Southern Oregon Close-up: Democratic Turmoil

Allen Hallmark is a canary in the coal mine.  

Allen Hallmark

The air in the mine is changing. 

"You say you want a revolution, well, you know we all want to change the world."  The Beatles, 1968

Allen Hallmark is running for a minor local office in the Jackson County Oregon Democratic Party. 

He wrote two campaign letters to his fellow Precinct Committee Persons--the body that would elect him--describing himself and his desire to serve in this volunteer position. The letters, and the responses, reveal something important about the Democratic Party.

It is moving left. It is cleaning house.

This isn't tinkering at the edges. Activists in the Party are declaring that the real Democratic Party is the party of Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader. Who are the real enemies? Trump, of course, and Republicans generally, but also the old Democratic Party, the one that held office and holds power now.

The activist forces within the Democratic Party that rose out of the 2016 election are re-interpreting its past. There is a growing belief that there was a thirty five year mis-step by the Democratic Party, done in response to Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. Moderate Democrats in the Democratic Leadership Conference quit being anti-elite populists. They accommodated to market capitalism. They had rich friends. They began agreeing with their donors. Yes, they won elections, but America lost. That came home to roost in 2016.

The new understanding is that establishment Democrats sold out, losing both the moral high ground and the support of middle America, because they are not substantially different from the Republicans--just more sneaky about it. The new enemies to be shunned are identified as incrementalists, corporatists, bi-partisan triangulators, and compromisers. Who are they by name? Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Barrack Obama, and now Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi--the current and past leaders of the Party.

Allen Hallmark's letters are useful because they document this movement in the center of gravity by how he promotes himself. Hallmark is a former county chair of the Party. He a delegate to various party office, he helped organize the vote program for the Party, and he has been a delegate to various committees. He represented the "sensible establishment" of the local party, and did so as a Bernie Sanders supporter and Sanders delegate to the State Convention. He wrote, as one of his qualifications, in bold print:  "I am a very progressive Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the May 2016 primary election."

"Very progressive." So far, so good.

He went on to say "I am also an inclusive Democrat. When Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Party’s nomination I supported her candidacy for president. I believe that our party nationally and locally should be a “Big Tent” party that has room for moderates, liberals & progressives alike. I agree that we need to shed corporate Democrats from our ranks, but I don’t think we have many of those here in Jackson County."

"Shed corporate Democrats." OK.

His campaign letter went too far, however, when he referenced "an outside group--Our Revolution Southern Oregon" recruiting candidates "ordering" its members to vote for the slate, thus "trying to control our Party." He said he opposed that kind of outside organizing. Vote for the individual, not the slate, he said. 

He got feedback he described as "pro and con," then immediately addressed it with a public apology to the progressives, and again, done in bold print: "I need to retract and apologize for way overstating my case near the end of that letter." Recruitment, organizing, and slate voting is a time honored tool of political action. Hallmark revealed he wasn't fully on their team and he disagreed with team voting.  Yikes.

What is going on here? 

Notice the dog that did not bark.

Allen Hallmark--active volunteer, leader, and Bernie Sanders supporter--may be too establishment, too accommodationist, too willing to resist "Our Revolution" forces from the populist left to reflect the electable center. He chose to try to get back into their graces.

What about his comments on the "need to shed corporate Democrats from our ranks?"  That is the dog that didn't bark. No need to address that. That old guard is the past, and indefensible. Each gets campaign contributions from business PACs. They consider themselves liberal, but each made some kind of peace with market capitalism and its winners. It is a dividing line, one between bad or good, corrupted or pure, corporate or populist, crowd sourced money or big donor money, Bernie or Hillary.

Hallmark is on the side of Bernie populist socialism, but he did not want to be part of an organized team, and he voted for Hillary--so he may not be good enough. He is outside the political center of the Party. It moved on, faster than he did.

Democrats who look at Sanders, Nader, and Jill Stein as aberrations or mistakes misunderstand the populist revolt that arose out of the 2016 election. One of them, personally, may not be the 2020 nominee, but the nominee will represent their general message, which will be the new Democratic orthodoxy. The nominee will not be a continuation of Obama, and most certainly not of either Clinton. If Joe Biden wins primary election victories and is the nominee, the Party will split into pieces.

What used to be mainstream is now condemned. We will see if Hallmark's apology was good enough.

[Tomorrow, we will hear from an "Our Revolution" member.]