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Instead, they elect man who helped 'put a fork' in Bernie Sanders

Racist, Islamophobic, Democrats fail to make Keith Ellison DNC chairman

By Robert Laurie ——--February 27, 2017

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Last week, we discussed Keith Ellison. He's the radical left-winger who was, at the time, the frontrunner to become the next chairman of the DNC. In addition to being an African-American, he's also the nation's first Muslim congressman, and sits on the political spectrum about as far to the left as a person can get without falling off. It seemed he'd checked almost all the identity-politics boxes.
As ABC News reports:
Ellison, a spirited, African American congressman from the Midwest, was the first Muslim elected to the House of Representatives and was an early backer of Sen. Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. In the immediate aftermath of the November election, when so many other Democrats remained silent, stunned and shell-shocked, Ellison raised his hand and decided to run to chair the political wing of the Democratic Party. Sanders, unions, and major grassroots groups were with him instantly and went to work. For progressives, electing Ellison to this top post could be, in way, a silver lining to the otherwise disastrous election. Yes, Donald Trump was president, but maybe now the party would finally listen to them. Folks who felt like they played second fiddle to the powers in Washington and Hillary Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn thought this could be their moment. "This vote is going to indicate whether that transformation is possible and worthy of our time or not," she said at a reception for Ellison.
Unfortunately, the racist Islamophobes in the Democrat Party didn't see it that way. Instead of Ellison, they elected former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. Perez has been a powerful D.C. insider for at least a decade. He's also a man who was famously outed by WikiLeaks as a Hillary cheerleader - against Bernie Sanders. (See Email Below) Take that, grass roots! The party has once again sided with someone who failed to side with Bernie Sanders! Shocker: The new DNC Chairman is a Hillary loyalist. Oh sure, you can say they chose Perez because Ellison would have been a disaster for the party. You can try to pretend that they didn't want to further alienate Jewish voters and Dem-leaning moderates, that Ellison has some "uncomfortable" associations with Farrakhan and the Muslim Brotherhood, or that Perez is simply a better choice due to years of work inside the beltway. Heck, you can even try to argue that the DNC was afraid to dredge up years’ worth of Ellison's weird, racist, anti-Semitic articles. All of that would be correct, but why make those arguments? Democrats would never give Republicans the benefit of such doubts. No, if GOP elites had refused to put someone like Ellison in charge, Democrats would have screamed "racism," cried "bigotry," and shouted "Islamophobia" at the top of their lungs. So, we're going to follow their lead. Besides, borderline-sane Democrats were foiled when Tom Perez immediately made Ellison his deputy. ...But tokenism isn't placating the base. Hardcore lefties were weeping after the vote.

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Jim Dean, the head of Democracy for America, called the election results disappointing and a missed opportunity for the party to "regain relevance." "[It] proves, once again, how out of touch party insiders are with the grassroots movement currently in the streets, on the phone, and at town halls nationwide," he wrote in a statement. Adam Green, founder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said those activists in the streets and progressive organizations will "move on with our lives."
So sad. It's almost like a divorce. Maybe they can patch things up, but the party doesn't seem too interested. As Sanders' former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, put it, the ball is in the Dems' court.
"We're going to have to wait and see. You know, are they really going to create a grassroots party? Are they really going to turn to small donors? Are they really going to articulate a bold progressive economic agenda? If they do those things, I think people will move toward the party. If they don't, a lot of people will walk away," he said in an interview.
For now, the allegedly-enlightened Democrat Party needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Why, Democrats? Why do you hate? You had a historic chance to make America's first Muslim congressman the DNC chairman. Why were you the "party of no?"
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Robert Laurie——

Robert Laurie’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain.com

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