Perez, Tom d ccc

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tom DCCC chair
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/are-tom-perez-and-the-dnc-preparing-for-a-battle-against-bernie-sanders-and-the-progressive-movement/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/are-tom-perez-and-the-dnc-preparing-for-a-battle-against-bernie-sanders-and-the-progressive-movement/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/tom-perez-was-elected-head-of-dnc-thanks-to-a-silent-coup-in-puerto-rico-in-2017-intercept-reporter-ryan-grim/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Tom Perez was elected head of DNC thanks to a ‘silent coup’ in Puerto Rico in 2017: Intercept reporter Ryan Grim</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/amy-goodman/" title="Posts by Amy Goodman" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Amy Goodman</a>, <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/democracy-now/" title="Posts by Democracy Now" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Democracy Now</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Puerto Ricans celebrate the imminent departure of disgraced Governor Ricardo Rosselló, we speak with Intercept reporter Ryan Grim about how Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez benefited from what’s been described as a “coup” within the Democratic Party in Puerto Rico.</font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dereg nation</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 style="font-family: " sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">better: small-d democracy lives within the Democratic Party</font></h2><ul style="margin: 1em 0px;"><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez rejected requests to schedule a climate-change-only debate between candidates for the party’s presidential nod.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, he tweeted, he’d like “climate change to be debated during each and every debate.”[twt:Tom Perez</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@TomPerez</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have personally told media partners seeking to host a 2020 primary debate how important it is for climate change to be debated during each and every debate – frankly, it is my opinion that it is an issue that should have been more prominent during the 2016 cycle.</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 6th 2019</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;" /></li></ul><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><ul style="margin: 1em 0px;"><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since last week, the head of Washington state’s Democrats has vowed to introduce a resolution to the national group in favor of a climate debate. “It’s certainly an issue that requires more than a sound bite,” <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/06/10/more-than-50-dnc-members-want-climate-only-debate-chairman-says-no/1414795001/" style="">Tina Podiodowski told USA TODAY,</a> because it encompasses the economy, health care, and more.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">53 members of the DNC itself have written an open letter <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dnc-letter-tom-perez-2020-primary-climate-change-debate_n_5cfa9a4ee4b0aab91c058622" style="">protesting the decision, HuffPost reports</a>. “The signers plan to collect more signatures and submit the resolution for official consideration at a DNC meeting in Pittsburgh at the end of the month,” hoping to pressure Perez to change his mind.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nom contenders supporting a climate debate include Sens. Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Obama-era housing secretary Julián Castro, former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, and as of today former vice president Joe Biden (<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/06/hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-want-the-dnc-to-have-a-climate-debate/" style="">apparently</a>).</font></p></li></ul></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/voters-candidates-and-activists-all-want-a-democratic-debate-on-climate-why-are-tom-perez-and-the-dnc-refusing/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/voters-candidates-and-activists-all-want-a-democratic-debate-on-climate-why-are-tom-perez-and-the-dnc-refusing/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Voters, candidates and activists all want a Democratic debate on climate. Why are Tom Perez and the DNC refusing?</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">written by Paul Rosenberg / Salon June 23, 2019</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Democratic Party is making two huge mistakes right now — and they’re related, both in terms of the muddled, backward-looking thinking and the cluelessness about how to communicate to the American people. Democratic leaders are still blocking impeachment in the House — based on a bevy of mistaken arguments rooted in a misremembered past — and blocking a debate on climate change in the 2020 presidential campaign. That too is based on a visionless miasma of misdirection that includes debate rules reformed to fight the last war, the <b>continued influence of donations from the fossil fuel industry, and Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez’s myopic claim that it’s “just not practical.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“What’s actually unrealistic,” the Sunrise Movement tweeted in response, is “the Democratic establishment saying we’ll stop climate change when they aren’t even willing to have a debate on it.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Together with the global Climate Strike movement, the Sunrise Movement, organizing via the #ChangeTheDebate hashtag, represents a generational shift in consciousness about the global climate crisis, which has been called “this generation’s Vietnam War.” In this light, the DNC’s disconnect from younger voters, whose support is so crucial and who represent the future, is blatant evidence of political malpractice.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Once you have one single-issue debate, then every debate needs to become a single issue debate in order to address the concerns,” Perez said, in his effort to save face. But climate change isn’t a single self-contained issue, activists responded. “Climate is not an ‘issue’ — it’s the backdrop for all other issues,” author and activist Naomi Klein tweeted. “It’s the fabric of life on Earth and it is unravelling.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A CNN poll of likely Iowa caucus voters shows how well that’s understood: Three-quarters said that recognition of climate change “as the greatest threat to humanity” is a requirement for any candidate to get their support. They get the big picture loud and clear — far better than Perez and the DNC do. But they need to hear more about what candidates intend to do about it: They need a climate debate. Not only is the DNC refusing to hold one, it has issued a bizarre threat to lock out any candidate who participates in a climate debate sponsored by someone else.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nothing about the Democratic Party’s approach to the debates inspires confidence, John Nichols writes at the Nation, but this particular decision “should inspire fury,” as “morally wrong and practically foolish.” Meanwhile, public interest continues to grow. The New York Times just posted a series of video clips of candidates sharing their climate views, and University of California, Santa Barbara, political scientist Leah Stokes summarized them in a fascinating Twitter thread.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Perez made the non-sequitur argument that “a president must be able to multitask,” Nichols pointed out what that actually meant in a debate setting:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There will be plenty of grab-bag debates where Democratic candidates preen and position and ponder questions about the president’s latest tweet. What’s needed are a few debates that allow for this crowded field of contenders to go deep on issues of overwhelming consequence, from climate change to economic inequality to racism and war and peace ….</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The DNC is making a huge mistake by refusing to organize and support single-issue area debates — especially on climate change.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report Advertisement</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, a Data for Progress poll found 64% support for a climate-specific debate among Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents, with only 11% opposed. The candidates themselves support it, too. While Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has led the way on this issue, 15 candidates have now called for such a debate, along with more than 50 DNC members organized through state party networks.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The executive committee of the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party voted unanimously to urge the DNC to hold a climate-specific debate. That might not sound significant on its own, but Miami is a crucial metropolitan area in a decisive swing state, will host the first Democratic debates and is without a doubt the most vulnerable city to sea-level rise in the United States. Miami-Dade could see nearly 2 million people displaced by sea level rise by 2100, along with another 1.5 million in neighboring Broward County. People on the ground get it. Candidates out on the campaign trail listening to their concerns get it. Those trapped in the Beltway bubble, not so much.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate activists are correct to highlight what sets the climate crisis apart, but that’s not the only problem with Perez’s argument, in the eyes of state-level activists.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Democrats come to our party because of issues,” Nebraska Democratic Party chair Jane Kleeb told Salon. “We have a shared value of fairness that brings us all together. Critical issues of climate change, health care and education are all interrelated. A clear way to take action on all the requests for issue forums and debates is to create a survey that all Democrats and groups can send around and then we declare three issue-focused debates on the top ones identified.” This would, she added, be “a great way to listen to the base voters and gather information to help win elections.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s more than wishful thinking from one red-state Democrat. The Association of State Parties adopted a related resolution at its last meeting in New Mexico, starting with a recognition of “the issue of climate crisis” and seeking a “win-win solution” to “accommodate issues important to our voters” within the planned 12-debate format.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Debates and the rules around them are messy and we must have the flexibility to adjust,” Kleeb said. ”We want to find a solution with the DNC and Chair Perez. No one is interested in a fight or splicing of words in a forum or debate. We want to ensure that we are addressing the critical issues voters want to hear.” In the 2016 debates between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, she said, “Climate was nowhere to be heard.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Boston College political scientist David Hopkins writes at his Honest Graft blog, after 2016 the DNC was “desperate to preserve its popular legitimacy and prove its dedication to equality and inclusion,” and made some rapid adjustments ahead of the 2020 campaign. “But as so often happens in life, maneuvering to address one set of problems can create a new set of problems — with no guarantee that the original set will indeed be solved.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hopkins refers to what I described above as “debate rules reformed to fight the last war.” He told Salon he “very much” agrees that the 2020 debates “should be focused on substantive topics and questions that allow the candidates to address all of the major policy issues and governing challenges of our time, including climate change.” If national and state party organizations “can use their leverage over the production of the debates to encourage that to happen, it will be a welcome contribution,” he said. “However, I think that it’s unlikely to happen.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report Advertisement</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One reason is the aforementioned focus on fixing the last elections’ mistakes. “The DNC has become obsessed with demonstrating ‘fairness’ to all candidates,” Hopkins said, and any particular issue focus for a debate would look like “using its power to tilt the playing field … and with 20-plus candidates in the field, it’s impossible to satisfy everyone.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, Hopkins continued, “The DNC is dependent on its media partners to actually produce and moderate the debates.” Those partners, generally TV networks, “view themselves as independent journalists, not agents of political parties,” so they’re likely to resist anything that feels like a party-directed restriction.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Debate moderators also tend to have very different priorities than parties or candidates: “gotcha” questions, alleged flip-flops and so on, all based on notions of “good television.” “Anything that might be too ‘boring’ or ‘in the weeds’ is looked on with suspicion that it will provoke viewers to flip the channel,” Hopkins added.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In short, everyone’s operating within institutional frameworks, acting “rationally” in terms of the options before them — or at least so the story goes. But the frameworks themselves have all failed catastrophically — as runaway inequality, democratic erosion and the climate crisis all vividly show. No wonder young people, not habituated to those frameworks, see their failures so clearly.  No wonder they demand better.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report Advertisement</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last weekend, Salon contributor Carl Pope, former CEO and chair of the Sierra Club, painted an optimistic portrait of Democratic candidates on the climate issue. Most have shifted away from the timid positions of the past, he argued. Seven of the 2020 candidates have introduced their own climate plans while three have sponsored the Green New Deal resolution:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a group, none of these climate planks harken back to Barack Obama’s “all of the above” genuflection to the enduring political power of fossil fuels. Nor do they resemble Hillary Clinton’s 2016 proposals, which focused almost entirely on renewable power — ambitious but narrow. They eschew the carbon-pricing emphasis of many Beltway economists and policy mavens. And they avoid the austerity frame that climate deniers have for so long used to dampen public support for clean energy.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pope even suggested that there’s an “emerging Democratic climate platform,” summed up as a list of bullet points:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate science and ambitious decarbonization goals are in.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate sacrifice and austerity are out.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investment, not carbon pricing, is the new silver bullet.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Standards and regulation are back.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s not just electricity — economy-wide approaches are embraced.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, research gets respect.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s missing from Pope’s list, I would argue, was anything regarding justice — either environmental justice for indigenous and minority communities who have long been primary victims of environmental racism or economic transition plans for fossil fuel workers and communities, who’ve long been used as pawns to block progress, even as they pay dearly in terms of their own health and well-being. For example, a 2011 Harvard study found the externalized costs of coal amounted to “a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually,” concentrated most heavily in health and mortality costs to coal-producing workers and communities.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pope is certainly right that the center of debate has shifted, but the grassroots-funded PAC Climate Hawks Vote offers a different perspective. Its survey of 2,600 members finds numerous points of both agreement and disagreement. “Climate has risen to the top of voters’ concerns in recent polls,” wrote CHV political director RL Miller in a recent press release, “but most average folk don’t know the real differences among the carbon pricing proposals, the Green New Deal, and more. And the best way to explain the differences is with a debate.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There was near unanimity within the group on a few points: 100% supported an immediate return to the Paris Agreement, and 99% supported a Green New Deal — with most of those favoring a “Green New Deal-plus-equity,” meaning universal health care and job guarantees as part of the package. More than 90% supported both phasing out all fossil fuel leasing on federal lands and investigating Exxon and other oil companies for concealing knowledge about climate change clear back to the 1970s. (Around 30% were willing to consider a tradeoff on that issue, meaning a hefty carbon tax in exchange for a waiver of Exxon’s liability.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in other areas there were significant differences, such as on nuclear power: While 60% favored phasing it out, 21% wanted to keep existing power plants and 18% wanted to build advanced reactors. There was even less coherence on agricultural policy, where 39% favored farm subsidy reforms, 38% favored educating farmers and 21% supported a tax on meat. A large majority wanted to eliminate internal combustion engines, with 55% saying that should happen by 2030, which is likely impossible.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There are substantive differences among the candidates — and tensions that haven’t yet been expressed, which is why a climate debate is needed,” Miller told Salon. “For example, how seriously are the candidates behind the Green New Deal?” she asked. A few, such as former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Maryland congressman John Delaney, have rejected both the Green New Deal and the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others, Miller suggests, may have signed onto the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., “because it’s politically expedient.” But their actual climate plans are either much more modest (she cited Sen. Amy Klobuchar) or haven’t yet been articulated (as with Sen. Kamala Harris).</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Turnbull of the activist group Oil Change U.S. has proposed a list of 60 questions for a climate debate, which are not meant to be exhaustive. Still, the first five are illuminating:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What do you think is the single most important step you can take as president to show leadership on the climate crisis?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Have you signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge? Why or why not?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Describe your plan to put the United States on a managed decline of fossil fuel production in line with climate science.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What do you believe are the key elements of a just transition for workers and communities as we move our economy away from fossil fuels?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Please describe how the principles of environmental justice and concerns from low income communities, frontline communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color will be heard and incorporated in the planning and implementation of your climate agenda?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Questions 4 and 5 are particularly important. Justice issues have become increasingly important for climate activists, although the mainstream media largely hasn’t noticed. Such questions are vitally important for the Democrats’ racially diverse base, as well as for the coal and fossil-fuel workers and communities to whom Donald Trump has made so many false promises. Climate justice is a central issue that can organize and motivate strong majorities around a livable future for all — and it’s doable as well. In my April 2017 story about the decline of coal, I cited the “just transition” plan developed by Robert Pollin and Brian Callaci, which they estimate would cost $500 million a year, or</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">about “1 percent of the annual $50 billion in new public investment that will be needed to advance a successful overall U.S. climate stabilization program.” That modest annual commitment “would pay for income, retraining, and relocation support for workers facing retrenchments as well as effective transition programs for what are now fossil fuel–dependent communities.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So the amount of money involved is trivial, in relative budgetary terms — but the impact on workers and communities would be enormous, and the principle equitable treatment for all is essential, both in moral and political terms. If I were running the DNC, there would be an entire debate focused solely on environmental justice and a just transition for workers. A robust Green New Deal can encompass all these justice issues in a coherent and integrated way.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American people need and deserve an extensive debate in which these possibilities are explored. For the moment, they remain poorly understood and shrouded in doubt for tens of millions of voters. That’s the way Donald Trump likes things — the hazier, the better. It’s the exact opposite of what any Democrat should want, and indeed what any citizen should want. The climate crisis is not just about the “environment,” or about escaping an unprecedented threat to the human economy. It’s about shaping a shared future for generations to come. We either let ourselves be torn apart, or we work to come together.</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">rootsaction autopsy</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="article-content" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 1em; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Donald Trump enters his tenth month in office, public opinion polls find he is the most unpopular president at this stage in his term than any other occupant of the Oval Office in modern American history. His actions at home and abroad have alarmed Democrats, Republicans and independents. Apart from recent indictments by the independent counsel investigating charges of collusion between the Trump’s campaign and Russia, the president is seen to have triggered an number of ugly spats with Gold Star family members, NFL players, and the mayor of San Juan, Puerto, exacerbated tensions with North Korea and praised white supremacists as “very fine people.”

But as many U.S. voters remember the shock and dread they felt on election day 2016, when Donald Trump unexpectedly won the presidency, there are growing concerns that the Democratic party has failed to learn the lessons of last year’s election defeat.<b style="background-color: transparent;"> The Democratic National Committee chose not to do a public “autopsy,” examining the reasons their party no longer has control of any branch of the federal government, only holds 16 of 50 governorships, and has lost 1,000 state legislative seats since 2009.</b>

<b style="background-color: transparent;">Filing this void, a group of activists with the nonprofit Action for a Progressive Future, wrote a 34-page report titled, “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis”</b>The report focuses on some key factors that have contributed to the Democrats' recent string of defeats, including low voter turnout among the party’s base. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Pia Gallegos, a longtime civil-rights lawyer and New Mexico activist, who was one of the team of four authors of the Autopsy. Here, she<b style="background-color: transparent;">summarizes the report’s conclusions</b> and recommendations.

<span class="bold" style="background: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PIA GALLEGOS:</span> The Democratic party itself did not do a self-analysis or a critique regarding its failures of how and why it lost the presidential election in 2016. Oftentimes, a party does that when it loses a major election. It didn't do that, and if it did, it didn't publicize it. And so, a group of us took it upon ourselves under the leadership of Norman Solomon to do this report. And so, we looked various factors that failed within the Democratic party.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> We looked at<b> corporate power </b>and the party and we looked at race, and we looked the youth vote, and we looked at social movements and we looked at democracy – or the failure of democracy – within the party, and war and the party.</span>

And we divided the report into sections like that and showed how the Democratic party has continuously, in all of these areas, failed to address the concerns of its constituencies. 

<span class="bold" style="background: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BETWEEN THE LINES:</span> Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you see in terms of the leadership of the Democratic party right now, following the election defeat.

<span class="bold" style="background: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PIA GALLEGOS:</span> Right. I'm sorry to say that there's really<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> two wings to the Democratic party and we see this even with the head of Democratic party right now, T<b>om Perez who's head of the DNC. And he's just acted recently to purge the DNC of some of the most progressive members of the DNC </b>––because he's allowed to appoint people and to depose people from the post. And so he's brought in a whole bunch of political operatives and lobbyists – corporate lobbyists – as members of the DNC who will have superdelegate status, which means that they will be able to vote for a presidential candidate without regard to the pledged delegates that are required on every state level through the Electoral College. </span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 1em; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">....</span></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/tom-perez-edges-out-keith-ellison-democratic-party-chair</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The <a data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/21/tom-perez-labor-secretary-hillary-clinton" name="in body link" id="in body link" style="text-decoration: none;">former labor secretary Tom Perez</a> is the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). </b>His victory in Atlanta on Saturday saw him make history as the first Latino to lead the party but left <a data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/19/democrats-resistance-donald-trump-we-will-replace-you" name="in body link" id="in body link" style="text-decoration: none;">progressives who backed his main opponent</a>, US representative <a data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/keith-ellison" name="in body link" id="in body link" style="text-decoration: none;">Keith Ellison</a>, deeply disappointed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez won the chairmanship on a second ballot, after missing out by just one vote in the first round of voting.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The threshold for victory in the second ballot was 218 votes, out of 435 voters. Perez gained 235 to 200 for Ellison. After announcing the result during the DNC’s winter meeting in Atlanta, acting chair Donna Brazile presented the gavel to Perez. He presented a motion to name Ellison as deputy chair, which passed unopposed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The race for DNC chair became a symbol of divisions that opened during the 2016 presidential primary between <a data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hillary-clinton" name="auto-linked-tag" id="auto-linked-tag" style="text-decoration: none;">Hillary Clinton</a> and Bernie Sanders. Progressive activists said the outcome would be representative of their standing within the party.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez, who served in the Obama administration and was <a data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/21/tom-perez-labor-secretary-hillary-clinton" name="in body link" id="in body link" style="text-decoration: none;">considered as running mate for Clinton</a>, was viewed with suspicion by grassroots activists and progressive groups who believe he was urged to enter at the behest of the party’s so-called establishment. Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, is a longtime activist for grassroots causes.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The race was widely read as a proxy battle between the party establishment and progressive groups. Supporters of both sides worried the vote might sow new divisions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking after Perez’s win, Ellison made an appeal for unity. “If we waste even a moment going at it over who supported who,” he said, <a data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats" name="auto-linked-tag" id="auto-linked-tag" style="text-decoration: none;">Democrats</a> would be letting down the American people in their need to “confront Trump and beyond that”.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve got earnest sincere work to do under Chairman Perez,” he added, “and all of us and all of you are going to help him.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez spoke after Ellison and made similar appeals while thanking his supporters and the other candidates. “I really want to apologise to the media because we did talk about issues,” he said, heralding like Ellison a campaign they said was free of partisan rancour. “We didn’t do any of the other stuff, and that’s what the Democratic party is about.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Members voted by paper ballot and had two minutes to make their choice among the six candidates still in the running when voting began. The count was excruciatingly close. Perez finished the first ballot with 213.5 votes, having needed 214.5 to win. Ellison won 200 votes, taking the contest into a second round.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the first ballot, all of the candidates withdrew except for Ellison and Perez. Jehmu Greene, a former Fox News political consultant who earned half a point, endorsed Perez. Peter Peckarsky, a Wisconsin attorney who earned no votes, endorsed Ellison.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the frantic moments between the results and the distribution of the second ballots, the campaigns and their supporters spread across the convention center ballroom, in a last-ditch attempt to sway members to their side. Perez waded into the crowd, smiling and shaking hands as he secured commitments for a second round.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ellison’s supporters wore green shirts that said “Keith for DNC” while Perez’s sported blue “Team Tom” gear.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before voting began the <a data-link="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/23/pete-buttigieg-democratic-party-chair-candidate" name="in body link" id="in body link" style="text-decoration: none;">mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg</a> withdrew without endorsing a candidate, thereby unleashing at least a few dozen commitments late in the contest.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We saw the potential of doing well on multiple ballots but we can do the math,” Buttigieg said, without endorsing a candidate. “It is time for this process to move toward a solution that we can all get on board with.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Buttigieg, a popular, 35-year-old Rust Belt mayor and openly gay Afghanistan veteran, left the race after a streak of national media attention and without angering either faction. He is widely believed to hold higher political ambitions, especially as a young member of a party in search of new talent.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s nothing wrong with our bench,” Buttigieg said. “We just haven’t called enough people on our bench off the bench and asked them to get out in the field.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mayor Pete is going to be the example of how Democrats win statewide in red states,” said Perez in his remarks after winning the chairmanship.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The winner inherits a party demoralized not just by its election defeat but by years of losses at local, state and national levels. A surge of activism organized by liberal groups in reaction to an unpopular Republican president, however, offers hope of new purpose.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As chair – a role that in equal parts demands the work of a tactician, a fundraiser and an opposition leader – Perez will need to immediately begin preparing for races in 2017 and the midterms in 2018. Part of the challenge will lie in healing the ideological rift between centrist Democrats and progressives while developing a message to resonate beyond liberal enclaves.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez will also have to rebuild trust in an organization that was engulfed in controversy last year, after the publication of hacked emails that appeared to show committee staffers favoring Clinton over Sanders and led to the resignation as chair of Florida representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The race to replace Wasserman Schultz attracted national attention and had all the trappings of a presidential campaign, with candidates embarking on bus tours and competing in televised debates.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the vote was ultimately decided by 435 voting members of the DNC, which led Buttigieg to compare it to a “high school student council race”.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div></div>