By Robert Weiner and Khel Gordhan
It took two weeks but Democrats have finally gotten into gear, with a revitalized opposition to the agency closures, IG firings, and illegal personnel takeovers and other actions. Many were wondering where the legal confrontations, injunctions, and cease and desist rulings against quick and illegal administration actions are -- and now they have begun.
On February 1, the DNC Winter Meeting to elect a new Chair at National Harbor took place. In the room the energy was palpable. Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin told us, "We can't even start on time because the line is so long."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen D-MD asserted, "In the last days, Trump has posed a clear and present danger to the country. The comeback begins now!" Since then, Van Hollen stayed true to his word and led protest news conferences at the door of closure-threatened A.I.D. and elsewhere.
The Saturday Chair election vote session started only a half hour after the 10 AM scheduled time. After Chairman Jaime Harrison explained the process, former MD Governor Martin O'Malley was the first of eight candidate speakers. He brought the house down with a rising crescendo-- to the end presentation: "Our nation is in crisis. We must set up a war room to combat the lies. We must register more people to vote. This Party shall rise again!" he concluded.
Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin mastermind who flipped the state and engineered the Supreme Court majority there emphasized a "Fight for working people. The country should not be rigged against you... Health care is not a privilege-- we swept the country. Voters don't vote just on facts and figures. They vote on how someone makes you feel. The world needs the Democratic Party to get up off the mat." Wikler had the backing of Senator Schumer, Speaker Emerita Pelosi, and House Democratic Leader Jeffries.
The winner, Ken Martin, was the third speaker of the top three. He eagerly spoke on the need to rise up: "We got punched in November. It's time to get off the mat. We need a legitimate alternative to the grotesque side of the robber barons. We're on the side of families and the American people." Martin was a top Vice Chair of the DNC and had major labor support as well as over 200 signatures of DNC members -- almost enough to win -- and he captured the victory on the first ballot with 100 more than Wikler and 200 more than O'Malley. All the others got zero or close to zero. At the end of Martin's speech the audience chanted, "Yes, we Ken!"
However, Jason Paul, an attorney who ran but lost, gave the delegates some very savvy analysis that brought the room to a standstill: "Donald Trump is better at politics than all of us and everyone in this room."-- which had a bevy of national Democratic leaders. Paul continued, "He threw out Bush, Romney, and Biden. All that matters is whether you like him. It doesn't matter if you beat up cops in the Capitol. All that matters is if you like Donald Trump. He's an evil genius. It's unbelievable that he got people to think he is pro-choice" (after he got the Supreme Court to overthrow Roe) "by getting it to the states" where some are legalizing abortion.
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