Have Democrats now become “No Party for Non-Socialists?”
A slate of candidates backed by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won every leadership seat in elections of the Nevada Democratic Party on Saturday, prompting every employee of the state party to resign.
The Intercept reports that newly-elected chairwoman Judith Whitmer received an e-mail from executive director Alana Mounce over the weekend soon after her victory. Mounce announced her resignation and that of every other employee, including the party’s operations director, communications director, research director, and finance director.
This came after Whitmer, the former chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, won her election 244-214. Jacob Allen won first vice chair by 101 votes, Zaffar Iqbal won second vice chair by 127 votes, Ahmad Adé won secretary by 39 votes, and Howard Beckerman won treasurer by three votes.
Whitmer was also chair of the Clark County Left Caucus, which, along with DSA, ran the slate titled “The NV Dems Progressive Slate.” Left Caucus-aligned candidates also won a majority on the state Democratic board over the summer, a sign that the movement was gaining momentum.
In anticipation of the state party leadership loss, establishment Democrats — who are part of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) political machine — moved $450,000 from the party’s account to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where the sum will be used to help reelect Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a first-term Democrat considered vulnerable.
It was a contentious fight in which Whitmer’s opponents accused her and DSA of sowing dissension and of having planned to fire the employees. The new chairwoman denies the claims.
“What they just didn’t expect is that we got better and better at organizing and out-organizing them at every turn,” Whitmer said of the establishment crowd.
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The struggle between the two factions began five years ago during the 2016 Democratic primary race, when the Bernie Sanders campaign laid the groundwork for the now-dominant progressive coalition, while Harry Reid was directing his machine to support Hillary Clinton.
The Intercept details the shifting power balance:
Over the next four years, outside organizations like DSA exploded in size and strength. The Sanders campaign focused on organizing tens of thousands of young Latino voters in the state, with the goal of activating people whom the party hadn’t bothered with before. And it worked: In the 2020 cycle, after investing heavily in Nevada, Sanders won a commanding victory in the Nevada caucuses.
When the Sanders campaign ended, the organizers behind it were ready to take their project to the next level. Progressive groups like the Clark County Left Caucus … and local DSA chapters had been organizing for Sanders across Nevada since 2016. They used their momentum, and the state-level delegates they picked up during the caucuses, to continue activating progressive pockets in the state with a focus on local office. …
“This was certainly kind of immediately made possible by the caucus outcome,” Keenan Korth, a member of the state party’s central committee who is supporting Whitmer, told The Intercept. “But it really started before then, in that the caucus results were in and of themselves the result of a sustained organizing effort, and the slow accumulation of organizing infrastructure here post-2016, in large part through the campaign in 2018 for Amy Vilela.” Vilela ran for Congress in Nevada in 2018 and later became Sanders’s Nevada campaign co-chair.
All but one member of “The NV Dems Progressive Slate” were dues-paying members of a local DSA chapter. Establishment Democrats tried to counter it with a slate of their own called “The Progressive Unity Slate,” making the case that the socialists were trying to divide the party while they (the Reid crowd) wanted to save it.
Cortez Masto herself got involved in the party leadership race, encouraging Whitmer to drop out and recruiting Whitmer’s opponent, Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, to run against her.
Reid has remained in control of the state Democratic machine even after stepping down from the U.S. Senate in 2017, but it appears there’s a new power in the state — the rising specter of socialism.
Constitutional conservatives would do well to learn from the far-left’s example when it comes to taking control of a political party. Many on the right are dissatisfied with the Republican Party and have decided to leave it.
Socialists, meanwhile, understand the value of patience and biding one’s time to gradually infiltrate institutions, populating boards and committees with their people slowly until they man them completely.
