71% of the party voted for progressive Platner in Maine. His politics got the most votes ever in a Democratic primary. We don’t have to worry about nationwide definitions of ‘base’ in this instance to argue about who deserves special deference from party leaders.
And I have a hard time believing this piece would EVER get promoted when people talk about “black voters are the base”, which is almost always only used to justify white centrists rather than, say, police reform. But for some reason it’s important to establish when progressives in 3% black Maine win a landslide and then ask for recognition by their own party leadership.
The reality is that party leadership has basically never represented any of these bases. The demographic that leadership represents extremely well is big money donors. Judging by leadership, that’s the real base. They’re the group that must always be catered to and whose loss they’d see as a 5 alarm fire.
71% of the party voted for progressive Platner in Maine. His politics got the most votes ever in a Democratic primary. We don’t have to worry about nationwide definitions of ‘base’ in this instance to argue about who deserves special deference from party leaders.
And I have a hard time believing this piece would EVER get promoted when people talk about “black voters are the base”, which is almost always only used to justify white centrists rather than, say, police reform. But for some reason it’s important to establish when progressives in 3% black Maine win a landslide and then ask for recognition by their own party leadership.
The reality is that party leadership has basically never represented any of these bases. The demographic that leadership represents extremely well is big money donors. Judging by leadership, that’s the real base. They’re the group that must always be catered to and whose loss they’d see as a 5 alarm fire.