Simpering Timidity
By 
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois strode into a ballroom filled with top New Hampshire Democrats on Sunday and by the end of his nearly 30-minute speech had them ready to storm the political barricades against President Trump.
“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” he told the group of Democratic activists, officials and donors, who jumped to their feet with hoots and applause. “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.”
“The reckoning is finally here,” he declared.
For the Trump administration, of course, but also for his own party.
…
“Fellow Democrats, for far too long we’ve been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell us that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames are licking their faces,” he said. “Today, as the blaze reaches the rafters, the pundits and politicians — whose simpering timidity served as kindle for the arsonists — urge us now not to reach for a hose.”
“Voters didn’t turn out for Democrats last November — not because they don’t want us to fight for our values, but because they think we don’t want to fight for our values,” he said in his speech. “We need to knock off the rust of poll-tested language, decades of stale decorum. It’s obscured our better instincts.”
Given that the Democratic Party brand is absolutely in the toilet, whatever is going to bring it back will be leadership, of some kind. Cozying up to fascists like Newsom or just going along like things are normal, i.e,, the Chuck Schumer Special, are not going to work.
And while lazy commenters across the internet think this is a left vs. right divide in the party, that’s absolutely incorrect. It’s a leadership issue. A few people do recognize this:
“The main divide within the Democratic Party is not between left and right — it’s whether you think this is a constitutional crisis or this is politics as usual,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive activist group Indivisible. “Pritzker is really demonstrating what it looks like to lead an opposition party against the overreaching authority of the federal government.”
In recent months, Mr. Pritzker has preached a gospel of staunch resistance to some of the most engaged Democratic activists across the country, delivering the keynote speech at party fund-raisers in Illinois and Austin, Texas, and at an annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles. Next month, he is set to speak at a fund-raising dinner in Detroit for the Michigan Democratic Party.
In his speech in New Hampshire, he criticized Democrats who have admonished the party for its perceived overreach as “timid, not bold.”
This is fundamentally correct.
Look, Pritzker is a billionaire and thus inherently evil. I don’t care if he’s our billionaire or not. But there are also higher priorities right now than pretending like such issues matter. The issue is defeating Donald Trump and bringing the Democratic Party back to power. Given the likely economic turmoil about to hit the U.S. once the container ships stop coming or come over half-empty, Democrats need to be ready to act. We most certainly aren’t seeing any leadership on this out of congressional leadership. Leading presidential possibilities such as Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer seem to be missing the boat too. There’s a real opening here and Pritzker has done more than anyone else to fill that gap.