When You Follow a Defeat with an Own Goal

Following years or organizing, progressive Democrats in Nevada took 4 of 5 of the leadership positions in the state Democratic Party, out organizing the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) there.

The Nevada Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) then shot itself in the foot by convincing the entire staff of the party to quit. 

You see, you want your people there, picking up the mail, conducting polls, and managing the budget, because they are the ones best placed to sabotage the new leadership, as evidenced by the years long campaign of sabotage against Jeremy Corbyn by the professional staff of the Labour Party in the UK.

Not only will the new leaders be able to hire people that they trust, but should they refuse to resign when there is a change of power, they will be difficult, or at least embarrassing, to fire: 

Not long after Judith Whitmer won her election on Saturday to become chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, she got an email from the party’s executive director, Alana Mounce. The message from Mounce began with a note of congratulations, before getting to her main point.

She was quitting. So was every other employee. And so were all the consultants. And the staff would be taking severance checks with them, thank you very much.

(Emphasis mine) 

As an aside, make sure that the consultants stay resigned.  They are useless.

On March 6, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions in a contested election that evening. [I have gotten conflicting reports on this, it appears that the party Treasurer might be the old guard candidate] Whitmer, who had been chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, was elected chair. The establishment had prepared for the loss, having recently moved $450,000 out of the party’s coffers and into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s account. The DSCC will put the money toward the 2022 reelection bid of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a vulnerable first-term Democrat.

Again, asking for unity, and when your side does not win, sabotage the winners.

Democrats never do this for Republicans, but false Democrats always do this to real Democrats. 

………

Despite the pushback, Whitmer ultimately won the election, in which the state party’s governing members voted. In the certified election results, she received 244 to Segerblom’s 214; Jacob Allen won first vice chair by 101 votes; Dr. Zaffar Iqbal, on Whitmer’s progressive slate, was reelected second vice chair by 127 votes; Ahmad Adé won secretary by 39 votes; and Howard Beckerman won treasurer by three votes. [Again, note, the Las Vegas Review-Journal story has Beckerman losing.]

After the results, Mounce sent the email making clear that everyone on the small staff had resigned, including the party operations director, communications director, research director, and finance director.

An interesting coda to this is that, "The Democratic National Committee hired Mounce as their new political director last month."

The final word on all of this is a reworking of Lyndon Johnson an old Lyndon Johnson quote:  "It is better to have them outside the tent pissing in than it is to have them inside the tent pissing in."

Reid's machine will try to take power back, and they will do so until the sun collapses into a cinder, but with all of their inside people gone, it will become much harder for them to do so.