,” and still further, “Nothing can be more detrimental to the health of America at this time than for liberals to sink into a state of apathy and indifference.”[3]

This is the accusation that Jon Stewart and AOC (who by the way, is probably more aligned with MLK’s political and economic vision that most politicians from either party) level at the Democratic Party, and they’re correct. Rather than plan and take bold, calculated, unpredictable risks, they stick with order. And tranquility. And apathy.

In King’s estimation, they make themselves a bigger threat to justice than any KKK member ever could be.

Endnotes

[1] Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (New York: Harper, 2017), 17.

[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 93.

[3] Ibid. 94.