The future of the DFL?
Political Studies professor Lawrence Jacobs had an op-ed in the Sunday paper. Actually, it was the main opinion titled "The Battle Within."
And he raised important issues, especially about the DFL.
He claims that the battle to control the DFL comes from a tight-knit, supremely confident coalition that prides itself on orchestrating “s--tstorms on the streets” and goes by the name “Minnesotans for a Fair Economy,” or MFE. It consists of the Service Employees International Union Local 26, TakeAction Minnesota, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change and the faith-based group ISAIAH. You may have caught glimpses of MFE’s loud, in-your-face rallies and marches in Minneapolis to “take on corporate wealth and power.” Rallying communities of color and partners, these ultraprogressives hit Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank for foreclosures and stormed Target, fast-food restaurants and airlines over wages.
Political viability in Minneapolis now requires some degree of fidelity to MFE’s ultra-progressive agenda on wages, paid sick leave and regulations on scheduling.
Beyond Minneapolis, ultraprogressives are confidently preparing to take their brand of “loud and visible politics” to the state, deploying the determined energy of their racially diverse ranks to “pick the next DFL gubernatorial candidate.” They will counter the familiar conservative diagnosis that “big government is the problem” with their own refrain — “wealth and power are too concentrated.”
If you cringe at conflict, duck. Making people uncomfortable and “pissing off” conservatives is an MFE tool to motivate supporters and build an “army of talkers” to spread its message.
Minneapolis progressives are fond of favorably contrasting themselves to what they see as the desiccated DFL establishment. One difference concerns the claim that Minnesota faces an “urban-rural divide.” Republicans attribute this chasm to “Minneapolis liberals,” and DFL insiders implicitly accept its existence in their plans about where to organize.
MFE counters the GOP story of a regional “divide” with a new narrative that stresses the “connectedness” of struggling families, rural or urban, and their shared sense of “Minnesotanism.” Minneapolis progressives are confident that they can partner with existing statewide organizations and avoid sending the message to rural people that they are “jamming a far-left agenda down their throats.”
In fact, DFLers who are in office and run the party worry that the statewide thrust of Minneapolis ultraprogressives threatens the DFL’s prospects for retaining the governorship and winning back the Minnesota House in 2018. “Dangerous” is the word used by party regulars, who predict that greater Minnesota will recoil from a “left of left message” that comes off as “patronizing benevolence” — a presumption that Minneapolis liberals know best. One high-level DFL official in St. Paul mockingly renamed Take Action Minnesota as “Take Credit Minnesota” for its habit of seizing on wins achieved by experienced DFL insiders.
The quick reaction from Republican strategists? High-fives. “Minneapolis progressives are helping Republicans by driving the DFL too far left to win outside the Twin Cities,” one smart GOP strategist claims.
According to one organizer, the days of “the white rich getting together with white liberals and white labor” to set the DFL’s course are over.
The DFL can only be effective outside the cities, according to party leaders, by delivering its message via “trusted” sources — “white middle-class messengers” — and not by “organizers who are people of color who provoke people outside the cities to ask suspiciously, ‘What are you doing here?’?” DFL insiders point to the “anger” in St. Cloud against Somalis and ridicule the idea of African-American organizers trying to work in greater Minnesota.
Another quick reaction from Republican strategists? More high-fives. They agree with DFL elites that people of color campaigning outside the cities will “backfire” to the GOP’s benefit.
Also
After all, Trump nearly won our state, and Republican candidates in greater Minnesota rode his coattails to take over the entire Legislature.
More..
http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-party-politics-the-battles-within/433201393/
