MSNBC Host Lawrence O'Donnell Explains How The Democratic Party Treats The Left

MSNBC's "The Last Word" host Lawrence O'Donnell describes his politics as a "practical European socialist", which essentially boils down to being a nordic-style social democrat, usually in favour of a mixed economy with a generous welfare state and has defended his positions on MSNBC news shows that typically frown upon stepping outside the neoliberal bubble.

O'Donnell is no progressive hero in the context of american politics, sometimes scolding progressive politicians whenever they mildly criticize the Democratic Party, such as when Bernie Sanders tweeted about having to take on the Democratic establishment as well as Republicans, O'Donnell decided to concern troll Sanders by claiming that the Democratic establishment wouldn't pass Sanders' proposals if he wasn't nice to them.

Over the course of the last few months an old video of O'Donnell explaining how to move the Democratic Party further left and how the party treats the progressive wing of the party surfaced online.

The video starts out with O'Donnell stating, "If you want to pull the party, the major party, that is closest to the way you're thinking, to what you're thinking you MUST, you MUST show them that you're capable of not voting for them. If you don't show them you're capable of not voting for them they don't have to listen to you, I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party, I didn't listen, or have to listen to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party because the left had nowhere to go."

This video perfectly sums up everything the left or the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have been saying during their attempts to claw the party back from their slow crawl further to the right.

Moving further to the right was actually the Democratic Party's campaign strategy for the 2016 election. When Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer made an appearance on C-Span in order to lay out their plans for the upcoming election, "Trump is so new that for every blue-collar Democrat we will lose in western PA, we will pick up two or three moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois, in Wisconsin. The voters that are most out there who are figuring out what to do are not the blue-collar Democrats, they are the college-educated Republicans who lean Republican or Independent and are in the suburbs." A strategy that worked wonders in 2016, right?

The Democratic Party had two choices after losing to Donald Trump in November 2016, either you move to the left and pick a candidate like Sanders who helps fix the problem of the Obama voters that flipped to Trump due to policies surrounding trade deals and job outsourcing and energising the party for decades with the overwhelming support of young voters who would not typically turn out to vote for a standard Democrat.

Or, you can do what they did for the 2020 election, pick an even more conservative Democrat, Joe Biden, who offers much less than Hillary Clinton in terms of policy and continue with the strategy of attempting to pick up suburban moderates and disaffected Republicans, who already overwhelmingly back Trump anyway, and gives away so many blue-collar votes in the rust belt to Republicans who see them as the only party interested in keeping their job in the US due to opposition to trade deals such as TPP and NAFTA. You can call it economic anxiety or whatever you like, but you're guaranteed to lose votes pursuing this strategy, which happened with the former Obama voters who flipped to Trump in 2016.

All of this is precisely why you say you will not vote until you at least get some serious concessions, if you simply shut up and vote for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden then you have no leverage to push the party to the left and as Lawrence O'Donnell explained, you have to show them that you're willing to not vote for them otherwise you will not be listened to. If the Democrats lose in 2020 - which is likely - and you show up to vote for them, you will be blamed anyway. Within days of losing in 2016, Hillary Clinton staffers were on news shows claiming that they lost because of 'Bernie Bros'. If the Democrats somehow win with Joe Biden in November, the party will not listen to progressives for at least four to eight years as they assume that their strategy of attracting moderates and ditching the left will be the way to win for many election cycles to come.