The Corrupt One Wins the Primary

The standard narrative is that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) pulled out all of the stops for Shontel Brown over former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer Nina Turner because they want a "moderate".

I think that the motivation of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is rather that they wanted someone with a strong allegiance to the monied interests who buy politicians, because if they don't have enough corrupt Democrats, then the effectiveness of campaign donations in influencing public policy decreases. (Also, they just love hippie punching)

This ability to raise money in a barely veiled quid pro quo is really the only real power of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

Well, after something around 2 million dollars in PAC money, Shontel Brown has won the primary, despite increasing evidence of her corruption:

After months of appearing at a significant disadvantage, Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown was declared by the Associated Press as the winner in of Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the 11th Congressional District, all but ensuring her place in Congress.

Multiple outlets called the race for Brown around 9:35 p.m., though official results have not been certified by the secretary of state’s office. Former state Sen. Nina Turner conceded the race to Brown around 10:10 p.m.

Brown led Turner 50% to 44% as of midnight. Turner led Brown in the smaller portion of the district in Summit County, 49% to 48% – a difference of only 54 votes out of 6,580 cast – after all the votes from that county had been tallied. But Brown led Turner significantly in Cuyahoga County 51% to 44% – around 4,400 votes – with around 96% of the vote reporting as of midnight.

Brown will face Republican Laverne Gore in the Nov. 2 general election, though she is almost certain to succeed in that contest as the district is heavily gerrymandered to favor Democrats.

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Nevertheless, the feeling on the ground at the beginning of July was close. Nearly $2 million of outside money – largely from the Israel lobby – was used to begin attacking Turner in television ads for past criticisms of the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden.

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Brown will now have to decide if she wants to stay on in her role as chairwoman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

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The divisive special election – and Brown’s willingness to accept Republican money – may lead to a change in leadership at the county party before the 2022 midterms.

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In her concession speech, Turner said she would continue her activist work laying blame at the big money spent against her for her defeat.

“I am going to work hard to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen to another progressive candidate again,” she said. “We didn’t lose this race, evil money manipulated and maligned this election.”

I agree with Nina Turner.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) believes that Republicans, even the insurrectionists, are the opposition and that real progressives are the enemy.

It's the Iron Law of Institutions, "The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution."