General Discussion

his focus on making the Democratic Party be seen as the true party of the working class is important. An embrace of economic populism is what needs to be at the front.

Being a former national political director of ACLU and also working with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi certainly helps but I'm afraid it's too late to make the difference.

His letter to the DNC is worth reading though. His ideas are sound:

Dear Fellow DNC Members:

I have thus far been reluctant to join the race for Chair because there are many good, decent, well-intentioned people running who I like and want to see succeed in putting us on a path to reclaiming power. However, as I have listened to the various forums and conversations, I have only become more frustrated by what I have observed as a lack of vision and conviction for what to do to restore a deeply damaged Democratic brand.

I believe the central job of the Chair is to change how Democrats are perceived by voters. And we all seemingly agree — rhetorically at least — that focusing on winning back America’s diverse working class is of utmost priority.

But as I have listened to our candidates, I sense a constrained, status-quo style of thinking. We cannot expect working class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support.

That is why today I am announcing my candidacy for Chair. I’d greatly appreciate it if you would sign your name to my petition to help me get on the ballot. I’ll follow up with details once the DNC provides me with the official nomination form.

My impression is that we wrongly perceive a powerlessness about the role of Chair, confining it merely to being some kind of pass-through financial vehicle to distribute funds to various other entities. The grandest reforms I’ve heard so far revolve around procedural, internal changes to budgeting and consultant work, and we offer pablum around national war rooms and permanent campaigns that have no substance guiding them, deferring critical judgment about what to actually say and do to some other place and time or persons.

We must be bolder than that!

If we learned anything from our last four years, it should be that we must break some norms and get more compelling, interesting, and dynamic to win. We can’t continue to defer critical political judgments to a donor class or some other outside actors. To be a multiracial working class Party, we must prove we are on their side in the fight against corporate greed.

I offer my candidacy at this late moment only because I have concrete ideas and the necessary experience of how to use an organization with tens of millions of dollars in resources and nationwide staff to attract working class support. I have consistently built strong and effective teams. I proudly led Bernie’s 2020 campaign, founded the nation’s leading working class media outlet More Perfect Union, built People Power organizing at the ACLU during the first Trump term, landed my first political job in the DNC HQ (on the Research team), and have learned a great deal about leadership from being on the staffs of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you my desires to reimagine what the DNC does. I envision:

– a DNC that is an organizing army which lends support to striking and organizing union and non-union workers (like those recently at Amazon, Boeing or among manufacturing workers and nurses), and joins with tenant unions and community organizations fighting economic exploitation and price gouging on the ground (ie, those who are organizing against unaffordable rent increases, unreasonable utility rate hikes, hospital closures, the undermining of public schools through school vouchers, stopping privatization of reliable government services like the post office or the VA);

– a DNC that becomes its own powerful media outlet, doing compelling original content in different video, text and graphic formats guided by a mission of featuring working class heroes taking on corporate greed, educational pieces about the aims and ambitions of the Silicon swamp surrounding Trump, and using our historical archives to showcase the proud legacy of Democratic fights for the common man;

– a DNC that seeks out and hosts convenings with Trump voters who previously voted Democrat and voters who sat out the last presidential election in order to challenge our assumptions of how to improve the brand;

– a DNC that identifies areas where Democrats have consistently failed to field candidates in general elections and recruit and resource working class candidates to run for those seats;

– and a DNC where membership is much more than merely making a passive contribution but also actively involves the grassroots in surfacing interesting policy ideas and building civic organization around community service, faith, sports, culture and entertainment.

Most importantly, we have to strategically pick big fights with the elite and selfish oligarchs now entering government “service” not just to decry their looting but to paint the picture of how we would wield power in a very different way.

If we are clear-eyed, competent, and action-oriented, our fellow Americans will respond positively in the next few years to a Democratic Party that honestly realigns itself with its roots in the working class. Building power for working people — that’s my personal mission and purpose, and I want to bring that to the DNC.

I wish I had made this decision sooner, so that I could have participated in tomorrow’s forum (and previous ones). Nevertheless, I appreciate your willingness to give me a chance to make my case, and hopefully I can join the Western and DC forums.

I believe the committee made the deadline for entry into this race January 25th to give an opportunity to late deciders like me to jump in. I look forward to talking to each of you soon and hope to receive your vote.

Sincerely,

Faiz Shakir