My Grandfather Once Told Me "The Only Thing Worse Than The Democratic Party Is The Republican Party"

When We're Looking At The Establishment, It's Always Worth Digging A Little Deeper

Progressive Policy Institute sounds… progressive, right? Center for New Liberalism does too, right? Neither is remotely progressive. Both are right-of-center Democratic outfits pushing corporate agendas. The Progressive Policy Institute was started by the conservative DLC in 1989. In 2020, the reactionary Neoliberal Project changed its name to the Center for New Liberalism and more or less merged with the Progressive Policy Institute. The best description of the two groups would be “anti-progressive.” So… don’t be fooled by the names.

On Monday, the Center for New Liberalism created a congressional rating system— albeit a ridiculously upside down one— called the Congressional Tariff Messaging Index. The “better” the score, the more conservative, and in way too many cases, the more corrupt, the recipient. All the best Members of Congress have low grades. Their champions with A+ scores are the dregs of the House Democrats, all corporate shills who don’t understand what was wrong with supporting NAFTA nd don’t understand why admitting China to the WTO without guardrails was a terrible idea:

• Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)

• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)

• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)

• Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)

• Laura Friedman (CA)

• Adam Gray (Blue Dog-CA)

• Sam Liccardo (New Dem-CA)

• Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY)

• Johnny Olszewski (New Dem-MD)

• Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA)

• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)

• Brittany Pettersen (New Dem-CO)

• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)

• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)

• Greg Stanton (New Dem-AZ)

• Suhas Subramanyam (New Dem-VA)

• Ritchie Torres (NY)

• George Whitesides (New Dem-CA)

And the Members of Congress they tagged as failures are the ones who spend the most time fighting for the working class instead of for the corporate donor class, like AOC (NY), Chris Deluzio (PA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Mark Pocan (WI), Debbie Dingell (MI), Gwen Moore (WI), Mark Takano (CA), Greg Casar (TX), Ayanna Pressley (MA)… By the way, here's a list of carefully vetted House incumbents worth supporting in their reelection bids; no conservatives, no Republicans, no MAGA sympathizers.

A couple of days ago, Bernie was a guest on Flagrant, Andrew Schulz's podcast. He accused Democratic Party leaders of rigging primaries, ignoring working-class voters, and instead relying on wealthy donors and out-of-touch consultants. Sounds about right me. He said that billionaires and SuperPACs control both parties and that “You have consultants who are really way out of touch with reality who make a whole lot of money in campaigns, and the working class is ignored.”

Paul Rosenberg