Michael Hudson — Break Up the Democratic Party: It’s Time for the Clintons and Rubin to Go – and Soros Too

The Democratic Party can save itself only by focusing on economic issues – in a way that reverses its neoliberal stance under Obama, and indeed going back to Bill Clinton’s pro-Wall Street administration. The Democrats need to do what Britain’s Labour Party did by cleaning out Tony Blair’s Thatcherites. As Paul Craig Roberts wrote over the weekend: “Change cannot occur if the displaced ruling class is left intact after a revolution against them. We have proof of this throughout South America. Every revolution by the indigenous people has left unmolested the Spanish ruling class, and every revolution has been overthrown by collusion between the ruling class and Washington.”[1] Otherwise the Democrats will be left as an empty shell.

Now is the time for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the few other progressives who have not been kept out of office by the DNC to make their move and appointing their own nominees to the DNC. If they fail, the Democratic Party is dead.

It's going to take that and more than that. Younger blood needed.

The Democrats need more demographic balance in the leadership, too.

When Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as a Democratic representative from Hawaii, she took the oath on the Bhagavad Gita as the first Hindu member of the US Congress and first American Samoan. 

Tammy Duckworth, who just beat Mark Kirk for a Senate seat, is the first American Thai-Chinese member of Congress. Gabbard and Duckworth are the first female combat veterans to be elected to US office.

Kamala Harris just won the Senate seat vacated by Barbara Boxer. She is African-Asian-East Indian American. Her background is in law, criminal justice and law enforcement. She is a natural born US citizen and is already being considered presidential material.

If they sound too establishment, there are others that could be recruited to join the bench. Democrats need to think out of the box.

Based on Bernie Sanders identification as a socialist, progressive Democrats should also be recruiting Kshama Sawant, who recently won a seat on the Seattle City Council as a socialist. She was instrumental in getting the minimum wage raised to $15 an hour there and was an Occupy organizer. Sawant in also a Hindu and an immigrant, born in Pune, India. She holds a PhD in economics (North Carolina State U). 

While the Democrats just suffered a devastating defeat across the board, they can take consolation of Hillary winning the popular vote, the electorate polling in favor of a Swedish economic model, and the democraphics going forward favoring them if they don't do stupid stuff like they just did in selection g HRC over Bernie Sanders.

"Every breakdown is an opportunity for a breakthrough," as an old friend who was an entrepreneur used to say.

Counterpunch
Break Up the Democratic Party: It’s Time for the Clintons and Rubin to Go – and Soros Too

Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University