Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for the Hillary Clinton campaign, has communicated her prescription for a revitalized Democratic Party like this:
Overcome your fear of Donald Trump, all you crowds of protesters out there. But more important, don't use this mass protesting occasion to demand a few extra bucks an hour. Economic justice is simply not what Resistance, Inc. is all about. Whatever you do, don't, don't, don't move further left into Bernie Sanders territory!
Overcome your incipient extremism in more pleasant ways than selfishly demanding a raise and some medical care. Why not show your solidarity with the immigrant you hire at below-minimum wage by boycotting a few high-end department stores like Nordstrom's and Nieman Marcus? Why not give a poor person an occasional ride to the doctor? Why not spend a morning hanging around a job site to keep your eye out for Trump's immigration goons?
Now that President Obama is no longer around, deporting record numbers of migrants and refugees, even members of Jennifer Palmieri's own family are finally discovering just how edgy and political they can be. And therefore, so can you.
Best of all, you will be simply amazed at how empowered you feel by boldly refusing to shop at any emporium suspected of dealing overpriced Ivanka and Melania Trump bling.
"Don't get hung up on Ben Carson's nomination," Palmieri lectured any wavering voters who might be feeling a tad guilty about their Democratic senator further immiserating the homeless, the evicted, and the victims of private equity landlords. "Get out in the country. And don't assume that everybody in those huge crowds wants $15 an hour. Don't assume we have to move to the left. It's all about identity on our side now. Tap into that identity energy!"
Don't worry about whether the Democratic Party might hijack this protest movement, added Chuck Todd. Worry instead that the movement might hijack The Party. And then the Party might end up being so, so over. Without your identity, they have no identity.
It doesn't do to rail against the white-sheeted racists of the Republican Party and think you can overcome your fear, insinuated Palmieri. Because according to her, it is not anger at social and economic injustice that consumes protesters. It's the obsessive fear of Donald Trump grabbing at your crotches, and disgust at Nordstrom selling cheap Ivanka merchandise. Therefore, you must protect your identities as upper middle class (mainly white) women with all the 300 thread count fibers of your beings!
Schmoozing on MSNBC with her good friend Chuck Todd, Jennifer Palmieri in just eight magical minutes inadvertently communicated some reasons why progressives must rip off the tattered Democratic Party band-aid and throw it away once and for all. The party can no longer hide beneath its protective Obama brand cult of personality.
Last fall's WikiLeaks trove of Clinton campaign director John Podesta's emails reveal that Todd and his wife, a Democratic Party consultant, threw a private intraparty dinner party in late 2015 for Palmieri at their Washington home as plans were being finalized for Hillary Clinton's second run for the presidency.
The leaks also reveal that Chuck Todd was Palmieri's go-to shoulder to bitch on whenever the Clinton campaign thought that NBC was treating Hillary unfairly -- as in, questioning her about the Clinton Foundation and its foreign government donors.
So here's a P.S. to the liberal freedom-fighters of the upper middle class -- don't forget to also protest Party Crasher Vladimir Putin while you prepare for the revolution by purchasing your pink designer cashmere pussy hats at Saks Fifth Avenue. (I have a feeling that Jennifer Palmieri would be mightily offended if the mob suddenly went into full sans culottes peasant mode, bearing pikes in place of acceptable Gucci bags.)
Meantime, while people are out on the streets demonstrating against The Donald and his juvenile Tweets, I am pleased to report that despite his best relentless efforts, Trump still hasn't been able to corner the market on petty vindictiveness. The Twittersphere is absolutely chock-full of alt-activism in the world of bourgeois retail, via such feeds as #GrabYourWallet.
Update 2/10: After Jennifer Palmieri appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday, Donald Trump took to Twitter and complained about Nordstrom caving to consumer outrage by dropping Ivanka's line. So, according to the Twitter campaign, it is now not only O.K., but patriotically incumbent upon you, to open up your fat wallets and let those retail profits fly again in a sort of reverse protest. It's how the Democratic Party wants you to think about citizen activism.
There is apparently no place for anti-Trump protesters who never could afford to shop at Nordstrom in the first place, due to The Party never taking a stand on a living wage bill.
I don't do Twitter, so I'm not sure that I really follow the foregoing exchanges. But I THINK that I just witnessed one of the most pointless and meaningless efforts at "resistance" imaginable. Can somebody out there confirm that for me, or explain what I'm missing regarding this "valuable" anti-Trump insurgency?
ReplyDeleteIt does seem odd to invoke Chinese made goods as a burn on the Trumpsters - HRC, by contrast, wasn't exactly a beacon of human rights on trade issues. Allegiances of the ruling class are clearly drawn, Resistance, Inc. indeed blurs the reality of economic injustice - in the service of the masters.
ReplyDeleteThe only resistance I see going on is the Democratic Party resisting the will of the people, so I say boycott and resist the Democrats! 14 million voters have dropped out of the Democratic Party just since the election. Democrats now make up just 25% of registered voters, down from 37%.
ReplyDeleteIndependents are now the biggest voting block, ripe for a new party. What's Bernie waiting for? Maybe he's waiting for enough voters to jump ship!
Un-merge the People's Party (aka The Populists) from the Democratic Party. Agrarian (green jobs), pro-labor, anti-capitalist, anti-bankster (gold-standard currency). What a dream it would be to have such a part to support.
ReplyDeleteBoycotts can be promoted and managed centrally, or they are the dumb sum of independent actions by many resentful individuals.
ReplyDeleteA friend with dual citizenship just came back from Mexico. She was born there and returns annually to visit family and friends. This is what she heard: "Sure, we need them, but they need us too." Mexicans who have visas and dough began to say they were no longer tripping to Miami, a favorite shopping destination for those who are well off. Likewise, about taking their kids to US theme parks in Florida and California.
Two American friends were being squired around by a native Mexican who is a friend and who looks after their pied-à-terre in Yucatan while they (two American Airlines employees) are often away. Once, when they were all out shopping together in Merida, the Mexican tried to use her long time 10% discount at a fancy store. The shop owner flatly refused to give her the discount and made no secret of the reason why. He said it was clear the purchase was being made by the Americans and he had no intention of doing them favors. This is not an anecdote but a first-hand report passed on to me.
Elsewhere, an old modifier now accompanies the multivarious term "gringo"; the phrase heard more and more in public and private conversations is "those fucking gringos."
I think greed was normalized during the Obama Administration. Dear Leader, who was adored as the most normal, intelligent man on earth, no drama Obama, was gifting Wall Street with trillions, privatized schools at a rate Trump will never be able to duplicate, opening up vast lands to fracking and bomb trains, and setting up transnational trade deals that would have effectively ended democratic rule for all the states involved.
ReplyDeleteWith Trump, greed is abnormal again. Liberals rant about his hotels, clothing lines ... only small bits of value that Janet Yellen has duplicated, again and again, in microseconds -- as she gifted the ruling class with her quantitative easing.