Our Gahans and Dickeys are influence peddlers, displaying far less soul than conditioned responses for self-preservation, and they're currently leaning over backwards to appease Dan Coffey, a snarling Trumpian and the polar opposite of what's really needed. They're engaged in this demeaning somersault because the local party presently has no stated purpose apart from enhancing Jeff Gahan's cult of personality.
ON THE AVENUES: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?
If all this disgusts you, you'll be delighted to know that alternative models exist. Let the principled refurbishment begin ... and if the local protectors of rapidly failing orthodoxy are unable to adapt, seeing them swept away would be a highly soulful development, wouldn't it?
First, about the Left itself ...
The American left will be reborn under President Trump, by Owen Jones (The Guardian)
Clintonian-centrism was defeated in November, but attempts to repeal Obamacare show the Republicans are weak and divided. Now is the time for the left to craft a populist alternative
Donald Trump is now the most powerful man on Earth. You would expect the American left to be despondent; it’s not. The left is stronger than it has been for decades. They are up against a president who lost the popular vote, who assumes office with the lowest approval rating on record, and whose party is riven by divisions. In November, Clintonian-centrism – whose compelling selling point was the ability to win – was defeated, plunging the American republic into its gravest crisis since the war ...
... A battle for the soul of the Democratic party now beckons. There are siren voices who claim that the Democrats were too radical, too vociferous in their support of women and minorities. But a powerful new movement is determined to transform the Democrats into a party that unapologetically challenges vested interests.
... then, some strategies for those still embracing the Party.
The First Step to Electing More Democrats? Getting Them to Run, by Tim Murphy (Mother Jones)
How one group is trying to channel the Trump resistance into political gains.
... Run for Something's mission is not to stop Trump in 2020, at least not directly. Its focus is on local races, where Democrats have been creamed over the last eight years, losing some 935 state legislative seats during the Obama era. In 2017, it is focusing its efforts on Virginia and North Carolina, two places where Democratic gains at the state level (the party controls the governor's mansion in both states) are undercut by conservative legislatures. In Virginia, a blue state in the last three presidential elections, Democrats have failed even to show up in some races: 44 of the state's 67 Republican delegates ran unopposed in 2015, including three Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton. Democrats have a long way to go to recoup what they lost, but they've also left a lot of low-hanging fruit on the vine.
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