Norman Solomon talks about his Guardian commentary, “Progressive primary victories have corporate Democrats panicking,” examining how the success of democratic socialists has led to an establishment backlash, fueling divisions over how to respond.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right now, I’m very happy to welcome back to our program our good friend, Norman Solomon, director of rootsaction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, author of several books, including War Made Invisible. And we’ve invited Norman to discuss a recent article he wrote for The Guardian and that’s titled, “Progressive Primary Victories Have Corporate Democrats Panicking.” Norman, thank you for being here this evening. Appreciate it.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Oh, glad to be with you, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: So we’re glad we can discuss your take on what’s going on since a whole spate of progressive primary victories around the country. Certainly, there’s I think, maybe amounting to an earthquake in Democratic politics in New York City, similar to what we saw with the election of Zohran Mamdani last year. But in the June 23rd New York Democratic primaries, stunning victories by three Democratic socialist candidates endorsed by Zohran, Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And that was Darializa Avila Chevalier defeating five-term Congressman Adriano Espaillat. He was the chair of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress. Claire Valdez defeating Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Brad Lander, a former mayoral candidate, former comptroller of New York City. He beat two-term incumbent Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. And there were other races, of course, across the country where we’ve seen progressives in the ascendancy.
(Chris) Rabb in Philadelphia, candidate just recently, was it last Tuesday? Melat Kiros won her primary against 15-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in the city of Denver, Colorado district. So along with President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson calling these Democratic socialists communists at every opportunity it seems over the last week or so, yeah, it’s really in the Republican party script now to label all Democrats as communists. Well, they did that for years, right? They did that with Obama and others.
But you’ve cited some of the hostile reaction from longtime Democratic party establishment figures like James Carville, former advisor to candidate Bill Clinton in the early ’90s. And then we have former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaiie Harrison. Tell us about some of the reaction you’ve been documenting here from the Democratic party establishment to the ascendancy of Democratic socialists.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Among a lot of corporate Democrats who are accustomed to ruling the roost of the Democratic party nationally, there’s been a bit of a freak out. They’re not accustomed to progressive … I’m talking about genuine anti-militarist, anti-genocide progressives actually winning one congressional primary after another in deep blue districts, which is exactly what has happened in the last few weeks. And there’s a tone of anger of betrayal by voters almost coming from a lot of folks who have become sort of over the years icons of the National Democratic party. One I think really illustrative example is Jaimi Harrison, who for four years was Bill Clinton’s—rather, for four years was actually Joe Biden’s chair of the Democratic National Committee. So during the four years of the Biden presidency, Jaime Harrison was accustomed to essentially saying that the Biden kind of Democrat is what the party stands for.
And so Jaime Harrison, I think was expressing a kind of a freak out when he tweeted on the Election Day that saw three Democratic socialists win primaries in those deep blue districts in New York. He said, “Hey, go away. We don’t want you in our party.” I mean, I’m quoting here. Jaime Harrison tweeted, “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money and energy in your campaign.”
Well, that kind of a message from the former DNC chair really turned reality on its head. I mean, really these socialist candidates have been winning across the country, not because they pilfered or siphoned away existing Democratic party volunteers, but because they inspired volunteers, huge numbers of them to volunteer to provide—yes—donations and other resources that are needed to actually win. So what we’re seeing is a real panic among a lot of establishment Democrats because the gap between actual polling opinions that have been very clear for years now, the gap between the base of the Democratic party and the elites has become too glaring.
And the gap is being closed by the actual voters who are tossing out a lot of these establishment Democrats.
SCOTT HARRIS: There’s a long time slogan with the Democrats that we have a “big tent party,” right? I mean, there was a movement, of course, under Trump in the first administration that there was an expression of welcoming to anybody who wants to uphold the Constitution in democracy where Trump certainly is bearing down on democracy in the Constitution even more so in this year. So there was a feeling that the Democratic party as the sole opposition party to the insurrection and everything else that came before it needed to be a big tent party to include everybody who wanted to uphold democracy and stand up for the values of the country. I guess that’s changed in the minds of people like James Carville and Jaime Harrison.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Yes. The big tent rhetoric has now been amended to say, “We need a smaller tent if we don’t like these socialists who have gotten in under the flaps and who are now bringing in a whole new wave of voters who are electing them rather than the same old, same old Democrats in Congress.” And so there’s really a push now from some Democrats who are saying, and this is for example, Josh Gotheimer, who is a very conservative, very pro-Israel Democrat in Congress from New Jersey to say socialists can’t be Democrats. That would be a big surprise to the 66 percent of Democrats in this country who have told pollsters that they have a higher opinion of the socialism option than capitalism. So you really have this split that is becoming more apparent between those who have been running the party and those who’ve been voting for the party.
I mean, really when we hear about a big tent, the message in fact is to translate it, “We want you grassroots Democrats to raise money, to go ahead and volunteer, to vote, to get your friends to vote and really to defer to the corporate powers that be inside the party.” And that gap became very clearly untenable when the majority of Democrats in this country were telling one polling group after another that they opposed shipping more weapons to Israel and that they believed the U.S. government by shipping weapons to Israel was aiding genocide in Gaza. And yet President Biden, supported by Vice President Harris was continuing to send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons so that people in Gaza were experiencing, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, experiencing genocide. So that gap is really untenable. It’s unviable. It is not feasible for a party to continue to have any strength if those who are at the top of the party aren’t paying attention to what the vast majority of the voters in that party want the party to do.
SCOTT HARRIS: Yes. The issue of Israel, Gaza, the Palestinians, the genocide certainly played a major role as an issue in many of these primary races, as you just said. We’re speaking with Norman Solomon here on Counterpoint this evening, Norman Solomon, director of RootsAction. And we’re talking about his recent Guardian newspaper piece titled, “Progressive Primary Victories Have Corporate Democrats Panicking.” Norman, I’m sure you’ve read about some comparisons being made with the Tea Party and their challenge to the Republican party establishment back after Barack Obama was elected. And certainly that the rise of the Tea Party funded by the Koch brothers wasn’t actually all that grassroots, although certainly there was a part of it that was. But what the Tea Party did, it was really a preview of the transformation of the Republican party under Donald Trump and there’s something very different than the previous Republican party. You think comparisons like that are fair in terms of…
NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, the comparisons like that are facile. They’re easy. They’re not really based on reality. They can only make sense to people if they ignore the actual content of the ideology that is being promoted and that people are fighting for. It reminds me of the claim that we heard 10 years ago that Bernie Sanders was like Donald Trump because they were both anti-establishment. Well, that’s ridiculous. It’s as though saying that people who are against racism, people who want to support immigrant rights, who want to fight for the working class and improve their living conditions and get Medicare for All is the same as somebody who opposes immigrant rights, who opposes civil rights, who wants to prevent everybody getting healthcare. And just a few examples there.
So the facile, the easy way of saying, well, they’re outsiders. They’re against the establishment. They’re quote unquote populists. Therefore, they’re the same. It’s just absurd, but there is some of the punditocracy that 8, 10 years ago was comparing in that way, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Now we’re hearing that these insurgent Democratic socialists are like the Tea Party of a decade or more ago and the similarity is rather superficial. Yes, they’re against the elites running the party. In that case, the Tea Party against the establishment Republicans. Now Democratic socialists challenging the Democratic party elites. But that’s where the comparison really ends because you have Democratic socialists who are fighting for healthcare for all, for free public college, for all sorts of ways to support working families, want to be working individuals, the elderly, children fighting to have a more humane country compared to the Tea Party that had an agenda that was exactly the opposite. So that’s one of the major fallacies of the comparison. The other is almost laughable, which is that we keep hearing now, “Oh no, we don’t want to have these Democratic socialists changing the Democratic party” and comparing it therefore to the Tea Party of the early part of this century.
What is not mentioned is the Tea Party catapulted the Republicans into control of both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government. In other words, the Tea Party, because it was against the elites of the Republican party, the Tea Party was able to, although “astroturf” in terms of its funding largely, was able to galvanize resentment from the grassroots and they were able to lift the Republican party into power. And essentially we’re hearing now from Democratic elites and a lot of pundits, “Oh no, Democratic socialists are like the Tea Party” without acknowledging that that kind of grassroots energy, that involvement, that enthusiasm, millions of people volunteering and being engaged, that could actually lift the Democratic party into power and oust these neo-fascists who now are in control of the White House and Capitol Hill.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well said. Norman, what’s been the reaction of Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chair and important folks in the party like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries?
NORMAN SOLOMON: It’s been really interesting because Jaime Harrison, as the former DNC chair, has been very hostile to these Democratic socialists who’ve been winning elections. Likewise, James Carville, who by the way, flatly predicted that Kamala Harris would defeat Donald Trump, who later advised the Democratic party after Trump got back in the White House to “play ‘possum.” That’s the kind of wisdom we’ve gotten from James Carville. He’s also very hostile to the Democratic socialists. And so we’ve got that kind of reaction, which I think is counterproductive to put it mildly. Compare that to what is being done by the current chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, who is sending out congratulatory messages to all of the Democrats who are winning these primaries. And I think that is the proper role, the proper approach that should be taken. If anybody’s serious about a big tent, “Hey, we just have a few months for the defeat of Republicans in the midterms.”
What’s at stake is control over the House and control over the Senate. And it’s ironic that some of the same conservative Democrats who for years have lectured progressives about how they need to pull with the team and not be divisive and unify and support the Democratic party going into the election. Those are a lot of the same Democrats who are now telling Democratic socialists who have won these elections that they don’t belong in the party. So they’re trying to make the so-called big tent smaller and smaller.
SCOTT HARRIS: It’s interesting that there’s a lot of speculation about what will happen, particularly in the House, if the Democrats win control of the House and you have a strong delegation of progressive activist types and these Democratic socialists working together to try to shape the agenda of the House, what that would look like. And if Hakeem Jeffries is the speaker of the House, how he would handle that. A lot of speculation, crystal ball gazing and all that. We can’t really go very far on that. But what’s your feeling about the important task ahead? If these Democratic socialists are victorious in November and the Democrats take the House, what do you think their role should be?
NORMAN SOLOMON: A really important task ahead is for the growing number of progressives in Congress to say we’re no longer going to defer to corporate power. We understand that the vast income inequality in this country, the militarism, the nonstop wars, this is because of a lack of democracy because of outsized inordinate corporate power. An example of how that is wielded behind the scenes and rarely talked about is the career of Jaime Harrison, who before he served the Biden administration as the chair of the DNC, worked as a lobbyist for a very powerhouse firm called the Podesta Group, which was very much immersed with the Hillary and Bill Clinton machinery going back decades. And so who did Jaime Harrison represent when he worked as a lobbyist between 2008 and 2016? Well, he represented these huge corporations and I’ll name just a few. Banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, Boeing, BP, General Motors, Google, Merck, Oracle, Walmart.
This is an example of how you have somebody very high up in the Democratic party lecturing Democratic socialists about how they’re really not team players and they don’t even belong in the Democratic party. And yet it’s the same guy who’s been working for some of the most predatory, vicious corporations in America.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Norman, we are out of time. I you so much for being with us today. I know it’s the end of the holiday weekend and I know you had to do some traveling today to make the interview. So thank you for that. And do leave our listeners with a website. I know there’s rootsaction.org. We’re doing a lot of online organizing and a lot of critical issues, but leave any other website you’d like to in terms of other resources out there.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Yeah. I’d love to invite listeners to read my free book online called, The Blue Road to Trump Hell: Corporate Democrats Pave the Way for Autocracy. And it’s downloadable, as they say, without charge. And it’s simply on the web at blueroad.info.
SCOTT HARRIS: Got it. Yeah. We talked about that book and I’m glad you mentioned it here at the end so folks can get ahold of it. Norman, as always, thanks for spending time with us and all the important work you do to try and right the wrongs of our world. Thanks for being here.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Thanks a lot, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: Take care. Good night. That’s Norman Solomon, director of rootsaction.org.
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