"Deval Patrick Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party."

"Maybe five or ten years ago, Deval Patrick might have been the best Democrat that our dismal system could have produced. But that’s no longer the case. The time for guys like this has passed."

And by extension, this is why it's so very difficult to find a reason to vote for Democrats. The two party system is a reeking cesspool.

Deval Patrick Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party, by Liza Featherstone (Jacobin)

Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick’s resume reads like a dystopian novel about the nihilism and brutality of contemporary capitalism. He should leave public life forever.

The donor classes do not want Bernie Sanders to be president. Most of them don’t want Elizabeth Warren, either. They’d prefer someone who doesn’t have much to say about wealth distribution, whether in the form of taxing the rich, or big programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Their most electable option in this vein — at least as measured by primary and general election polling, as well as occasional, if fleeting, resemblance to a sympathetic human being — is obviously Joe Biden. Unhappily for them, Biden is also a chucklehead. Terrified that the Left might win, the titans of industry have a plan: Deval Patrick.

Like Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, is the extremely disappointing progeny of a radical father. (Pat Patrick, a jazz musician, played with Sun Ra’s band, The Arkestra.) That’s probably the coolest thing about him.

The enthusiasm for Sanders and Warren at the grassroots — as well as for progressive and socialist local and Congressional candidates nationwide — might suggest a sea change, a popular desire to grapple seriously with the problems caused by capitalism. Deval Patrick, until recently an executive at Bain Capital, is a flagrant insult to that popular uprising. He is a cherished asset of the fossil fuel, private equity, and subprime mortgage industries, which are some of the worst phenomena that contemporary capitalism has produced. What’s next, a member of the Sackler family?

Though news coverage insists on characterizing his entry into the primary as “sudden,” it seems that a few members of the ruling class have been working on his campaign for a while. Since 2018, OpenSecrets News reports, big donors, especially in private equity, have been pouring money into Deval Patrick’s PAC, putting his campaign in an advantageous position. Even in October 2018, more than a year ago, the PAC, called Reason to Believe, was far outperforming PACs of other candidates considering a 2020 run. Most of the money came from one private equity mogul: Dan Fireman, a billionaire golf enthusiast ...