The Road from Nevada

In March Bernie Sanders’ supporters recently swept the elections for the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party. The centrist machine took the money and ran. What does this reveal about the potential for a “realignment” strategy to reform the Democratic Party?

On March 6, “The NV Dems Progressive Slate,” a coalition of left-wing candidates, swept the elections for the leadership of the Nevada state Democratic Party, winning all five seats. Four of the candidates were members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and all five were supported by DSA. The left-wing victory was the culmination of a wave of organizing since Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign. 

This was a blow to the “Reid machine,” the party apparatus assembled by former US Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. A leader of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, Reid still plays a central role in Nevada politics.

In an attempt to stop the Berniecrats, Reid and his establishment allies formed a so-called “Progressive Unity Slate” for the party leadership election, claiming the Berniecrat and DSA forces were divisive. Yet even before the election, fearing defeat, the establishment moved $450,000 out of the party’s accounts into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Then shortly after the left won the leadership elections, all the state party staff resigned, and all consulting contracts were severed. So much for “unity.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal quoted “one operative with close ties to the party” revealing the strategy behind these moves. “The Reid machine is not the central committee. It’s the operatives, volunteers, fundraising, and organizing capacity, all of which can be accomplished outside of the state party organization.”

Jon Ralston, founder of the Nevada Independent, explained to CNN: “Reid folks have vowed to set up a separate entity because they have no faith in the party to do what they have done successfully for more than a decade: launder (legally) money through the party to pay for voter programs.”

This shows that Reid’s people—and the Democratic establishment in general—will not just hand over their big-business electoral machine if the left wins a majority in party elections.

What does it mean to take over a state party?

“Did Democratic Socialists seize the means of Nevada’s political production?” asked David Colborne, a member of the Libertarian Party writing for the Nevada Independent. He explained that the reality is far from the hype in much of the media:

Did the Democratic Socialists of America actually take over the Nevada Democratic Party? Will Senator Cortez-Masto suddenly come out in favor of Medicare for All? Are elected Democrats in Carson City going to start quoting Das Kapital, or will Gov. Sisolak write fundraising appeals quoting directly from The Conquest of Bread? Will Murray Bookchin’s The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years become a blueprint for Nevada’s politics over the next few years? Are Nevadans going to have to learn the difference between a Dengist and a Maoist, or between an anarcho-syndicalist and a mutualist? Will our families be organized into book club affinity groups and forced to read some theory?

Absolutely not.

He went on to point out that “state parties don’t guide policy or messaging. State parties also do not exist to elect candidates; in Nevada, they don’t even exist to select candidates, unless your party is small or you’re running for president … The most meaningful prize Democratic Socialists won in Nevada last weekend was the state party’s social media accounts.” And he concludes:

That’s why, if you’ve been wondering why the so-called “Reid machine”… let a bunch of amateur activists seize control of the state party, there’s a simple explanation. Only clueless amateurs would think the state party was worth fighting for in the first place.

There is undoubtedly a lot of truth in Colborne’s description of the very limited power of the official Democratic Party structures. However, that is only one part of the larger picture. Colborne underestimates what the left has achieved, and more importantly, he ignores the potential these new positions and legitimacy could offer the radical left to promote their policies, build their base, and organize campaigns. Three illustrations of this are:

(1) The left’s success in winning the leadership of the state party is a reflection of the real strength that they built in Nevada through Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 campaigns and, crucially, their use of these campaigns to build a sustained membership organization in the form of DSA. In 2020 the Sanders campaign won a hard-fought primary battle, including a majority of Las Vegas unionized hotel workers, despite the union leadership actively campaigning for Biden. This appears to have been a defining battle, and the recent DSA takeover is a result of years of intensive organizing work behind Bernie’s 2020 victory.

To be able to build influence in Nevada, to win electoral races, and win positions in the Democratic Party, the progressive slate had to build its own organization, its own financial resources, and its own grassroots political base. All of this was done independently from the official Democratic Party structures even though the struggles took place on the terrain of the Democratic Party, like the Sanders campaigns. The backbone of this work was DSA, a rapidly growing force in Nevada politics over the past several years. It was only by building DSA—an independent organization with its own membership structures that democratically decide its own political policies—that the left was able to build the power to successfully win the state party leadership elections. 

Reid’s people have argued that the real Democratic Party is not the official leadership committees but their network of influence and connections. The left also needs to be clear about a similar point, but from the opposite class standpoint—the real “party” that the left has been leading is DSA and the activist forces they have organized since 2016 rather than the formal Democratic Party leadership positions they now occupy. 

(2) The victory in the Democratic Party elections can be used to further build DSA as an independent, democratic, membership organization. In an interview on the Deconstructed podcast, Keenan Korth, an organizer with the progressive slate was asked: “How many of the five-person slate are DSA members?”

Korth responded “I believe four of them are formally dues-paying DSA members and one of them located in Carson City County simply does not have a local org to join. But we are certainly trying to get DSA up and running in every county here in Nevada, so that our inside-outside strategy works in every county.”

(3) The Berniecrats and DSA in Nevada have built their forces by using a fighting, movement-building approach. There will be a huge pressure on the new left-wing leaders to tone this down now that they have to run the state Democratic party. To succumb to this would be a serious mistake; instead the victory in the state party elections should be used by the new leadership as a platform to step up their grassroots, movement-building efforts.

From this point of view, the comments of Judith Whitmer, the new state party chair and DSA member, following the resignation of all the state party staff could be promising. Speaking to the Deconstructed podcast, Whitmer said, “now that we are faced with a clean slate, to me, that’s nothing but an opportunity to rebuild the party even more quickly, and build a team out of staff, and volunteers, and rank-and-file members, and consultants that have been doing incredible work to engage new constituencies. It was a big part of the Sanders campaign, the outreach to Latino and Hispanic communities, to Muslim communities here in Nevada; in particular, we had an extraordinary engagement with the broader Muslim communities.”

The danger, though, is that too many left liberal Democrats use similar rhetoric without doing the real work of activism, struggle, and movement-building. Some basic first steps would be to publicly demand that the Nevada Democratic Party state organization and all Democrats elected cut off all financial ties with big business and instead appeal for donations from the working class and middle class, and campaign for progressive policies that would benefit ordinary people.

Nevada and the Dirty Break Strategy

At its last national convention in August 2019, DSA set the goal of building a new working-class party in the future, while tactically running candidates on the Democratic Party ballot line for now where it’s advantageous. Though different comrades place varying amounts of emphasis on how much independence to aim for in the short run, this is generally understood as a “dirty break” strategy. This strategy is in contrast with a “clean break” from the Democratic Party, just announcing a new party immediately, because the forces consciously supporting independent left politics are currently too weak. Instead, the idea is to build DSA and a stronger working-class base in preparation for a meaningful break, to form a mass organization that can challenge the Democratic Party. 

Other comrades in DSA argue for a “realignment strategy”—a long-term strategy of trying to reform the Democratic Party and move it to the left.  The successes of Bernie Sanders and the Squad around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the shift to a more Keynesian approach by the Biden Administration, has put wind in the sails of these forces. The recent Nevada wins will also be used to reinforce their case. 

But a closer look at the experience in Nevada reveals a different picture. It shows how quickly the “big tent” of the Democratic Party (a coalition between a wing of the capitalist class, labor, and a progressive electoral base, with capital in the dominant position) will tend to break down if the left actually gains even limited power. “Unity” in the eyes of the Democratic establishment means the left has to line up behind pro-corporate Democrats as the lesser evil to the Republicans. If the left were to exert meaningful control over a significant section of the party, it would lead to a split between the big-business and working-class wings. In effect, this would mean an end to the Democratic Party as we know it and the emergence of a new, independent working-class party.

Other left-wing activists across the country are attempting to carry out the same strategy as in Nevada, working to take over local and state Democratic Parties. Their success will be determined by their ability to build an organized independent political base much more than winning formal positions within the Democratic Party. Like in Nevada, this means building DSA (or other democratic, left-wing membership organizations) into a strong, well organized, movement of working people. Such a project—building a member-run, democratic, working-class, socialist organization—is in reality a political party, whatever name one calls it.

Where the left succeeds in winning positions of leadership within the Democratic Party, they will come under huge pressure to moderate their policies and be co-opted into the liberal capitalist framework of the Democratic Party. To overcome this the left will need a determined oppositional approach to the Democratic establishment and a willingness to stand against appeals for “party unity.” 

The Corbyn Experiment

Asked about Nevada Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who is facing re-election in two years, the Nevada Democrats’ new leader Judith Whitmer expressed disappointment. Whitmer believed she had really great conversations with the Senator prior to state party elections, but “suddenly, everything sort of seemed to change or go off track.” As it turned out, Cortez Masto was a key figure in recruiting Whitmer’s opponent for state party chair and even tried to put pressure on Whitmer to drop out of the race. 

Whitmer continues in the interview with Deconstructed: “So I’m not really sure about that or why, because I thought we had a fairly decent relationship. And I reassured her that we weren’t going to primary her and we were planning on going all-in on making sure she got reelected. So it seems kind of strange to me that you wouldn’t see the value of what we’ve been able to do, and how well we organize, and how we’re winning these elections by keeping everybody actively engaged. It seems to me like she would see the value of that and want to utilize that.” 

Unfortunately Whitmer’s hopes for unity with establishment politicians like Cortez Masto sounds very similar to the mistakes made by Jeremy Corbyn and his close supporters in the British Labour Party. When the socialist was elected leader of the Labour Party with an upswell of support from young people, hundreds of thousands joined the party, doubling its size, and pushing for the most left-wing electoral platform in recent history. 

Unfortunately Corbyn made a serious mistake of trying to appease his establishment opponents in the party. He did not support running primary challenges against them, instead allowing sitting Members of Parliament to continue to be the Labour candidates, no matter how anti-Corbyn they were and regardless of the opinions of the rank-and-file members of the party. The Labour politicians rewarded Corbyn’s appeasement with an unrelenting campaign against the left wing of the party, eventually succeeding in removing Corbyn as the party leader after a grueling five-year war of attrition, while thousands of Corbyn supporters were expelled, demoralized, or left the party. 

The Reid machine was just as ruthless in their approach—take the money and run. They are very clear that they will use that money to continue working through their own structures to back corporate candidates. Attempting to negotiate with forces like that because they have formal membership in the same organization is useless. The left would be wise to learn the lessons from this experience.  

Peaceful coexistence between the left and the big-business wing of the Democratic Party is a pipe dream. Either big business or the left will dominate the party. If the left secures control and breaks the influence of corporations over the party, the establishment will revolt. The left must not allow this threat of a split to pressure them into watering down their policies or strategy. Instead we need to be crystal clear that the only viable way forward is an all-out struggle against the establishment and their corporate backers.

Clear Political Program Needed

It’s a bit hard to find out what the progressive slate actually stood for in concrete political terms. Dr. Zaffar Iqbal, now Second Vice-Chair, wrote in the election campaign: “In the face of the worst pandemic in living memory, we need healthcare as a human right. In the midst of a financial crisis, we need an economy that serves working people. As we grapple with the legacy of bigotry, we need to dismantle systemic racism and fight for true justice, true inclusion, and true change.”

On February 12, Judith Whitmer emphasized “everyone deserves a right to a job with livable wages. The promise of healthcare as a basic human right. The promise of affordable housing, education without the threat of debt, equal treatment under the law, and a society that values people over profit.”

Alongside this there was a lot of rhetoric about party unity, diverse voices, and fresh ideas, but few specifics about what those fresh ideas are.  It’s important to clearly and explicitly call for concrete policies: Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, tuition free higher education, taxing the rich, a Green New Deal, slashing the bloated budget for police and the criminal justice system, abolishing ICE, legalization of undocumented immigrants, etc. Unfortunately, the progressives have not put forward a clear program like this, which makes it harder for their working-class base to hold them accountable, even as the pressure they face to water down their policies will grow dramatically.

We will see which direction the new leadership moves in. At the moment, it appears that there is a lack of a fighting approach that Bernie Sanders used with his audacious call for “a political revolution against the billionaire class,” paired with bold and concrete demands. Without a call to working-class people to get involved, to build movements, to get organized in unions, to join DSA, the general calls for healthcare as a human right will shatter when confronted with the power of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. 

To be most effective the new leaders will need to name the specific capitalists and establishment figures to organize against, and put forward a strategy to fight them. If the new leaders do not educate and prepare their supporters by openly explaining the need to challenge the framework of the capitalist system with a fundamentally different democratic socialist society based on gender, racial, and economic justice, the Nevada DSA and the newly elected leaders of the Democratic Party will disappoint their supporters, leaving room for a return of establishment leadership.

In her February 12th statement Whitmer also wrote “United, we can make the promise of this country a reality at last. When we fight together, we win together!” Statements like this run contrary to what the new left leadership needs to do—develop a clear public profile that is fundamentally different from traditional politicians who so often repeat similar empty rhetoric. 

“Uniting” with the members of Congress who fill their coffers with donations from the pharmaceutical industry will not win us Medicare for All. Will the new leadership of the Democrats in Nevada spell that out and primary incumbent Democrats who represent big business? 

The Struggles Ahead

As we referred to earlier, DSA’s August 2019 National Convention adopted an electoral resolution that stated: 

DSA is committed to building a political organization independent of the Democratic Party and their capitalist donors… In the longer term, our goal is to form an independent working-class party, but for now this does not rule out DSA-endorsed candidates running tactically on the Democratic Party ballot line.

This approach can include the possibility of taking over various Democratic Party local chapters or even the machinery of various Democratic state parties. However, winning these positions does not mean we have now built a party as a real organized force capable of meeting working-class needs.

A party in the socialist sense of the word, an organized political force of the multiracial working class fighting for our own class interests, needs to be a democratic membership organization of activists rooted in workplace and community struggles, in labor, the movements for Black Lives and against all forms of oppression, and the environmental movement. A party will not just be a tool to run successful candidates but will need to use those campaigns and elected officials to build the organized power of working-class people, build movements, and the strength of its own party. 

DSA in Nevada has been doing much of this by organizing grassroots campaigns and using recent successes in the Democratic Party to build DSA. The successful takeover of the Nevada Democratic Party opens new opportunities to build DSA and social movements, which could be an important contribution to building the forces of a new party in reality —a political alternative to the corporate-controlled Democratic Party. However, it also brings new challenges for DSA and the left in Nevada and pressures to water down their policies and strategy in order to maintain unity with the Democratic establishment. Resisting these pressures will require keeping the focus squarely on building up the independent and organized forces of the left to wage an all-out struggle against big business and its representatives in the Democratic Party.