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ken martin
What Can Be Done About the Left’s Diminished DNC Presence?
The recent race for DNC chair raises questions about how the progressive wing of the party can and should move forward toward 2028.
Feb 09, 2025
Just before starting to write my lament about what a dramatic step backward the recent campaign for Democratic National Committee chair had been, I opened an Our Revolution email that told me, “We beat back the party establishment at the DNC.”
Now Our Revolution being a direct organizational descendent of the 2020 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and me having been a 2016 Sanders convention delegate, I feel pretty confident that our ideas of who “we” means are pretty much the same. So what accounts for the widely divergent takes?
For those who haven’t been following this, Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin was just elected to lead the DNC for the next four years, defeating Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler by a 246.5–134.5 vote margin. There was no contested election four years ago, because by tradition a just-elected president selects the new chair; contested elections generally follow defeats. In the last one, in 2017, former Obama administration Secretary of Labor Tom Perez won the job, beating Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison in a second round of voting, 235--200.
At the moment there is no one obviously positioned to take up the Sanders’ mantle in the 2028 presidential campaign.
Ellison’s candidacy came in the wake of his having been just the second member of Congress to support Sanders in the prior year’s presidential primaries, and the fact that Sanders people harbored serious grievances with the DNC over its perceived favoritism for the ultimate nominee, Hillary Clinton, lent a distinct edge to the election, bringing it considerably more buzz than the one that just occurred. At the time, former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, a vociferous opponent of Sanders’ run—who had once declared, “The most effective thing liberals and progressives can do to advance our public policy goals... is to help Clinton win our nomination early in the year”—now thought there was “a great deal to be said for putting an active Sanders supporter in there,” so as to clear the air “of suspicions and paranoia.” But Clinton and Barack Obama apparently didn’t think so, and Clinton’s past Obama cabinet colleague, Perez, took up the torch in a race that produced a level of grassroots involvement seldom if ever before seen in this contest.
Although the office is traditionally considered organizational rather than ideological and the 2017 candidates did run on those issues, the underlying political differences were obvious to all. This time around, the race was generally understood to involve little if any political disagreement on the issues. By way of explaining its support for new party chair Martin, Our Revolution characterized runner-up Wikler, as “an establishment candidate backed by Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer, and bankrolled by the billionaire class.” We understand that election campaigns are about sharpening the perception of differences between the candidates, but still this seems a rather thin, flimsy basis for hailing the vote as an anti-establishment triumph, given that Martin has publicly stated that he doesn’t want the party to take money from "those bad billionaires" only from "good billionaires;”and one of the two billionaires who gave a quarter million dollars to Wikler’s campaign was George Soros—probably the DNC’s model “good billionaire.” Besides Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg probably aren’t thinking of donating anyhow. Oh, and Chuck Schumer actually supported Ellison eight years ago.
Actually, “we” did have a horse in the race—2020 Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir. Shakir, who has been running a nonprofit news organization called More Perfect Union, dedicated to “building power for the working class,” argued that Democrats needed a pitch for building a pro-worker economy to go with their criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy proposals. His viewpoint presented a serious alternative to that of Martin, who told a candidates forum that “we’ve got the right message... What we need to do is connect it back with the voters,”—seemingly a tough position to maintain following an election in which NBC’s 20-state exit polling showed the majority of voters with annual household incomes under $100,000 voting Republican, while the majority of those from over-$100,000 households voted Democrat. But even though Shakir was a DNC member and thereby able to get the 40 signatures of committee members needed to run, he entered the race far too late to be taken for a serious contender and ultimately received but two votes.
Mind you, none of this critique comes as a criticism of the work of the two state party chairs who were the principal contenders. Martin touts the fact that Democrats have won every statewide election in Minnesota in the 14 years that he has chaired the party, and anyone who understands the effort that goes into political campaign work can only admire that achievement. Nor is Our Revolution to be criticized for taking the time to discern what they thought would be the best possible option in a not terribly exciting race that was nevertheless of some importance.
At the same time it’s hard not to regret the diminished DNC presence of the “we” that Our Revolution spoke of, after “we” legitimately contended for power in the last contested election. Certainly this lack of interest was in no small part a consequence of the extraordinary circumstances that produced a presidential nominee who had not gone before the voters in a single primary—for the first time since Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
More importantly, it raises a serious question for those of us who believe that the structure and history of the American political system require the left’s engagement in the Democratic Party—uncomfortable and unpleasant as that may be at times. As the social scientists like to say, politics abhors a vacuum, and absent a national Democratic Party presence for the perspective that motivated the Sanders campaigns, people seeking action on the big questions on the big stage may start to look elsewhere. And elsewhere always looms the possibility of the cul-de-sac of yet of another third party candidacy that holds interesting conventions and debates, but ultimately receives only a small share of the vote, but a large share of the blame for the election of a Republican president.
At the moment there is no one obviously positioned to take up the Sanders’ mantle in the 2028 presidential campaign. But we may have to make it our business to find one.
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Ahead of Chair Vote, Progressives Say DNC 'Failing Disastrously' to Learn From Loss to Trump
"Voters—and all Americans—deserve better than two corporate-controlled parties," asserted the leader of Our Revolution.
Jan 30, 2025
The head of a leading U.S. progressive group on Thursday accused the Democratic National Committee—which will choose new leadership this weekend—of trying to silence rank-and-file activists and voters, showing that the Democratic Party's governing body is failing to connect with the working-class Americans who helped deliver the White House and Congress to Republicans.
"This moment demands a Democratic Party that provides more than just reactive opposition to an administration bent on rigging our economic and political systems in favor of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on Earth," Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement ahead of Thursday evening's final DNC candidate forum. "It demands leaders who put the party's grassroots base ahead of the donor class and articulate a real vision that rejects [Republican President] Donald Trump's corporate rule—starting with renouncing corporate money themselves."
"Unfortunately," Geevarghese lamented, "Democratic leadership is failing disastrously to meet this urgent mandate. Ahead of tonight's forum, the DNC is actively working to silence rank-and-file Democratic activists and base voters calling for a ban on dark money in primaries and the rejection of corporate funding. In a last-minute move, they shut the event off from the public and even deliberately shared the wrong address for where grassroots supporters are allowed to gather."
Trump has forged an unholy alliance between state and corporate power. With the help of Big Tech, Big Oil and other oligarchs, he is ushering in a new era of authoritarian capitalism in America. Where is the Democratic Party? Where is the leadership and where is the opposition required in this mom
— Our Revolution ( @our-revolution.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 10:15 AM
A post-election survey of 5,000 Our Revolution members found that only 14% of respondents were "very confident" that the Democratic Party and its leaders in Congress, state houses, and city halls will fight against the worst parts of Trump's agenda. Furthermore, 88% of survey respondents said they support efforts to transform the Democratic Party into a real opposition party and to get the party to reject corporate money and power, while the remaining 12% said they've already given up on the Democratic Party.
Forty-one percent of survey respondents said they want Our Revolution to primarily focus on fighting Trump and oligarchs, 32% said the group should concentrate on taking back the Democratic Party from the corporate class, and the remaining 27% think Our Rev should prioritize electing progressive candidates.
"Voters—and all Americans—deserve better than two corporate-controlled parties," asserted Geevarghese, whose group hosted a DNC candidate forum earlier this month. "The election of the next DNC chair will shape the opposition to Trump's second term, and we are already seeing glaring red flags from party leaders who are unwilling to part with the ways of the past that ushered in four more years of a would-be tyrant."
An
Our Revolution petition signed by more than 10,000 active grassroots Democratic volunteers, donors, and local and state party leaders is calling on the DNC to:
- Ban dark money in primaries and reject corporate money;
- Invest in state parties and uplift grassroots organizing;
- Make the DNC budget transparent and hold consultants accountable; and
- Commit to a progressive platform and small-donor democracy.
Longtime progressive strategist Faiz Shakir, who managed Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, is
running for DNC chair on a platform of making Democrats the party of the working class.
"The question to my mind now is that if there is consensus around the working class confronting oligarchy, then what new ideas are we bringing to the table in how we utilize the power and authority of the DNC?" Shakir said in interview published Thursday by The Guardian. "My election would send the strongest message that we're doing something different."
As The Guardian's Joan Greve noted:
Shakir faces an uphill battle to capture the chair position. He only announced his candidacy earlier this month, while the front-runners in the race—Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party—have been campaigning for two months. Ahead of the leadership elections on Saturday, Martin claims to have already secured the support of at least 200 DNC members, which would put him within striking distance of a winning majority, although his opponents have questioned that whip count.
Undaunted, Shakir said he is the best candidate for refocusing the Democratic Party on serving its working-class base.
"Can we open the doors and let people in? Can we start from the premise that this is a people-powered organization?" he told Greve. "That we could be and should be in service to others beyond ourselves, that is the core of what I would believe as a kind of organizing philosophy of the Democratic party right now to rebuild the brand."
"The nation is calling upon the Democratic Party to say, 'Hey, we need you,'" he added. "I'm trying to fight the notions of insularity among groups of people who understandably are focused on reforming structures within the DNC. But we've got to think beyond the DNC.
Disclosure note: Brett Wilkins is the co-chair of San Francisco Berniecrats, an Our Revolution affiliate.
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'We Must Be Bolder': Faiz Shakir Enters Race for DNC Chair
"We will have learned nothing about the last four years if we proceed as normal with a failing Democratic brand."
Jan 17, 2025
Longtime progressive strategist Faiz Shakir, who managed Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, announced his late entry into the race for Democratic National Committee chair earlier this week, expressing frustration with what he described as the current crop of candidates' apparent "lack of vision and conviction for what to do to restore a deeply damaged Democratic brand."
"As I have listened to our candidates, I sense a constrained, status-quo style of thinking," Shakir wrote in a Medium post. "We cannot expect working-class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support."
Shakir's decision to join the race comes two weeks before DNC's hundreds of members are set to vote on who will lead the organization in the wake of the disastrous 2024 elections, which saw Republicans win a trifecta at the federal level and Democrats continue to hemorrhage working-class support.
Shakir, the founder of More Perfect Union—a progressive media organization whose mission is to help build working-class power—said he's come away from recent DNC candidate forums and conversations with the view that "we wrongly perceive a powerlessness about the role of chair, confining it merely to being some kind of pass-through financial vehicle to distribute funds to various other entities."
"The grandest reforms I've heard so far revolve around procedural, internal changes to budgeting and consultant work, and we offer pablum around national war rooms and permanent campaigns that have no substance guiding them, deferring critical judgment about what to actually say and do to some other place and time or persons," Shakir wrote in his Medium post. "We must be bolder than that!"
"If we learned anything from our last four years, it should be that we must break some norms and get more compelling, interesting, and dynamic to win," he added. "We can't continue to defer critical political judgments to a donor class or some other outside actors. To be a multiracial working-class party, we must prove we are on their side in the fight against corporate greed."
Shakir, who previously served as a senior adviser to former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, said he envisions a DNC that is "an organizing army" that backs workers in their fight against corporate abuses; "its own powerful media outlet" that features "working-class heroes taking on corporate greed" and airs "educational pieces about the aims and ambitions of the Silicon swamp surrounding [President-elect Donald] Trump; and a body that "actively involves the grassroots in surfacing interesting policy ideas and building civic organization around community service, faith, sports, culture, and entertainment."
"Most importantly," he wrote, "we have to strategically pick big fights with the elite and selfish oligarchs now entering government 'service' not just to decry their looting but to paint the picture of how we would wield power in a very different way."
Shakir joins a field in which two candidates—Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin—are widely seen as the frontrunners. But the race has so far lacked the kind of enthusiasm that Shakir argues is badly needed.
As Politicoreported Sunday, there has been "little daylight" between the DNC chair candidates and the contest has had "all the excitement of watching a euchre tournament, full of Midwestern niceness befitting its two frontrunners but short on big ideas or disagreements over how to salvage their fortunes."
In an interview with The Associated Press, Shakir said that it is "almost like we've moved on and not even deliberated or grasped what were the challenges."
"We will have learned nothing about the last four years," he warned, "if we proceed as normal with a failing Democratic brand."
Shakir's candidacy quickly received the backing of Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.
"I am proud to endorse Faiz Shakir as chair of the Democratic National Committee," Nelson wrote in a social media post. "Faiz not only has the right working-class credibility, vision, and insight for this moment, but he also has the vast experience needed to operate and rebuild the DNC."
"The party is at a critical moment, and we need to embrace changing [the] status quo," Nelson added. "Faiz's vision and conviction is clear: use the authority and resources of the DNC to build power for working people—the promise of America. He is the leader the party needs at this moment."
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