Initially, I was thrilled to attend this rite of passage for every political operative. But once there, wandering amidst the glitz and glam, imbibing the gloss and schmaltz of it all, I couldn't escape a sinking feeling. I felt submersed in a hollow chamber whose mottos were "Brat summer" and "Joy"—totally out of touch with regular, every-day Americans and their pressing needs; instead, the most elite people in the world chanted in unison that "We're not going back!"Disgusted with the constant begging for money from Democrat billionaires she moved from being a moderate Democrat to being a progressive, but this shift didn't help:
I found myself feeling disenchanted, lost, sad, and alone. As someone who has given her life to Democratic politics, it was devastating. But if I'm being honest, it wasn't totally surprising.
These realizations pushed me from moderate Democrats to progressive candidates who rejected corporate PAC money, embraced a higher minimum wage, endorsed universal health care, and criticized the Party's corporate wing. But when you're working with progressives, you get a front-row seat to how the establishment beats and batters candidates out of step with the party line.Toward the end of her column Barker writes this:
So my progressives lost. A lot. And it was always to the same old, tired playbook of dark money from super PACs pouring in, or major Democratic arms like the DCCC and DSCC putting their thumb on the scale, endorsing the anointed candidate early instead of letting the people choose. This is how they blocked Bernie [Sanders].
But even the progressives are part of the problem now. They were once focused on policies that improved people's lives, promising to be unbought and uncompromisable. But after the summer of 2020, that rhetoric all but faded away. They've become compromised by the social justice language and divisive identity politics that now dominates the entire Democratic ecosystem.
Perhaps the most shocking of all is how the Democrats have embraced Bush-era foreign policy to become the party of war. Instead of rebuilding the working class communities that have been hit hardest by their neoliberal trade policies, they've spent $175 billion funding the war in Ukraine.
It was the cherry on the cake that Vice President Kamala Harris has been proudly touting an endorsement from Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney!
Here's the sad truth: The Democratic Party has lost its way entirely. They mostly speak to the college educated, the urban and affluent, in their language. Their tone is condescending and paternalistic. They peddle giveaways to the college-educated like student loan forgiveness plans that disproportionately help their base, snubbing the majority of the country without a four-year degree, and then offer no tangible plans for true reform.The flip-side of this is that the policies they do endorse - higher taxes, more spending, more regulations, more illegal immigration, etc. - are guaranteed not only to not help, but to actually harm the very middle class that Democrats claim they care about.
I wonder how many Evan Barkers there are out there, disgruntled with a party that seems to have embraced a far-left ideology alien to the values and concerns they grew up with. However many there are, I very much doubt that many of them will vote for Trump - Barker doesn't say who she'll vote for - but neither will they be very excited about getting their friends and family to vote for Harris.