medium | I wondered if maybe I had been totally wrong from the start. Maybe I deserved what I got. Maybe I had
been too ambitious and competitive in the party. Late in 2018, I had a
conversation with the president of the original Wake progressives. He
began to discuss the work of that chapter, before there had been a
Caucus, from 2004 to 2016. He explained how they had worked to organize
precincts in the county, so they could get progressive chairs and vice
chairs who would thus be entitled to votes in Wake’s county party
meetings. He told me how they organized themselves at county conventions
to ensure that progressives would be elected from Wake to have a vote
in the state party. He explained similar efforts for similar offices in
the party. In other words, he told me that, for twelve whole years,
progressives in Wake, whom I had never met, were implementing the exact
same strategy, to a tee, that I had developed and written for my own
chapter in Orange.
And
this was my next Weinstein moment. It was that “Eureka” moment with
negative undertones, which I guess can be called a “Dysreka.” Just as
Bret and Eric, years later, saw their advancements being used and pushed
by someone else, I was getting the exact same confirmation about my
strategy (although he had not stolen it from me). This guy who had been
at it longer, whose chapter was the inspiration for the Caucus itself,
told me that I had stumbled upon the exact plan I was supposed to have
for my chapter.
I
don’t think this elected official from Hillsborough or this gentleman
from Wake have ever met each other. Nevertheless, they quickly moved to
shut down threats to the establishment of the Democratic Party here in
North Carolina, as soon as they detected it, in manner much like what
Weinstein has described. They were manifestations of the DISC, of an
autoimmune response in the Democratic Party, and they moved through
indirect, defamatory manners that played upon uninformed and ignorant
crowds to derail those in their paths.
These
events and others that I could tell really hurt. The chapter I had
organized was like a baby of mine or a work of art (and you guys can see
some of my art here on Medium to know what I mean by that). All the
work I did to make the Democratic Party more accountable, while also
trying to plant seeds to make it more electable, just blew up in my face
because actors who want to defend the system acted swiftly. The
corruption and abuse of power in the Democratic Party exists beyond the
DNC. It manifests itself through brutal patronage relationships at the
grassroots level as well that allow for decentralized policing and,
frankly, sabotage.
I
still think the Democratic Party can fix this country, but it needs a
lot of home repairs before it can do so. We need something to break the
Gated Institutional Narrative (another Weinstein term) that enables
this. At the moment I am mostly out of ideas, but I am attempting
another run for the NC House, here in Chapel Hill.
I
hope this story informs you all decently and that it motivates you to
do something good and productive, even though I know something like this
is likely to produce more anger. We really do not need more anger. We
need people who are more excited about the utopia and less about the
revolution. I also hope it inspires you to share your own encounters
with the DISC.
I
also hope Eric comes across this and can get a few ideas on what to do.
He is a Democrat like me, however begrudgingly, and he does have a role
to play in reforming it. For those of you Republicans out there, I hope
you are also noticing where the DISC exists in your party and are
thinking of how to counter it. Fixing America is going to be a
bi-partisan job, after all.
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