Ken Martin is in survival mode.
Desperate to save his job as chair of the Democratic National Committee, he is avoiding media appearances, monitoring his critics’ social media posts and refusing — at least so far — to make any substantive changes at his troubled organization.
A half dozen state leaders and other committee members, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, described Martin as defensive and extremely distrustful of others, even some people on his own team, as calls for his resignation grow louder among Democratic operatives who lament his leadership decisions, lackluster fundraising and even his tendency to lash out in anger.
But there is no sign that the organization’s membership plans to replace Martin before the midterm elections in November, even as some wonder how much longer he can hold on. The drama threatens to undermine the party’s momentum in the battle to retake control of Congress from President Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
Martin offered a warning to Trump and his Republican allies after the vote was announced: “We’re coming. This is a new Democratic Party. We’re taking the gloves off.”
They’re taking the gloves off and they’re going to show the world just how aggressively they can fight for moderate, measured, conventional, temperate ideas!
Martin now becomes one of the most important players in the Democratic Party’s comeback attempt as Trump pushes the limits of presidential power. While Martin promised bold changes, he said he could not discuss specific actions until the party conducted a postelection review to determine what went wrong in November.
Bold changes will follow once we have conducted a thorough analysis, even though we’ve had well over a year to do that already. Not to worry, though, I’m sure it won’t take more than 12, or maybe 18 months to complete our review. And once it’s completed, oh boy, will the findings and recommendations be middling and ordinary.
LOL
I love watching Democrats eat each other alive over the rise of DSA’s. Good. The Democrats need an insurgency.
Should have kept David Hogg around.
I’m curious if they will let it die and a group like Leaders We Deserve with David Hogg at the helm will fully replace it.
I can’t think of anything he would want from the DNC. Their benefactors are useless. They’ve already obviously cut off the money spigot and you wouldn’t want to be owing money to the kind of groups that were funding the DNC other than the public individuals.
The Dems will never change or yield any power, and have shown over and over again they’d rather yield to fascists than progressives, because that’s where their bread is buttered by the billionaire Epstein Class.
That’s why it’s so pleasing to see it taken away by force.
This is factual statement, the DNC is corrupt. They are inundated with a wealthy consultant class that will not change. Because they are enriching themselves even more by not actually campaigning but with ad buys and the commissions they receive from them. They don’t understand the average Americans struggle anymore.
It’s been amazing watching the DNC fumble for the last decade.
I’ve given them thousands of dollars over the years, but now my money goes to the DSA.
But because I once gave them money I’m inundated with their awful fund raising. I don’t know who the fuck comes up with their messaging but it’s so similar for every candidate and it seems like such a losing strategy. They got James Talarico blowing up my inbox and every YouTube video with the same message “we are falling behind and need more money to win. We are sinking ship with basically no hope, give us money”. And the asks have gone from “some money” to “$5” now down to “$1” which makes them seems like they are in a hopeless death spiral.
You know what makes people crack open their wallets and spend, a hopeless lost cause. And what exactly does talarico need this money for, I guess to run more ads telling us how much he’s getting walloped and is about to lose. Hooray, what a great way to spend my hard earned cash.
Go DSA and thank you for fighting the only fight.
But Ken Martin has a progressive history of running the DFL party in MN before becoming the Democratic state party chair, and didn’t come to the DNC until after the 2024 election. So I see him being resisted by entrenched party officials as a sign that he is, in fact, trying to bring change from within.
This paired with the idea that a lot of these “DNC is corrupt and a controlled opposition party!” posts are coming from people who want to discourage democratic voters from voting. The “Both sides are the same” crowd is not entirely but well populated by far-right agitators that just want to harm the chances of progressives.
We all know that the DNC falls well short in a variety of ways, but… Godamn they’re not the ones rolling back EPA protections, not the ones voting to expand ICE killings and suspending habeas corpus to unlawfully detained migrants, they’re not the ones withholding disaster relief and healthcare funding from states as political revenge, they’re not the ones raping and murdering children…
For as bad as the DNC is, for as beholden to rich donors and unyielding to progressive ideals as they are… Man they’re clearly better than the alternative. Like, in every way.
The growing chorus of criticism has shaken the confidence of Martin’s loyalists.
They were especially concerned about an essay this week by Rufus Gifford, the finance chairman for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, who warned that the DNC under Martin’s leadership was “spiraling toward irrelevance.”
Yeah, no one is happy with the DNC and their approach to what should be the easiest possible campaign year to win. But instead of examining what works and doesn’t work across the electorate, Ken Martin is helping move the Overton Window to the right out of sheer inability to resonate with anyone. He can’t inspire confidence in those who share his political views - what hope does he have in convincing anyone else?
