A number of party leaders are frustrated that Hogg, who has a leadership position in the party, is pushing primaries against some incumbents in deep-blue seats.
Democratic party leaders Thursday morning admonished officers to not take sides in primaries, addressing a situation involving activist and Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg.
“Let me be unequivocal. No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a press call. “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership. Our role is to serve as stewards of a fair, open and trusted process, not to tilt the scales.”’
As of now, however, the DNC does not have the power to remove Hogg if he refuses to stand down on funding primary challenges through a separate PAC — unless the body changes its rules, a senior DNC official told NBC News.
“Under the present bylaws, there is no action that can be taken against David Hogg without changing to the bylaws to extend that policy of neutrality to all primaries," DNC Finance Chair Chris Korge told NBC News. "There is no codified, legal way to remove an officer for doing what David Hogg has done because it only extends to the presidential race. "
Korge said that, as of now, the situation is to be addressed at a future meeting, likely in August.
Korge said he believed it was imperative for the body to formally change its bylaws because the party division the Hogg situation has caused harkens to an old ghost Democrats don’t want to revisit.
“It smells like 2016, when progressives said the DNC had it in the bag for Hillary Clinton," Korge said, referencing angst in the party that the DNC had its thumb on the scale to block Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from the presidential nomination. “No party official, no officer of the DNC, should do anything that would result in the division that was created by the perception that existed back in 2016.”
On Thursday, Martin went on to say he had spoken to Hogg about what he perceived as a conflict but he did not expound on whether he gave him an ultimatum.
“I understand what he’s trying to do,” Martin continued in the press call. “As I’ve said to him, ‘If you want to challenge incumbents, you’re more than free to do that. But just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be a neutral arbiter. We can’t be both the referee and also the player at the same time. You have to make a decision.’”
In pushing back on Thursday, Hogg cited Trump’s power clashes with institutions in saying the party needed to take more aggressive actions. He added that he had not violated any DNC bylaws.
“They’re trying to change the rules because I’m not currently breaking them. As we’re seeing law firms, tech companies, and so many others bowing to Trump, we all must use whatever position of power we have to fight back. And that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Hogg said in a statement.
Note that the text OP posted above is NOT the whole article!!
IDK why that isn’t made clear?Since last week, Hogg has appeared on just about every cable news show and digital outlet, advocating for a party reset of sorts — not just because it lost the White House to Donald Trump, but also because, he said, it lost faith among voters.
David Hogg is right IMO, the party needs a reset, and the platform needs a reset. For one: Calling themselves the Democratic party, they really should work more to improve democracy in USA! As it is they are not really democrats any more than people calling themselves pro life when in fact they aren’t at all pro life. What they are is against abortion rights.
Likewise the Democrats have helped maintain the status quo, in a dysfunctional flawed democratic system.
IDK why that isn’t made clear?
its a community rule not to post the whole article, so I posted some of it
i agree with hogg that the party needs a reset, but the vice chair of the party should not be the one making that comment because it gives all appearances that the party will be picking and choosing the primary candidates and throwing their weight behind their preferred candidate. that’s going to lead to party fractures and a lot of hard feelings. you want to ensure more republicans winning easier than they should on the local level? have the party pick the candidate instead of the people in the district.
that’s why i am very glad the chair has pretty much laid down the law. the party leadership (save one) is committed to electing democrats wherever they are whoever they are. one person in leadership is committed to electing specific democrats to office.
which if you think about it is a colossal failure. he’s down in florida. he’s had ample opportunity to elect his chosen democrats in florida with his pac. how successful were his candidates? and you’ve got people who see that (lack of) success he had in florida and say, “yeah, let’s take that plan and apply it nationwide, even if the better democrat for an area isn’t someone that hogg prefers.”
i agree with hogg that the party needs a reset, but the vice chair of the party should not be the one making that comment because it gives all appearances that the party will be picking and choosing the primary candidates and throwing their weight behind their preferred candidate.
It’s neat how this hasn’t been a concern until just now.
the party leadership (save one) is committed to electing democrats wherever they are whoever they are
Maybe they shouldn’t commit to democrats that continuously vote with the Republicans?
I don’t see why there shouldn’t be standards.
such bullsh!t - Hogg sees they aren’t doing their jobs, they aren’t fighting and they need to go. Good for him.
This is the problem, these establishment Democrats aren’t supporting the people who are willing to fight, they want to write strongly worded letters and consider legislation… those days are gone.
Jefferies needs to be thrown out, Schumer needs to step back or walk away.
I really thought Martin would be good for the party but I’m not seeing it
How dare he rock the boat when the current bunch are doing so well.
Hey man, we gotta be patient, the old guard is really busy doing absolutely nothing
That’s exactly the plan. Schumer has said out loud that the plan is to just let the republicans off the leash, let them sink their own poll numbers and hope they teach the voters a lesson.
That lesson, of course, being that you can put a Democrat in office to do nothing, or you can put a Republican in office and the democrats will still do nothing. These fossilized assholes need a solid kick in the pants. I would like to wish Schumer and his ilk a very merry get fucking lost.
the current DNC strategy is let the gop+trump do enough damage in the hopes that old guard dems eek out a win, any win will do.
Oh c’mon! Insider trading, setting up offshore accounts and shell companies is work!
Nothing surprising here but it is somewhat notable that the DNC response to activists whipping up enthusiasm and engagement among younger voters is to change the bylaws in order to stop them. Real pieces of shit, they are. Proven time and time again.
Making reform impossible is a very dangerous game.
Woah, there, enthusiasm?! Listen, buddy, we prefer our voters begrudged.
Thus marking the greatest opposition democrats have mustered against anything this year.
They always have money and energy to fight their own progressive wing.
“Let me be unequivocal. No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a press call.
This is a position the DNC has acted contrary to for decades, and only decided they conveniently held when someone wanted to primary centrists. Ken Martin is not a departure from the centrist wing of the party’s decades of self-serving bad faith; he is a continuation and possibly an acceleration of it.
Rebuke away, ya dumb fuck Dems. What the young Mr Hogg is attempting — funding primary challengers to the most empty-suit Democrats — might be futile, might not, but you gotta respect the effort.
“Wake up, wake up,” he shouts at the corpse of the Democratic Party, which will probably wake up only long enough to smack him away, and then go back to sleep.
Lmao and they can’t get rid of him, I fucking LOVE that.
Sucks to suck, status-quo old-guard fucksticks.
If they even fucking dare try its the very last time an entire generation votes D.
Yeah, like if they can’t reform to represent their voters then we’re gonna have to throw the whole party out. Not really the type of play I want to have to make in the current situation though.
What do they say? The best time to start working out was 10 years ago.
The second best time to start is now.
Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.
Tell that to Sanders, Clinton, and Harris… That’s just recent memory…
🙄 🤡 🤦♀️
They straight up told us who the nominee would be against Trump. What a fucking joke. "Democracy is in peril so we have to suspend democracy.
In this past election, it’s kind of a non-issue. Both parties have always had it in their rules that if the nominee drops out after the primaries, the party can select a new nominee without holding another primary. And to be honest, it’s an understandable rule, at least within the scope of an overall shitty system. People generally aren’t going to show out for primaries, then watch a nominee drop out, then show out for yet another round of primaries, and then show out for a general election. It’s hard enough just to get people to vote once.
Prior to 2024 though, the DNC and DCCC putting their fingers on the scale to fuck Sanders and elevate Clinton is unforgivable.
The outrage is telling. Hogg is making an effort to introduce fresh faces and ideas at the primary level. This gives Democrats a chance to choose which ideas they want to go into play in congress. That is all.
If those voters are happy with what they currently have, the incumbent is safe. If not, those new ideas go up against opposing ideas. If a plurality like those ideas, they get to see them play out in congress. The only risk here is that they lose the seat.
Since at the moment, he’s doing this in reliably blue districts, the risk is lower than elsewhere. This is a recipe for real change in the Democratic party for the better.
The only reason to fight against it so hard (that I see) is the protection of individuals’ comfort at the expense of the welfare of our nation. It’s evidence of moral rot in the the party that is threatened by true representation of the citizens’ needs.
I support Hogg’s efforts - as long as he does not have the morality of “boss Hogg”. (For the kids out there who have no idea of what i mean, find and watch a season of The Dukes Of Hazzard.)
the donors control both the gop and dem , they are afriad they cant control the likes of future aoc, and BERNIES
As a liberal who donated literally hundreds of dollars last year to ActBlue thinking I was saving democracy, Democrats have completely lost me. I’m done. After a loss as bad as 2024, how those Democratic leaders all stay in their positions is beyond me. Schumer, Jeffries, the entire DNC should’ve been fired and replaced. They are losers who made us lose to a fucking moronic orange rapist. And the fact that they’re STILL lying about putting the thumb on Clinton’s scale over Bernie’s in 2016 is as dishonest as it is infuriating. Fuck the Democratic party forever.
(For the record, will continue voting blue because the most corrupt democrat is better than the nicest magat, but we need a new party on the Left STAT)
We get the left party by splitting the Democratic Party. The Republicans are dead-old-white-men-walking, they will implode. I’m Team Hogg on this one
We get the left party by splitting the Democratic Party
I’m Team Hogg on this one
I’m a bit confused by the wording here. When you say “split” I hear making a whole new party? But David Hogg is a vice chair of the Democratic Party, so being on his team implies not third party. Could you clarify?
Political parties can split. Parties can die.
Major upheavals in parties are inevitable.
Or we could just take it over, like what Hogg is actually trying to do. Parties shift focus much more easily than they die.
Indeed. It feels like a lot of historical context is missing in Lemmy political discussions. The Democratic party was the party of FDR, JFK, and LBJ. The Democratic Leadership Council took over the party after the left candidates failed to deliver election successes, but even then, the DLC had to do the work to take the party leadership positions, build a funding network, and win elections. Before that FDR had to wrestle party control from the the Dixiecrats.
Hopefully Hogg and allies will be successful in reforming the party once again.
Not just that, but even if you’re looking for a major realignment, the Republicans were at one point the party of civil rights and the Dems were the bastion of white supremacy. You have to go past all these major party changes to actually get to the death of a party.
It’s so much easier to force a realignment than to, during a time of active fascism, destroy the opposition party in hope that in a decade a completely fresh party can emerge from the ashes.
the DLC had to do the work to take the party leadership positions, build a funding network, and win elections.
The question is: Will the DNC let you do that or will they sink with the whole damn ship? Because they have the tools (mostly money and connections, but also control of the party, immense social pressure and gaslighting) to stop you, dilute your final program or at the very least make your life hell every step of the way and significantly delay your planned takeover. Crucially, this is all happening and will keep happening during a time of active fascism when prompt and decisive action is needed, not compromise with Wall Street.
I mean, obviously I don’t know how the internals of how the party works from first hand experience. That said I seriously don’t think we should build them up into a bete noir. Every party is in the business of winning. The party went to the center because Nixon walloped McGovern, and Reagan crushed both his elections. Also, the DLC found a way to fund the party after labor support waned for a variety of reasons.
Did the party impede Sanders’ primary campaign against Hillary? It’s been acknowledged that they did. Of course he’s been a career independent, and not a party member for one thing. Probably more importantly, party leadership still doesn’t think going to the left will win nationally. Of course we choose our candidates through a primary process, but like it or not, the party’s job is to win elections, and it’s not outside the party’s mandate to support candidates who they think will win.
But party leadership isn’t a monolith, and it isn’t a conspiracy. It is a group of people trying to make sense of things and find a way to succeed. Of course the old guard is resisting change because they still think they’ve got the recipe for success. Time will tell how it plays out. It’s going to be hard work, and as party voters our ability to influence change in the party has been diluted by a bunch of consultants that are telling the old guard what they want to hear, and only face a reckoning every two years. I imagine, in the face of fascistic tendencies in the rightwing party, moderation and compromise will be even less attractive, even to a center left party. We’ve got to make our voice heard, and when we get a crack, we’ve got to deliver wins.
Any options for sending them a message aside from the DNC contact form?
Their mailing address:
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 430 South Capitol Street Southeast Washington, DC 20003
What I’m sending:
“Please find enclosed a printed copy of an email sent to me by Leaders We Deserve in which they thank me for my donation to them. Here you can see that I am willing to donate to causes that credibly represent me. Pay special attention to the absence of a donation in this envelope, as it was not an oversight on my part.”
If you do something similar, black out the “to” line on the email if you don’t want all the spam.
FUCK the DNC. They helped put us in this mess.
