Pity poor Ken Martin. After years spent slaving away in the trenches of Democratic politics, first in Minnesota (where he rose to head the state party) and then nationally, he secured his dream job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the ultimate “insider” gig. And since then it’s all gone to hell for the guy. Let’s all take a moment to ponder this and celebrate together.
The New York Times reported on the sad state of affairs yesterday afternoon: “The D.N.C. Is in Chaos and Desperate for Cash.” That’s the last headline Martin wants to see four months into a tenure as chairman most notable for the public auto-da-fé of heretic David Hogg. With the understanding that stories like these are essentially leak wars conducted by feuding internal factions within a party via newspaper headline — the stories you’ve been reading recently about the Trump administration’s “internal discussions” on Israel/Iran are the GOP’s analog to this — it’s worth reading the Times’ reporting and appreciating just how much the phrase “Dems in disarray” is turning from a stock joke about how the media covers Democrats into the only proper description of the situation.
Ken Martin himself is a semi-anonymous functionary by design, a man whose Democratic ambitions have been forever confined to the shadows, to organizational and administrative politics. He is the consummate insider, and this is how he won the job earlier this year over his rival, Wisconsin upstart Ben Wikler. In a hard-fought race for the chairmanship of the DNC, Wikler had the money — backed by mega donors Alex Soros and Reid Hoffman — and the “youth appeal” angle, but it was no match for Martin’s decades of relationships and acquired loyalties. Wikler, with his record of clawing swing-state Wisconsin back from Walker-era Republican dominance to the Democrats, was the buzzy, “sexy” choice — but at the end of the day the Party Man always wins out. (This is the first and last time I will compare Martin to Joseph Stalin, from whom he could have taken some tips when it comes to commanding loyalty.)
Because once Martin set about to do what all DNC chairmen do — cleaning house, installing loyalists, raising money, and setting an agenda — he immediately found himself sandbagged and attacked from all sides. The most obvious gunfire came from inside the tent, and was beyond his control altogether: Vice-Chairman David Hogg, about whom I have already written a novella’s worth of pork-punned prose, was simultaneously elected alongside him. Once installed, Hogg immediately set about to mischief. Hogg’s frankly suicidal attempt to both officially steer the Democratic Party whilst gunning for its insufficiently “pure” incumbents (via a private super PAC) was destined to fail, but the public mess it caused has embarrassed the party, discredited it among the young activist set that Hogg represents, and killed Martin’s credibility. Earlier this month, Martin was caught on tape whining to Hogg that he had “essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to,” a humiliating moment to have had made public.
Why was that moment made public, though? For the same reason you’re reading about the DNC’s financial disarray in the New York Times: because the losing faction — the Wikler/Soros/Hoffman faction — in the DNC chairman’s race is enraged about losing the chance at institutional control of a party open to redirection and is trying to force Martin out as well. So the thrust of the Times piece is that the DNC is bankrupt — because the very same big donors who backed the losing candidate (and are feeding these stories to the press) haven’t been sufficiently mollified and “reached out to.”
Others are jumping ship as well. Last week the odious Randi Weingarten, the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, submitted her resignation from the Democratic National Committee, of which she had been a member for 23 years. This came simultaneously with that of Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, stripping the DNC of its long-standing government union representation. Set aside for a moment the fact that the world is immediately a better place for this; the real reason Weingarten and Saunders left is not because the Democrats have suddenly decided to become union-busters, but rather because Martin removed them from their positions of internal control: He refused to renew their assignments on the all-powerful Rules and Bylaws Committee, which controls the presidential nomination process. Sane Americans see union bosses quitting the ranks of Democratic leadership and think “it’s about time.” Democrats see the same and understand that the actual message being sent is a threat by those unions to the Democrats: Either we lead, or we leave.
Will all of this external pressure be enough to shake Ken Martin from his perch? Only time will tell; if the DNC indeed has to go into debt merely to keep the lights on this year, as suggested in the Times‘ reporting, the pressure will become acute. But I suspect that logs will be rolled, deals will be cut, and this discontent will die down once the right players behind the scenes are appeased. Or not. Maybe they’ll collapse into civil war tomorrow. I don’t care, I’m here for the same reason the rest of you are: to watch this glorious bonfire burn. I already know that Martin no longer has much appetite left for the job; in the same leaked recording where he was caught complaining about his political castration to David Hogg — the man who joyfully wielded the knife — he also sighed that “I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore.” Is this the death of a party man? I hope not. I hope he fights on, myself — and I hope his disaffected internal opponents fight back just as hard, and just as viciously in the press. As always, I end with J. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous toast, and raise a glass: “To the confusion of our enemies.”