Saving the country from autocracy requires recognizing — and then overcoming — the chokehold that Democratic leaders have on the party.
President Joe Biden meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House as part of the U.S. presidential transition, Nov. 13, 2024. (White House/ Cameron Smith / Public Domain)
By Norman Solomon
Common Dreams
Ten years after Donald Trump first ran for president, he stands at the helm of Titanic America. How did this happen?
No factors were more pivotal than the outlooks and actions of the Democratic Party leadership.
Scrutinizing them now is vital not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a clear focus on ways to prevent further catastrophe.
Here’s the actual history that corporate Democrats pretend didn’t happen:
2016: Hillary Clinton offers more of the status quo. Her allies in the Democratic Party pull out all the stops so she can win the party’s presidential nomination. With a big assist from the Democratic National Committee, she prevails over the strong primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, but her campaign trail goes downhill from there.
After rallying behind Sanders’s genuine progressive populism, many young people don’t trust the pseudo-populism of Clinton’s campaign. She has earned a millennial problem, and it prevents her from becoming president.
2017: Democratic Party leaders can hardly blame themselves or their nominee for the virtually unbelievable circumstance of the Trump presidency. A critical focus on Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street won’t do. Neither will critiquing her thinly veiled contempt for the progressive wing of the party. But blaming Trump’s victory on Russia becomes an obsessive theme.
2018: The Democratic leadership is mapping out a battle plan for the midterm elections in November. At the same time, a key priority is to thwart the inside threat posed by progressive forces. Establishment Democrats are keeping a watchful eye and political guns trained on Bernie Sanders.
2019: Democrats take control of the House, and a large cast of political characters is off and running for the party’s presidential nomination. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren are at the left edge, while more than a dozen others jostle for media attention. For elites determined to retain undemocratic power, seeing either Sanders or Warren in the Oval Office would be the worst possible outcome.
Bernie Sanders & Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in July 2016. (Marc Nozell / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0)
2020: Early in the year, the economic populism of the Sanders campaign continues to catch fire, while many forces team up to function as fire extinguishers. The Democratic Party establishment acts to smother the grassroots blaze.
After Joe Biden’s fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary puts his campaign on life-support, rescue comes eighteen days later from South Carolina, where Biden wins a landslide primary victory — and then several corporate-friendly contenders quickly drop out of the race and effusively endorse him.
When Biden clinches the nomination, progressives largely close ranks behind him to defeat Trump. Biden squeaks through.
2021: President Biden’s first year includes backing and signing legislation with real benefits for tens of millions of Americans. But his resolve dissipates. Before the end of the year, he abandons Build Back Better legislation that would have been transformational.
Notably, Biden withdraws all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in late summer — but overall he opts to fuel militarism, with ever-higher Pentagon spending instead of devoting adequate resources to meet human needs and protect nature. The president goes full speed ahead with “modernization” plans for ever more dangerous nuclear weapons that already have a pre-overrun price tag of $1.7 trillion.
2022: Biden relapses into his customary “moderate” political mode, while his capacity to speak coherently weakens. Party discipline, internalized by Democrats in Congress, precludes independent-minded leadership as they begin to proclaim that Biden should run for re-election. Conformity of groupthink and fear of retribution from the White House keep people quiet.
2023: A real-life Shakespearean tragedy unfolds as Biden throws down a gauntlet to run for re-election even while his mental frailty becomes more evident. Enablers ignore the party’s base, with polls continuing to show that most Democrats don’t want him to be the next nominee (including 94 percent of Democrats under 30).
A common canard—pushed by Biden’s coterie of sycophants—contends that because he defeated Trump once, he’s the best person to do it again; the claim ignores the fact that Trump 2020 represented an unpopular status quo, and Biden 2024 would represent an even more unpopular status quo, as “right track / wrong track” polling makes crystal clear.
Soon after Hamas attacks Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli military starts its siege of Gaza, Biden begins to further alienate many of his party’s usual voters by massively boosting U.S. military aid as the slaughter of Palestinian civilians escalates.
2024: Among top Democrats, denial about Biden’s evident cognitive infirmity grows along with the infirmity itself. Even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June, the political reflex of dissembling prevents him from bowing out for another 28 days.
That leaves 107 days for the newly installed nominee Kamala Harris to pick up the pieces before Election Day.
Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Aug. 9, 2024. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)
At first it seems that she might find ways to depart from coming across as Biden’s yes-woman, but there is no such departure. Nothing epitomizes the Harris campaign’s moral collapse more than her insistence on echoing the Biden line about Gaza while the U.S. continues to arm Israel’s military as it methodically kills Palestinian civilians.
In the process, Harris chooses to ignore both human decency and polls showing that far more voters would be likely to cast their ballots for her if she were to come out against sending more armaments to Israel. Electoral disaster ensues.
Last month, two events showed the huge contradiction between the potential for true progressive change and the dire reality of feckless Democratic Party leaders. When socialist Zohran Mamdani won election as mayor of New York after running as a Democrat, he said:
“If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one.”
A week later, eight members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus surrendered to Trump, betraying efforts to defend Obamacare and a healthcare status quo that still leaves tens of millions uninsured or underinsured. The capitulation meant that the nation’s healthcare crisis would get even worse.
Craven and conformist Democratic Party leadership—coloring inside corporate lines while enmeshed with rich backers—hardly offers a plausible way to defeat the Trump forces, much less advance a humane political agenda. Saving the country from autocracy requires recognizing and overcoming the chokehold that Democratic leaders have on the party.
The timeline above is drawn from my new book about the 10-year political descent into the current inferno, The Blue Road to Trump Hell, which is free as an e-book or PDF at BlueRoad.info.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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You left out the Obama years when he hid behind a Cult of personality and slyly race baited while pretending to be a “unifying” leader. Then continued the Bush doctrine. He was the architect.
You still think it’s possible to reform or “recapture” the Democratic Party? Why on Earth would you think that?
Have you been paying attention? Did you ask Bernie what he thinks (in private)?
The ACA is a gift to insurance companies.
Medicare for all !
“Cui bono?” Yes, we know them. They’re quite lame.” All them Corporate Democrats named in Norman Solomon’s “The Blue Road to Trump Hell.” *“We’ve had to rearrange their faces & give them all another name.”
Granted, “for the sake of the flowers water the thorns too.”
… However, imo, legislation, particularly, a “Marine” Le Penned” LAW barring them from running for public office for five (5) years, for *“Exploiting a Massacre to Cover Up a Genocide;” rendering him/her ineligible for State or National public office; particularly, the 2028 presidential election. [FOCUSING] “on ways to prevent further catastrophe,” would, imo, open up the minds of “voters” [that] “would be likely to cast their ballots for” HER, Comma La. Harris. Consequently, canceling Democrats’ blind loyalty, Party over People!
Awh, the shallowness of the Democrats’ “losers” was exposed by “the voters who knew Harris was “working tirelessly” blowing smoke up everybody’s jackass; &, knew Harris would never f/ever “come out against sending more armaments to Israel;” hence, Harris’ ignorance, arrogance, polls, the fakery & phuckery, proved Biden-Harris-Walz “Dead On Arrival!!!”
Norman Solomon’s findings, imo, prove the Democrats are done & dusted! Do NOT resuscitate! 100% detachment fm the Mother$hip, the DNC, is in the cards; AND, correcting the language used in “exploiting a Massacre to Cover Up a Genocide,” i.e., “the slaughter of Palestinian civilians,” “the U.S. continues to arm Israel’s military as it methodically kills Palestinian civilians.” Slaughter & methodically Kill, “IS GENOCIDE!”
… “This is textbook genocide: One by one they wiped out the infrastructure of Palestinian culture and civilization: schools, universities, mosques, churches, museums, theaters, libraries, hospitals and incalculable residential buildings, while people were still living in them. There has been a wholesale assassination of journalists, artists, academics and doctors — and an imposed starvation.” JOE LAURIA
“Coming in Hot!” the Democrats 10-year political descent into the current inferno,” by their own f/hand. Fugg ‘em! TY.
* “Desolation Row,” Bob Dylan
* hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/12/15/exploiting-a-massacre-to-cover-up-a-genocide/
Both parties should promise to outlaw AIPAC.
That’s where it begins and ends.
Thank you Dorcey, You have defined the key choke hold that is the cause our political ineptitude. I agree, that is the proper place to begin…but that is not where it ends….as the creature has many heads. I would only change your words “should promise” to “must act”.
The Duopoly’s “customary “moderate” political mode” is to whitewash war crimes, crimes against humanity & sugar-coat war criminals, Democrats & Republicans. Imo, it is the sense of the universe that BB’s B*tch of the West, Trump-Vance, Inc., & Democrats NOT only “got” blood on their hands; but, are up to their eyeballs in alligators!!! AND, it doesn’t f/matter!!!
THE USG & ISRAEL have intentionally *“deprived millions of Palestinians in Gaza of the necessities of life – food, water, fuel and electricity. In effect, starving & effecting dehydration of Palestinians in Gaza to death.
[JOE BIDEN OWNS THIS]. ‘The US PRESIDENT owns every despicable aspect of the calamity unfolding in Gaza perpetrated by his country’s ever reliable and obedient proxy, Israel.” Andrew Mitrovica @ hxxps://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/19/joe-biden-owns-this
And, universally, racism, poverty, war “live” large & POTUS’ 42-47 & THE US CONGRESS “live” free from accountability, rock’n deception, destruction, death “from the river to the sea,” from sea to shining sea, in the deserts here & the deserts faraway. Basically, we are f….!
Short and sour gripes.
The major flaw in Solomons so meticulous analysis is that he excludes addressing the essential critical premise: that Sanders, with 13,000,000 Americans backing him – who were begging for a change in leadership, turned his back on them and preferred to remain within the Democratic party establishment; the excuse being that it would have been impossible to form a third-party alternative; the historical go-to argument.
Yet democracy today, if it can be called that, is now in the throes of being reduced to a one-party autocratic oligarchy of kleptocratic plutocrats.
If Sanders was a genuine progressive populist back in 2016, he would have taken the risk and broken with the corporate wing and declared himself to be truly an independent thinking politician.
Instead, he took on the assigned role given him, within the ‘Party’ of being rhetorician of ‘perpetual pied piper philosophy’ in which he no doubt excels, given the gullibility of his audiences.
Hedges says Bernie’s capitulation came from a fear of not becoming what befell Nader.Irrelevant.Sabby Sads often cautions us not to idealize politicians. They are not our “saviors.” Not “heroes.” I would add that idealizing a person is to ignore the reality of that person, who being mortal carries a shadow. Your minimization of the requirements of a creating a 3rd Party may be born more of slight understanding of that reality. Were it relatively easy and not almost prohibitive, wouldn’t we by now have at at least 2-3 more parties? To deride today’s followers of Bernie’s message as being “gullible” reeks of bitterness, like that of a jilted lover who denied their own intuition that energy had been draining from the relationship. For Bernie’s rants against destructive corporate power for many, including myself, is an unassailable truth. Is it not those who do not grok it, the gullible ones? Bernie’s decision was deeply disappointing, yet understandable. He was skunked by the Democratic leadership and by Clyburn. Viciously. Hard ball. To lay the blame all on Bernie is to be naive . As Freud said. Most if not all human acts are overdetermined.
Thanks for the sagacious, yet unsolicited lessen in wisdom. Always willing to learn from those with more existential life experience.
Yes indeed. In a great irony, the Dems hate Sanders, yet he is their most loyal servant. A committed liberal Zionist to boot, Sanders is just as odious as the Dem Leadership that hates his guts. Next up? Sanders revives his Med4All schtick, on ice since he was ordered to can it so Genocide Joe could avoid talking about it. Look for more bullshit about “the billionaires” needing to “pay their fair share” in order to finance something that the Federal government could simply pay for like it does with, say, the military budget. No tax increases necessary.* But, “paying for it” will be the Dem Party’s excuse for not doing anything.
*Certainly the top marginal rate should be raised to at least 98% on anything over 3 million–no loop holes, no exceptions–but not to “pay for” anything. The chief reason to tax the rich is that they’re too rich.
That’s right- Sanders had his moment, the wind was at his back, he had enough people and credibility, but he caved and capitulated to the very machine that attempted to destroy him and his movement. I knew after that , that his chance was gone, and that he was wasting everyone’s time with his 2020 run, as he just did it again. Now he has become completely useless and irrelevant.
Are rank and file Democrats enamored by, or don’t care about, the Ukraine proxy war that Biden precipitated as the total absence of it mention in the article suggests?
At least a(nother) million dead, 50% of the population emigrated and another country completely destroyed due to obsessive Russophobia and concomitant resurgent McCarthyism well before Trump II arrived.
Great points!
As other commenters here succinctly point out, this system is shot to hell as far as the average citizens’ concerns go. Yet even still I have to hear about how important it is to get the Democrats back in power from my liberal friends and family members. I ask them, how many times does the working class majority have to get stabbed in the back before you see the folly in this back-and-forth, trading of power shell game? They change nothing. If anything, the Democrats try to slow down the decline, whereas Republicans seem to accelerate it. This does not a stable society make. People are snapping all over the place. Real problems are all but ignored.
Since we as a citizenry are nowhere near organized enough yet to make a substantial difference, it seems it will be up to the military to depose the current criminal administration, but they’d have to be very careful about it. While it is true that we’ve been on this trajectory for decades, and that a President Trump was inevitable in the face of liberal bourgeois complacency, we are hitting new lows everyday and I don’t see another 3 years of this. We’ll be lucky if Trump & company don’t get us all killed by 2028.
It is a fact that both the Democrats and the Republicans are outnumbered by people who are eligible to vote but don’t bother to. There are many reasons for that, but the few polls that cover them find most say that “it doesn’t make any difference who wins.” And when it comes to foreign policy, they’ve got a point — though that’s not what most of them (or most voters either, for that matter) care about. Increasing turnout by 10% would be a lot easier than getting 5% of Republican voters to switch.
Trump got the Independents to turn out by making an America First foreign policy the center plank of his campaign — and then characteristically proceeded to break those promises with an even bigger military budget and an even larger list of foreign interventions. Imagine what would happen if someone instead committed to following the principles of JFK’s American University speech (look it up and watch it). And if they followed through on that commitment with as much tenacity as Trump has shown in enriching his family and supporters, that hypothetical candidate would certainly also sweep the following midterms.
Unfortunately, that candidate will certainly not be any Democrat out there today.
All very true. But doesn’t fully explain how we got to where we are.
In 1971, the Powell Memo, forerunner to Project 2025. The Memo called for 1%ers and corporate interests to organize against New Deal economics. By the late ’70s, the Ds were going neolib; under Clinton they dumped the New Deal, including financial regulations, and abandoned the majority working class. Same Ds backed the struggle to make the world safe for finance capitalism. Like the WTO, desired by multinational corporations, their economist apologists, and their government lapdogs. Everyone else in the world opposed, as shown by the massive 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations, The Battle of Seattle. Then in 2008 the Great Recession, in part a result of that deregulation. Under Obama, the Ds bailed out Wall St. while the millions who lost jobs, pensions, and houses got nothing and the Rust Belt became deaths of despair central. But who cares about those losers, HRC’s “a basket of deplorables”?
What does neolib mean? Support for an economic philosophy properly called neoclassical. It’s the product of the Chicago School of Economics as founded by Milton Friedman. Who advised the brutal dictator of Chile (Pinochet) because “democracy interferes with market efficiency.” Researching this, I was shocked to discover there is little, if any, empirical evidence for; it’s based on faulty assumptions and blatant argument by assertion like Thatcher’s “There are no alternatives.” There are–and they worked!!!
It’s no more than trickle up econopathy. This belief system and its priesthood proclaims devastated communities and destroyed ecosystems are mere externalities. Defenders of econ dogma, using their own theoretical data to make linear models, have predicted climate change will amount to only a small %. So amelioration is way too costly to interrupt the entire world economy for. Never mind they were unable to predict 1929 or 2007-8 despite all the evidence–because such evidence didn’t fit their models. Never mind their main belief is that humans are only motivated by what they call the utility function, meaning personal gain. Greed.
That’s what the Dem elite supports. And why we, the aching plebeian majority, despise them.
Well done! And you picked the perfect word- despise them we do! The Dem elite. Someone in some comments section recommended a replacement for the word “elite”. That? “parasites “.
For progressives trapped in the Democratic Party who are outraged by the current administration some soul searching is in order as this article makes clear. Time to find another political party and I don’t mean the GOP.
I agree. Unfortunately, the switch from Dem to Progressive must occur essentially en masse, since piecemeal gives the Repubs the victory. As distasteful as it was to vote for Clinton and Biden, I did so. He knew he had to run as a Dem or it was a sure win for Trump. I think it could happen over 2-3 election cycles, but even the kids don’t want to wait that long.
There’s no time for this. You’re using the Dem Party argument. Yes, the Republicans will win for a short time, but they’re already winning! You have to be prepared to lose some elections. The ‘cons are in the same fix as the Dems, and will be thrown out too. No compromise, no more “wait till the next election cycle.”
Exactly, the feckless Democrats put TRump in office.
Sure as hell did! Both Gadamned times.
Norman Salomon and Rafi Simonton are both right, IMO.
The two party system is a joke.
Best quote I’ve seem recently is “If you elected a billionaire who appointed other billionaires to fix the system that made them billionaires you are a special kind of stupid.
Great one-liner! But after 40+ years of suffering and being neglected by a party once ours, many were desperate enough to vote R. Not because of belief the Rs had anything to offer, but as an angry slap at the Ds. The D elite and their upper middle class admin and professional faithful insist what happened is all the fault of low class, ignorant MAGA cultists. These allegedly superior well-educated cadres somehow never noticed the millions of sufferers in all that time. It’s also not exactly intelligent for them to call people stupid they need to bring back to their party in order to win elections.
We need a mass movement to defeat oligarchy. Nothing else will suffice to get us out from under this dictatorship of money. Our institutions are all captured by corporate interests, bankers, the Pentagon, intelligence freaks and held in place by increasingly fascist political puppets. I believe in forming third parties to challenge the status quo and be there for after we bring down this criminal cabal.
Right on! Lois.