In his Washington Post post Ed Rogers offers more of that advice to Democrats I mentioned yesterday:
I would tell the Democrats to keep Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as their House minority leader. More of the same from her would be great. And if they really want to exile someone, I would say they should get rid of the able, media-savvy Donna Brazile as head of the Democratic National Committee and elect another member of congress, a la Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to serve as a part-time, conflicted chairman. I would order them to elect a real leftist, such as uhh . . . Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who was a Bernie Sanders supporter and who has been associated with both the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Louis Farrakhan.
That’s the analog of the view that the more right-wing members of the Republican Party have held for some time with stronger arithmetic support, that is, if the party just nominates candidates that are far enough right, they’ll be elected in landslides. I don’t think it has dawned on them yet that Donald Trump is the living refutation of that.
Robert Conquest’s Laws of Politics seem to apply:
1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
particularly #3. That also probably explains why self-described independents now outnumber either Republicans or Democrats. Why, when Nancy Pelosi became House Speaker half of all Americans thought of themselves as Democrats.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I am amazed the Pelosi is being seriously considered for retention. Usually the leadership is the first to go after political failures and Rep. Pelosi has been leader for three.
i’m not, she is a great fund raiser, not shy about donating to worthy candidates, has a rolodex that can deliver and is beloved by the progressive base.