DNC SELF-INFLICTED DEATH BLOW AND YANG2020 VICTORY, DEBATE SIX.

One of the key fundamentals of an effective democracy is that of representation. That those being entrusted with power reflect those that put them there. The US is of course an ethnically diverse country of hundreds of millions of people. For example, approximately 16% of Americans identify as Hispanic (55 million) while 14% identify as Black / African-American (45 million).

Then there are of course millions of other non-white voters outside of those two demographics.

Together, that means that nearly one third of the population of the US is not white. This is of course completely understandable as the US is proudly built on a heritage and a tradition of being an inclusive melting-pot of peoples, irrespective of race, religion, culture and nationality. So that then begs the question – if the DCCC and the Democratic Party is meant to be as inclusive as it likes to make out, then why then are we confronted with the possibility of having all white candidates on the stage come the next debate? Sounds far-fetched?

Absolutely not and we’re a lot closer than you may think. With Kamala Harris now having dropped out of the presidential race, that leaves an exclusively white field remaining, bar three – Andrew Yang (American of Taiwanese descent), Cory Booker (African-American) and Julián Castro (Hispanic).

Putting aside that Harris was the only black women in the Democrat pack of presidential hopefuls in the first place, this really is a damning indictment of just where the DCCC really is when it comes to race and inclusivity.

While Yang’s campaign continues to hold its own, it’s an open secret that both Booker and Castro are struggling for campaign finances right now, and have been for some time. So, in the absence of those three non-white candidates, the idea of an all-white field of Democratic candidates going into 2020 doesn’t seem all that far-fetched after all.

When it comes to potentially defeating Trump in 2020, it is going to take every last bit of alliance building possible. That’s because while the Trump machine is built on a lot of things (lies, disinformation, racism, division and feeding “red-meat” to its wearisome “base”) the one thing that it has at its disposal, which it showed us all too well in 2016, is strategic electoral cunning.

Trump’s 2016 breached the supposed Democratic Blue Wall of Mid-West and rust-belt states and took the electoral college to claim the presidency (along with

substantial Russian help, but that’s for another time).

Given Trump’s continually historically low approval rating, it’s patently clear that his 2020 campaign will try and replicate his 2016 campaign for the most part- by targeting key Mid-West and rust-belt states once again.

That’s his only real path to re-election.

For the Democratic Party to stop Trump achieving that, they will need to build the sort of Obama era coalition that managed to secure the country’s first ever non-white, African-American president. Given the Democratic field of Presidential hopefuls is teetering on the brink of being an all-white affair, quite how the DCCC expect to replicate that sort of coalition again is anyone’s guess.

As at 12.18.19, there are still 15 contenders in the Democratic presidential race, of which four are women, one is of Taiwanese-descent, one is African-American, one is Hispanic and one is gay. While that’s encouraging, to an extent, it is stillheavily biased in favor of (older) white men. With a field like that, the Democratic party is at real risk of failing to fully capitalize on the strength of anti-Trump feeling among black, Hispanic and non-white voters.

Consequently, here we are again with the electoral and decision-making apparatus of the Democratic party woefully out of touch with the reality of the 2020 situation. The last thing this country needs is another four years of Donald J. Trump as president. However, if the Democratic party continues with its slavish obsession to outdated policies and outdated candidates, then they can simply expect more of the same – electoral defeat and subsequent despair.

Joe Biden is the perfect embodiment of both of those points – old, white, male and absolutely in bed with corporate donors and lobbyists, shackled to regressive centrist (that is Republican-lite) policies that would fail to effectively serve the real needs and requirements of the American people.

If you keep putting your hand in the fire, you really are simply going to keep on getting burned. The DCCC and the Democratic party would do well, even at this late stage, to keep that firmly at forefront of their minds.