The Democratic National Committee has just elected a new chair, but the old guard that has long dominated the party will not go quietly. Although there are some reasons for cautious optimism, the road ahead will be steeply uphill for the Democratic Party.
Ken Martin, longtime chair of the party in Minnesota, is replacing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, whose four-year term was marked by steady subservience to his patron, former President Joe Biden. Martin has the opportunity to be a leader instead of merely following self-focused directives from the president. It shouldn’t be difficult to improve on Harrison’s job performance.
The DNC headquarters has functioned as a fortress, notorious among grassroots party activists as an unwelcoming place. Martin might be inclined to change that.
Many top executives at the DNC do not like Martin. Given their hidebound behavior, it’s an indication that badly needed change might be in the offing. What’s more, it is encouraging that the new chair overcame the opposition of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who all publicly endorsed Ben Wikler, Martin’s main rival for the post.
The national party has remained in the grip of leaders who have never acknowledged their abject failure. That failure can be summed up in a notorious statement Schumer made a few months before Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
Rather than dissipate after Clinton’s shocking loss, this elitism lingered on and guided the strategy of former Vice President Kamala Harris eight years later. “The path to victory in a state like Michigan, Harris campaign officials are betting, is through suburban counties that are home to many college-educated and white voters,” the New York Times fatefully reported less than three weeks before the election.
Although countless party officials and pundits have scratched their heads over the drastic fall-off in working-class support for the 2024 Democratic ticket, the main reasons should not be mysterious. The faux populism of Trump’s Republican Party cannot be effectively countered by warmed-over liberal bromides and calls for incremental reform.
To shed its well-earned reputation for elitism, the DNC should stop running away from populism and instead embrace it — not by making peace with Trumpism, but by moving toward genuine progressive populism. That means showing that the party actually means business about siding with the interests of low- and middle-income Americans against the rapacious effects of unfettered corporate power — from systematic price gouging to regressive tax rates to runaway military spending — at the expense of programs that meet human needs.
The day after Martin won the race last weekend, DNC member Michael Kapp wrote in an email to activists that “contrary to media reports … Ken was very much the outsider in this race.” A Californian who is vice chair of the DNC’s regional caucus in western states, Kapp noted that Martin “wasn’t the candidate getting support from Democratic leaders in Congress or billionaire donors.” According to Kapp, “Despite being in DNC ‘leadership’ these last eight years as a vice chair, Ken was excluded from all decision-making and had as much power to influence the DNC’s direction as you or I. But he did gain a powerful perspective on the organization and what needs to be changed. I expect significant changes to the DNC, and quickly.”
Kapp added: “As DNC chair, Ken is not beholden to anybody or anything except his own values and conscience. After four years where our chair was constrained by the White House, this is a deeply refreshing opportunity.”
But on an issue that deeply concerns many Democratic activists, Martin has steered clear of departing from the status quo. Writing for The Nation, Robert Borosage pointed out that “largely absent from the debate … is what progressives consider to be a fundamental question: What will the new chair do to curb the role of outside, dark money in Democratic Party primaries? This is increasingly an existential question for progressives — and for the party, if it is in fact to revive its commitment to working people.”
Martin has responded to such questions in ways that have left many in the party’s attentive base unsatisfied if not repelled. During a DNC candidate forum last month, he said, “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats who share our values and we will take their money, but we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”
Such dubious distinctions aside, Martin will need to deal with a reality that Borosage put this way: “If the Democratic Party is in fact to become a champion of working people … it will require the DNC chair and the state party chairs to adopt as a priority the curbing of outside dark money — much of it from Republican billionaires — into Democratic primaries.”
While the election of Martin as chair might foreshadow improvements in how the DNC is run, the reelection of the party’s national finance chair Chris Korge is another matter. Disturbing information about Korge’s machinations as a businessman has been available for years, while a DNC webpage offers mere hagiographic spin.
Especially with no Democrat in the Oval Office and with the party in the House and Senate minority, the DNC chair could wield enormous power. Martin’s political positions will matter, and so will his temperament.
The Harris campaign crashed and burned while shutting out the views of young voters and others whose support has been crucial in past Democratic Party victories. For future success, the DNC’s new chair should put out a welcome mat to progressive forces — not billionaires.
Norman Solomon is cofounder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His book “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine” was published in 2023.
