Circling the Firing Squad: The Democratic Party Moves to Negate Earlier Election of David Hogg

jonathanturley

9 months ago

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is about to show the perils of circling a firing squad. In its announcement that it will nullify the election of David Hogg and another Vice Chair, the DNC reminded the public why they have left the Democratic Party. The sudden decision that there were procedural irregularities in the election (after Hogg said that he would target older Democratic incumbents) leaves the DNC looking more like the CCP. However, it gets worse.

Hogg caused a controversy by announcing that he will work to primary older Democratic incumbents through his group, Leaders We Deserve, to bring young candidates into the party. The leadership ordered him to retract the pledge or resign. He did neither.

Then, the DNC announced that there were “irregularities” in how he and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta won two of the three vice chair positions.

The reason? One of the losing candidates, Kalyn Free, filed a complaint during the original election alleging that the DNC failed to follow rules on gender diversity.

If you recall, the Democratic Party was widely mocked over the difficulty of the DNC leadership to explain its convoluted rules for guaranteeing gender and racial diversity. It became a parody of itself.

This is just one of the efforts to explain the rules:

Jamie Harrison eventually had to turn it over to another DNC member who had equal difficulty explaining the gender equality rules and procedures:

HARRISON: “Because of our gender balance provisions on this next ballot, you will be able to vote for two candidates of any gender on the next ballot. OK? So on this next ballot, you will be able to vote for two candidates of any gender on the next

ballot. If two candidates receive — I’m going to turn to Helen to clarify this last part.”
UNKNOWN FEMALE: “You are in this next ballot where you have two votes. As the chair has said, you may vote for two males, two females, two of any gender. OK? No, you can’t do that. Because we’ve got to balance. You could vote for one of any gender, OK? Non-binary gender. Excuse me. It is late. OK?”

After she lost, Free filed her complaint. It would have been an easy matter to determine if there was an invalid balloting but the DNC moved on…for months.

After Hogg refused to recant or resign, the DNC then issued this procedural excuse to negate the election.

For many, the exercise seemed yet another manipulation by the DNC after it refused to have a real debate over the nomination of Kamala Harris and simply held a coronation at the convention after she failed to secure a single primary vote. Despite spending over $1.2 billion, she lost to Trump.

DNC members rushed forward to insist that this was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with Hogg’s controversy.

However, they then contradicted that claim in comments to the media as Hogg himself said that it was about his campaign to bring in young voters.

One former official told the media, “This is not about David Hogg, despite what he’s saying. It is gender balance…. It’s in the rules that the officers need to be balanced between men and women.” However, the same official then added “The full DNC now gets to vote again. If they like what Hogg is doing then that’s great, and he’ll be re-elected. It was disingenuous to not reveal his intentions the first time before they voted. While it has nothing to do with him, it’s an elected position so now we’ll find out if the party supports it or not, which they very well may.”

Another former official insisted that the vote was needed because “either Hogg is wrong and misled members or they think he’s doing the right thing. Either way, it’ll be settled. And he can’t complain. A re-vote is not forcing him out, there are other ways to do that if they chose to.”

I grew up in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago and spent much of my life working for Democratic politicians. It has been astonishing to watch the current Democratic leadership destroy their own party with identity politics and radical agendas.

Yet, this takes the cake. We have not seen such a display since the arrival of the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad:

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