I don’t know who coined the delightful term “ratfucking”, or when, though I first encountered it in reference to the Richard Nixon administration, which seems entirely appropriate. As a term for acts of political sabotage, it is without peer, as the American political system is largely comprised of rats, and they are forever trying to fuck each other in the negative sense of the word. It’s usually applied to Republicans, and with good reason, for it is members of the G.O.P. who most resemble ill-tempered alley rats; but at least they seem to understand that there is only so much discarded Chinese food to go around, and that a skillful ratfuck could be the only thing that stands between them and an impoverished woman being able to get an abortion. Democrats, on the other hand, try their hands at ratfucking just as often, but in such ineffectual ways that the whole process cries out for a word that better encapsulates the low stakes, incompetence, and lack of comprehension involved: something less like a rat fucking and more like a gerbil masturbating.
The latest and greatest hamster jerk-off of the Democratic Party is the obvious and clumsy attempt to deny the presidential nomination to Vermont senator and quasi-socialist Bernie Sanders. It is obvious to anyone who doesn’t sport a permanent set of partisan blinders that Sanders is the most genuine threat to the American capitalist status quo, and that both major parties have a vested interest in making sure he doesn’t get anywhere near the reins of power; but thanks to the naïve pretense of respectability that has come to define the electoral process even during the most bitterly divided era in decades, everyone must insist that the thing that is obviously happening is not actually happening. It’s all just a big friendly intramural scrum and not a serious ideological battle for the future of the country — so say both the corporate management of the party and its allies in media, which means it must be true. This is how the Democratic leadership can huddle behind closed doors (with his literal rivals for the prize!) and conspire to derail the campaign of the most popular politician in America, while insisting publicly that he’s the one who’s not playing fair by hitting back against the endless invective aimed at him.
The asinine and childish ‘pledge’ to refrain from negative campaigning against rival Democrats is the latest and silliest manifestation of this approach, widely embraced by self-identified reasonable centrists who don’t seem to understand the whole point of political primaries. Predictably, Sanders has been accused of violating this idiotic pledge for the crime of favorably contrasting his own record with that of his closest competitor, Joe Biden; curiously, Elizabeth Warren, who did literally the same thing in the same week to the same person, has not generated the same level of outrage. This is in keeping with the treatment typically doled out towards Sanders, who in the past has been vilified by the Democratic faithful for doing perfectly ordinary things that all candidates do, like hiring his supporters to work on his campaign, responding to criticism, having rallies in large downtown areas, appearing on the FOX Network, owning a home, wearing suits, and aging normally.
Of course, the standard response by people who spend all their time being outraged on social media is to point out that Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. This is as hamster jerk-off as you can get. For one thing, why on Earth would anyone act like being a Democrat is a good thing? Have you seen the Democratic Party lately, or listened to the public statements of its leadership, or taken a gander at its win-loss record? This is not an organization that anyone should want to be affiliated with for anything other than its structural advantages. For another, treating party membership as if it is some kind of inborn genetic quality, a thing eternal and absolute, is ludicrous; on a grand scale, the Democratic Party of today is nothing like the Democratic Party of the 1930s, or even the 1980s, any more than the Republican Party of today is like the Republican Party of the 1860s. And on an individual scale, to point to two obvious examples, Elizabeth Warren was a Republican during the Clinton administration, and Donald Trump was a Democrat as recently as the Obama administration. Arguing that anyone isn’t a “real” Democrat, like too much of contemporary discourse, is a matter of metaphysics, not politics.
We are told constantly that, in the present moment, there is no time to parse positions or policy, and that the threat posed by Donald Trump — a threat that was in large part made manifest with the aid of the Democratic leadership — is so dreadful that we can do nothing but vote for the candidate most likely to defeat him. And yet Sanders, who as recently as yesterday was criticized for “playing to win”, is never positioned as that very candidate, despite ample evidence that he absolutely is. That “playing to win” is considered disparagement in our current climate tells you everything you need to know about the Democratic Party, because whatever they are doing, they are not playing to win. They are playing to protect their prestige, to maintain their position, to defend their class interests, certainly; but to win? Never.
It was only four years ago that the Republican Party was in such disarray that they fielded a primary roster numbering some nineteen allegedly legitimate candidates, a vast departure from the American norm of a dozen at most. Pundits saw this as a sign that the party had lost control, had no vision or strategy, and were on the verge of complete collapse. Now, with the incumbent a buffoon so widely despised that his very existence is looked on as a bad joke and the majority of voters strongly in favor of the kind of progressive policies Bernie Sanders has been pushing for over four decades, the Democrats have more than surpassed that number, and we’re still over a year out from the national convention in Milwaukee. There are at present 23 candidates who, while most of them are jokes, are being presented as serious, with non-starters like Howard Schultz and Bill DeBlasio still in the wings waiting for their 1% of the electorate. Democrats by the fistful are declining to run for the down-ballot seats the party so desperately needs, but leadership is so fearful of a Sanders victory that they are running the mayor of South Bend, Indiana as a justifiable candidate for the presidency.
If defeating Trump is truly the priority they claim it is, why encourage this foolishness, which can only serve to diffuse the vote and aid the sitting president? Why doesn’t Nancy Pelosi use her legendary ability to keep the party in line to go to these half-beens and never-wills and tell them that if they don’t withdraw from the race immediately, she’ll ensure that they have no political future? The answer is simple: because she’s not interested in winning. The current Democratic Party is not an ideological entity; it is a fund-raising organization, which is to say, a machine built for making money and nothing else. Being perpetual underdogs allows Democrats to snuggle into a comfortable position in which they can forever opine for more donations without the pressure of having to actually accomplish anything. Once this becomes clear, all of the party’s recent decisions, from resisting primaries to its least popular members to opposing legislative goals supported by the vast majority of its voters, make perfect sense. It’s made a decisive shift from “principle over party” to “party over power”.
The Republicans have learned a beneficial lesson: that control of the levers of power gives them what they really want, which is money. But the Democrats have learned a parallel and just as valuable lesson: that constant failure keeps the money rolling in pretty nicely as well. The arrangement suits both parties, and is only a disappointment to the simple fools who still think that the purpose of politics is to serve the interests of the people.