I was struck by the hostility of the Massachusetts Democratic Party faithful who responded to this recent jconway blog, in which he defended the United Independent Party’s name, its practices, and existence. (By the way, so far as the name and primary voting go, I think we all will figure out how that works soon enough, and we should calm down. UIP is here to stay.) It’s clear that a subtext of that hostility–indeed, a motivation behind it–was that many of you are feeling a bit defensive about your party these days.
But I ask you party activists: is the Massachusetts Democratic Party really worth defending? Certainly, it’s blessed with many energetic progressives who care deeply about our future. But it’s far past time to admit the obvious: the Democratic Party’s leadership on Beacon Hill doesn’t care about the same things that you do, and they’re ignoring you.
The power brokers in the House have transformed the Massachusetts Democratic Party into a conservative one. They are staunchly anti-tax (progressive or otherwise), hostile to public education and unions, but pro-big business. They, on the one hand, stand idly by as we face enormous challenges–whether it’s the state’s lack of affordable housing stock, our crumbling public transit infrastructure, gross income inequality, or the high cost of health care. But, on the other, they eagerly do the Governor’s bidding, no matter how scuzzy the business. And time and again, they allow good bills, like the ones that would improve solar energy development or ensure transgender civil rights in public, to simply twist in the wind.
This has been the status quo for some time, and this will surely continue to be for the foreseeable future, so long as the progressive voices in the party are marginalized.
And so, I think progressives have good reasons to leave the Massachusetts Democratic Party. But they have even better reasons for joining UIP!
Look again at the party platform. We are pro-progressive taxation. We are pro-LGBTQ rights across the board and without equivocation. We are serious about tackling criminal justice reform, developing a clean energy future, reforming our campaign finance laws, and fixing the MBTA. We also offer novel approaches to our biggest challenges. Our Thriving Communities Action Plan would foster cooperation between developers, the state government, local zoning boards, and our communities to smartly build the affordable housing stock we need. And we also have a realistic plan to cut health care costs in the near-term by neutralizing the market forces that gouge patients. This is all common sense stuff, but we need your help to make it happen.
And if you support UIP, and we don’t make it happen, then you can just as easily opt-out as you would opt-in. A party affiliation isn’t a life sentence, but accepting the status quo is.
I refuse to do that. I want to help build a movement at the ground floor. I want my voice to be heard.
What do you want?
IMO, this is nothing but a Tempest in a Teapot, or in other words, it is about as much a battle as the Jets and the Sharks.
“We’re going to challenge Democratic officeholders! Why are you guys so hostile and defensive? Doesn’t this say more about YOU?”
Did you guys consider Passive-Aggressive Party as a name?
Once again, best of luck. (I skimmed your platform; it needs work. The positions are fine but not compelling. I’m just as happy in my flawed Democratic house.
Are there any issues you think it neglects? I am asking honestly and value your input, and the input of others who feel the same way. You can feel free to drop me an email if that’s easier than replying to this post.
Sorry for delayed reply — traveling.
As noted, I know you mean this sincerely, and you really want to know the answer. But it poses a trap for me. I could say “Guns,” but then we begin a loop where you say “Oh, Candidate X is running under the UIP banner and has a great positions on guns, whereas YOUR guy … why are you staying loyal? Isn’t that hypocritical?”
I recognize every problematic aspect of sticking with the Democratic Party. But sorry, I dance with the one that brung me.
Goodnight and good luck! See you on the trail. (And here of course — but not in UIP threads.)
I know I’m not winning too many lifers as converts here, which isn’t the point. I think if we can find someone to run against Jim Miceli who is actively
pushing GOAL’s legislative agenda you’d be happy to campaign with me
for that candidate, donate to their individual, and at least wish me luck. That doesn’t mean you have to leave your party, I am not pushing that narrative.
I am saying for folks who feel there isn’t a home for them-check us out. For other folks who like the Dems just fine through thick and thin-hey check our candidates and our platform out. You don’t need to dive in headfirst to our side of the pond, but maybe wade in on occasion when it suits you and go back to where you came from after. I welcome the assistance and support of lifelong Democrats in areas where our goals intersect without asking anyone to leave their party.
And for your courage in announcing your party switch publicly. You captured much of what I’ve been angry about regarding the local party and the opportunity we present to build up a new alternative to this status quo.
I might add that our main goal is challenging incumbents who routinely go unopposed and creating more compelling choices for voters at the local level. Just by running candidates we will strengthen our democracy, educate he voters, and help the commonwealth address long term challenges It’s a thrilling opportunity and one I excited to see you embrace.
the UIC’s attempt to become a full-fledged third party. I see two difficulties for those efforts: 1) Party affiliation extends beyond the state 2) joining the UIC has to be preferable, not to being a Democrat, but to being an unenrolled voter.
I’m a Democrat in my town, my state, and my nation. I understand the problems with the Party at the state level, but they aren’t enough to make me want to switch my local and national affiliation. I suspect the state party’s issues aren’t enough to make most Democrats switch. I know the UIC is organizing at the state level, but as party activists affiliation is not merely with the state legislature.
If a Democrat really doesn’t want to be affiliated with the party, why not just become unenrolled? We are Democrats because we identify with the party. The groups we belong to are part of our identity. If we become so sick of our affiliation that we no longer want to be associated with the Democratic Party, we can just unaffiliate ourselves. When I stopped being a practicing Catholic, I didn’t join another church. (I know some people do, but I suspect that the majority of people simply stop going to church).
These are the main obstacles I see for the UIP among Democrats. There is not a compelling reason for Democrats to switch, and it offends our sense of identity to switch.
I’m not a Democrat because of Thomas McGee and Bob DeLeo but despite them. I’m a Democrat because of Jack Kennedy, Elizabeth Warren, Ted Kennedy, Amy Klobuchar, Howard Dean, Jerry Brown, Al Franken and so many more. Evan Falchuk offers little against that.
If the UIP candidate offers something others don’t in my district, I might vote for him/her. If that becomes a consistent reality, I may switch. But leave now because of DeLeo? Nah.
Look, this is a progressive blog full of veteran activists and the pitch the OP made was as a heartfelt progressive activist tired of the deadweight ruling the legislature. I share that frustration and it animated my involvement with this party and support of its aims even prior to my employment there.
But you are right Sabutai, this isn’t can’t be just an anti-DeLeo party. Such a party would have a narrow constituency of those plugged into these issues who are informed enough to have an opinion about these issues most voters don’t know about. We need a broader message than that.
And it’s about a clean, honest and transparent government. These things won’t happen if we continue to have our state government stagnate with uncompetitive elections and a monopoly of insiders calling the shots no matter which party controls the corner office. So let’s bring 54% down to zero, raise turnout, and give people an alternative. To me that’s worth being a registered voter with the UIP, even if it’s for three weeks in November to keep us on the ballot raising hell.
Well, I want the conservadems out, so if you can do that, more power to you.
I also want there to be a vigorous, serious second party in this state, because a one-party system is really a no-party system, and leads to exactly the kind of bloat and corruption many of us deplore. So again, best of luck.
I also want to support my legislators, who are good guys. If you run against them I would probably not support your candidates.
Maybe Democrats (and others) in Brian Joyce’s district should join your party, and you should organize the heck out of DeLeo’s as well. But I honestly can’t see why I should.
I’m not hostile to your project, so if you have an argument about that, please make it.
That is exactly what we are trying to accomplish. I frankly haven’t put it as eloquently as you just did, so I really appreciate your words. It isn’t going to happen overnight, it can’t happen if more people don’t register with us so we can stay on the ballot, and it won’t happen if we don’t have candidates and people to campaign for.
If you like your legislator keep voting for him or her, but if we run folks against Miceli or Joyce feel free to campaign and canvass with us or attend our meet ups or donate to our party and its candidates if you like what we are doing.
@Mark Bail:
I would add though that we need you more than they need you. We won’t exist without another 20,000 enrolled members. Coming to us rather than unenrolling ensures that this second party can form and begin working to reform government and get outsiders elected to Beacon Hill. You can still be a Democrat at the national level, I certainly still am, and we won’t be running any candidates for federal office until we’ve been successful at win in district and statewide positions. At the end of the day your registration doesn’t really mean anything to the MA Democratic Party, it has little weight there, but it holds a lot of weight to forming this movement. And if you really feel, as my grandparents did, that this party matters as much as the church you were baptized in through thick and thin, that’s fine too. Work within your party, but feel free to work for our candidates on a district basis when you like them. We welcome any and all support. This is a new kind of movement focused on reforming the state and making it a more transparent and equitable government that actually represents us.
“More and better DEMOCRATS”. There is a lot both to fix and worth defending about the Massachusetts Democratic Party and I would argue also better than a lot of people give us credit for. Our platform is at least as progressive as yours. The links you cited are evidence of people with Ds after their names acting contrary to the platform rather than evidence that there is something wrong with the platform. For example, the transgender rights bill was unanimously endorsed by the Democratic State Committee. There is a lot of inside-the-bubble thinking going on that seems to assume that all Democrats march in lockstep and that actual constituents can/should be ignored for the sake of strict platform adherence. There are a lot of pockets in this state that aren’t nearly as progressive as people would prefer or might assume. We can and should make our own voices heard, but acting like progressives are the only wing of the MDP isn’t going to get us very far.
And with where the OP is coming from, a very dedicated progressive whom I’m proud to welcome to our party and look forward to helping organize his community for our party.
But sure, you work your lane and I’ll work mine. My broader point is getting the 54% of uncontested elections down to 0. Which includes the bulk of the Republican caucus in the legislature as well. It’s about opening up the process and ensuring every voter, particularly the majority of voters who have choosen not to be part of a party, have a say at the general.
Progressives were as I recall happy to go along with Patrick, but they don’t make up the majority of the caucus. I still think your last sentence is a bit disingenuous. Unenrolled voters can pull Dem ballots and they are of course free to vote in the general.
The Democrats and Republicans will stay on the ballot no matter what, but unenrolled voters should register with a party that is trying to organize around their issues and concerns and keep that alternative party on the ballot. As should Republicans tired of the right wing takeover of their party, even locally. As should Democrats concerned their voices aren’t being heard locally.
You don’t know how many people have called saying they are grateful there is an alternative party focused on honestly educating voters and solving problems. They have wanted this option for a long time.
That it’s not really a choice if only the incumbent is on the ballot running unopposed, as is the case 54% of the time.
There are two completely distinct Democratic Parties.
There’s the one that goes to state conventions and agrees on perfectly lovely platforms.
There’s the one that populates our legislature and produces surprisingly dreadful results.
Since the latter ignores the former, and the former isn’t an organ of government, it’s clear that the platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party is an irrelevant ornament to our public life. It just doesn’t matter.
As the UIP is attempting to bring people together around its platform, that platform has a very different function.
Neer’s editorial comment:
The inability of progressives in the House and Senate to make common cause with Deval Patrick when he was in office and change of the course of the state party certainly calls into profound question the value of continuing to work for change from within.
reflects a profound lack of knowledge about what Deval did in his first year to screw his closest allies in the legislature. Shifting blame from Deval onto the Democratic Party and its most progressive members in the legislature is wildly inaccurate. That point was detailed on these pages last year (Feb 27). Please do not re-write history to justify your distaste for DeLeo, since it is probably nowhere near as strong as the distaste held by those of us who have actually gone to to toe with him. It was the idiocy of Deval and Rubin that convinced me that it was time to give up on state government and concentrate on politics elsewhere. I figured if the guy who was our hero during the campaign was that bad at governing then things would not get better for a long, long time.
Here is the first of a string of posts that are much more detailed and accurate by people who were involved in State House politics in those days.
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Deval threw it away(7+ / 1-) View voters
not the progressive legislators. Once Deval got the nomination, largely because of the support given him by progressive legislators in the early stages of his campaign, he and started dropping them (thanks, Doug Rubin!).
Set aside the small stupidities of the early days (the Cadillac and the drapes). He and his team were so certain of their righteousness that they thought they did not need allies in the lege.
In his first months in office he seemed like he was determined to piss off the progressives who were with him in the earliest stages. The first blowout was with Dan Bosley of North Adams appointment to a job in the admin, which Bosley later rejected when it was not what he had been told it was, at a time when Bosley had more credibility in the House than Deval ever attained in eight years. He embarrassed Steve Kulik of Worthington in his district around dairy support, one of Kulik’s signature issues. He screwed Jim Marzilli of Arlington on issues related to the Mystic Lake in the heart of his district, taxes and energy policy, his signature policies.
The list of Deval’s early progressive supporters who got hosed is long and led to a come-to-Jesus-meeting where all reports are that he did not even pretend to listen. Then he appointed a couple of legislators who did not support him in the campaign, people who were so ill-matched to the jobs (Doug Peterson at Agriculture and Mike Festa at Elder Affairs) that they quickly flamed out.
I have trash talked House progressives on BMG in the past but Deval owns this failure. There was a very effective progressive caucus in the House before Deval, twice getting MA the highest minimum wage in the nation, expansion of the earned income tax credit, restoration of the capital gains tax and, with the leadership of DiMasi, the state’s universal health care plan. The self-righteous Devalistas divided that team and kicked it to the curb. It is not the progressive legislators who will reap bitter fruits, it is the people of Massachusetts.
I’m with you, Best Defense. It’s just that this would have been a lot more valuable to share as the deeds were being done, instead of eight years later.
A bit of self criticism back then among fellow Democrats would have saved the state a lot of trouble during Deval Patrick’s eight years.
Mike Festa was one of the first Reps to endorse Deval Patrick for Governor. I know because I was his aide at the time.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I understand about Festa FRLR, a point you made last February, but I did not think it would be appropriate to edit out the mistake I made last year about Mike. I did not think it would be appropriate for me to edit out my previous mistake and counted on you making the correction, so thank you (truly).
no problem.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I can hear my late school teacher Mom correcting my grammar/punctuation now. 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
…and of course I really do know better:(