Healing Fractures Within The Democratic Party. Steve Williamson and guest host Mik Jordahl welcome Eva Putsova to report on the recent Arizona Democratic Party State Committee meeting. Putsova is a member of the State Committee, former Democratic candidate, and co-founder of the Catch Fire Movement, which was formed to help progressive candidates.
Let’s start with the good news. Putsova reported, “The Arizona Democratic Party is the first party in the nation that passed a resolution to ban billionaires and corporations from [financing candidates in] its primaries.” The resolution is in response to reports that Republican billionaires tried to interfere in previous Democratic primaries by donating to their favored candidates.
Unfortunately, the topic then turned to ideological disagreements and intraparty infighting. Her report of the rift between the outgoing chair and elected officials and the incoming party leadership is beyond disappointing – in the words of one local Democratic leader, “cringeworthy.” This is especially troubling at a time when the party must be focused on the singular task of winning the midterm elections in order to restrain the unconstitutional power grab of the Felon-in-Chief.
Such intraparty rifts between progressives and moderates have led to the Democratic Party being perceived as weak despite its long record of fighting for working people and policies that are embraced by a vast majority of Americans when party labels are not attached to them. To be fair, Putsova was only reporting what happened and goes on to offer her ideas for solving long-standing, seemingly intractable problems, such as dwindling affordable housing. But such issues and solutions get lost amidst the reports of infighting.
If the Democratic Party is ever going to regain power in order to solve the many problems facing our nation, it must finally abandon its perverse pride in Will Roger’s quote: “I’m not a member of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” It must create a cohesive front against GOP criminality and autocracy. It must win the 2026 midterms!