For once, I disagree with Michael Moore

Dear Michael Moore:

Today you called local Democratic organizations "an apparatus of numskulls, hacks and former high school council rejects," and encouraged progressives who would like to see Trump defeated to ignore us and take matters into their own hands.

First of all, that really personally hurts me. I work as an organizer in local county Democratic Party headquarters during elections. Between elections, I volunteer with my local county Party. I work my ass off for no pay, or not enough pay, because I believe there is nothing more important to do between birth and death than to make the world a better place by furthering the progressive vision. I think you and I agree on that. It makes me feel so frustrated I could cry, to come home after a day of hard work at the campaign headquarters with great volunteers giving their free time to elect progressives and defeat dangerous right wingers, including Trump,  and read those words from someone I thought was on our side.

Second, you are wrong. Really wrong. Dead wrong. And if you want to see Trump defeated, you need to be using your formidable megaphone to give the exact opposite advice. You are hurting that cause and the only people and organizations capable of achieving it.

The local Democratic Party organizations are simply progressives who are willing to work hard to get other progressives elected. In our County, most of us are Bernie supporters. Most of our candidates too. We are made up entirely of unpaid volunteers.

Between election cycles we have a lot of meetings. We fundraise. We throw events for our local members and the public to inform people about progressive issues. We cultivate, identify and recruit local progressive candidates. During election cycles we rent a headquarters and recruit volunteers to help our candidates from the most local level all the way up through the national level get elected. And we're pretty damn good at it. If anyone has the capacity and ability to elect Clinton and defeat Trump it's us. We have the structure, the knowledge, the work ethic and the volunteers.

It's not some sleeper cell of cool farmer hipster types, as you seem to suggest. Cool, hipster farmer types who care and are willing to work are already with us. Those who don't, and aren't, are not going to spontaneously organize themselves into a structure capable of achieving electoral results.

It's not the Greens, who barely exist and don't work hard and don't get anyone elected. You want to go to fun rallies and protests? You want to express yourself, and your leftist ideals and vote your feelings without thought for consequences? Would you rather craft a puppet than look at a spreadsheet? Join the Green Party. Or just go to a party, it's basically the same thing.

You want to get shit done? Join the boring old County Democrats. I'm sorry. That's the truth.  And yeah, we probably are nerds. You know why? Nerds work hard. We do our homework. We show up on time and put our assignment - electing progressives - before self-indulgence. It's boring, but it's how things get done.

There are a lot of people who are discouraged and confused, and could use a push in the right direction. The right direction is their local Democratic Party Headquarters. We are already doing what you claim needs to be done, and we need their help. I spend my entire life asking for their help. So why are you working against us?

Hey Robert Reich, stop trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist

These recent posts by Robert Reich are really pissing me off:

"After Election Day, continue Bernie's revolution. If Hillary is elected, give her the courage and political backing to do what' needs to be done and hold her accountable if she doesn't. This may require working through a third party. Or perhaps creating a progressive organization inside the Democratic Party that will field and support progressive primary candidates in 2018, 2020, and beyond." 

"The DNC has to turn itself – and the Democratic Party -- into a grass-roots membership organization, with local and state chapters that play a meaningful role in selecting and supporting candidates. And it has to take a lead in seeking public financing of campaigns, full disclosure of all donations, and ending the revolving door between government and the lobbying-industrial-financial complex. Unfortunately, I doubt this will happen. Which is why no number of purges are going to make the DNC the kind of organization that serves the public interest. And why we’re going to need a third party, or a third force, to force the Democratic Party to do what’s right by America."

Clearly, Robert Reich hasn't been involved in his local Democratic Party lately. If ever. He seems to have no understanding of how the Democratic Party is structured and what we actually do. Because we - local Democratic Party volunteers - are already doing all of those things he seems to think we need some kind of purging or dangerous, doomed third party presidential campaign to get inspired to do. What we need are more volunteers, not progressive figures with large audiences spreading ignorant conspiracy theories about us and encouraging counterproductive cynicism. 

I am a member of my local County Democratic Party, the Lincoln County Democrats of Maine. We are an entirely volunteer organization. We have some money because we work our asses off fundraising. No, not by asking Monsanto and Goldman Sachs for handouts. By holding ham suppers, harvest dinners, lobster bakes, that kind of thing. We also hold monthly events with speakers to inform and educate local Democrats and the public about progressive issues. We also seek out and recruit candidates for state office. And we rent and staff a campaign headquarters every other year to provide our volunteers with a base of operations to help our candidates get elected. After each election cycle, we are about broke and we start all over. 

These people - the people who run the County Party, the candidates, the volunteers who phone and door canvass - make incredible sacrifices of energy and time to pull this off. We do it because we are passionate progressives who believe deeply enough in progressive issues to actually put our money where our mouths are and WORK to make progressive change happen. 

The candidates we recruit and support cover the spectrum of liberalism. We don't seek out a particular type of liberal. The main reason for this, is that there are very few people actually willing to run for state office. We take whoever we can get, basically. But no, there is no preference for centrist Democrats or against strong progressives. If there is more than one person willing to run, we have a primary and the Democratic voters - not the County Party - decide. In general, most of our local candidates are very progressive, and this year it so happens that most of them were Bernie supporters and delegates. 

Another thing our County Party does is elect or find people willing to serve on the state level Maine Democratic Party volunteer boards. The state Democratic Party is also a mostly volunteer organization. We have a few paid staff to run the day-to-day operations, but they answer to the volunteer State Steering Committee, which I was recently elected to by my local County Democratic caucus at the State Convention. You know, it's weird, somehow I got elected without corporate sponsorship, not sure how. I just kind of showed up and said I wanted the job and they gave it to me. 

I also worked on the Platform Committee over the past winter. Again, strange, but all I had to do was say I wanted to be there and they let me change our State Platform. This allegedly evil, bloated, hopelessly corrupt Party also let in a bunch of other young liberal progressives who made major progressive changes to our Platform. I support Ranked Choice Voting, because I think it's the only way that third parties can be meaningful participants in our elections, as opposed to spoilers, and I would like to see more third party participation. This Party that is allegedly just out to crush dissent and third parties had no problem letting me insert support for Ranked Choice Voting into the State Platform. 

At our State Convention this year, as every year, the locally elected state delegates (including myself) got to elect national delegates to the National Convention, as well as people to represent us on the Democratic National Committee. I'm not sure how it got past the hopelessly corrupt, corporate puppet Party insiders, but somehow we were allowed to elect two outspoken Sanders campaigners and anti-superdelegate types - Troy Jackson and Diane Denk - to the DNC. We also sent Diane Russell as a delegate to the National Convention, where she raised hell around the super delegate issue and actually got the entire system revamped. Wow, the corporate shills must have been really off their game to let all that get past them. 

If you detect a note of sarcasm, it's because I am tired of this ignorant, conspiracy theory bullshit. The Democratic Party IS a grassroots organization. And while it certainly isn't perfect, luckily it's democratic and open to change. Power starts at the local level and it is the local volunteers who select the State and National leaders from amongst ourselves.  

Incidentally, in Maine, our legislature - led by DEMOCRATS - passed the most progressive Clean Elections law in the country. Virtually every Democrat in Maine runs as a Clean Elections candidate. We have very strict full disclosure laws. So I have no idea what Robert Reich is talking about when he says that the Democratic Party needs to "take a lead in seeking public financing of campaigns, full disclosure of all donations, and ending the revolving door between government and the lobbying-industrial-financial complex." Um, done and done. 

So maybe you can see why it would be a little infuriating to me to hear Robert Reich say we need to become a "grass-roots membership organization, with local and state chapters that play a meaningful role in selecting and supporting candidates." And that we can't be trusted to do it on our own, we need "a third party, or a third force, to force the Democratic Party to do what’s right by America." He says this, while we are currently working our asses off doing exactly that without any god damned help from all these arm chair liberals who are willing to criticize, but you ask them to come to a meeting or call them for a phone bank - forget it. 

We, the local Democratic volunteers, recruit progressive candidates and what's more - we actually get them elected through incredible volunteer effort. You're welcome, and if you ever feel like doing any actual work, I'm sure your local Democratic Party Municipal or County Committee would be grateful for the help.