Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin will call for DNC officials’ neutrality to be codified in the party’s official rules and bylaws, two Democratic sources tell CNN. Martin has already been telling DNC members of his plans and will explain more in a call with members Thursday afternoon.
. . . “No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin told reporters on a call Thursday. “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.”
The DNC’s Rules & Bylaws committee is expected to vote on Martin’s proposal next month in a virtual meeting. If the committee approves the proposal it will advance to a full vote of the DNC membership in August.
The push for the new rule comes days after Hogg, who beat out a crowded field to become one of three DNC at-large vice chairs in February, announced his plan to help primary incumbent Democrats in safe districts through his group Leaders We Deserve. The organization plans to spend a total of $20 million in next year’s midterms supporting young people running for office.
Hogg stressed that his effort would not target Democrats in competitive districts or use any DNC resources, including voter files or donor lists. He told CNN in an interview last week that he would not endorse in the presidential primaries if he is still a DNC leader.
“I don’t take it personally,” Hogg said of the criticism of his primary challenge. “There’s a difference in strategy here, and the way that we think things need to be done.”
“Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.” Since when has the DNC not put it’s thumb on the scales in the past few decades, or ignored the voters entirely?
DNC: “Fuck Bernie, it’s her turn.”
Given that you’ve got about 100 years to play with - who else besides HRC did they put their thumb on the scale for?
Please show your work.
It’s probably easier to count the ones where the DNC didn’t have their thumb on the scale. First, it’s been way less than 100 years since voters even determined who the candidate was; before 1976, primaries were basically just opinion polls, and delegates picked who they wanted regardless of voter input. Also, after the Carter team blamed Ted Kennedy for their loss, the DNC started ostracizing candidates that made primary challenges, so they definitely put their thumb on the scale for incumbents. So off the bat, we’re looking at less than 50 years of primaries, and only in non-incumbent years.
Then the party definitely put its thumb in the scale for Clinton in 2016, Biden in 2020, and they literally just picked Harris in 2024. So, that means that the unbiased primaries would be Carter in '76, Mondale in "84, Dukakis in 88, Clinton in 92, Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004 (though personally I think they kinda did a hit-job on Howard Dean) and Obama in 2008. Out of 12 primaries in over 48 years, 7 have been open and fair contests. About 58% successful in keeping their thumb off the scale.
Americans haven’t had an honest vote on the shape or priorities of our economy in half a century.
Just the social issue wedges that economy either causes or in some way informs in order to keep us at each other’s throats and not at our shared enemy in their towers and guard gated compounds.
Would you like your crony market capitalism with affirmation ribbons or scapegoats? Freedom!
Example: you know what would cause a lot fewer abortions almost immediately with absolutely no bans from getting one when the woman deems it necessary? A living wage that can support a family. But that’s a non starter, as it would cost our rulers capital, and lower their quarterly ego score estimates.
The situation will continue to decline until collapse or the elevation of an actual leftwing government, and both parties conspire to prevent that from happening.
The DNC version of neutrality is blocking progressives. Sure they’ll happily codify a rule that Hogg cannot help young progressives primary incumbents election while pretending it’s about actually neutrality and letting the voters choose. But they’ll be just as happy to throw that rule out when they want to support some Republican in sheep’s clothing to kick out a progressive next time around.
Hogg isn’t looking for young progressives. He idolizes Pelosi, Clinton, Jeffries. The do-nothing incumbents he wants to replace are useless, true. But he wants to replace them with younger versions of centrist corporatists, not progressives.
The guillotine party needs to remove him along with the rest of the DNC leadership.
The single most important job of the DNC is keeping corporate candidates in office and keeping the money flowing. These fuckos have never been impartial. Anyone else still pissed at fucking Hoyer and the DCCC trying to get the progressive candidate to drop out of a primary?
From the above recording, Tellemann to Hoyer: “So before we, before we go any further on that, Crow is the favorite, in no small part Congressman Hoyer, because the DCCC not only put its finger on the scale, but started jumping on the scale very early on…I mean, it’s undemocratic to have a small elite select someone and then try to rig the primary against the other people running. And that is basically what’s been happening”
This was after the DNC had rat fucked Bernie, foisted Hillary on everyone, and lost to the serial failure, Fuckhead.
For what it’s worth: I just copied this from my response on the other thread with the same article.
That’s a lot of accusing there. And Hogg is going to help through his PAC anyway.
Martin told reporters on a call Thursday “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.”
So they’re doing away with superdelegates? Ope wait, nope, Martin is just full of hot air.
Superdelegates don’t vote in the primaries. And it’s presidential only. And they only comprise 15% of the delegates.
This is the same DNC fucks that did this?
Fuck off with you request for ‘Neutrality Now’.
See? They can push back on something.
No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election
Yeah, the DNC would never do that.
Debbie NEVER Could’ve
Looking at YOU 2016…
uh huh.
if bernie actually did the work to attract me actual base of the party, which by the way are not college age kids but black people, specifically black women, he would not have lost the primary.
and since that election he had another 4 years to work on his extreme deficit with black voters, but had zero outreach with that cohort. instead he doubled down on the youth vote.
that’s not a strategy to win a primary. but it’s a perfect strategy to try to split off young voters into not supporting the democratic choice in the future. and not shutting down conspiracy theories about rigged primaries doesn’t help either. what it does is create distrust where there shouldn’t be, fracture the party to turn against itself instead of the real threat which is the republican party, and in fact increase the chances that republicans win in greater margins because the super bernie side refuses to be smart and do damage limitation by not voting for the viable non republican candidate.
and by the way a few additional things that need to be considered:
- if he wants the democratic nomination, why doesn’t he formally join the party? what he was asking for has been equal access to resources without a full commitment to the party. you all would rightfully object if I declared I’m running for president as a democrat even though I’m a registered non partisan. what makes him any different from me as far as the party is concerned?
- it really is rich how you are all upset about the democrats (allegedly) putting the thumb on the scale for a candidate so now there is a pledge that all people in dnc leadership have to agree to that formally states that leadership will be neutral in all party races from now on. so which is it, you don’t want the dnc influencing races or do you not want the voters in the districts to decide who their candidates should be without party influences?
- you also all think that the super progressive democratic candidate will play everywhere in the country. sure, it may work where I live. but I’m a blue® dot in a state trump won by 31 points. you have to run candidates that will win and super liberals in places like appalachia, oklahoma, or wyoming would consider it a good race if they lost by 50 points.
what it seems like to me is that what the vast majority of people here want is to destroy the democratic party from the ground up in the name of a stupid purity test the vast majority of the party does not agree with, and they want to do it while the most dangerous, insane person who is also the head of a violent cult is in the white house. you’re trying to make your own left wing cult with either bernie or aoc as the head and the rest of the party is not with that.
as I said above I’m not a registered democrat. I find myself politically closer to aoc and bernie. and I’M telling y’all that following and supporting hogg’s move will end the democratic party or any viable non republican party for generations.
Black women are not the base of the party, that’s a common misconception.
In 2023, just 14.4% of the US population identified as black. Women are just over 50% of that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045224#PST045224
So Just over 7% of the US population are black women. You don’t win elections catering to 7% of the population. Even if they all vote for you, which they won’t, a party can’t survive on 7%.
The Democratic party represents 45.1 million people out of 186.5 million people registered to vote. 24.18% of the voting population.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-affiliation/
Don’t forget 2020
Yeah I would second the view, if it weren’t for decades of the opposite of the DNC bending over backwards for it’s incumbants. If they had a history of staying neutral and not regularly backing the incumbents. But as they do… then the opposite needs to happen.
Yeah I would second the view, if it weren’t for decades of the opposite of the DNC bending over backwards for it’s incumbants.
For centrist incumbents. Henry Cuellar gets protection. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman do not.
I wouldn’t mind then backing the incumbents, if the incumbents had any fucking spine to stand up to the Republicans.
well yeah… backing should be merit based not seniority based. You’ve been there 30 years, and no one knows what the hell you are doing, you’ve not fought for anything we want. Get lost… if you’re still backing good policies, standing up for what’s right and making people happy, stick around as long as you want.
A bit of why I fear the general concept of term limits. Bernie sanders is still far and away one of the best in congress. He’s old as fuck, been there forever… but easilly in the top 5 most active senators…
*No tag-backs
Pretty sure they got the memo
They did not get the memo; they saw a credible effort to threaten their chokehold on national politics and want to shut it down on a technicality. There’s literally no reason to believe this is an act of good faith; if it was they wouldn’t have elected Hoggs to the position of DNC vice chair in the first place.
Primary EVERYONE!
I hope this kid haunts their fucking nightmares. Cunts.
Fascinating stuff.
I am not American (have previously lived in North America for a decade and travelled extensively in the region), but based on my experiences this is a very good example of how the US centre-right opposition is completely unqualified for any kind of real action. They clearly lack the risk tolerance and gumption to deal with current internal challenges in their country.
Yep! As an American who has been active in local Dem party activity, they need to be rooted out and replaced. It’s really our best hope.
They clearly lack the risk tolerance and gumption to deal with current internal challenges in their country.
I didn’t get that from the article. I thought the article was showcasing some real gumption to change things, something the RNC would never dream of in a million years (or need to).
Respect to David Hogg. I meant this in a more broader perspective.
I am comparing to global examples. One would be Hong Kong. They failed, but they actually were able to shut down the local airport for a short period.
Or say the initial phase of the Syrian revolution. The population openly protested against a brutal regime that was in power for many decades and there were many examples of their brutality.
I specifically chose failed or highly controversial situations (to highlight how a fight for freedom involves scary and painful choices, this is not a movie). From my experience living in the US, I thought local risk tolerance was low. On a certain level, the US is too well off to have the motivation for resistance (be it mass scale ptotest, 10% of pop or more, weekly protest or violent rebellion).
I don’t know how to say it diplomatically, but true fight for freedom doesn’t seem like the American way.
Things will get progressively worse for more Americans soon enough. Those who are hip to the scene already probably can’t accelerate the process of awakening that will come. We are all Cassandra here. It hella sucks.
Economic doldrums if not depression, pandemics and a fragmented response in the coming autumn if not sooner.
Accelerating assaults on due process.
New public enemy groups generated at will.
All them that know can do is build capacity to organize as the general realization emerges. It won’t happen soon enough for my taste. We are trying to redirect a high mass object and even in politics, the physics here is clear.
My plan is to be as social as I know how to be this summer. It’s not escapism. I’m building my network.
Hopefully also getting laid.
The first rule of the rebellion is to be sure that at least the sex is good.
This is the perfect cover for them. They don’t have to advocate for the incumbents, that’s what corporate media will do for them. They get the bonus of looking like they want to be neutral while neutering Hoggs ability to rally people against the feckless dinosaur moderates in the party.
For the incumbents and DNC leadership it’s a win. :/
I believe Hogg would quit rather be neutered.
“No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin told reporters on a call Thursday. “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.”… “Let me be clear, this is not about shielding incumbents or boosting challengers,” Martin said. “It’s about voters’ trust in the party, and when we uphold a clear policy of neutrality, we guard against the perception or reality of bias.”
The trust they lost when they argued in court the party has no obligation to keep promises made to constituents? The trust lost when HRC decided propping up djt as the opposition candidate because he’s easy to beat? The trust lost when Joe said, "Nothing will fundamentally change?” The trust lost when Kamala not only shut out Palestinian voices but also backtracked on campaign promises?
Zero. Irony.
Oh look. The Dems rolling out the same shit since 2015 thinking it’ll work. They are corporate controlled opposition and nothing more. We need a new party ideally, but Hogg needs support from other members who also are tired of the party being The Washington Generals of well, Washington.
I think the article is saying they’re not doing the same shit. Not doing it in two different ways, even.
And I’m all for electing the best people to get what we want, but Deez Nutz and Jill Stein ain’t gonna get it. Reforming the DNC is our best shot.
Jill Stein should be nowhere near even the idea of a reform coalition.
100% agree. So what’s the plan?
“Neutrality” is just (very thin) cover for supporting the status quo, when what we need is a complete change.
Neutrality is the opposite of what they always get accused of by the people who love to shit on the Dems. So it’s not the status quo. Or it is. But it can’t be both.
People need to make up their minds why they’re mad about it.
Neutrality for thee but not for me. They want neutrality from Hogg, but were delighted with partiality in the opposite direction for decades.
But it can’t be both.
Have you considered: People, and especially groups of people, can do more than one thing at once?
Stuff like this is why I left the dem party, they’re only strong opponents to progressives, not conservatives. The best summary I ever saw of them was: GOP: “fascism” DNC: “fascism ✨🏳️🌈”
Heres’ the one that I saw:
So the party you went to was what? Is it better?
I just went with independent, which removes me from the “primaries”, but also removed me from all the non-stop text messages and phone calls begging for money to support a party that does little more than shrug non-committaly.
So, no? I’m from the US, I don’t really get a choice in ISP, phone network, or political representative, but boy I sure do get to pick from a number of different cereals.I am more active at the very local level, though, which seems to be the only place an individual can have impact.
Fair enough then. Probably not a good national strategy but personally it sounds ok.
I like how they think of codifying shit when something happens around them or to them.
But don’t ever think to codify things everyone else needed to be codified.
Agree. The Biden Administration (Harris too) could have codified many protections against what Trump said he would do and the things in Project 2025.
They.Did.Nothing.
