With Beto O’Rourke
as Lightning Rod, Corporate Democrats Aim to Stifle Criticism
Posted By Norman
Solomon On December 27, 2018 @ 1:54 am
Well-informed public discussion is a major
hazard for Democratic Party elites now eager to prevent Bernie Sanders from
winning the 2020 presidential nomination. A clear focus on key issues can bring
to light the big political differences between Sanders and the party’s
corporate-friendly candidates. One way to muddy the waters is to condemn people
for pointing out facts that make those candidates look bad.
National polling shows that the U.S. public strongly favors bold
policy proposals that Sanders has been championing for a long time. On issues
ranging from climate change to Medicare for All to tuition-free public college
to Wall Street power, the party’s base has been moving leftward, largely
propelled by an upsurge of engagement from progressive young people. This
momentum is a threat to the forces accustomed to dominating the Democratic
Party.
In recent weeks, Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke has become a lightning rod in
a gathering political storm — largely because of the vast hype about him from
mass media and Democratic power brokers. At such times, when spin goes into
overdrive, we need incisive factual information. Investigative journalist David
Sirota provided it in a deeply researched Dec. 20 article, which The
Guardian published under the headline “Beto O’Rourke Frequently Voted for Republican
Legislation, Analysis Reveals.”
Originating from the nonprofit Capital & Main news organization, the piece
reported that “even as O’Rourke represented one of the most solidly Democratic
congressional districts in the United States, he has frequently voted
against the majority of House Democrats in support of Republican bills
and Trump administration priorities.”
Progressives have good reasons to like some of O’Rourke’s positions. But
Sirota’s reporting drilled down into his voting record, reviewing “the 167 votes O’Rourke
has cast in the House in opposition to the majority of his own party during his
six-year tenure in Congress. Many of those votes were not progressive dissents
alongside other left-leaning lawmakers, but instead votes to help pass
Republican-sponsored legislation.”
The meticulous and in-depth
reporting by Sirota was a public service, but some angry reactions were classic
instances of blaming the messenger for the unfavorable news. At times
vitriolic, the denunciations of Sirota came from people who apparently would
have preferred for Congressman O’Rourke’s actual voting record to remain
shrouded in a hagiographic haze.
But it’s better to learn
revealing political facts sooner rather than later. Thanks to Sirota’s
coverage, for instance, we now know “O’Rourke has voted for GOP bills that his
fellow Democratic lawmakers said reinforced Republicans’ anti-tax ideology,
chipped away at the Affordable Care Act (ACA), weakened Wall Street
regulations, boosted the fossil fuel industry and bolstered Donald Trump’s
immigration policy.”
The
backlash to Sirota’s news article was in keeping with a tweet two weeks earlier
from Neera Tanden, the president of the influential and lavishly funded Center
for American Progress, who has long been a major ally of Bill and Hillary
Clinton. On Dec. 6, Tanden went over-the-top in response to a tweet from Sirota
simply mentioning the fact that
O’Rourke “is the #2 recipient of oil/gas industry campaign cash in the entire
Congress.”
Tanden lashed out via Twitter, writing: “Oh look. A supporter of Bernie Sanders
attacking a Democrat. This is seriously dangerous. We know Trump is in the
White House and attacking Dems is doing Trump’s bidding. I hope Senator Sanders
repudiates these attacks in 2019.”
Such calculated nonsense indicates just how panicky some powerful corporate
Democrats are about Bernie’s likely presidential campaign — and just how
anxious they are to protect corporate-oriented candidates from public scrutiny.
The quest is to smother meaningful discussions of vital issues that should be
center stage during the presidential campaign.
Corporate Democrats are gearing up to equate principled, fact-based critiques
of their favored candidates with — in Tanden’s words — “seriously dangerous”
attacks that are “doing Trump’s bidding.” Such demagogic rhetoric should be
thrown in the political trash cans where it belongs.
This is not only about Beto O’Rourke — it’s about the parade of Democratic
contenders lined up to run for president. Should the candidates that mass media
and party elites put forward as “progressive” be quickly embraced or carefully
scrutinized? The question must be asked and answered.
URL to
article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/27/with-beto-orourke-as-lightning-rod-corporate-democrats-aim-to-stifle-criticism/
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center,
325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email:
mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the
subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to
gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment