As a Bernie guy (I am too old to have ever been a Bernie Bro) and leader in Maryland’s chapter of Our Revolution, I get a lot of stick from my comrades-in-arms about my ongoing support for and my deep involvement in the Democratic Party. I am on the Executive Committee of my local county Democratic Central Committee. I find it endlessly frustrating to have to explain myself and why it’s just self-defeating to actively work against the Party.
I also find it endlessly frustrating, as a progressive, to try to work within the Party. So many electeds look on real progressives as as aliens and even a potential metastasizing presence. Even the Committee work can be source fo frustration and disappointment for a progressive. We on the committee have the power to nominate (the Governor formally appoints — all but a rubber stamp) people to fill vacancies in the General Assembly (our state legislature), and I’ve been regularly out-voted on the people we have sent to become new incumbents as we’ve filled almost 20% of our County delegation since Wes Moore became Governor almost 3 years ago.
Tonight, however, I am filled with pride about our state Party. Earlier this week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen joined as a co-sponsor of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill. And today, our traditionally very conservative (and rarely out front on ANY policy) Maryland Democratic Party went on social media to share Senator Van Hollen’s video announcing his support for Medicare for All. The MD Dems posts across social media all came with this message:
“We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system.
We need Medicare for All.”
There was a day in the 2016 campaign, when I was tremendously proud of my work for the Sanders campaign in that primary fight. That was the day that Hillary Clinton spoke out to criticize Medicare for All. I felt that even if we were not going to win the nomination, that we were on the verge of accomplishing a big piece of what we had set out to do — that, once we could engage in debate about what policies Democrats would support for our healthcare system, we would inevitably and hopefully quickly land on full-throated embrace of universal health care access or coverage.
In 2017-18, Our Revolution Maryland leaders and the great people at National Nurses United persuaded Ben Jealous to embrace a single payer system for Maryland in his run for Governor. Unfortunately, too many Democrats weren’t prepared to embrace Jealous’ progressive agenda, with about 30% voting to return Larry Hogan to the Governor’s office. Many elected leaders refused to support or campaign with Jealous.
In the years since, it has seemed that the forces of centrism (and, for sure, AIPAC) have been waging a largely successful war against progressive candidates and electeds.
When I took my seat as an elected Central Committee member 3 years ago, we were lectured by the then state party chair that we shouldn’t be making ANY pronouncements on policy: This wasn’t what we were elected to do, and we shouldn’t see it as even a part of our portfolio.
We were even rebuffed in our efforts to express support for legislation to remove our appointments power, or to simply rule that our members couldn’t use their position to cast potentially decisive votes for themselves in appointments votes.
As I wrote above, it’s been frustrating to try and work within the Party, but I’ve retained faith that we could build a party that would stay true to its values.
That’s why, tonight, I feel real pride to be a representative of the Maryland Democratic Party. Our new state chair, Anne Arundel County Executive Stueart Pittman is both a true progressive and a long-time professional organizer. It is thrilling for me to see him lead the party to embrace Sen. Van Hollen’s support of Medicare for All.
It feels like it’s been a long road to get here — and maybe it is only the necessary reaction to the GOP’s undermining of the ACA — but I feel that we are beginning to see the kind of energy and progress I believed might be around the corner in 2016.
Hope springs eternal — at least, it should. But, we need deeds to justify the hope and faith. We may finally be on the verge of a Democratic Party as good as its supporters.
When we finally get universal healthcare in the US, it will come too late for so many, but it is never too late to do the right thing.
