Democrats -- left, right, and center -- dodged a bullet in Wisconsin when Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley edged out state legislator Francesca Hong for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. I don’t live in Wisconsin, although I used to work for The Progressive in Madison and spent some summers there and know the place pretty well, and I probably followed the race more closely than most voters in the state. What seemed to me was that -- politics and tweets aside -- Hong did not have either the commanding presence or the executive experience to be governor of a big state. Being a state legislator in Wisconsin is like being one in Maryland. It’s a part-time job. People do other things to make a living. In my business, it’s like a part-time copy-editor wanting to be appointed editor-in-chief.
As far as Hong’s politics go, I hope the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as the rank and file, of which I am a lowly, inactive dues-payer, learned something from Hong’s defeat. DSA can’t put its candidates and elected officials in a position of having to defend what the leadership calls “aspirational” demands to throw open the countries’ borders, abolish prisons, get rid of the police, and eliminate the Senate. These are issues for study groups to deliberate. The organization should stand for political and economic democracy, the defense of nation and the support for stability and human rights internationally. DSA should consign its new program, “Workers Deserve More,” to the dustbin. No candidate should have to answer for it. If a candidate or a DSA member believes in open borders, fine.
I see Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned for not endorsing Hong. If their failure to endorse helped ensure Hong’s defeat, they did democratic socialism a favor, as well as aiding the other Democratic candidates who would have had to answer for Hong’s views on Thanksgiving or White Supremacy. Sanders and AOC and other leftwing Democrats should not be required to endorse anyone who calls themselves a “democratic socialist” any more than a socialist organization should be required to send “friendship delegations” (as DSA has!) to any regime that calls itself “socialist.”
One final, but related, point: I also read the same people criticizing AOC for declaring that “woke 1 was crazy,” referring presumably to the ideological excesses of the left during 2020. Here, too, she is doing the left and herself a favor. I wrote an essay that year for American Affairs, “Mayhem and Mania: The Political Psychology of the Pandemic,” which I will try to insert on this site. I’d also commend the column in Financial Times by Janan Ganesh, “Why must a socialist also be woke?
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just watch. AOC is going to go on a reclamation tour and try to veer to the center to appeal to a wider audience when she tries to mount a run for president in 2028. Don’t be fooled. The farce is strong in this one.
I would note that Francesca Hong herself graciously conceded the race at 2:00 am Wednesday. Although she was close enough to demand a recount she chose not to do so and attended a unity rally with David Crowley on Wednesday.
I commend her for these acts.
These facts have been horrifically unreported in a media hell-bent on a Dems in Disarray narrative. On Wednesday, I looked in all the usual national outlets for an answer to the question “Has Hong conceded” and could not find it there. It took a Google search to bring me the answer in local media. Eventually the word got out.
I see no reason to continue the good v. evil arguments. I respect the will of the primary voters and support the winner. I did it for Platner in Maine until the accusations got to be too much to ignore. I did it for El Sayed in Michigan. I do it for David Crowley in Wisconsin. I did it when Bernie Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
I see no other way to successfully exist in this fractious Democratic Party.
I do agree with John Judis’ dispassionate analysis of the outcome. He isn’t gloating.
I don’t agree with James Carville’s outrageous shrinking of the tent.